The most important and interesting part of a speech is the opening and the ending. First of all, in your introduction, you need to convince your audience that you are sure of what you are going to say. Now, in your conclusion, you need to leave some words that will not be easily forgotten. If you are not careful in your speech presentation, you may start well and end badly. Therefore, as you are preparing for your speech, don’t just focus only on the body of the speech, remember to pay great attention to the beginning and the ending.
Even if you think you don’t posses what it will take to close your talk in an amazing way, start practicing today. A novice today can be an expert tomorrow. I can remember when I made a speech during my graduation day, I later realized that I made a joke of myself. It was presented under tense and I wasn’t fully aware of the right way to conclude a speech. I started with the sentence “let me conclude my speech by letting you know that….”, what an inexperience way of concluding a speech!
Anyone that has a basic knowledge of speech presentation among your audience will know when your performance is not impressing. Why not close that speech with a bang? Leave that podium like an expertise, make your audience realize that you are an authority in what you are saying. At times when you are in doubt of how to end your speech, pick up some guidelines and practice. Watch other great speech presenters present their speeches. Don’t think you have known it all, rehearse in front of people and see how they are going to rate your performance.
To be honest with you, if you practice the basis of speech presentation very well, you will not be under pressure or tension when presenting a speech. Their is a way that you will end a speech presentation abruptly, you have succeeded in doing nothing but only keeping your audience in a state of suspense. They will open their ears to hear more from you, and then, you may have gone by then. It will indeed, be a great embarrassment to you. Your speech may equally be boring when you don’t know the right way to end if. You maybe just like an airplane that got a signal that it should not land yet, leaving it to hover in the sky.
How to End a Speech with Impact
1. End with a Quote or Poetry
Don’t think that it is irrelevant bringing in quotations to the ending of your speech. Such a quotation can be a poetry quotation or Biblical quotation, but make sure that it aligns with your topic of discussion. Quotations makes use of strong words to communicate powerful meaning. Making use of quotations in your speech, is like wearing a beautiful cloth after you must have taken your bath. It adds meaning to what you are saying, it beautifies your speech.
For instance, if you are going to give a speech in a farewell dinner, after eulogizing the dead person, you don’t need to just conclude like that, such a line of poetry maybe suitable for conclusion; “Oh, what a world! We all are nothing but walking corpses.” You have not only succeeded in reawakening the mind of your audience, but equally consoled the family of the deceased.
Like I said earlier, your quotation should be inline with the topic of your presentation. Biblical quotation is good when you are giving a religious speech. There are equally powerful quotations from famous people in various subject areas that you can use.
2. End your speech by summarizing your points
You maybe familiar with your topic of presentation but the truth is that most of your audience may not be familiar with it. How do you make them feel the impact of what you are saying at the end? How do you recommend your strategies, Innovations and ideas to them? All these can be achieved with powerful summary points.
Your summary points should not be lengthy. One or two sentences can summarize all that you have been saying for some minutes. Pick the vital aspects of the body of your speech and make use of it in your conclusion. The last sentences always makes the whole speech more understandable.
3. Conclude your speech in a humorous way
It is not a bad idea to leave your audience beaming with smiles and laughter. This technique should be used when you are good with it. Your humorous words should equally align with your topic. Such words should not equally be too lengthy.
For instance, if you are presenting a speech to newlyweds, maybe a form of advice, you can conclude by saying that; “From today onwards, your bed does not belong to you alone, but to both of you. You must learn how to manage yourself in either side of the bed.” Yes, this conclusion will get their mind ready on what they are going to experience henceforth, but you’ve said it a humorous way. Your audience will be equally entertained with such type of conclusion.
4. Give a truthful Compliment
Compliments can be used to end a speech. A graduating student who is to present a topic on the latest achievement in his or her department can end such a speech appreciating his or her department. The speech can be concluded thus; “I’m grateful to all who have made this achievement a success. This will not only project this department but also the school at large to a greater level. What we have achieved will be a solution that will be applied to various fields of study in need of such. May this department continue to achieve a tremendous feet.”
Be sincere with your compliments. Don’t just make use of it because you want to end your speech with compliments. Know fully well that your audience will equally have their own sense of judgement to ascertain whether your compliment is true or false.
5. Make Recommendations
Depending on your type of speech, you can make recommendations and suggestions. For instance, if you are making an inaugural speech of a newly constructed road, you can conclude by saying why you think that such a project is needed. Go ahead to make suggestions on how such a project can be maintained.
This can be applied to other types of speech presentations. Tell your audience why you think that your strategies and methods should be adopted. All, in a short and simplified way.
Most great speech presenters were not born that way. Practice made them perfect. The impact of a good starting and ending in a speech cannot be overemphasized. Don’t give a boring speech, make your audience eager to hear more from you. Don’t let them “sleep off” while listening to your boring speech. Make your last words unforgettable in their memories.
I hope our article on how to end a speech with impact is useful to you. Don’t forget to make use of the share button.