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Herding as persuasion. What kind of shepherd are you? Or perhaps you are the sheep.

We fit in. We fit in with society, with our families, with our peers.

From a very young age, and from way back in the mists of history, we have been shepherded by our families, our tribe, our peers into conforming.

There was a time, and perhaps there are still times, when our very survival depended/depends on it.

So the urge to conform is strong in us,

especially in situations where we may not know what is appropriate, expected and safe.

I felt it when I attended a presentation early in my days in business.

He had already used various techniques that had me on edge, uncomfortable, aware of the not-so-subtle attempts at persuasion.

He had audience members becoming more and more excited.

“Raise your hand if …” and up went the hands.

Say “Yes” if you agree. And they were shouting “yes”.

“Who wants my freebie?” And before he had finished describing the thousands of dollars’ worth, two gentlemen were running to the stage for his USB.

“Everyone who belongs to my tribe run to the back of the room to sign up.”

And they did.

He had started with a room full of people. Many had left, but the numbers were still quite large.

I had no desire to buy.

I was very aware of what he was doing.

It was unsubtle and ugly,

and yet still I felt an outsider, uncomfortable, boring!

The power of belonging to the herd is incredibly strong.

And more recently, I attended a multi-level-marketing presentation.

I was late, partly because I was reluctant to attend, having agreed to make up numbers for a friend, and found myself sitting in a front row on a chair while about ten people sat on lounge chairs and padded chairs in an arc behind me.

And here again …

“Raise your hand if you want to live your dream.”

And the hands went up.

“Who’s excited by this offer?” And they very nearly shouted “Hallelujah!”

Then the presenter started inviting people to give testimonials and it became fairly obvious that there were only three of us who were not already members of the scheme.

Lovely to have so many people forming a community and supporting my friend who had hosted the event.

And while I felt uncomfortable sitting at the front, the herd force wasn’t as powerful as my first experience because I had gone in without any hopes.

At the earlier event I had been drawn by a particular suggestion in the marketing.

The herd instinct is a strong force for persuasion, especially in the unsure or vulnerable.

shepherd_sheep

Have you been in an audience and felt the force of it?

Perhaps you have been a shepherd, using the force – hopefully with more subtlety and integrity than those I experienced!

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[Quick public speaking tip] 3 Ways that Listening is key if you are speaking to persuade

It’s not just speaking … when we speak to persuade.

Successful persuasion also lies in the ability to actively listen, even in the field of public speaking.

listening_persuade

Successful speaking to persuade relies on knowing your audience.

What are their needs and wants.

How are they thinking about your proposal.

What are they likely to favour about it?

What is going to stand in the way of them being persuaded?

What are their doubts?

What are their objections?

What are the obstacles to them moving forward with your suggestions?

Listen to them – before the presentation – survey them, talk to them, ask the event organiser about them – and listen.

Listen to them – during the presentation – ask them questions – and listen.

Successful speaking to persuade relies on seeing moments where you can gain agreement – maybe a comment or question from your audience, a situation from which you can draw an analogy, maybe a report back from a group discussion.

Listen for those and keep a line of thinking open that will allow you to use those moments to really amp up the energy of your speaking response.

Successful speaking to persuade relies on your being adaptable. It’s one of the lessons I teach in my workshops and seminars on PowerPoint. Be prepared to change the course or direction of your presentation. If it seems that your audience puts value on one point or discussion over another, or if the feedback, comments or discussion suggests that a different direction would wok best, then be prepared to change the structure of the presentation that you had prepared in advance.

This means that not only is your structure working for you. It also means that you are building trust. You care enough about your audience to change direction for them and you are confident enough in your material and your beliefs to change direction for them.

Listen, then to their comments, to their suggestions and the tone of their discussions.

So I have covered three areas of listening that will build the success of your persuasive speaking – knowing your audience, watching for opportunities to ramp up the energy and being adaptable.

Do you use any other listening techniques to successfully persuade?

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[Quick Public Speaking Tip] “Speaking is selling”

speaking_selling

“Speaking is selling”

It’s an ugly phrase, that. I feel its ugliness.

Speaking is pure – a mixture of art and science.

