Every good talk needs a theme
When people come to listen to you speak invariably they will have been given a title to your talk. What would happen if you were to speak on a different subject? Undoubtedly your audience would feel cheated and that perhaps you had got them to attend under false pretences. I am sure that is something that you would never do. However many speakers do drift away from the theme of their talk. True they start to talk about the subject and for some reason they end up talking about something completely different!
Why do speakers go off theme?
It is probably due to firstly a lack of preparation and secondly practice. They have allowed their mind to become distracted and as they are speaking they think about something else and start to talk about that, forgetting to get back to their original theme. You have to be very careful to avoid this, particularly if part way through your talk you have invited questions from your audience. If the question is not relevant to your theme politely but firmly inform the questioner that you will answer them another time and get back to your theme.
Note down your main points
I encourage speakers to have very little in the way of notes so that their delivery is more natural, however if you have no notes there is the danger of going off theme. Therefore write down a list of the main points that you are going to talk about and stick to these.
In the one day intensive speaking course we will cover this very issue of having a theme and how it can be developed properly.
Roland Millward
