Every hour you work with a speechwriter saves you 4

What’s the ROI for a hiring a speechwriter?

I winced as I started writing version 12 of the speech.

It was 8pm, and I’d just got off the phone with my client’s Chief Communications Officer, going over a draft I’d written for an important speech.

The speech was 6 days away, and I’d already been through 11 iterations in the past 4 days.

I had to get it right – and I had promised to have the next draft in their inbox by the morning.

To be clear, it wasn’t a total rewrite – it almost never is.

But half my job is working with my clients to help them clarify what they actually want to say.

Because even a seemingly small difference in your mind can mean a huge difference in your speech.

In this case, it was like my client had said ‘We want a hen.’

But when I presented them with a hen, they realised they’d wanted a rooster.

“Isn’t that basically the same bird?”

Well sure, a hen and a rooster are similar – but you only hear one of them crow in the morning.

The devil’s in the details – and so is the difference between fine and fantastic.

My client had asked for a hen – but once they’d seen that first draft, they realised they needed a rooster.

That wasn’t a failing on their part (or mine) – often we can’t clarify our thinking until we have one version sitting in front of us.

But – even though it wasn’t their fault – I had had to go back to the drawing board after the first version or two.

And now I had to rewrite once again.

When I finished at 10pm that night, I knew it wouldn’t be the last draft.

But I was hopeful we were close.

And we were – on that call with the Chief Comms Officer I’d honed their message enough to get it right.

And so although it took us until version 15 to sign off, it was mostly minor changes each time.

But here’s the funny thing.

For me, 15 versions was damn close to unacceptable.

I pride myself on working efficiently.

But when I spoke to my client’s comms people about it, they laughed…

…and said that before I started writing for them, they were used to version 66!

I got them a draft – that was praised by the audience and reported on positively in the papers – in less than a quarter of the time it took without me.

In fact, when I asked them, I found out that the last time they’d done this speech they were writing new drafts the night before.

That’s a lot of time – and a whole lot of stress – they didn’t have to waste with me.

‘Time is money,’ we’re always told.

By my calculation I save my clients on average somewhere between 8-24 hours of manpower hours, depending on the length of the speech.

You work out for yourself what that means in terms of cost.

And that’s not including the mental bandwidth saved.

I’ve heard comms people talk about how they used to have to juggle a speech for the boss on top of their already full workload – and thank me for saving them from that.

So what’s the ROI on hiring a speechwriter?

A good speechwriter cuts your work time in half (on a conservative estimate) – and gives you peace of mind you can use to do other things better.

What’s that worth to you?

Talk soon,

Alexander Westenberg

Speechwriting consultant for executives who want to speak like leaders

P.S.

Need speechwriting, corporate training, or 1-1 coaching? DM me on LinkedIn or send me an email at [email protected]