Wrapping Up Your Speech – 3 Keys to Closing Your Speech with Impact

Have you ever watched a presentation where the speaker said, “Okay, that’s it” or flip through some notes and say, “Yeah, I guess that’s it.” An ending like this is not memorable.

Sign that you are closing

Sometimes people let their attention wander during a speech, but when you signal that you’re going to close, people perk up and pay attention. They want to hear the summary of your message. How do you indicate that it is closing? People often use phrases like “In summary” or “In conclusion”, but you can be more creative. Try something like, “While we’re done” or “So what have we learned from this?” or “As we review the arguments for and against this proposal, I want you to remember this…” or “I want to close by reminding you…” or “So, as you leave here today, what is the message you take with you? “

Summarize or call back your main points

In my speech The Auction Scam, I could have summed it up by saying, “So what did you learn? You’ve seen how agents lure you into listing using the listing lie. You’ve learned how they condition you to lower your asking price.” . And you’ve seen evidence that, in most cases, auctions will get you a lower price.”

Close with Impact

There are several ways to do this. You can close with a story, a quote, a rhetorical question, or you can end with a call to action. Or you can use a combination.

For example, in The Auction Scam he was trying to persuade people to avoid auctions when selling their houses. I used the following call to action. “If you are selling your house, I urge you to avoid, avoid, avoid auctions because willpower get a lower price.

In that speech, I ended with the story of a lawyer. I already explained how auctions get lower prices, but now I wanted to emphasize that this knowledge should be obvious to everyone.

“I want to end with a story about a man who got suckered into the auction scam. He was a lawyer. And he was so angry that he sued the agent, and he lost. And the judge told him, ‘Auctions are a sham. You’re a lawyer. You are an educated man. You should have known better!”

Notice how the use of the rule of three (you – you – you) in this story adds to the impact. If you want to see how I gave this contest speech, go to my YouTube channel and search for The Auction Scam. Then take a look at the speech you’re currently working on and see if you can pinpoint the closing, summarize, and end with impact.