5 Minute Speach Essay, Research Paper

Introduce Self

30 seconds (total 30 seconds)

Good evening, my name is Louis XXXXX. I wanted to give my first speech on something that I was passionate about but I ran into two problems:

1. Five minutes wasn’t nearly long enough. (Passion takes at least 10 Minutes)

2. Passionate speeches tend to lean to be more persuasive than informative and I wasn’t going to be the one to push the envelope on my first speech.

So I decided to start out with something light hearted.

Topic Introduction

30 Seconds (total 1 Minute)

Whether we choose to accept it or not, we are all in sales in one form or another.

After all, that’s why we all decided to take this class so that we can learn to communicate better. And what do we do when we communicate??

We sell. An Idea, A product, A service, our selves. WE SELL.

(open hand motion toward Jen) Jen sells to 4th graders in a CCD class

So this evening I’m going to use my last 4.2 minutes to tell you about a part of our society that no one ever takes seriously,,,,,,,

Direct Response marketing, or more commonly known as??

Infomercials

1 Minute 10 Seconds (total 2 minutes 10 Seconds)

20th century commerce at it’s finest.

Oh yea, believe me it’s right up there with e-commerce, Home Shopping Networks, Catalog shopping.

OK, how many closet infomercial watchers do we have out there?

Why is it that admitting that you watch infomercials is like admitting that you have some form of embarrassing medical condition?

The reason I decided to select this as my topic was because I thought it was going to be quick, wrong!

I, as probably most of you did, went on the net to get more information on my subject.

Well I went to INFOSEEK.COM and typed in infomercial,

How many hits do you think I got?

8,198

Then after clicking on my first web site, I clicked on “related sites” because I thought that it would narrow my search,

Came up with 57,949,536

Main Point

1 Minute 55 seconds (total 4 minutes 5 Seconds)

The whole reason that I wanted to tell you about infomercials was to tell you, don’t be afraid.

Weather you want a:

Soloflex

Juice Man

Paint Stick

George Forman Lean Mean Cooking machine

Aero Space Beds

Space Bags

Or

Psychic Friends From Space

Go for it!

Hold your head up, be proud.

But if your buying that Hair in a can thing, I think I’d keep that one to my self.

I’ll tell you a quick story:

I bought some of that “Oxyclean” stuff off of an infomercial. When it came in the mail, I opened it and immediately read the directions, because I wanted to compare what it said in print to the claims made on the infomercial. Well, one of the things that it said was that you needed to use it in conjunction with laundry detergent.

Now the infomercial said that you could use it in place of laundry detergent, and save “hundreds of dollars per year in laundry detergent”

I was afraid that I had been duped, So I immediately called the company and told them that I was sending the stuff back.

Because lets face it, what are some of the number one fears in our culture, (aside from public speaking)

The fear of rejection,

The fear of getting screwed at the drive through

And the fear of being swindled.

I’ll admit it, when I bought it, I was petrified. The fear of spending your money, being dissatisfied, and having no one to grab by the collar and drag over a counter makes me a little nervous.

So, let me tell you, I was all prepared for a fight.

You know what she said to me??

“Oh don’t worry sir, I’m terribly sorry you weren’t completely satisfied with our product, I will refund your credit card immediately.”

“Oh and don’t bother sending the product back, just pass it on to a friend or neighbor to use along with the order form you received in the box.”

You want to know the worst part, I hadn’t even tried the stuff yet!

You know what, I tried it, I love it, the stuff works awesome!

Now I feel guilty, not quite guilty enough to call her back, but guilty none the less.

Wrap it up

50 Seconds (total 4 minutes 55 seconds)

Now don’t get me wrong, there’s a lot of fraud out there so you have to be careful,

But some of the things I mentioned earlier I actually have, and I love them. My mom is a big QVC nut.

Juice Man

Paint Stick

George Foremen’s Lean Mean Cooking Machine

(he named it after his son you know)

And I want to get those space bags too.

Lets face it, QVC is really nothing more that one non stop infomercial after another.

I’m handing out some stuff I printed off of the net regarding infomercials, including a report from the Federal Trade Commission. It’s entitled “How to spot an infomercial” Like we didn’t figure it out as we were dialing that 800 number.

And yea, information on how to order that hair in a spray can thing is there too.

Long live RONCO.

Thank you.

Bibliography

I am a student at Harvard Extention, Fall 99. I am submitting this speach to give people an idea of how to set up a speach. I don’t suggest you try to give this speach your self.