The Secret to Writing a Persuasive Speech (On Any Topic)

If you are delivering a speech with the aim of convincing the audience to adopt or accept your point of view, you are delivering a persuasive speech. While it is one of those abilities that will serve a speaker way beyond the stage, it’s also one of the most challenging to learn. Let’s face it, convincing someone to truly believe in something is not an easy task.

There are quite a few instances when you might be wanting to persuade an audience. Maybe you’re trying to inspire or motivate them. Maybe you’re trying to convince them to change their opinions. Or maybe you want the audience to take some kind of action after they hear your speech.

But how do you build up (or improve upon) this ability to persuade a crowd through your speech?

Ethos. Logos. Pathos.

What it is and why is it not enough for a persuasive speech?

The famed Greek philosopher, Aristotle, immortalized these words with regard to persuasive speaking. In short, this is what the words mean:

Ethos, meaning ethics, refers to our credibility as a speaker. To adopt your point of view your audience must first trust you. To make this clear, think about a successful CEO talking about the lessons she has learnt in her years of business. Even if her speaking ability is not the best, people will still be persuaded by her ideas because of her credibility. Using references and stories of your personal experiences really help add credibility to a speech.

Logos, meaning logic, refers to reasoning. Your argument needs to make sense, right? Clearly explaining why audience members need to change their opinion or behaviour backed with logic and reason is an obvious but under stated rule of persuasive speaking.

Pathos, meaning emotion, refers to the emotional side of a speech, the part of the speech that appeals to the sentiments of the audience. Happiness, sadness, empathy, sympathy – are all emotions that your audience can resonate with. Evoking these emotions in listeners in relation to your topic is a powerful tool to persuade them.

This is what these words mean and are a good base to understand what it takes to create a persuasive speech. However, to me personally, it didn’t really help.

I understood that my speech must be credible and backed by logic as well as emotion. But that did not help me actually write a persuasive speech.

Here are a few tips that I was advised on by my mentors on how to go about writing a persuasive speech:

Know your audience

It’s always about the audience. It’s not about making the most kick-ass speech. It’s about targeting your audience with what resonates with them. What many speakers who are starting out end up doing is that they feel their one speech will be effective to all audiences. Instead, we need to assess our audiences needs and craft a speech that fits those needs – that’s what makes a good persuasive speech.

This does not mean you need to change your speech entirely. But by tweaking the same speech for different audiences with different call to actions, you can resonate and provide relevant messages to each audience you speak to.

For example, let’s say you are giving a talk on how the younger generation needs to be more patient. If you are delivering that speech to a group of youngsters, your call to action will be something along the lines of what they can do to be more patient and not stress a lot about the future.

But if you are delivering the same speech to an older audience – one that’s well past the age of 30 – your speech does not need to change. But your call to action can be tweaked to something along the lines of how parents or the older generation can help the youngsters to calm down and be more patient.

Research

To persuade, we must first “Know our shit”. Even if you’re fairly familiar with your subject, you need to research. You cannot only rely on your power of discussion or your skill in speaking clearly when it comes to persuasive speaking. The crowd will believe you when they know and feel you are certain and confident in what you have to say.

To make the audience believe in you, they must first feel that you believe in yourself. Research helps with this confidence. It gives you that safety wherein if in case someone does try and question you on your subject, you have proof to back it up. From that safety, comes confidence.

When you don’t research and are just talking in thin air, the audience will notice. This will lower your chances of them buying into your ideas. When you are preparing your speech, research your topic – the stats and facts. See what other opinions there are on the topic. Your speech will come out much stronger when it’s backed with proof.

Preparation to aid flexibility

Persuasion is not about delivering a memorized speech to perfection. It’s about tailoring your speech to appeal best to the time you are in and to the audience you are delivering to.

Instead of going in and talking about a speech as a one-sided conversation, if the audience knows that you understand them, they are much likely to buy into your ideas.

Let me give you an example. This one time I was attending a networking event for startup founders. The event’s agenda had planned for 3 speakers (well respected entrepreneurs) followed by a networking session. Out of the 3 speakers, 2 I do not remember what they said.

But one of them, he stood out. Here’s why:

When he came on stage, he did not just start his prepared speech. He started with a question: “What is it that is troubling you at this very moment in your business?”

He went around the entire room and listened to what each one in the audience had to say. Now he knew the audience and he could tell them what they needed to hear the most instead of making them listen to what he wants them to listen to. The audience also understood that what the speaker will be talking about now will directly relate to the problems they are having.

And it did. The entire speech was so relevant to each audience member. Most, if not all of us, got our problems addressed directly through his speech.

You see, he did not prepare his speech in the traditional way. But by knowing his content and subject so well through countless hours of preparation and experience, he could be flexible on stage and say what the audience needed to hear the most.

Persuasive Speech Examples

Here are some of the most persuasive and well-written speeches of the modern world (my humble opinion!):

Malala Yousafzai (Nobel Acceptance Speech)

I had two options, one was to remain silent and wait to be killed. And the second was to speak up and then be killed. I chose the second one. I decided to speak up. The terrorists tried to stop us and attacked me and my friends on 9th October 2012, but their bullets could not win. We survived. And since that day, our voices have only grown louder. I tell my story, not because it is unique, but because it is not. It is the story of many girls. Today, I tell their stories too.
Speech Excerpt

Darren Tay (Toastmasters International Speech Contest)

My friends, let us all not run away from our inner bullies anymore. Let us all face our inner bullies, acknowledge its presence and fight. Let us all be vulnerable together.
Speech Excerpt

Sir Ken Robinson (TED – Do Schools Kill Creativity?)

She was eventually auditioned for the Royal Ballet School. She became a soloist. She had a wonderful career at the Royal Ballet. She eventually graduated
from the Royal Ballet School, founded her own company – the Gillian Lynne Dance Company, met Andrew Lloyd Webber. She’s been responsible for some of the most successful musical theater productions in history, she’s given pleasure to millions, and she’s a multimillionaire. Somebody else might have put her on medication and told her to calm down.
Speech Excerpt

Why are these speeches so iconic? Because of their brilliant use of story-telling to persuade. All speeches, at the end of it, are looking to persuade in some form or another.

But it’s the way we use our words, the way we deliver, the way we use emotions which eventually inspires action.

Here are some of the other iconic persuasive speeches given by great world leaders:

Hrideep barot

Hrideep Barot is the founder and chief writer at Frantically Speaking, a portal to help people learn everything about public speaking. The purpose of franticallyspeaking.com is to showcase the lessons that he has learned (and still learning) from his numerous stage experiences and mentors over all these years.

The Secret of Writing a Persuasive Speech (On Any Topic) | Ethos, Logos, Pathos is Not Enough