Here’s Clement’s evaluation on Encey’s speech on How I Ended Up Here.
Delivered in our July 2022 meeting.
Thank’s Fangyu for the first evaluation. We we aim to have more evaluations for the same speakers so that everyone gets to learn from different people. The Speaker gets to hear comments from different people as well.
Congratulations to Encey for starting on your first speech on your next Path. As Fangyu has mentioned Encey is very experienced in speaking.
You can tell that he is very Super in certain ways of speaking. He’s very confident, there’s good eye contact, hand gestures are great as well, he’s very composed and there’s a presence when he stands in front of the crowd to give his speech. You can tell that this is a very experienced speaker not somebody that’s very nervous. Pace wise, I do think that it is very good because it’s slow and it’s commanding. We are able to listen and absorb his story.
But of course there are also points of improvement for anybody that is standing out here.
I’m gonna give you three “S”s right on how to improve your speech.
First will be – along the way you dropped some names. You want to be careful about Sidelining.
You want to be careful not to drop content whereby only one person in the audience will understand. We most people in the room over here will not know names like Gail and when you sideline the audience you may lose them. Once you lose them, you it’s very hard to get them back. So just be very careful when crafting speeches like these.
Second will be Storytelling.
Now Encey did a good job by telling us the story about his journey through Toastmasters. But then this way of Storytelling is narrative. What all of us can learn from storytelling is to make sure that a story should never be flat. When someone tells a story, e.g. “I did this and then this, and then this, and then this, and then that…” it becomes very flat. You might think okay but, what’s the Crux of the story?
A good story should always have two elements – one a Pain Point and it builds towards a Climax.
So for Encey’s case, I would suggest a good Pain. Probably when you went to the demo meeting and “Oh years ago my gym buddy told me about this and now I’m still terrible at speaking! It pained me in the heart and I made a decision to join.”
Built towards the Climax – “And now after a few years, I’ve been the Club President twice. I’ve learnt leadership skills and I’m very confident in standing of the group right now.”
Once you build toward this, everyone will walk with you through the journey, and be able to feel your story better. So that’s the second “S” – Storytelling.
The third “S” is any good speech, should have is a So What.
As he ended the speech with “okay that’s where I ended off”. All of us were left hanging. “Oh is that the end?”
A good speech should always have a So What. What are you trying to tell the audience in this speech? As an icebreaker speech, all of us should want to know you better. Tell us what you want us to know about. Was it about you joining Toastmasters making you a better person? Or was it you taking the first step? Or was it that gym doesn’t matter anyway?
Or a call to action for the audience. “Maybe you can follow me in the journey through Toastmasters” or “Whoever talks to you the gym doesn’t matter”
All in all, a very good speech. But there are three “S”s to improve on – number one careful of Sidelining, better Storytelling and always have a So What in the speech.
Thank you.
Check out images from our meeting here.