Selling – urgh – ugly – involves low-down, dirty manipulation, something that forces its recipients and audiences to put up barriers against trust and hope and good taste – at best a game with winners and losers.

!!!!

Well, I have to say that’s a common feeling.

We start out with a fabulous idea. It makes us feel good and full of light. It’s going to change the world.

It might be an idea that will make people feel better, live better, or make the world a better place.

It might even be a product or program that will also make an income for us doing what makes us feel good and full of light instead of dull and bored and chained to a desk.

And then we discover that people do not necessarily come running to be part of that beautiful idea.

It’s going to involve persuasion and marketing … and … selling – and that doesn’t necessarily mean selling, as in asking for money for a product.

It can just mean selling the vision, the idea so that people change their minds, think differently, act differently – persuasion – just another form of that ugly manipulation, really.

What if …

What if …

we could shine that light out into the minds of the audience?

What if …

What if …

we could shine that light as an inspiration, a source of hope, an answer?

What if …

What if …

it illuminated a vision those audience members already had – buried beneath a deep, heavy layer of doubt and self-distrust and painful sense of failure?

Not so ugly?

Not so shameful?

Not so manipulative?

“Speaking is inspiring”!

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[Quotation about public speaking] Public speaking will have its place

“As long as there are human rights to be defended; as long as there are great interests to be guarded; as long as the welfare of nations is a matter for discussion so long will public speaking have it place.” ~ William Jennings Bryan

Public speaking has its place

In my current obsession with storytelling, I have discovered a Hopi Proverb which says the “Those who tell the stories rule the world.”

Leaders everywhere are those who give their followers something to believe in, a narrative that explains the present and paints a future.

And leaders are not just those in government or religion.

They lead in business, they lead in our institutions, they lead in our families.

We all have the capacity to be a leader at some time.

I am only thankful that the skills of public speaking are there to give us the power to lead and to create a world with values that we can uphold.

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Words – the powerful persuasive potion

“Words are, of course, the most powerful drug used by mankind.”
― Rudyard Kipling

misused_words
Is it a drug you need to persuade people when you speak?

We spend a lot of our time speaking to persuade – persuade people to adopt our ideas, persuade them to buy our products or services, persuade them to employ our skills – sometimes just to pick up their towels from the bath room floor.

Is it a drug you need when you want to persuade?

We can drug ourselves into belief with the stories we tell ourselves.

Undoubtedly we can drug our audiences into belief just as well with the power of words.

We can create emotion with words. And emotion is one of the most powerful persuasion devices there is.

We can build a relationship with a audience to take them with us into the behaviour we want.

Let’s start with emotion.

You can attach emotion to an idea with words that will give it a positive energy or a negative energy or remove either of those.

Associate an idea with positive words and make it attractive. We would all rather a glass half full than a glass half empty. Generally we prefer something with the words “New and Improved” attached. Advertisers use adjectives that build the positives of their products – adjectives like more, increased, amazing, best, fastest, greatest. And I would far rather take up reading, if I were a child, if I knew it would give me a pleasant experience rather that because it would keep me out of mischief.

Reduce the negativities of an idea by using words that diminish that side. So we refer to “layoffs” rather than “downsizing”. We refer to “Intensive Interrogation techniques” rather than “torture” and refer to “used” Aston Martins as “pre-owned”.

On the other hand, associate certain words with a person or an idea and create a negativity around them. Adjectives again, like “infamous”, “malicious” and “stingy” all attach an emotional negativity.

These are powerful emotional drugs to use in persuasion.

Underlying this communication, though, are the word choices you can make that build your credibility for your audience and encourage their trust.

Perhaps the most important word you can use is “You”. Every audience member needs to feel that they are the centre of your attention and that meeting their needs is your prime objective. Focus on using the word “You” and you are forcibly reminded to turn your own thinking and your language that way.

Beyond this, though, the best words to use are “we”, “together” and “us” because they give the impression that you and your audience are of one mind, working towards the same outcome. Take them with you to that outcome. Speak to them, too, in their own language, avoiding words they might not understand and jargon that excludes them.

Validate them and their ideas whenever you can. Use words like “Thank you” and appreciate”.

