Persuasive speaking urges us to do something. Informative speaking, on the other hand, reveals and clarifies options. Informative speakers teach. Persuasive speakers lead, evoke emotions and ask for audience commitment. Sometimes persuasive speeches are aimed at earning passive agreement, as in persuading an audience of the importance of some policy, value, or service. At other times, persuasive speeches aim for personal action, as in getting people to join an organization, buy a product or service, or support a cause.
Persuasive Speech Tips
- Gain attention and interest. Try a quote? Try humor(see below)? Shock or startle? ("Before this speech is finish, 5 recent students will have lost jobs in the new depression.") Try a direct question? ("What sort of internet addict are you?") Stress a key word or symbol? (Get dialog going on the symbolic meaning of the logo?)
- Try humor, depending on the overall purpose of the presentation. Old editions of Readers Digest are great sources since the material is clean and people will probably have forgotten the jokes.
- Establish your credibility early
- Demonstrate audience analysis and understanding. Make relevant, direct contact with audience - why does it matter?
- Preview main points? (an arguments can be made that solutions shouldn't emerge until at least half way through your speech in order to avoid having your position pre-judged)
- Create cognitive dissonance. Your audience must feel involved in the problem before they'll be moved to accept a solution
- Make effective transitions between ideas
- Demonstrate enthusiasm and/or passion
- Provoke thought through questions
- Construct a logical case with evidence in support of what you're trying to sell
- Avoid verbal fillers/disfluency
- Close with a memorable summary, perhaps request a specific act or action from the audience . Be declarative, maybe firm and demanding in your close.
Simplified version
Here are 10 tips for turning a good speech into a great one!
1. Have a plan and set some objectives & outcomes.
There is nothing worse than not knowing what you want to achieve. Do you want to educate the audience, inform, inspire, motivate or touch their emotions? Always work out what you want to achieve before beginning the speech process.
2. Have a formal structure - beginning, middle and end.
Audiences love structure and the best speeches stick to this tried and true rule. As they say: "tell them what you're going to say, tell them and then tell them again".
3. Avoid having too much content.
Hands up those that are guilty of this sin. I know I am. I have lost count the number of technical presentations given by CEO's, managers, scientists, engineers, geologists and other professionals who have just put too much content into their presentations. Far too much for an audience to absorb - remember even the best audiences face information overload after 20 minutes.
How do you overcome the content crisis? See Tip # 8.
4. Define who your audience is and use the most appropriate communication
channels to reach them.
Analyse how your audience likes to take in information - do they like to be visually stimulated or do they enjoy just sitting back and listening. Or do they like to get involved, to touch and feel in a kinaesthetic way. Work out the best mix of visual, audio and kinaesthetic and use this in your speechwriting.
5. Research your speech using a range of sources.
Be a keen observer of the trends your audience is likely to be interested in and keep a file of interesting articles and information. If you are time poor- a few quick questions when meeting an audience just prior to a speech, such as "what are the issues facing your business/industry/association at the moment?" can really help target your presentation and build rapport.
6. Use personal stories, examples and metaphors to make intangible concepts
tangible.
In many cases you are trying to sell ideas and concepts in a speech. These are intangible and often difficult for the audience to grasp. Personal stories, examples and metaphors make the invisible visible.
7. Have a strong opening and closing.
People remember the opening - first impressions count! The closing is important as it should reinforce the key message you want the audience to go away with in their head after they have heard the presentation. Ending with a 'call to action' can be a powerful way to get your audience to act on your message.
8. Add value and extra detail through a handout.
Here's a tip: if you want to provide detail - put it in a handout! You can get far more content across in the written form than in a speech. Always refer to this in your presentation but hand it out after your speech so the audience is not distracted reading through it while you talk. There is nothing more soul destroying for a presenter to see the audience leafing through written notes rather than looking at you!
9. Use short words and plain English.
The short words are always the best words. Avoid jargon. Use active words instead of passive. This has far more impact in the minds of your listeners.
10. Evaluate and review on a regular basis.
There's nothing more powerful than to hear back a speech you've written. If you are writing a speech for someone else always try and hear the speech or at least get some feedback. Recording and listening back to a presentation is the fastest way to improve your skills.
