Every year Toastmasters runs a contest for the best 5 – 7-minute speech in the world.  Something like 30,000 people compete from all over, and the level of competition is very high.  This year’s winner, Aaron Beverly, gave a speech entitled “An Unbelievable Story,” and he combines humor and seriousness in graceful mixture, delivers the speech very well, and commands the stage convincingly throughout the brief speech on the stage in Denver.  You can watch the speech by clicking the link here. 

What can speakers in general learn from this annual rite?  And more particularly from Beverly’s speech?  Indeed, the top three winners are all good; I particularly like the effort of the third-place finisher, Kwong Yue Yang, and his speech entitled “Less and More,” which you can see here.  And Luisa Montalvo’s second-place speech is a delightful plea for tolerance and looking beyond the clichés and first impressions.  Check it out here. 

Aside from the sheer fun of seeing great speech-making in condensed form, there are five takeaways from Aaron’s speech that are useful for the rest of us to ponder as we work on our speaking chops as well.

1.Start with humor, end with seriousness.  All three top speeches employ both humor and serious elements but finish seriously.  There is something essential about that ordering; it’s an old vaudeville maxim too:  make ‘em laugh, make ‘em cry.  Laughter engages us, disarms us, brings us into the world of the speaker, but if that’s all you do, it’s not enough.  Something about the very act of speaking in front of an audience – the gathering together of a large group of people, perhaps – calls for a serious moment or two.  We don’t want our time wasted.  We don’t want to be bored, but we also don’t want to be entirely frivolous.  So engage us with humor and close on a serious note.

2.Always be telling stories.  All three of the winners, but especially Mr. Beverly, launch immediately into a story and use that to provide the structure of the speech.  Of course, it’s a little easier to do that effectively when you’re only speaking for 5 – 7 minutes, but nonetheless the insight is useful to keep in mind for longer speeches as well.  As much as possible, make the story the structure of the speech.  That way, the suspense and payoff of the speech can keep the audience engaged throughout.  Too many speakers tell brief anecdotes and miss out on the advantages of using a story to provide longer engagements in bigger chunks of their speeches.

3.Amp up the emotion.  Mr. Beverly is having a great time as he tells us about his role in the wedding of an American and an Indian – friends of his – that he attends in India.  As he recalls the key moments of the wedding, he steps into the voices of the people around him, and his voice takes on their emotions and attitudes.  He’s hamming it up, and it’s very effective.  Most speakers in business settings hold back because they don’t think emotion is appropriate.  The result is boredom.  You can find places where strong emotions are appropriate, and the variety and emotional arcs add to the interest and memorability of the speech.

4.Use repetition artfully.  Half the fun of the story is in the repetition.  Aaron has been given a job to do by the groom, and he repeats the line of instruction, and various other lines, several times in the course of the short speech.  He even repeats gestures exactly when he repeats a line – the result is that the words are even more memorable.  The fun for the audience is that he teaches them how to listen to his speech by leading them to expect the repetition of the line.  That makes an audience feel intelligent.  Too many speakers try to sound or appear smarter than their audiences.  Audience infinitely prefer feeling in the know themselves.

5.Get the audience to participate.  Audience participation is public speaking gold.  In this case, Mr. Beverly uses good storytelling and artful repetition so that all he has to do is gesture to the audience and they call out the line he’s about to say.  That’s great fun for the audience, and probably the difference that pushed him to the top of the contest.  Bring your audience into the speech and get them to co-create it with you, and they will reward you will their enthusiastic participation and positive ratings.

Bonus tip:  Notice what’s missing?  No PowerPoint.  

Aaron Beverly’s speech is only a few minutes long, but it’s a gem and worth studying for the insights into good public speaking it offers.