The Lost Art of the Great Speech: How to Write It * How to Deliver It

Business benefits

For business men and women, there's another important point to be made in favor of written speeches. If your speech is newsworthy, it's a good idea to have copies to pass out to any news media people who attend the event and to mail to any who request it. Your company's public relations department might also need a copy for use in preparing a news release about the speech. Some companies reprint their executives' speeches in booklet form and give them wide distribution.

In the 1970s, when the ecology movement was in its infancy, the late Paul Austin, who was then president of The Coca-Cola Company, delivered a masterful, deeply felt speech on ecology. One purpose of the speech was to outline the company's policy on matters of ...