Professional Speeches

        Sure, graduation and wedding speeches have a little social pressure;  but with professional speeches, you're taking your job into your hands.  Presentation skills can make a great business idea seem lousy or vice versa - so let's learn how to make them work for you!  Some tips:

• PowerPoint - It's ubiquitous these days;  you pretty much can't give a professional speech or presentation without a screen behind you.  First of all, for professional purposes, it's likely that the PowerPoint file may have to function as substitute for the speech - that is, people who weren't able to attend, or can't remember (or weren't paying attention) want the file as a record of the speech.  If this is the case, make sure it works that way!  However, if that's NOT the case, don't make the PowerPoint file just a transcript of the speech.  It's not the best look on-screen.  Really.  Anyway, there's a lot more about PowerPoint use (and misuse) in the PowerPoint section of this site - check it out!

• Audience - Any professional speech is a textbook case of needing to know your audience.  Are you presenting to engineers?  Executives?  Marketing people?  A potential client?  Different content and different styles are justified for each kind of audience.  Don't overload execs with technical data, for example.  Just think about who you're talking to, and what they're interested in. 

• Demeanor - Of course, this depends on a lot of variables:  the culture of the workplace, the size and content of the audience, the subject of the presentation, and your own comfort level with everything.  Sure, try some humor;  absolutely, do something unconventional to make the presentation memorable and persuasive.  But also be careful - there are plenty of stories out there about risky and tragic choices in the business world!

      Unfortunately, I don't have any examples or samples of professional speeches to help you out, on this site.  But I'd check out the ads that are displayed on this site - many of them have guidelines, examples, and even PowerPoint templates for alllll kinds of speeches.  Good luck!