The five keys to writing an effective speech

Hello CEO. That time has come, again. Your company has closed the financial year and, even more frightening than the billing figures, is the blank Word you are faced with to capture your opening speech for the annual report. Facing that blank screen and blinking cursor always brings nerves and uncertainty, even to us! But in this post we are going to offer you a series of tips that will help you convey your message effectively.

1. Objectives, order and structure

Avoid early frustrations, close Word and grab a pen and paper. One of the mistakes we make the most when writing is starting to write without a clear idea of ​​what we want to say. This lack of strategy is what leads us to a contemplative life, visits to the fridge, to check social networks, while the hands of the clock turn relentlessly.

Save time and energy and outline the key points that your text should include, everything that marked the exercise, the facts that are hidden behind the figures. Note, they can be quantitative or qualitative. The closing of a business is just as relevant as the commitment to staff training, for example.

Now that you have a list with the milestones that from your perspective have characterized the year, check the way in which they are related to each other. For example, turnover has grown because we have undertaken a large project, which has been possible thanks to the expansion of the workforce. If you pull the thread, you will see how the different ideas are ordered in a natural way. Following in the footsteps that classical oratory has bequeathed to us, the narrative techniques of problem to solution, from cause to effect, the contrasting of ideas and the combination of related elements continue to be fully valid when it comes to giving coherence to the writing.

2. Data yes, but interpreted and related

The presentation of your company's results implies a stylistic juggling exercise that makes it possible to combine the forcefulness of the figures with the language. The data is the inherent pillar of a memory, but do not succumb to the temptation to fill in the blank with an endless sequence of figures, remember that you are making an effective speech, not posing an algebra problem. Unlike what is usually said, the numbers do not speak for themselves and you run the risk that your text will not be understood even with the help of an abacus.

To make your speech a legible text, stick to the most relevant numerical data that will help you explain and defend the milestones you have previously chosen, the rest will already have the opportunity to be explained in other headings of the report. Finally, make an interpretation of them that helps to understand their scope and dimension. You can use the comparison of results from previous years to support and contextualize your assessments.

3. An exercise in transparency

The figures are indisputable and exact, but it is within the reach of the most seasoned of calculators to make a perverse interpretation of them, especially when the results are not as bright as one would like. Taking advantage of the well-known proverb, "even if the monkey dresses in silk, the monkey stays", the same will happen with your writing, even if you make extravagant percentages or unnatural numerical relationships. The reading that both the media and workers, the competition and other audiences can make of this desire to hide can be, to say the least, counterproductive.

In this sense, as the person in charge of the company, we can only advise you that honesty be the backbone of each paragraph you write. If the objectives set for the exercise have not been achieved, you can express it without being defeatist. Explain what you think are the causes that have motivated it, but also the strategic lines that are going to be designed to give the necessary change of direction to correct the situation

4. Project yourself into the future

In line with the foregoing, whether or not the results are so positive, the introductory text of a report represents an opportunity to announce the business keys that will govern the nearest future of the company.

Although the report always has a retrospective character by definition, since it is still the behavioral analysis of a closed exercise, enunciating the next steps to take will help to transmit positive values ​​about its continuity, such as the desire for improvement, improvement and commitment to adapt to the ever-changing market.

In addition to instilling motivation in the workforce, it will also be useful to transmit solvency to your clients and to those who are not yet.

5. Thank those who make it possible

Finally, remember that you are not alone. Reserve a few lines of the space entrusted to thank all the people who make up the staff of your company, because it is all the individual contributions that they make daily that make the survival of the company possible. He also takes the opportunity to thank customers for the trust they have placed, because they are obviously the ones who sustain the existence of the company.