Monroe: Call for action

5. Call for action

This is the final section of your speech. Many people believe that it is equally important how you start a movie as to how you end it, and the same is true about public speaking. If the beginning is essential to get the attention of your audience, the end is important because you should try to really leave a mark with the people who have been listening to you, so that they remember this particular moment when they go home. You have tried to give them things to think about in a factual way, in the previous sections. But this moment is when you try again to make an impression about the whole message. In order to this:

-prepare a summary statement, or a wow statement.

Think well about this before you deliver your speech. Let’s assume you are a very knowledgeable expert about the topic of the speech. If this is the case, it will not be so difficult for you to improvise all the other sections of the speech, but much more difficult to improvise this last one. So try to think about a metaphor or a very compelling statement or a very comprehensive summary for the end of your speech.

Another thing that you should do in this section is to tell your audience very clearly what you would like them to do. You might have already done it in the section Solve the problem. If so, just summarise. If not, really tell people what you want from them. Another way is to just mention the next immediate step in the sequence of solving the problem. What’s the next thing that should happen? Sometimes calls for action can be quite unambitious. For example, you might tell the donors that they will change the world but you should also tell them that what they should do is just agree to meet with you to discuss further sometime in the next 2 weeks. Be clear and practical.