Your Book Has a Signature Speech Hiding Inside It

Aloha Reader,

Last week, we talked about why the conversation around your ideas shouldn’t begin and end with your book. Your book gives you stories, concepts, and frameworks worth sharing and those ideas should travel.

Today, I want to talk about one of my favorite ways to help them travel: a signature speech.

I might be a little biased about this one. I started competitive public speaking (speech & debate) in middle school and continued through college. Then, I began my career as a speech coach before I found my way into publishing. I’ve spent a lot of my life thinking about what makes people listen, a story land, and an audience remember a speaker long after they’ve left the room.

There is something really special about the connection that happens between a speaker and an audience. You can read someone’s book and appreciate their ideas, but when you actually hear them tell one of their stories, you experience it differently because you get to hear the voice, humor, and emotion behind it.

A great speaker can create a fan for life in ten minutes.

Why authors should have a signature speech

First, speaking gives people a way to experience your ideas before they buy into them. Someone who has never heard of you might walk into a conference breakout session, hear you speak, and leave wanting to read your book, follow your work, bring you into their organization, or simply hear more from you.

Second, a signature speech forces you to find the clearest, most compelling version of your message. A book gives you tens of thousands of words to make your case. A speech might give you 30 minutes. That constraint helps you figure out which stories really matter, which ideas people will actually remember, and what you most want to be known for. It’s like a really awesome movie trailer, but for your thought leadership!

The good news is that if you’ve already written a book, you probably don’t need to invent a speech from scratch. Most of the raw material is already there.

My biggest advice for getting started? Do it.

This is probably going to sound too simple, but one of my biggest pieces of advice for becoming a better speaker is to give the speech.

Don't wait for that 500-person keynote audience. Give it to a book club or in a classroom. Give it to the church group, Rotary Club, professional association, lunch-and-learn, or local meetup that would be happy to have you.

Every time you give the speech, you will learn something. I promise. You discover where people laugh, where they lean in, where you lose them. You learn which story gets mentioned afterward and which line was brilliant on paper but didn’t land in the room.

More importantly, you get comfortable. Give your signature speech enough times in small rooms and eventually it starts to feel like old hat. So when someone hands you a microphone and sends you onto a stage in front of hundreds of people, it feels like the most natural thing in the world.

If you’ve been thinking about putting together a signature speech, take this as your sign: Your book made you write down the ideas. Now go say them out loud!

Beth Berger

CTO, Acquisitions Editor, Speaking Coach & Author Brand Strategist

P.S. If you had 10 minutes on stage to share just one idea from your book, what would you want the audience to walk away remembering? Hit reply and tell me! I’d love to hear what you come up with.