Methods of Persuasion
People have been trying to influence one another for a long time. Maybe one of the most articulate early speakers was the Greek Philosopher Aristotle. His ideas are as relevant today as they were when he was teaching at the Lyceum around 300 B.C. He thought there were basically three ways to influence people:
- Credibility -- "ethos". Sometimes we believe something simply because we trust the person telling us. You want to look like you know what you're talking about.
- Emotional appeal -- "pathos". Sometimes we do things because of a "gut feeling" or an appeal to our emotions, whether those of compassion or fear. Advertisers make great headway tweaking our concerns about what others might think about us.
- Rational appeal -- "logos". Providing good reasons is important. Providing evidence and reasoning are a strong part of the persuasive process.
Appealing to logic may be the hardest of the three sources of influence for the speaker to use. What's important here is the development of relevant "support material". Three types of support material commonly used include examples, statistics, and testimony.
Examples are useful in clarifying, reinforcing, or personalizing ideas. These could involve case studies or anecdotal examples &emdash; slices of life to prove the point. Ethically, you should help your audience gauge the credibility of your sources, the representativeness of examples and samples, etc. Using examples without other types of support material can come across as weak evidence.
Statistics can help. Combing them with examples can be powerful. Using too many statistics can be deadly. You should qualify the sample, translate the statistics that you use so the audience can understand fairly. Relevant visual display of statistics can be a powerful aid in making an argument.
Personal testimony can also provide dramatic support material. Testimony can give emotional life to the issues you're focusing on. You should of course quote or paraphrase accurately and fairly, identify and qualify the source's credentials.
A common pattern used in formulating persuasive speeches is called "Monroe's Motivated Sequence". Though particularly appropriate when you're seeking a commitment to personal action, the suggested sequence can provide good structural ideas for any sort of persuasive presentation. The five parts identified in the sequence below include: Attention, Need, Satisfaction, Visualization, Action; but only three main points. For fun, I'll illustrate the points around an appeal for MHR students to join and support PIHRA.
ATTENTION
In the Introduction…
A. A scenario of a recent graduate who cannot get hired to a position in Human Resources requiring "experience" and evidence of community involvement and leadership. Maybe in the form of a letter or quote from the student?
NEED:
I. Students seeking careers in HR often have a problem.
A. Every year many jobs are available, but require appropriate internship experiences as a bare minimum.
B. Only a small number of graduating seniors in MHR have career-oriented professional experience.
SATISFACTION:
II. If more students had solid internship experiences, professional success of graduates would be multiplied.
A. Involvement in PIHRA is a sound resume item in the eyes of employers.
B. PIHRA students meet monthly with regional professionals in order to develop networks and identify opportunities.
VISUALIZATION:
III. With an internship you'll be able to launch one of the most exciting careers that a young person in business can have.
A. Let's look again at the opening scenario and see if you can really afford to continue with the non-professional employment you have.
B. Statistics show that MHR graduates who prepare well launch professional careers, and that after about five years of on-the-job growth are prepared for major career steps.
ACTION:
In the conclusion…
Call to the audience to join PIHRA and share in helping to develop internship learning opportunities for MHR students.
FINALLY,Persuasive speaking requires not only knowing technique but also principles. These tips and techniques will sound wonderful to the ear. However, to be effective in persuading, you will need to do much more. You will need to understand and be able to apply the principles.
Take fluency for example. If your speech lacks this one little quality, you will hinder your ability to persuade. This is a fundamental principle of good speech. All the other tips and tricks in the world will not compensate for a lack of fluency. In the Speaker Skills you will find the speech quality Fluency along with tips and techniques to help you improve in this speech quality.The Challenge
Consider the listening styles of the audience. This adds yet another element that demands attention to enable you to give a persuasive speech. It's not tips and tricks that will help you. The challenge is understanding the human mind and meeting it's needs.To be a persuasive speaker will also require you to challenge the traditional ways of presenting information. Most speech text books might encourage you to start with a story, an anecdote or even a joke. To truly master persuasive speaking, you will need to reevaluate these traditional ideas. They may not be the most effective for your audience.
Reference:
- http://www.csupomona.edu/~sciman/classes/324/organizer/persuaSpeech.html
- http://ezinearticles.com/?Ten-Speech-Tips-for-Writing-Powerful-and-Persuasive-Presentation&id=64706
- http://www.speechmastery.com/persuasive-speaking.html
Done by: ISHVERJIT SINGH
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