We have talked already about the adjectives you can use for various reasons. Try to avoid adverbs. Use, instead, very evocative verbs.

Mark Twain again –
“The difference between the almost right word and the right word is really a large matter—’tis the difference between the lightning-bug and the lightning.”

What can you use instead of “said”, for example? “Whispered” or “screamed” will communicate far more useful emotion. This is so much more effective than “said quietly” or “said loudly”. It also uses fewer words. We often associate verbosity with someone who is trying to cover something. So to build trust, keep it simple and use simple powerful words.

Now, how to reword my requests about those bath towels??!!

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Like_youknow

He speaks our language!!

I just loved this presentation, this speech – not just his style, but his content, based around our culture and our language – so wise and so hilarious.

Persuasion/inspiration/information/entertainment at its best!

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How to win audience support for your cause

“In public speaking, we must appeal either to the prejudices of others, or to the love of truth and justice. If we think merely of displaying our own ability, we shall ruin every cause we undertake.”

William Hazlitt

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How to communicate what really matters to your audience

So What?

So What? How to communicate what really matters to your audience

Mark Magnacca
 
The people a business tries to communicate with, sell to, or convince don’t really care about the business. Nor do they care what it is offering them—until they understand exactly how it will benefit them. In this book, world-renowned sales consultant Magnacca shows explains how to answer the “So What?” question brilliantly, every time. => http://bit.ly/Zxn7TI

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Harness the Power of Change to Keep your audience engaged.

People notice change. You notice the hum of the air-conditioner when it comes on and when it goes off – but not in between. So change will get attention in your presentations as well.

Change what the audience sees of you and your environment.

Change your stance and gestures.

Change your position and location to emphasis a point.

Change the type of visual aids you are using – maybe from flip chart to object to slides.

Introduce a video clip into your presentation.

Make sure your slides do not follow a template.

Introduce something very different or unexpected.

Change the way you present. Use silence and pauses. Change your tone of voice and your speaking volume. All of these will match what you are trying to deliver – facts, stories, data, persuasion, all require different presentation styles, but the change caused by this will also keep attention.

Change your material.

Signpost changes, or new points you are making by using a sentence or a word, and a gesture, that heralds something new. This regains audience attention as well as whetting their appetite for more. Change topics.

Change the state of the audience. Have them move into groups to discuss a concept or share ideas about a topic. Change later to simply discussing with a neighbour.

Ask questions. Have them raise their hands to answer. This changes their physical state and allows a change in mental attention as well. Get them moving in some other way.

Changes in your presentation, in your presentation style and in the audience’s own physical, emotional and mental states will keep their attention focussed and re-focussed.

(c) Bronwyn Richie
If you want to include this article in your publication, please do, but only if you include the following information with it:

Bronwyn Ritchie is a professional librarian, a writer, and an award-winning speaker and trainer.
She is a certified corporate trainer and speech contest judge with POWERtalk , a certified World Class Speaking coach, and has had 30 years experience speaking to audiences and training in public speaking. Boost your speaking success, click here for Bronwyn’s FREE 30 speaking tips. Join now or go to http://www.30speakingtips.com

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The New Rules of Persuasive Speaking

Carmine spoke to an audience of grad students at the UC Berkeley Haas School of Business. His topic: The New Rules of Persuasive Presentations pulled from his best-selling book The Presentation Secrets of Steve Jobs. Here’s an excerpt.

the New Rules of Persuasive speaking

=> http://bit.ly/YNd0Je

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Quick public speaking tip: Dates, figures and statistics

You can avoid losing your audience by being sparing with dates, figures and statistics.

These are all very powerful ways to support your points, but overuse them and they just become boring, and your audience will turn off.

If data is absolutely necessary, use your slides to create a visual rendition of it.

Tell stories about it.

Find some way to relate it to your audience – percentages of people like them, for example, or of their country.

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Is it ethical to segment an audience, socially, to persuade?

