Lately, I’ve been noticing principles that great speakers use to guide them. \u00a0I’ve talked about this before. \u00a0I like when speakers start by answering a question for the audience: \u00a0“Why is this important to me?” \u00a0I also notice when speakers find their passion for the subject, and use it to bring the ideas to life.<\/p>\n

Here is another way to boost your persuasiveness.<\/p>\n

Talk conversationally.<\/strong> \u00a0Conversations unfold in a series of moves, or triggered associations. Someone tells a story about their dog, and that prompts a\u00a0response from another person about their own pet. Or a confession of sorrow gets a response of comfort. Conversations travel on\u00a0a give and take, back and forth, two-way street.<\/p>\n

Yet most of us don’t present conversationally. Instead, we make lists. “I will cover these four topics,” we say. Or, we show an\u00a0agenda of topics, and then move through them sequentially. And often the topics don’t flow intuitively from one to another.<\/p>\n

It’s now very popular to talk about story. Story is the new, or newish, buzzword. And stories are similar to conversations because\u00a0actions taken by the characters in a story move it along by triggering consequences. There is an intuitive, cause and effect\u00a0association between one scene and the next (there’s a wonderful, short text that explains this called Backwards & Forwards).<\/p>\n

So if you need to present a list-like talk, one in which each topic is not linked to the one before or after, you need to be more\u00a0careful about how you move from one to another.<\/p>\n

In other words, you need to be aware of where you could lose your listeners. Does a particular thought cry out for an illustration, a\u00a0concrete example? Do you need to anticipate an objection? Do you need to state exactly where you’re going? Are your transitions\u00a0from slide to slide clear? You may have two or three anecdotes that you’d love to tell, but if you want to hold audience attention,\u00a0or finish the talk in a defined length of time, you’ve got to be willing to cut.<\/p>\n

Make connections between main ideas. Showcase them as stepping stones of logic or association, thoughtfully leading your\u00a0listeners from one idea to the next.<\/p>\n

Tweet: Make connections between main ideas. Showcase them as stepping stones of logic. http:\/\/ctt.ec\/bbia8+<\/a><\/p>\n

[h4]Next…Find a sense of truth[\/h4]<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Lately, I’ve been noticing principles that great speakers use to guide them. \u00a0I’ve talked about this before. \u00a0I like when speakers start by answering a question for the audience: \u00a0“Why is this important to me?” \u00a0I also notice when speakers find their passion for the subject, and use it to bring the ideas to life.… Read More »More Ways to Be a Highly Persuasive Speaker<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":8812,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"neve_meta_sidebar":"","neve_meta_container":"","neve_meta_enable_content_width":"","neve_meta_content_width":0,"neve_meta_title_alignment":"","neve_meta_author_avatar":"","neve_post_elements_order":"","neve_meta_disable_header":"","neve_meta_disable_footer":"","neve_meta_disable_title":"","_ti_tpc_template_sync":false,"_ti_tpc_template_id":""},"categories":[960,144,336],"tags":[628,618,21,337],"yoast_head":"\n