All of us have to give speeches: whether it’s business or family, sooner or later we have to stand up and pull a page of notes from our inside pocket. And very few of us relish the occasion.

We’ve all been on the receiving end as well. Goodness knows how many speeches and presentations I’ve listened to – but remarkably few of them have been memorable.

Why is that? Making a speech can be crucially important in business – and yet it’s a skill that’s almost totally ignored.

So when I was introduced to a professional speechwriter recently I was all ears. Some of her suggestions for giving an effective speech might surprise you…

- Write it out. She was absolutely adamant on this one. "The back of an envelope simply won’t do," she said. "You’ve been invited to give a speech. You have an obligation to deliver. Not to wing it."

- Practise. "The best speaker I know has a ratio of 60:1,” she said. "That is, he’ll spend 60 minutes practising for every minute that he’s speaking."

I protested that this was incredibly time-consuming. If you’re running a business, finding 20 hours to practise a 20 minute speech is close to impossible. "Absolutely," she said. "That’s why men – and sorry, Ed, it’s always men – convince themselves they can wing it. But they can’t."

The example she quoted was Barack Obama. Outstanding when he’s practised and when he’s on the autocue: significantly below average when it’s an impromptu speech.

- Learn It. Her view was that any competent person can learn any speech of twenty minutes or less. "You only think you can’t do it because you haven’t tried," she insisted."If you’ve learned a speech your confidence goes up 1000%. That confidence is reflected in your voice and in your body language. The audience sense it."

- By this time her final point didn’t seem at all surprising. "A speech is a conversation. Sure, it’s a conversation where one person does nearly all the talking. But it’s still a two way process." What she meant was that your audience will smile, nod, laugh and applaud. Even though they’re not speaking, they’ll still be interacting with you.

Thinking about the conversation later – and having been on the receiving end of another man stumbling through his notes – I can see the sense of what she said.