Meet me in the coffee shop for a cuppa and join in the discussion. => http://bit.ly/W47hiy

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How to Become Persuasive in Public Speaking

I am spending time on other writing projects and restructuring my business, so will not be writing new articles for this blog for a while. Enjoy this and the others to come from other writers! I just love Si Yuan’s style in this one …

10 Habits of Effective Speakers

1. Positive thinking
Hang on… isn’t this too much of a cliché? You might have heard umpteen times from people all around you. While it is true that many of us have came around this advice of thinking positive. How many of us actually know how to do it? How many of us believe in this phrase and have seen it in action?

Allow me to demonstrate this point with an exercise you can do in the comfort of your own home. Take a time-keeping devise such as an alarm clock or a stopwatch with a beeping function. (So that it could alert you when the time is up). For the next one minute, think of nothing but a pink elephant. Any pink elephant will do. Think of the size, contours, the intensity of the color “constructed” image in your mind. Do so for the next minute. Do not stop thinking of that pink elephant. Time your with your devise Do so until the beeping sound echoes in your ears. Next I want you to think of anything else except the pink elephant.

That means to say DO NOT think of the pink elephant even for a split second. Do that for another minute. What is the outcome? Can you stop thinking of the elephant? It is IMPOSSIBLE to do so. Why? The reason being our brains are wired in such a way that it is not possible to process negation. When I told you “DO NOT” our brain still thinks it is a “DO” The above example clearly shows that our brains is able to retain what we visualize. Therefore it is important that we do not dwell on negative thoughts. You do not want the images of the pink elephant to stick to your mind.

2. The Act of Repetition
Studies have shown that repetition can increase the rate of retaining of information in our brains. The key here is to lead the audience in repeating the message of the speech like a mantra. An example could be found in the Bible: When I was a child I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. (I Corinthians 13:11)

The stage on which you are on in the exact place where you can make use of this technique. This applies when you have two complimentary speech messages. You may want to stand one side (say the left when delivering one message and the right when delivering the second message. This ensures the effect of repetition as audience will be able to recall the speech message readily by visual association of the stage positioning of the speaker.

3. Establishing Rapport
Let me touch on what rapport is first. Why? Rapport to many people, seems to take the notion of getting people to like them, whereas in fact, you can be in rapport with someone and they don’t like you. All rapport means, according to the dictionary definition, is that it is a relationship harmonized by accord. You can in accord with someone and not like them. The pursuit of liking takes you in the wrong direction, what I am aiming to do here is to make the audience easier to follow us. One thing to note is that in order for rapport to work, the person on the receiving end must have a similar experience in his mind so that we are deemed credible by the other party, THAT increases our powers of persuasion. We must not say anything that will challenge their worldview, thus making establishing rapport easier.

There is a certain pattern in linguistics whereby when a statement is true and the next is true and still the one following it is also true it makes any statement preceding it more probable with each passing statement. By giving them A, B,C and therefore D, it makes the audience easier to follow us. Let me give you one example, what we want to do here is to give our audience a series of truisms, that is some statements that will elicit a series of yes, yes, yes responses wherefore they can validate in their sensory experience or something where the facts cannot be challenged. This is what is known as the “Yes “set in sales, however it is not necessary that we must get a conscious Yes response, but it is necessary that they must be able to validate the statements to be true in their minds. THIS IS where persuasive powers reside.

You can also establish rapport with the audience by asking rhetorical questions. A rhetorical question is a figure of speech in the form of a question that is asked in order to make a point and without the expectation of a reply. The use of this question will enhance rapport. For example in your speech you want to talk about success in public speaking. You can go like this “How many of you grab opportunities to speak EVERYTIME it occurs?” In your mind you might think” hmm it was… ” You then follow up with a statement such as this “Ladies and Gentlemen, this is important because it is the only way to succeed in the public speaking arena.”

4. Use Pauses with Power.
Pauses allow the audience to digest what you are saying so that they can understand the message of your speech better. However you must use pauses at the correct moment so that your speech will have the maximum amount of impact:

Generally you should pause when
1. You are invited on stage and getting ready to deliver your speech,
2. After each main point
3. and before making a very important point.

I want to stress the third point. This point is also known as the power button technique.

For example ” Let me tell you again what I always tell those critics of Singapore… [pause] I will… ” The words that come before the pause is the power button. The pause here is very important because it separates the “power button” statement with the rest of the sentence. In this way, the pause allows the successful setup of the power button, because the power button prepares the audience for something impactful or important to come. The pause creates the suspense and the rest of the sentence blows the audience away.

