Convincing People With a Persuasive Speech

The aim is to persuade people

An effective persuasive speech should be able to persuade the audience with your topic. Persuading people to respond in a particular way is the primary point of all speech. Persuasive speech is more complex than just an informative or descriptive speech because its aim is to change someone’s mind or behavior. Persuasive speech technique is also needed in a motivational speech, and even it should be needed in all kind of speech. That’s why we may call this technique as the basic for speech.

You have to appear confident, so get rid of your stage-fright first. Obviously, you have to make an outline before speech, and you have to set the goals of your speech. And the simplest technique to persuade people is using the “What-How-Why” logic.

Examine these two examples:

1. Will you buy this super computer? It has the latest technology built in it. It can browse the internet really fast. All features you need for your work is here.
2. This super computer has the latest technology built-in. It can browse the internet really fast. All features you need for your work is here. Now give a reason of why a businessman like us should not buy this super computer.

The example 1 is using the “Why-How-What” format which is less effective than example 2 that using the “What-How-Why”. As you can see, the “why” section is in bold, “how” is in italic, and “what” is underlined. To make your persuasive speech more effective you should put “what” is your main subject on the opening, then “how” the main subject is is so important, and last is “why” the audience should follow your action to the main subject.

Having a strong opening and closing is important to persuade people. If you want to provide a detail, put it in a handout and share it to your audience if necessary. You also have to watch for your words, phrases and sentence. Use inclusive words like “our”, ”us”, “together”, etc. Use some words that show that people respond well to your subject such as “improved”, “tested”, “recommended”, etc. This has been proven to be more effective in persuading.

Well, now that you learned the technique, you can use this in your presentation.