Persuading an audience, whether to buy your service or buy your idea, is a common goal in speaking. And it differs in several ways from an informative presentation, where all you want is for your audience to walk away thinking, “Wow, that was interesting.” or “I never knew that.” But when you want to win over your audience, influence their choices, convince them of a fact, influence their opinion, a different approach is required.
If you want to be more successful at persuasive speaking, here are six key strategies to keep in mind:
1. FOCUS ON THE AUDIENCE. People are only persuaded by what is in it for them. Persuasion takes place on the terms of the audience.
2. CLEAR OBJECTIVE. Almost all persuasion can be boiled down to one of three goals, which I call DO, TRUE, or SEE: You may want to persuade your audience to DO something, like buy a new computer system. Or you can try to prove that something is (or isn’t) TRUE, like WonderWiz Duplicator can produce 500 copies per minute. Or perhaps you want to convince the audience of your point of view, that one choice is desirable or better than other options, such as provider A is better than provider B and C. VIEW is often a matter of opinion.
3. EFFECTIVE ORGANIZATION. The purpose of your talk determines how you organize it. While it always has an introduction, body, and conclusion, the body will be organized differently depending on its purpose.
To persuade your audience to DO something, the body of your talk should answer four questions: (1) WHY (problem), (2) WHAT (features of the proposal), (3) HOW (benefits of the proposal) and (4) WHY NOT (raise and overcome any objections).
To prove to the audience that something is or is not TRUE, your body could have up to three points: (1) personal observation or experience, (2) evidence, (3) expert testimony.
To convince the audience to side with your OPINION that one option is desirable or better than others, your body would have two or three points. (1) Establish ideal criteria or standards to define your proposal. (2) Measure your proposal against those standards. And if you want to convince yourself that your choice is better than other options, then (3) compare how your proposal compares to other options.
4. SOUND REASONING. You cannot be very persuasive unless your reasoning is sound and the reasoning can be accepted by the audience. It must (1) present true premises (ie, saying “coffee drinkers get better grades” is not a true premises); (2) be able to support it with evidence, and (3) show logical correlations.
5. MOTIVATIONAL APPEALS. The truth of the matter is that our decisions come less from our heads than from our hearts or guts. For example, why are there so many different makes and models of cars on the road? Because people’s choices are motivated by different appeals, perhaps luxury, safety, or fuel efficiency. These are called motivational, those emotional factors that motivate us to make the decisions we do. To be persuasive, you need to know what emotional factors are likely to motivate your audience, and then appeal to those feelings.
6. SCREEN. To close the deal, paint a picture for the audience of what things would be like whether or not they accepted your proposal. Help them see the beneficial result of doing what you set out to do or the negative result if they don’t.
7. ACTION STEP. What do you want your audience to do? Ask them for it. Challenge them to do it. Call them to some kind of action or change in their thinking. And make it as easy as possible for them.
One final point to remember about persuasion. You are unlikely to be persuasive if you are trying to convince an audience that is firmly rooted in an opposing point of view. Few people will be persuaded to go against their deeply held opinions or values. So do not set yourself up for impossible tasks. Your audience must be open to persuasion if you want to have a chance of succeeding.
