How You Can Write Your Speech for Conference Success

When you plan to give a speech at a conference or a seminar, you know that you have to prepare beforehand. You also know that you have to practise and edit all of your material before the big day. But how much thought do you put into how to write your speech? That is really writing your speech. Because a really good speech does require some craft. And It’s not beyond reason to say it’s a work of literature. Just think of a Martin Luther King speech for example.

And we say this because of repetition and a speech given by Ed Davey at the 2025 party Conference. Typically in conversation you don’t repeat things. You don’t repeat words, phrases or sentences. And if you do, you are probably reprimanding somebody, more typically a small child

Now there are exceptions. Unfortunately, as we get older, we tend to forget things and we tend to repeat things. That’s an exception!

Write Your Speech and Repeat key Phrases

But in the world of speech craft, you want to repeat things. Certainly a list of three is a good place to start. For example, we will make this bigger, stronger and longer. Is there some repetition there? Well yes, the word ending combines alliteration and repetition. Technique.

So you really want to write your speech and as you do so you can explore the techniques involved.

We have many examples of speakers who use repetition. David Cameron speeches and Barack Obama speeches are good examples. There are plenty. And there are plenty because it’s a good technique. Repeating words and phrases does work.

Who would have driven forward the single market?

Who would have prevented Europe from becoming a protectionist bloc?

Who would have stopped the EU from becoming a single currency zone?

We were reminded of this when we listened to the Ed Davey speech at the Liberal Democrats conference, 2025, in Bournemouth. Now it’s fair to say that an Ed Davey speech has got better since his brief introduction to government speeches in the Conservative Liberal Democrat coalition government of 2010 to 2015. There were one or two lamentable excuses for speeches. But they were probably written by civil servants, and then delivered by someone who didn’t practise or edit.

But his efforts of late are greatly improved. However, we couldn’t ignore his use of repetition in his Leader's speech. Because the word Farage or the phrase Nigel Farage appeared 30 times in the speech. Now there’s no denying  that’s quite a few times for a Liberal Democrat speech. Neither the Liberal Democrats nor the Reform party are in government right now. But, of course, that might change.

In the meantime repetition is king in the world of the Leader's speech writer. And you too can build repetition into your speeches when you write your speech and work at the technique.

When you need public speaking tips, hints and suggestions you will find more than 100 top public speaking and presentation tips on this site. And when you want to take your own public speaking skills that bit further, you are welcome to enroll on an online public speaking course whenever you are ready. Should you really want to boost your own efforts, then you are always welcome to ask us about a coaching session or a corporate training session for your team at work.