"Protocoling": How to honour important persons in your speech
Giving honour to individuals you consider important to you or your course is a common way of beginning a speech. But “protocoling”, as I call it, can be the least exciting to audience members—if the speaker just reads out the names and portfolios of the important persons to audience members.
The names and functions of honoured persons are already known or strange. The master of ceremony (MC) may have introduced your VIPs by their names and titles—which you may just repeat needlessly. No creativity. Which is why the intro of your speech will be boring. And why your audience members will direct their minds away from your speech to something more important to them—and you may not be able to get and hold their attention back—and this will hurt your speech and the delivery.
Bad use of protocol in a speech means that your audience members will lose the surprise, expectation or spark you need in the intro of your speech—to get audience members focused and excited to receive the key messages and takeaways of your speech.
Of what value is a protocol that fails to engage and hold audience members’ attention to a speech from the intro to the conclusion of the speech?
In this essay, I offer a guide on how to use protocol in your speech.
Protocoling your speech: Easy steps
First, mention the title and the name of the VIP together, e.g., "[To] President Goodluck Jonathan...”. Or, “President Jonathan...” Then add to the title and name few words of praise | eulogy, e.g., "[To] President Jonathan, a symbol of peace and democracy in Africa…." Or "President Goodluck Jonathan, who inspires us to love country above self....”
Do similar to the other honoured persons.
P.S.: If the MC had said something similar to your brief eulogy, use a different one.
This non-conventional way of using protocol in a speech is strategic in some ways:
It helps you to eliminate non-deserving persons from your speech.
It helps you stay brief and purposeful with your delivery—not drawn into unnecessary asides—otherwise, you will bore your audience who awaits you to set the tone of your speech and deliver your key messages and takeaways.
Talking about your VIPs affectionately gives them a lot of goosebumps. It helps to hint at something personal, or that connects the person and the audience members—and sometimes, the occasion—which your audience members are likely to be interested in.
Your audience members are likely to listen and get hooked to your one sentence eulogy of your VIPs—which is the key takeaway of this way of using protocol in a speech.
Your brief eulogy is like a story—and people love to be told a story. Your few words of eulogy, if they have stories, images and symbols about your VIPs embedded in them, gives your audience members something to engage their five senses and imagination.
The audience members can as well make their own judgement of the VIP based on what you’d said.
They can also make individual connections and associations to past and present events, shared experiences, and hopes.
When you've got your audience members hooked to your speech and wanting to hear more of your eulogies, that's the time to set the tone of your speech and prepare their minds to receiving your key messages and takeaways.
Remember: start your protocol by mentioning the titles followed by the names and then a few words of eulogy of your VIPs. This is “protocoling”.