QUESTION: How long should a speech be? ANSWER: Just long enough

There is nothing quite like making a decision on the fly.

I gave a speech recently to a branch of the National Association of Credit Managers in Tampa, Florida, and I was confident that I was positioned to succeed. True to my own advice, I had met members of the group the night before, shared "happy hour" with them, broke bread that night, and had breakfast with them the next morning. They got to know me and developed a comfort level with me, for which I am grateful.
I was invited to speak about change management, the subject of my book, "The Six P's of Change." I was advised that this is a profession beset by change, where people are doing more work with fewer resources. My allotted time was 90 minutes.
I could tell we got off to a good start. They were engaged and asking questions. They laughed at the funny parts (thank goodness!) and participated in the instructional sections. It was going well.
Still, as time went on, I could see them fading a bit. "Well, it's after lunch, so their blood sugar is dropping," I told myself. And, yes, it was the day after a late night out. But there was no denying that they were drifting away like Leonardo DiCaprio from Kate Winslet at the end of Titanic.
I looked at my timer. I had logged 45 minutes, half my allotted time.
I believe I ended up making the best decision I could. I wound up the speech. I referred to material that summed up my premise, first an inspiring true story of triumph over adversity, and then a humorous story that drew hearty laughter.
My applause was warm, loud and, I believe, heartfelt.
My client, who was running the conference called for a break. After I sold a couple of books to attendees, he said to me, "I think you closed at the right time. I could feel that you were losing them."
I would have preferred for him to say, "Oh, Pat, you left the stage much too soon. You could have gone on for another hour." No such luck. But he did validate my judgment to wrap up when I did.
A week later, he sent me feedback from the group: a high grade and no negative comments, "which is pretty good," he said. "Most speakers speak on specific credit topics and (those subjects) rate higher than a soft skill presentation." In other words, the attendees tend to be much more interested in presentations that pertain to their credit businesses, so my topic went over quite well.

When I was producing video full time, the client would invariably ask, "How much will my budget be?" Many producers like me would answer, "How long is a piece of string?" Similarly, as a speaker or presenter, you need to determine not only how much time is appropriate for you to make your point, but how much the audience could bear. Keep that second point in mind, and I am confident your odds of success will improve greatly.