5. Engage the audience with a story.
This is known as the story telling framework. It is made up of 5 questions. Namely,

1)Where are we and when is it?
2)What roles are we playing in the setting.
3)Why are we here?
4)What do we want to see happen (goal) and lastly
5) How do we get from here to there? (process)

The first point is obvious. The second point relates to the protagonist of the setting who is your audience. Put the limelight on them and make them the hero of your story. This is a sure fire way to increase your powers of persuasion.

The next point gives them the reason of why they are listening to you in the first place. As in a sales setting, you would want to create a pain point. In short, it must be a problem that your audience is facing. The way to do this is to address the pain point, so that you will remind them of why they are listening to you in the first place. As in a sales process, there must a solution to a given problem. You have to propose a solution to help the audience get what they want. It could be something as straightforward as:

“Buy how to become Persuasive in public speaking!”

6. Always keep a word, phrase, funny incident, Story Bank
This technique is recommended by me as it is one of the easiest and most powerful ways to prepare your speech. Because good speech materials could not pop up overnight, they have to be accumulated. It will serve you well in case you plan to be a professional speaker in the future. Memorable stories are few and even if you could remember them, you will not be able to remember the details. A bank could be as simple as a notepad or book that you bring with you WHEREVER you go. With the advancement of technology, you could also easily store your BANK on your smart phones.

7. The 3Ps – Practice, Practice and Practice
This seems easy but it is one of the most difficult habits to acquire. More often than not, we cram the preparing of our speeches to the last minute, because of other commitments and there is no worse lesson to learn than this: Your speech will not be able to flow without enough practice, at most you will only remember the content of your speech. Smooth delivery can only be acquired through practice.

8. Grab every single opportunity to speak
After the 3Ps comes the 3s(es). What is it? World Speaking Champion in 2001 Darren LaCroix coined this term. It simply means Stage Time, Stage Time and more Stage time. In essence, in order to increase your persuasive powers, you must acquire any opportunity that allows you to speak. Because without it you cannot get any better than you last spoke. To turn down a speaking opportunity is tantamount to losing one chance to improve your persuasive speaking skills
Joining a Toastmasters Club is an excellent way to increase that stage time. That was what happened to me. I was initially very scared of even speaking to a crowd, let alone standing in front of them to give a speech. But over the years, I realized that the ONLY way to be a better speaker is to JUST DO IT!

9. Start with Achievable goals
In order to be a persuasive speaking you have to start with small goals. Each small step you take with take you closer to your larger goals. This is called accumulating small wins for yourself. With each small win, you confidence level will grow.

What I mean by achievable goals not only apply to yourself, it also means giving the audience small achievable goals(step towards the goal) so that they are immediately apply what they have heard as soon as they leave. In this way, your powers of persuasion would also increase tremendously.

10. Learn to analyze the excellent speeches
This last habit is the culmination of all the previous 9 habits. In order to effectively analyse speeches, you will have to know what’s good about it. You must be able to identify the areas of improvement that can be effected in a speech to make them even better. It will therefore allow you to adopt a critic mindset of a speech so that it will give insight as to how to substitute certain words or phrase to make them even more powerful, thus increasing your persuasive powers in delivering the speech. It is also important to learn from these speech, so that if need be you can even use them in your own speeches.

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Si Yuan is a Toastmaster’s competent communicator who lives in Singapore. He has recently embarked on his journey to help others in the area of public speaking.

For more resources as to how you can improve your public speaking skills and free ebook Visit his site at http://lets-learn-self-improvement.com/

and Grab his free ebook at http://lets-learn-self-improvement.com/speaking-power/

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Using reciprocity to persuade without manipulating – “Do the right thing”

If you want to persuade, you can build your success with the reciprocity rule.

What is the Reciprocity rule?

When someone gives us something, we feel obligated to give something back. We are uncomfortable if we don’t. And that something might be a physical object or it might be a service or a gift. That something might not even be something we want or need. We probably never asked for it, or expected it.

How does this work?

