Living Entrepreneurship Blog / Babson Entrepreneurs

How Can You Be Persuasive

With the Summer Venture Showcase coming up on Thursday, July 30, the 2015 Summer Venture Program participants have been getting ready to present their ventures to a large audience of investors, entrepreneurs, service providers, faculty and students. Babson’s Speech Center recently shared some tips on how to be persuasive with your presentation.

Everyone can think of individuals who they think are persuasive speakers. Why are they persuasive? Persuasion is type of demonstration. As French philosopher Blaise Pascal said, “We are generally the better persuaded by the reasons we discover ourselves than by those given to us by others.” As a presenter, we can control the evidence we share, the delivery, and the language we use. The things we cannot control are time, space and occasion.

According to Artistotle, persuasion succeeds or fails based on

  • Ethos – your credibility, how people perceive you – competence, character, charisma
  • Pathos – your emotional appeal, effectiveness
  • Logos – your appeal to logical information – your data, structure

There are different organizational formats that persuasive presentations can use:

  • problem/solution
  • cause and effect
  • Monroe’s Motivated Sequence – Attention, Need, Satisfaction, Visualization, Action
  • AIDA – Approach, Interest, Desire, Action

In order to be persuasive, remember to think about who your audience is and what you are asking of them. Choose language that clearly articulates points that you are trying to make, that can create mental images and is vivid. Structure your presentation to influence others.

Register now for 2015 Summer Venture Showcase on Thursday, July 30 to hear some persuasive presentations!