Speeches

"Think Strawberries"
by James Lavenson, 1973

Parallels of good scripts and speeches

Stories and anecdotes make a good speech

Friday, February 11, 2005

From the Great Speech archive
"Think Strawberries"
by James Lavenson, 1973

Round about Valentine’s Day, many people indulge in chocolate covered strawberries. This got me thinking about James Lavenson’s famous "Think Strawberries" keynote speech to the American Marketing Association in 1973. Lavenson was president and CEO of the Plaza Hotel, which was profitable under Lavenson’s tenure. In February 1975, the Plaza was sold to Western International Hotels. It's in the news again now, being converted to very, very expensive condos.

Since his speech, "Think Strawberries" has become code for salesmanship. The speech tells the story of how Lavenson turned the 1,400 employees of the Plaza into great, customer-focused sales people. Everybody sells.

Lavenson’s speech is here

Why Lavenson’s speech is still remarkable:

Stories and anecdotes. The entire speech is comprised of stories and anecdotes. Every point that Lavenson makes in the speech is brought out by a story, taken mostly from his own experience. He never just tells you stuff, there is always a story, an anecdote, a concrete example. And audiences love stories…and remember them.

Humour. Lavenson uses old-fashioned humour and exaggeration—not cliché jokes—in his speech. Humour about funny stuff that happened at the hotel. Of course, part of the charm is the way he tells the story.

A case study in solid management principles. Principles such as ensuring that all hotel staff were knowledgeable about the hotel’s products and services, remembering guests’ names, employee orientation, management by wandering around (MBWA) are all standard management repertoire today; they were radical in 1973. Further, Lavenson was one of the first CEOs to realize that employee communication would have to be done in another language because one-third of the hotel’s staff was Hispanic and spoke no English.

"The Chant." This is the memorable line that people remember and refer back to again and again. "Think Strawberries" is the chant of Lavenson’s speech which meant "Ask for the order"—and was used by the chambermaids, waiters, the bellmen, the captains, and the sales executives—to upsell and upgrade the hotel’s services. What started as an effort to sell dessert (strawberries sold better than pastry since everyone was on a diet) became upgrading the single room to a suite, or upgrading to a suite with a view….

A great ending. He doesn’t thank anyone for listening to him, for their time, or for their attention. Tied to the main theme of the speech, the ending is elegant and charming.

Sunday, January 16, 2005

Parallels of good scripts
and speeches

Documentary filmmaker Ken Burns is a master storyteller and has many things to teach corporate communicators. Burn’s new film, an Unforgivable Blackness, a four-hour, two-part documentary about the tumultuous life and racist times of championship boxer Jack Johnson, is being broadcast on Monday and Tuesday, January 17 and 18, 2005, on PBS

Burns, 52, who has brought us Brooklyn Bridge, Frank Lloyd Wright, Mark Twain, Thomas Jefferson and the epic series The Civil War, Baseball, JAZZ, can also add seven honourary doctorates and more than 40 film honours (including Emmy and Peabody Awards) to his credits.

A December 2002 poll conducted by Real Screen Magazine named Ken Burns and Robert Flaherty as the "most influential documentary makers" of all time.

Communication lessons from Ken Burns:

What is the story? This, of course, is the first rule of journalism. Good stories beg to be told and people love good stories. Nothing replaces good material. Good stories intrigue and inspire people, light their imaginations and rivet them to the TV screen. Good stories are never simple, never all good, or all bad; to a large degree, they show the full spectrum of qualities that we can relate to as human beings.

How many good stories are there in your workplace that can be told—should be told—to advance the goals of your organization? Frequently, organizations miss or dismiss opportunities to tell their stories: "No one would be interested" and "We can’t say THAT!"

Open with a "bang." Don’t take 15 minutes to get to the beginning. Get on with it. This is where your most compelling material should go.

Work on interesting quotes and clever turns of phrase. One of Burns’ gifts is to get his interview subjects to incredible "nuggets"—and he captures them on film. In ninety-two years, Frank Lloyd Wright fathered seven children, married three times, and was almost constantly embroiled in scandal.

"He was barely a human being" is a quote that Meryle Secrest, Frank Lloyd Wright’s biographer gave to Burns, conjuring up a person of incredible talent but at the same time on the fringe of all human relationships, who found it difficult to relate to most people including his children. Audiences remember these "nuggets."

