How to Keep Your Speech
On Track

Why is being a speaker like being a tour guide? Because you need to keep people moving in the same direction. Don't let your audience get off track.

Here's an example. A speaker tells a story about how his Dad taught him to ride a bicycle. Then, he abruptly shifts to a second story about volunteerism.

The audience is lost. They can't see the connection between his first and second stories.  There wasn't a "tour guide-like" phrase to keep the audience on track.

"Transition phrases" are like a tour guide:

Transition phrases help your speech move smoothly from one key point to another.

In the scenario above, the speaker could have used a transition phrase like, "For example, just like my Dad had a big impact on my childhood, you can have a big impact upon children's lives as a volunteer."

That single sentence would enable listeners to make the leap from the speaker's first story to the second. That transition phrase would guide the audience along the right path.

Some examples of transitional phrases are:

• For example...
• For instance...
• In addition...
• Another way to look at it...
• And then...
• And now...
• After all that...

For a full list of transition phrases, I refer to the book "Words that Sell" by Richard Bayan. I keep it by my desk at all times.

Use transition phrases like little "tour guides" to keep your audience on track.  They'll lead you on the path to success as a speaker.