The Reciprocity Rule has been ingrained in us for centuries. I suspect it began in a society that was based on barter and trade. The system could only survive if there was a rule that we always return favours, we must never owe. It safeguards anyone who wants to do a favour or give a gift – they know they will get something in return.

Strangely enough, the return favour can be bigger than the original and we will reciprocate even if we don’t like the person who gave the gift or don’t like the gift itself. The rule is that deep and that powerful. It is part of our socialisation process. People who do not return favours are shunned. We are brought up that this is the right thing to do, and warned of dire consequences if we do not “do the right thing”.

Because the rule is so deeply ingrained, we are used to using it when we need to make decisions. There are so many decisions to be made on a daily basis that we will use whatever we can to avoid having to think about them and this rule comes in handy. Oftentimes the decision to think in a certain way or to choose a particular person can be based solely on the fact that we owe them something, or that they gave us something.

It has been found that no human society does not use the reciprocity rule. It has been used by corporations and governments to persuade people for thousands of years.

I want to look at this concept of “doing the right thing” but first want to add some of the ways the Reciprocity Rule works in practice. It does not just apply to gifts or favours. It applies to concessions. I request a favour and it is refused. Then I request a smaller favour. Because I have made a concession to you, it is highly likely that you will accede to the smaller favour in return. If I yield to your opinion on one topic, it is more likely that you will agree with me on the next topic, in return.

Now, given all of this information, you can go ahead and use the reciprocity rule in your persuasion efforts. Making sales? Offer a freebie, any freebie, and ask for the sale. Asking for a favour? Ask for a huge one first, then you can ask for what your really want. Want to change someone’s mind? Agree with them on anything else, but expect them to change in the way you wanted. And this amounts not just to persuasion, but to manipulation.

We all know of salesmen, the old type of salesmen, who use the rule of reciprocity to trick people into the sale – to manipulate. Many of us immediately put up a barrier as soon as we suspect the trickery. Every time someone knocks on my home front door, I move into that barrier mode. I don’t like it because I cannot “do the right thing”, and politely reciprocate. I have to be on alert to trickery. In the end, we will use the rule of reciprocity to buy or to return favours or to be persuaded, when we believe that the gifts or favours or beliefs are valuable and offered in good faith. We will not reciprocate a favour or gift for a trick or a marketing tactic.

Now I want to turn this around and look at the situation from our viewpoint as speakers who want to persuade. And there are speakers who are so obviously using these techniques with one thing in mind – manipulation – their own gain…. they are not “doing the right thing” either.

And now there are other people not “doing the right thing” – in our audiences. As a speaker, we also are facing the challenge of dealing with people who are distracted from our messages by their electronic devices – their phones, laptops, tablets. Not very long ago, this would have been considered incredibly bad manners, to show such disrespect for a speaker – certainly not “doing the right thing”. So we cannot depend on our audiences to do the right thing and sit through ill-disguised efforts to trick them into buying our products, or trick them into doing us favours or trick them into believing the message we have for them.

So what is the answer to this quandary? How can we create a win-win situation for everyone – persuade ethically and not manipulate or trick. I think the answer lies in “doing the right thing”.

Be prepared to give without expecting something in return. Know that giving is a useful persuasion tool, but give anyway.

Give value – that is value to the audience or your client or potential buyer, something that is exclusively for that person or group of people.

Be transparent and authentic. Make it clear that you are giving a gift. Use language that reinforces this side of the transaction. But make it clear that the recipient has a choice. You are “doing the right thing” but also empowering your client/audience/buyer. Empowered people feel more open to being persuaded. Make it also very clear that what you are asking for in return is in their best interests as well – the service you offer, the new perspective you introduce, the product.

If you want to use the rejection-retreat strategy, then do so transparently. It is valid to assume that a portion of your audience will want the higher priced product, the more difficult action to take. It is also valid to assume that perhaps more will want the lower priced/easier solution, and you can make that clear as well.

In terms of making a concession, it makes sense to address objections to an idea early on in a presentation. People need to feel understood and to have their beliefs and prior understandings validated, even if you are about to prove them wrong!! And that is the “doing the right thing” aspect of making a concession in terms of a belief so that your audience may be more happy to reciprocate and make a concession towards whatever you want to persuade them to do, think or feel.