Do your homework. Research, research, research is the key to a good story. Get all the facts and detail you can. Detail and specific examples make good scripts and good speeches, too. "Wright’s mother objected to his marriage" is boring. "Wright’s mother fainted at his wedding to demonstrate her objection" is interesting.

"This is detective work," Burns says. "It's finding the best photograph and finding the home movie. It’s finding the newsreel bite, and then once you have done that, piecing together the clues," Burns told CNN in a 1998 interview.

Use interesting words. In his film Frank Lloyd Wright, Burns uses the words "melodramatic," "eccentric," "bombastic," "narcissistic," and "egotist" to describe the legendary architect. Yes, Wright was all these things, but Burns’ specific use of these words in the script gives us a very accurate picture of Wright the man. To compare, Burns could have used words like "disdainful" and "self-important," but he didn’t.

Pay attention to transitions. In a script and a speech, it is necessary to summarize, recapitulate, and re-phrase to some degree. The audience uses these markers to follow the story, largely because they don’t have a written text that they can refer back to. Transitions are great opportunities to use other "nugget" quotes that you’ve unearthed in your research.

How to write an electrifying speech

The thought of writing a speech produces a similar reaction in many professional communicators as a deer caught in headlights: dazed and confused, with no way out. "Couldn’t we just call in the hired guns?" Granted, speechwriting is a specialization of public relations; top speechwriters command top dollars.

Speechwriting is hard. And like everything else in life, some professional communicators are better at it than others.

That’s talent.

Then there’s practice. Professional communicators can get better at writing speeches. But you have to write speeches. The more speeches you write, the better you get.

Jana’s 24 speechwriting tips:

1. A great speech takes time to write. A 30-minute speech can take between 80 and 100 hours to write. If you don’t put in the sweat time, it will show. That’s 80 hours to get a speech to the 80-percentile mark. It’s incremental improvement—the last 20 percent—that separates good speeches from great ones.

2. Park your ego. It is not unheard of for a speech to go through many, many drafts. Even 30 drafts is not out of the ballpark for a really important speech. Don’t take it personally. The speech has to sound like the person who will deliver it. If a suggestion helps the speech, just go with it. If it doesn’t, protest and resist as long as you dare.

3. By definition, a speech is about two things: the words and the speaker. There is no PowerPoint presentation, no television clips, no laser pointer. Many speakers use these as crutches. Used sparingly, these elements may enhance your speech; overused, these elements will detract from your message.

4. A great speech is about connecting with the audience. The whole reason to write and deliver a speech is to create impact and emotion. The speech’s content and delivery style have to be memorable. Otherwise, just write an e-mail or a letter. Good speechwriters get the audience nodding in agreement.

5. A speech is like surfing. The structure of every speech is different, but they all follow the same general pattern: bring the audience up, bring the audience down, bring the audience up. At the end of the speech, the audience has to be up.

6. Ways to connect with the audience include: stories, anecdotes, (self-deprecating) humour, witty observations, the rhetorical question, juxtaposition, metaphors, and parallel sentence structure, among others. Many speakers avoid putting in anything personal in a speech, thinking it is improper, trite, or not profound enough. Audiences love stories and anecdotes; they reveal the speaker’s humanity. Avoiding stories and anecdotes is a mistake, and the final speech suffers for this.

7. Take a clear stand. Like the old saying goes, "if you stand for everything, you stand for nothing." After listening to the speech, what do you want the audience to do with the information?

8. Talk to yourself; talk to others. The best way to start writing a speech is to shut your door and talk out loud to yourself. Hammer out the words in the air first, then write them down. Use your colleagues as sounding boards, too. Discussing the concepts in the speech helps to crystallize your thinking.

9. Less is more. If you cram too much content into a speech, you are actually diluting your Key Messages. The greatest speeches have a single theme and no more than three Key Messages.

10. Strive to craft three to six memorable quotes for every speech. If you can get people in the audience or the media to quote phrases from the speech you’ve written, pat yourself on the back.

11. A speech is written for the ear, not the eye. The words in a speech will be heard, rather than read by the audience. If a speech reads like a juvenile text, you’re probably on the right track.

