How to Become a More Persuasive Speaker: A Systems Approach
Copyright 2005 Larry Tracy

There is no surer way to get ahead in business than to be a
persuasive speaker. However, because public speaking is
normally found at the top of lists of fears in the United
States, many business people, especially engineers and
other technical specialists, fail to make the effort to
become better speakers, and thus fail to reach their
potential.

In my judgment, as one who has delivered hundreds of
presentations and trained thousands of business and
government executives, there is no skill easier to learn,
with greater payoff, than mastering the art of persuasive
speaking.

So how can business people and technical specialists add
the weapon of persuasive speaking to their business skills
arsenal? By developing a systematic, not haphazard, method
to plan, practice and present--the same systematic method
they use in their day-to-day work.

A systems approach is the ideal way to draft and deliver a
presentation or speech.

Surprisingly, however, few people apply the very discipline
they use in their business when it comes time to stand and
deliver. In this article, I want to share with you the
systematic method I teach in my executive workshops and in
my book, "The Shortcut to Persuasive Presentations."

Why should engineers, IT specialists and other technical
experts bring the same systematic approach to speaking that
they bring to their work projects? For the simple reason
that being able to express yourself is the best way to
stand out from the crowd. The famed management expert Peter
Drucker once wrote that

"The ability to express oneself is perhaps the most
important of all the
skills a person can possess."

Effective, persuasive communication is the transferring of
information from your brain to the brains(s) of your
audience in such a manner that this audience - one or many
- accepts your information as its own, and now realizes the
benefits of accepting the information you are presenting.

This requires focus and an in-depth knowledge of what
motivates your audience so you can direct your message to
hit these hot buttons. It also requires the ability to
anticipate objections and questions the audience may have,
and the discipline to practice realistically.

An imperative for any oral presentation is structure. The
presentation must be logical and easily followed by the
audience. Thematic unity, useful in a written essay, is
absolutely necessary in an oral presentation. The young
Winston Churchill, in his 1897 essay, "The Scaffolding of
Rhetoric," emphasized that the audience must know where
they were being taken by the speaker on this oratorical
journey. His famed speeches in World War ll suggests he
followed his own advice.

To be an effective speaker, you must certainly know your
stuff. That is almost a truism, although there are many
people with more audacity than judgment who stand before a
group with far less knowledge than prudence would dictate.

The majority of people who are called on to present,
however, are substantive experts, and therein lays an
essential problem. They believe that their knowledge is
sufficient, and they need not devote any attention to
delivery skills. Big mistake

In my "Presentation Skills in Nutshell" workshop for
executives, I teach an easy-to-learn-and-internalize system
to develop and deliver a coherent and persuasive
presentation. I call it the S3P3 System. Turn on you mental
PowerPoint and visualize three Pillars supporting a
Pyramid. The Pillars are labeled Substance Structure, and
Style, and the Pyramid is divided into three
parts-Planning, Practicing, and Presenting

Let's first examine the Pillars, and then we'll climbk
the Pyramid.

SUBSTANCE
Mastery of the subject is an vital for any speaker. You
must have a clearly defined objective and focused research.
This does not mean only compilation of factual data. You
need an active and comprehensive knowledge of the subject
at issue in order to respond to challenges from the
audience, especially if the audience may be predisposed to
disagree.

Only a solid grasp of the subject matter can save a
presenter when confronted with an unexpected question or
objection from the audience. However, Substance without
Structure or Style can make the presentation an incoherent,
boring recitation of data.

STRUCTURE
The human mind possesses a certain data-processing logic.
The speaker who is aware of how people process information,
and how new data are either accepted or rejected, can learn
to structure a presentation so as to facilitate
comprehension.

The knowledge of the audience's self-interest, or "What's
in it for me?," is an essential tool for structuring a
presentation so it hits the target of the collective mind
of audience members.

STYLE
This is the most frequently-ignored pillar of the speaking
art by substantive experts, possibly because it has the
connotation of show business. By Style, I mean word
choice, body language, eye contact, movement, and vocal
quality.

Style is that almost indefinable quality of a speaker that
causes audience members, even those opposed to the issue
being "sold," to listen, not be bored, and to open their
minds. Another word of caution: Style without Substance can
expose the speaker to the charge of being shallow.

Now, let us take a look at the three levels of the Pyramid:

PLANNING
Planning is the wide base required of any stable structure
and any good presentation. It is the single most important
building element of any presentation. Unfortunately, most
presentations are done with an inverted Pyramid as the
model, with the narrow base indicating little planning,
thus placing all the weight on the presentation. This lack
of planning frequently results in poor presentations.

Good business sense dictates that the same effort which
goes into the development of a product, policy, or service
be devoted to the presentation whose purpose is selling
this product, policy, or service. The planning stage is
where the presenter develops a game plan and point of view
for the presentation.

An important part of the planning process is gathering
Audience Intelligence - information about the concerns,
problems, attitudes, and expectations of that group of
people you are about to face in your presentation.

Because the speaker needs to mesh his or her objective for
the presentation with the audience's needs and concerns,
the more time spent on strategic planning, the easier will
be the actual presentation.

If planning is so important, why is it frequently ignored?
Perhaps because time is the enemy of all, and there are
such demands on our time that few people are ready to
literally sit down and think. If they do so, however, they
gain maximum advantage from a minimum investment of time.

PRACTICING
After you have completed the planning stage, you are now
ready to start practicing. This is an orderly means to
internalize the presentation. You will take some of the
apprehension out of the experience by anticipating
reactions, comments and questions and developing
appropriate responses.

An important tool in practicing is conducting a "Murder
Board," a realistic simulation of the presentation in front
of a suitable audience, e.g. colleagues, relatives,
friends, who can put your knowledge to the test. (I have
posted other articles on this extremely important aspect of
practicing. I bring it to the field of presentations
training from the military, where it is a staple of
briefings.) In this simulation,your mistakes won't count
because if you fail you can go back to the planning stage
and make the necessary corrections.

Your confidence zooms when you have gone through a practice
phase that enables you to say: "I know this subject better
than anyone in the audience. I want them to take their best
shot, because I'll be able to answer any question thrown at
me!" That is the attitude you want to carry with you to the
presentation.

PRESENTING
Finally, you reach that apex, the actual presentation. This
is the payoff for the time you have spent assuring you have
included all the required substance, placed within a
structure that facilitates audience agreement,
and comprehension of the position you are advocating, done
with the style most appropriate to make your presentation
memorable and successful.

If you have (1) done the planning, to include audience
intelligence collection, and developed a focus that meshes
with audience members' needs and concerns, (2) then
practiced with focus, to include an intensive simulation
enabling you to anticipate questions and objections, you
are ready for "show-time."

Always keep this model of the three Pillars supporting the
Pyramid in mind when drafting a presentation, and you will
be able to deliver logically structured substantive
knowledge with persuasive power.




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This article is excerpted from Larry Tracy's book, "The
Shortcut to Persuasive Presentations," available for
purchase through PayPal at his website. A retired Army
colonel, he was called "an extraordinarily effective
speaker" by President Ronald Reagan. He has been cited in
numerous publications as one of the top presentations
trainers in the US. His website is #1 on Google for
"persuasive presentations, and he will be on the cover of
the July 2005 American Speaker magazine.
http://www.tracy-presentation.com