How to Find a Good Persuasive
Speech Topic
The Audience Centered Approach to
Persuasion Speech Topics
When you are not searching for a
good persuasion speech topic, writing a persuasive speech,
polishing your public speaking skills or presenting a speech, What
are you doing?
You are most probably interacting
with people -- interacting with people at your work, at the malls,
at your medical care facility, at the bank, at the library,
socializing with your family and friends -- You are interacting
with living, breathing, emotionally charged, vibrant people every
where you turn.
It should be easy for you to figure
out the hot emotional buttons that drive a person every day.
So how do you find a compelling persuasive
speech topic that will have your audience sitting excitedly
forward gripping the edge of their chairs, straining hungrily to
devour every word that you speak… Like a hungry wolf they strain
to grab and run with every sentence you utter as if their life
depends on it. Finally you want to have them eating out of your
hand and following you faithfully like a puppy to do everything
you tell them to do… and wanting even more of your speeches…
First of all analyze your audience…
I know you have already read a whole lot about age, gender,
political and cultural affiliations, educational background,
financial standing blah, blah, blah...
I don’t just mean that. I
mean truly analyze your audience… are you presenting a speech to
your colleagues, to your fellow students in class, as part of a
project, as a sales pitch…
What are the emotions that your
audience goes through in their daily lives…
For instance if they
are attending classes at part time in the evenings even though
most of them have jobs, families, and daily living issues such as
health, finances, family relationships, career etc that are almost
common to every one, then most likely they are trying to improve
their position , looking for a promotion etc…
We all live and have similar issues
… you may try to consider the issues that you yourself are facing…
most of your audience members would be facing very similar issues
that can be grouped under… health, relationships, career, finances
etc…. What are the common issues that people who will listen to
your speech face?
Why are they coming to listen to
your speech in the first place… How to Discover the Elements of
Persuasion for your speech:
-
to learn something new,
-
to improve their skills,
-
because they feel they face
certain challenges, which you can help them to sort out,
-
because of your expertise,
-
because they have heard about you
somewhere,
-
because they are trying to polish
their skills to be able to progress in their careers/social
lives etc.
For instance most people are:
-
Trying to figure out ways to make
more money or to better manage their finances
-
Most people have relationship
issues at some level or other
-
Most people have some kind of
health issue… this may be weight loss, smoking, staying fit or
healthy, or alternative health etc.
-
Most young people are looking
forward to great careers, while middle aged people might be
facing career burn outs, career change decisions, lack of jobs
etc.
-
Most people experience stress,
anxiety, or other depressions or fears of some kind
-
Most people have some emotional or
psychological problem facing them
-
A lot of people are stuck at some
point in life and desperately trying to move forward.
So you have to figure out what are
the emotional problems being faced by your audience… say for
instance if you are speaking to a group of teenagers… a topic such
as dating tips or how to get dates etc might be an instant hit
If you are talking to middle aged
people… topics such as career issues, alternative health,
motivational/ spiritual , finances work well.
Another way of coming up with a
great topic… is to analyze the hot news of the day… for instance
has a major event / natural disaster / war / political issue been
dominating all the news headlines… then almost all members of the
audience are already aware of it and have an interest in it….
Brainstorm for a topic related to a major news event that has been
gripping the people during that time
Important Public Speaking
Tip : Find the emotional hot buttons of
the day and trigger them. That’s how you will have your audience
sitting on the edge , gripping their chairs with both hands and
listening to you with rapt attention, even adoration… and you may
well develop customers for life. This is the audience centered
approach to public speaking.
Another important tip is that
always select a topic that will be of interest to your audience,
and not of your own interest… because no one wants to hear you
speak about yourself, they want to hear you speak about them…
-
How they can increase their
financial income,
-
How they can improve their life ,
relationships and circumstances
-
How they can become extremely
charismatic, confidence etc.
-
How Unusual discoveries could work
out great for them…
-
How can they take better care of
themselves and improve their health
-
How can they become better
Look for the unusual…
For instance, Persuasion Speech
Topics of
universal interest are…
-
Travel related
-
Unusual scientific and
archaeological discoveries
-
Alternative health therapies
-
Spiritual and motivational topics
-
Money and career topics
-
Even relationship topics.
The buzz words are emotional, hot,
unusual or bizarre,
Elements of Persuasion - Some hot psychological / emotional
angles you could work the Persuasive Speeche from are:
-
Greed
-
Fear
-
Anger
-
Love
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Happiness
-
Jealousy
-
Guilt
-
Suspicion
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Hope
-
Patriotism
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Emotional support
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Addictions
-
Trauma
-
Euphoria
-
Mob mentality
The best way to capture these
emotions in your speech is to use the elements of visualization…
describe, show , visualize, capture your own feelings. To get a
better understanding of speech topics and how to work upon the
magic of emotions for persuasion, Read The Persuasive speech
examples on this
page. Also Here are some really
Interesting
Speech Topics For Public Speaking.
Persuasive Speech Topics - More Articles:
More
Persuasive speaking Resources:
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