12. Strong, simple words are the speechwriter’s friends. Many-syllable words tend to make speakers stumble. Long, laborious sentences don’t work well in a speech either. English is the richest language in the world, so use great words like: hope, character, possibility, integrity, dreams, potential, bedrock, faith, pride, belief, promise. Avoid "maximizing organizational synergies to their greatest potential"—at least in a speech.

13. Lots of nouns and lots of verbs. Write lots of action verbs and use the active voice. The passive voice sounds stiff and stilted in a speech and doesn’t help the audience connect with your message.

14. Smooth transitions. How you link from one sentence to the next, from one idea to the next, from paragraph to paragraph is critical. Transitions have to be smooth and natural.

15. Pay particular attention to the last word of each sentence. The audience remembers this word more. If there is a way to re-write your sentence so that the most important word—the one you want to focus on—is at the end, do it. "Your talent is out greatest asset" doesn’t work. What does work is, "Our greatest asset is your talent!"

16. The most important segments of a speech are the beginning and the end. These are "high attention" times, so don’t waste them. DO NOT start a speech by re-hashing history; your audience doesn’t care. DO NOT start a speech by reminding the audience of the definition of your subject matter—or worse, quoting directly from Webster’s Dictionary. For the beginning, knock them right between the eyes; for the end, leave your message ringing in their ears.

17. Repetition and re-phrasing are necessary, not redundant, in a speech. Because the audience cannot go back and re-read the text, as the speechwriter you must repeat and re-phrase your key messages.

18. Don’t cram too many numbers in a speech. Too many numbers make the text laboured and that makes the audience tune out. Better to use ballpark figures ("half," "one-third," or "three-quarters") and keep numerical data to a minimum. Numbers don’t do well in a speech.

19. Don’t be afraid to use the "pregnant pause." Speakers at the podium dread silence. Yet the pregnant pause is a great device when you have said something particularly important; the pregnant pause gives your audience time to digest what the speaker has just said. That is as important as getting to the next point in the text.

20. Don’t end a speech with "thank you." The audience is there to hear what your speaker has to say. They don’t need to be thanked for that. They should be thanking you.

21. End the speech with a "call to action." Again, what do you want the audience to do now that they have listened to you?

22. Never give your speech draft to the speaker without listening to it, in its entirely, at least once. After you have written a serious draft (it might be draft 3 or even 11), put it on tape yourself and listen to it. You’ll probably re-write sections of it after living with it for a week or so.

23. Study great speeches. When you see a great speech delivered, get a copy of it and study it. What makes it great? Highlight Key Messages, great word choices, rhetorical devices you find effective. Circulate it to your clients as an example of a well written speech so they know what a great speech looks like.

24. Build your own speech archive. The internet makes it so easy to cut-and-paste great speeches. In no time at all, you’ll have lots of great examples to study and follow.

BONUS
Barack Obama, 43, who is running for the U.S. Senate

from Illinois, made a keynote address to the Democratic National Convention in Boston. His speech is a great case study in how to do it right.

Transcript of Barack Obama’s speech, Tuesday, July 27, 2004, is below and on his web site at
www.obama2004.com

Obama: Time to reclaim America's promise

Wednesday, July 28, 2004 Posted: 0409 GMT (1209 HKT)

BOSTON, Massachusetts (CNN) -- Barack Obama, who is running for the U.S. Senate from Illinois, gave the keynote speech Tuesday night at the Democratic National Convention.

This is a transcript of his remarks.

On behalf of the great state of Illinois, crossroads of a nation, land of Lincoln, let me express my deepest gratitude for the privilege of addressing this convention. Tonight is a particular honor for me because, let's face it, my presence on this stage is pretty unlikely.

My father was a foreign student, born and raised in a small village in Kenya. He grew up herding goats, went to school in a tin-roof shack. His father, my grandfather, was a cook, a domestic servant to the British.

But my grandfather had larger dreams for his son. Through hard work and perseverance my father got a scholarship to study in a magical place, America, that stood as a beacon of freedom and opportunity to so many who had come before.

While studying here, my father met my mother. She was born in a town on the other side of the world, in Kansas.

