Oral communication consumes the precious bandwidth of the communicator who writes it and the pricey time of the leader who delivers it (not to mention the audience who hears it).

Professional Speechwriters Association resident writing coach Mike Long believes speeches don’t have to be this hard to write, and they ought to be more fun to deliver—and more effective, in the end.

In four intensive and vastly entertaining sessions, you will learn:

• How to Think Before You Write: A Speechwriter’s Guide to Planning and Prep. Out of Disorder, Order: Clarify the reason for the speech by figuring out the “big takeaway”—and getting your speaker and all the decision-makers on board.
• Essential Elements of a Vital Speech: Openings That Demand Attention and Closes That Call for Action. For a speech to connect with an audience and keep them engaged, the opening must make them want to hear more, and the closing must send them away inspired to take action. Professional speechwriters don’t guess at how to do that, and after this session, you won’t either.
• Persuasion: Proven Techniques to Open Minds and Change Them. Every speech is a persuasive speech. Here’s how to use psychology, classical rhetoric, and the best ideas from marketing to get people to open their minds to your ideas.
• The Art of Speechwriting: How to Use Storytelling, Literary Devices, and Beautiful Language to Make Your Speeches and Scripts Sing. Listening is hard, and it’s the speaker’s job, not the listener’s, to maintain interest. How to do it? Asked and answered in this session.

INSTRUCTOR: Mike Long is a speechwriter and award-winning playwright and screenwriter based in Washington, D.C. He is a former director of the White House Writers Group and a lecturer at Georgetown University, where he served most recently as the director of writing for the graduate program in PR. Mike is also the co-author of the new book, The Molecule of More.