Mistakes to avoid during the closing of your speech
Is your speech ready for your next event, and is it prepared to go? Your public speaking and body may be in good shape. But do not forget your closing remarks about it.
Your audience will always recall the final words for the longest time. Therefore, do not waste this important part of your speech. Closing remarks that are short but have an effect on the audience can be hard to craft. However, with a few minor modifications, you can end your speech with a boom.
Following are the common mistakes to avoid during your closing remarks for a speech:
• To thank your audience, it is never a bad idea. However, just saying “thank you” may sound abrupt. That does not drive home your points. Do not just be nice; give some meat to your conclusion so that your audience walks away, remembering each word. In a few quick sentences, summarise your message for a more impactful end to your speech. Then give the audience some actionable next steps they should take. You can then say “thank you” after completing this conclusion, before leaving the stage.
• Make sure that you hit all the points that you are going to say. Your audience will notice if you suggest that you are going to cover four stages but then mention just three. And they are going to be so busy asking what happened to stage 4 that they are not going to recall the other three things! Maybe when you remember with horror that you failed to cover one of your points, you are reaching the end of your chat. Do not worry if so.
• You only leave money on the table if you do not end your speech with a right call-to-action. The whole point of public speaking is to get people to act. A call to action is a vital part of your voice. Think of it as the end of a presentation on sales: decide what action the audience needs to take and then get them to take it. A clear and definitive argument could be your call-to-action, a sentence where you might add an exclamation point at the end. Make it simple for your audience by being transparent and straightforward to take action.
• Your audience is not only sensitive to what you say, but to how you say it. To show that things are wrapping up, use your tone of voice, inflexion, and pitch. Executive Speech Coaching helps you to effectively introduce, explain, prove, and reiterate your key talking points,