Her father worked on oil rigs and farms through most of the Depression. The day after Pearl Harbor my grandfather signed up for duty, joined Patton's army and marched across Europe. Back home, my grandmother raised their baby and went to work on a bomber assembly line. After the war, they studied on the GI Bill, bought a house through FHA, and moved west, all the way to Hawaii, in search of opportunity.

And they, too, had big dreams for their daughter, a common dream, born of two continents.

My parents shared not only an improbable love; they shared an abiding faith in the possibilities of this nation. They would give me an African name, Barack, or "blessed," believing that in a tolerant America your name is no barrier to success.

They imagined me going to the best schools in the land, even though they weren't rich, because in a generous America you don't have to be rich to achieve your potential.

They're both passed away now. And yet, I know that, on this night, they look down on me with pride.

And I stand here today, grateful for the diversity of my heritage, aware that my parents' dreams live on in my two precious daughters.

I stand here knowing that my story is part of the larger American story, that I owe a debt to all of those who came before me, and that, in no other country on Earth, is my story even possible.

Tonight, we gather to affirm the greatness of our nation, not because of the height of our skyscrapers, or the power of our military, or the size of our economy. Our pride is based on a very simple premise, summed up in a declaration made over two hundred years ago, "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal. That they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights. That among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness."

That is the true genius of America, a faith in the simple dreams, an insistence on small miracles. That we can tuck in our children at night and know they are fed and clothed and safe from harm. That we can say what we think, write what we think, without hearing a sudden knock on the door. That we can have an idea and start our own business without paying a bribe. That we can participate in the political process without fear of retribution, and that our votes will be counted -- or at least, most of the time.

This year, in this election, we are called to reaffirm our values and commitments, to hold them against a hard reality and see how we are measuring up, to the legacy of our forbearers and the promise of future generations.

And fellow Americans -- Democrats, Republicans, Independents -- I say to you tonight: we have more work to do. More work to do for the workers I met in Galesburg, Illinois, who are losing their union jobs at the Maytag plant that's moving to Mexico, and now are having to compete with their own children for jobs that pay seven bucks an hour. More to do for the father I met who was losing his job and choking back tears, wondering how he would pay $4,500 a month for the drugs his son needs without the health benefits that he counted on. More to do for the young woman in East St. Louis, and thousands more like her, who has the grades, has the drive, has the will, but doesn't have the money to go to college.

Now don't get me wrong. The people I meet in small towns and big cities, in diners and office parks, they don't expect government to solve all their problems. They know they have to work hard to get ahead and they want to.

Go into the collar counties around Chicago, and people will tell you they don't want their tax money wasted by a welfare agency or the Pentagon.

Go into any inner city neighborhood, and folks will tell you that government alone can't teach our kids to learn. They know that parents have to parent, that children can't achieve unless we raise their expectations and turn off the television sets and eradicate the slander that says a black youth with a book is acting white. They know those things.

People don't expect government to solve all their problems. But they sense, deep in their bones, that with just a change in priorities, we can make sure that every child in America has a decent shot at life, and that the doors of opportunity remain open to all. They know we can do better. And they want that choice.

In this election, we offer that choice. Our party has chosen a man to lead us who embodies the best this country has to offer. And that man is John Kerry.

John Kerry understands the ideals of community, faith, and service, because they've defined his life. From his heroic service in Vietnam to his years as prosecutor and lieutenant governor, through two decades in the United States Senate, he has devoted himself to this country. Again and again, we've seen him make tough choices when easier ones were available. His values and his record affirm what is best in us.

John Kerry believes in an America where hard work is rewarded. So instead of offering tax breaks to companies shipping jobs overseas, he'll offer them to companies creating jobs here at home.

John Kerry believes in an America where all Americans can afford the same health coverage our politicians in Washington have for themselves.

John Kerry believes in energy independence, so we aren't held hostage to the profits of oil companies or the sabotage of foreign oil fields.

John Kerry believes in the constitutional freedoms that have made our country the envy of the world, and he will never sacrifice our basic liberties nor use faith as a wedge to divide us.

And John Kerry believes that in a dangerous world, war must be an option sometimes, but it should never be the first option.

You know, a while back, I met a young man named Shamus at the VFW Hall in East Moline, Illinois. He was a good-looking kid, 6-2 or 6-3, clear eyed, with an easy smile. He told me he'd joined the Marines and was heading to Iraq the following week.