I really do not want us to be part of the increasing number of speakers who use ill-disguised efforts at manipulation in order to persuade – not when it is so easy to “do the right thing” and persuade with honesty, openness, integrity and to create a win for all concerned.

© Bronwyn Ritchie … If you want to include this article in your publication, please do, but please include the following information with it:
Bronwyn Ritchie helps speakers to be confident and effective. In just 6 months time, you could be well on the way to being admired, rehired as a speaker, confident and sucessful, with the 30 speaking tips. Click here for 30 speaking tips for FREE. Join now or go to http://www.30speakingtips.com

5 ways to persuade your audience by appealing to their social natures

It’s terribly important for most people to fit in, to belong, to be part of a group. Our clothes fashion industry depends on it, our politicians depend on it and cliques everywhere thrive on it.

I know – it’s not terribly smart to always follow the herd, but when we are not sure of ourselves or want to find out the best way to do things, we tend to find out what everyone else is doing and try it on for size.

And of course, this applies to your audiences as well.

If you want to introduce a new idea or persuade them to think, act or feel in a new way, then you can tap into this herd instinct.

People don’t want to feel an outcast because their beliefs and habits are different.

They also tend to believe that the more other people do something or believe something then the more likely it is to be true or worth doing. This is why you can use polls and survey results to support your ideas.

We also tend to have a case of “I want what she/he’s having”. We want to be like someone else who has the lifestyle we think we want. Maybe they are rich and famous, confident, a celebrity, a superstar, a guru. So if you can associate your idea or point or product with someone who is famous or a celebrity, then people are really tempted to adopt it. Celebrity endorsement is a great persuader.

Social proof is a powerful support in your efforts to persuade.

Testimonials are a fantastic way to provide social proof. If I hear somewhere that 36,000 people are listening to a speaker, then I think he must be worth hearing. If a book is outselling “Harry Potter” I should investigate it.

Those testimonials are using the power of numbers.

If people believe a testimonial comes from a neutral third party, that testimonial will be more powerful for them.

It is especially powerful if your audience believes it is coming from a person who is similar to them. If the testimonial tells about how someone overcame the same problem, or it tells how someone just like them achieved what they want it will be powerful. And of course if you tell a story about someone just like them who overcame the same problems to achieve what they want then you can sell that solution. Align yourself with your audience from the beginning of your speech and that someone can be you. Tell your own story.

If, on the other hand, you aren’t seen as an authority, yet, align yourself with someone who is. That”s why we use quotations in our speeches, to align ourselves with that other person’s wisdom and sometimes wit! If we choose someone the audience admires as an authority, then we increase our own credibility.

The final way to use the social side of your audience’s nature is to create a group. You can create a group of the whole audience, have them relating to each other, feeling that they have much in common, that they have similar problems and similar dreams. Then create emotion so that they feel that together. Crowd behaviour can be a powerful way of tipping someone over to support your idea.

I have also seen a speaker create a group within the audience. Get some indication from your audience as to who believes in a particular point you are making, or supports a particular role model you hold up. Maybe they find something easy, that the rest of the audience finds difficult. Then you can take advantage of the feeling of being left out that attacks the rest of the audience, and give them the opportunity to join the group you set up.

I know this may sound to be bordering on unethical. I have seen these methods used by the unscrupulous in ways that just made me angry and I certainly don’t want to recommend that approach. But from watching those presenters at work and then reading up on what they had done and why, I have discovered that it is something we all do, unconsciously.

If you are not using people’s social senses in your speaking, consider it, and how you can fit it into your own ethical, authentic presentation style.

Author: Bronwyn Ritchie If you want to include this article in your publication, please do, but please include the following information with it:
Bronwyn Ritchie is a professional librarian, writer, award-winning speaker and trainer. She is a certified corporate trainer and speech contest judge with POWERtalk, a certified World Class Speaking coach, and has had 30 years’ experience speaking to audiences and training in public speaking. In just 6 months time, you could be well on the way to being admired, rehired as a speaker, confident and sucessful, with the 30 speaking tips. Click here for 30 speaking tips for FREE. Join now or go to http://www.30speakingtips.com