Public Speaking Tips on Persuasive Speeches: How to Win Over Your Audience

Calling a speech persuasive is almost a redundancy. Every speech should be persuasive, even eulogies, reports, instruction and crisis communications. Most of us tend to think of things like fund raising, community activism or political campaigns when we hear the phrase 'persuasive speech'. This article is geared to that type of speech: a speech which tries to convince an audience to get involved in the speaker's cause. To that end, we offer you a number of public speaking tips in the art and the science of persuasion.

When you give a persuasive speech, you have two primary tasks: to involve the audience members in your concern or cause, and to give them a specific way in which to help. Involving your listeners and getting them to care about your issue or concern requires a careful balance of facts, emotional triggers and potential solutions. Facts appeal to the people who react to concrete information, numbers, locations and specifics of the problem or solution. They also lend credibility even for those people who run a mile when they see a number.

Tips for including facts:
Don't pack them too tightly together since listeners can retain only one or two every five minutes. Make them a part of your narrative, e.g. "This issue has been with us for 30 years," not "This issue has been with us for several years." You look like you have done some actual research. Make your own credibility a part of the fact package, e.g. "When I headed the XYZ project on waste management... " This lets the audience know that you have a legitimate voice on environmental issues.

Emotional triggers (like pictures of children in despair, stories of individuals suffering in the present circumstance or excelling in a new circumstance, contrasts between us and them or old and new) appeal to everyone, but only if the other material in your speech is credible.

Tips for including emotional triggers:
Respect your audience's intelligence and don't drag them through an exaggerated story in order to frighten them into action. Credibility is more than facts. If you 'lay it on' too thick, the audience will turn on you. Don't try to make listeners feel guilty. While this may get their hand in their wallet this time, it will definitely cost you a long-term contributor and supporter. Variety is a power blaster. Take your audience members on a roller-coaster ride of emotions. Make them cry. Make them laugh immediately after. Make them nostalgic. Make them energetic. Make them dream.

Potential solutions give listeners hope and a chance to be involved in helping.

Tips for including potential solutions:
Dream a little, but back it up with a realistic solution. Show listeners, very specifically, how each of them can assist. Make their commitment a small one to begin with.

Once you've combined these public speaking tips, you will have mastered both tasks in your powerful and persuasive speech, and people will care what you think.