And as I listened to him explain why he'd enlisted, his absolute faith in our country and its leaders, his devotion to duty and service, I thought this young man was all that any of us might hope for in a child. But then I asked myself: Are we serving Shamus as well as he was serving us?

I thought of the 900 men and women, sons and daughters, husbands and wives, friends and neighbors, who will not be returning to their hometowns. I thought of families I had met who were struggling to get by without a loved one's full income, or whose loved ones had returned with a limb missing or nerves shattered, but who still lacked long-term health benefits because they were reservists.

When we send our young men and women into harm's way, we have a solemn obligation not to fudge the numbers or shade the truth about why they're going, to care for their families while they're gone, to tend to the soldiers upon their return, and to never ever go to war without enough troops to win the war, secure the peace, and earn the respect of the world.

Now let me be clear. Let me be clear. We have real enemies in the world. These enemies must be found. They must be pursued and they must be defeated.

John Kerry knows this. And just as Lieutenant Kerry did not hesitate to risk his life to protect the men who served with him in Vietnam, President Kerry will not hesitate one moment to use our military might to keep America safe and secure.

John Kerry believes in America. And he knows that it's not enough for just some of us to prosper. For alongside our famous individualism, there's another ingredient in the American saga. A belief that we are all connected as one people.

If there's a child on the South Side of Chicago who can't read, that matters to me, even if it's not my child.

If there's a senior citizen somewhere who can't pay for their prescription and has to choose between medicine and the rent, that makes my life poorer, even if it's not my grandparent.

If there's an Arab-American family being rounded up without benefit of an attorney or due process, that threatens my civil liberties.

It is that fundamental belief -- it is that fundamental belief -- I am my brother's keeper, I am my sister's keeper -- that makes this country work.

It's what allows us to pursue our individual dreams, yet still come together as a single American family. "E pluribus unum." Out of many, one.

Now even as we speak, there are those who are preparing to divide us, the spin masters and negative ad peddlers who embrace the politics of anything goes.

Well, I say to them tonight, there's not a liberal America and a conservative America -- there is the United States of America.

There's not a black America and white America and Latino America and Asian America -- there is the United States of America.

The pundits, the pundits like to slice and dice our country into red states and blue states; red states for Republicans, blue states for Democrats. But I've got news for them, too. We worship an awesome God in the blue states, and we don't like federal agents poking around our libraries in the red states.

We coach Little League in the blue states and have gay friends in the red states.

There are patriots who opposed the war in Iraq and patriots who supported it.

We are one people, all of us pledging allegiance to the stars and stripes, all of us defending the United States of America.

In the end, that's what this election is about. Do we participate in a politics of cynicism or do we participate in a politics of hope?

John Kerry calls on us to hope. John Edwards calls on us to hope. I'm not talking about blind optimism here-the almost willful ignorance that thinks unemployment will go away if we just don't talk about it, or the health care crisis will solve itself if we just ignore it.

That's not what I'm talking [about]. I'm talking about something more substantial. It's the hope of slaves sitting around a fire singing freedom songs; the hope of immigrants setting out for distant shores; the hope of a young naval lieutenant bravely patrolling the Mekong Delta; the hope of a mill worker's son who dares to defy the odds; the hope of a skinny kid with a funny name who believes that America has a place for him, too.

Hope in the face of difficulty, hope in the face of uncertainty, the audacity of hope.

In the end, that is God's greatest gift to us, the bedrock of this nation; a belief in things not seen; a belief that there are better days ahead.

I believe we can give our middle class relief and provide working families with a road to opportunity.

I believe we can provide jobs to the jobless, homes to the homeless, and reclaim young people in cities across America from violence and despair.

I believe that we have a righteous wind at our backs, and that as we stand on the crossroads of history, we can make the right choices and meet the challenges that face us.

America, tonight, if you feel the same energy that I do, if you feel the same urgency that I do, if you feel the same passion that I do, if you feel the same hopefulness that I do, if we do what we must do, then I have no doubt that all across the country, from Florida to Oregon, from Washington to Maine, the people will rise up in November, and John Kerry will be sworn in as president. And John Edwards will be sworn in as vice president. And this country will reclaim its promise. And out of this long political darkness a brighter day will come.

Thank you very much, everybody. God bless you. Thank you.