Customize Your Speech with Call Backs (The PEST Formula)

One of the most important success factors in public speaking is your ability to customize your speech to make each audience feel like, “This has only happened here” and “This message is truly for us.”

In other words, they don’t want a “canned” speech. They want it to be fresh. You can accomplish this in a humorous way too and that’s where call backs come in to play.

What is a call back?

This is when you refer to something that happened previously in the event, right? Well, yes, but don’t forget to call back to the following as well. I call it the PEST formula for Call Backs.

P = Preparation – call back to something that happened as you Prepared for the event

E = Event – call back to something that happened during the Event

S = Speaker – call back to something one of the other Speakers said

T = Travel – call back to something that happened as you Traveled to the event

See for Yourself

Take a look at the video for a few examples of call backs I used to make a greater connection with my audiences and to have them feel like, “This has only happened here.”

Your Turn

What call backs have you given recently that worked?