21 Powerful Questions to Craft an Engaging Speech That Captivates Your Audience

Crafting a speech that resonates with your audience goes beyond simply presenting information. It’s about sparking curiosity, igniting emotions, and leaving them with a clear call to action. But how do you achieve this level of engagement?

Here are 21 powerful questions to guide you through the speech-writing process.

Defining Your Impact (Questions 1-6):

1. Valuable Impact: After listening to you, what new thoughts will the audience have, or how will they feel differently?
2. Actionable Insights: When the audience goes home, what actions do you want them to take to apply what you said?
3. Benefits vs. Obstacles: If the audience doesn’t follow what you say, what difficulties might they encounter, or what benefits might they experience if they do?
4. Key Takeaways: To make the audience think or feel differently, what are at least 3 things you intend to tell them?
5. Memorable Points: How can you summarize each main point in less than 14 characters? (Think Twitter-style conciseness!)
6. Delivery Promise: What can you commit to the audience with certainty after your speech?

Hooking Your Audience (Questions 7-8):

7. Captivating Opening: How do you plan to captivate the audience as soon as you step on stage? What is your opening statement?
8. Shared Experience: Have you ever faced challenges similar to the audience before? What interesting results have you achieved by applying the message you shared?

Crafting Your Message (Questions 9-11):

9. Source of Knowledge: How do you know what you intend to share? Did you learn it from somewhere, or is there an unforgettable memory associated with it?
10. Actionable Tips: How can the audience easily apply your tips every day?

Storytelling Power (Questions 11-18):

11. Pre-Story Curiosity: Before storytelling, what questions will you plant in the audience’s mind to stimulate curiosity?
12. Immersive Experience: How will you immerse the audience in the story to make them feel like they are reliving it?
13. Character Development: Who are the characters in your story, and what characteristics help the audience imagine them?
14. Building Conflict: Are there any conflicts in your story? How did they escalate?
15. The Turning Point: Who is the “mentor” in your story? What is the “elixir” that helped you change?
16. Character Voices: What interesting things might the characters in the story say or think?
17. Personal Transformation: After that story, how has your life changed thanks to that “elixir”?
18. Connecting to the Audience: How are the characters or figures in the story connected to the audience’s life? What question will you ask to make the audience reflect on their own lives?

Maintaining Engagement (Questions 19-21):

19. Maintaining Momentum: Between the main points, how will you “set the hook” and “plant the carrot” to keep the audience engaged?
20. Memorable Ending: How will you end to keep the audience curious, and how will you limit the Q&A session (if applicable)?
21. Building Relationships: After summarizing, do you have any gifts that are both beneficial and help you maintain a relationship with the audience (e.g., cheat sheets, ebooks)?

By considering these questions throughout your speech-writing process, you’ll be well on your way to crafting a presentation that not only informs but inspires and ignites action within your audience.