Persuasive Speaking in a New Setting

Jill Foster was a consummate public speaker: she was confident, articulate and friendly. When I walked in, I immediately got the impression of a self-assured communicator who could easily explain her position and goals. She is the founder of liveyourtalk.com, an organization and website aimed at helping professional women communicate in public, both through online social media and in traditional settings. Sh began her presentation with an interactive element, where she asked us if and how we had used persuasion while completing our group projects.

Foster introduced the idea of non-public persuasive speaking, where one had to communicate in a semi-public or private situation. This type of communication had less to do with convincing a large audience, but more to do with potential clients or employers. Foster used an anecdote of her experiences to explain what she meant. While she worked with Borders as in corporate sales, she faced a situation where, due to the mishandling of an order from the Borders supplier, she ad to tell a client that the books that she had ordered were going to be late. After listening to the client's angry tirade, which included cursing in Italian, she calmly proposed a plan which would give the client the option of having the books delivered a day late. Her composure in the face of this anger and frustration meant that, eventually, she did deliver the books, and even proceeded to make more clients from the good relationship she had established.

From this anecdote, Foster introduced the four questions to ask yourself before delivering a persuasive speech.

1. What point of view do you represent?
2. What was the his/her point of view and how did it affect the conversation?
3. How did he/she phrase it? What was at stake in the conversations?
4. How did your emotional resolve persuade the outcome? How did it detour from the outcome?

With these four questions, you can understand the audience, whether it is one person or one thousand, and its perspective. By understanding the audience, you can make your point much better. Since there are "always environments for persuading others," understanding to whom you are speaking is essential. When many things, including valuable business deals are at stake in any given conversation, it is important to consider the audience and its needs. In a case where you may have allay concerns for a client, it is important to make note of your emotional state. For instance, when Foster was faced with an irate customer, she kept her cool and made sure that she conveyed her message clearly, and without being too emotional.

She then transitioned to a question-answer component of the presentation, where we asked questions about our persuasive speeches. I asked her about how to make a negative point of view "better," to which she responded that I should introduce a negative aspect of the conventional viewpoint. This would allow others to rationally recognize that there is a valid point to your argument, and possibly even sway them towards your perspective.

Her most significant assertion, in my opinion, was how to make your passion for a topic or field of interest impact other people. She stated that, while passion can make your speech resonate and make it powerful-sounding, it will only take you so far. Passion can only interest people, whereas logic and evidence resonate with and persuade people. "Articulating you passion," as she called it involved informing the audience without losing your passion

Overall, Jill Foster was an excellent public speaker who shared with us much information about how to be a successful public speaker. Her energy kept us all riveted and she made use of her passion to interest the audience, while backing up her statements with sound logic. Her experience in communicating with others has allowed her to develop insights that can greatly help young adults. She did an excellent job of educating us on the qualities of excellent persuasive speakers and gave lots of information to help us with our own persuasive speeches.

http://twitter.com/JILLFOSTER

http://liveyourtalk.com/