In this lesson, I’ll outline how I would write a sample persuasive speech.
First, you can watch a sample persuasive by career analyst Dan Pink who examined what motivates employees.
Here are the steps to develop a sample persuasive speech like Mr. Pink.
As with any presentation, you must first grab the audience’s attention. For persuasive presentations, you’ll often state a problem in the opening of your presentation. For example, you might say “predatory mortgages have ruined our neighborhood as vacant homes are being looted.”
In a persuasive speech you must then relate the problem to the audience. Why is it important to the audience? Does the audience live in the neighborhood? Do they pay property taxes? Are their home prices being affected by the foreclosure crisis?
After you have explained the problem you then want to propose a solution. You will need to rely on facts, statistics and other supporting material from credible sources as part of your proposal. You can then use the “two possible worlds” approach. You describe two opposite worlds to compare and contrast two solutions. The first world is one where your proposal is rejected. You talk about how property prices in the neighborhood would fall. You could talk about how the foreclosed houses would not be maintained, the distracting blight as you drive by on the way to work in the morning. You could talk about how your taxes would have to increase to support the lost revenue from vacant homes.
In this sample persuasive speech, you then want to talk about how the neighborhood will look if your solution is adopted. You would mention the increased safety because owners are more likely to look out for their neighbors’ property. You would describe how the full tax base could enable further investments into local schools.
Finally, in a persuasive speech you have to urge your listeners to take a course of action. In the previous example, the course of action might be to vote for the passage of a new mortgage relief bill. Your audience now understands the problem, has been able to visualize the benefit of your solution and now clearly understands the course of action that you want them to take. You have appealed to their logic by way of supporting evidence and you have appealed to their emotion by showing how this problem is affecting their wealth, their safety and the enjoyment of their real estate.
These are the major steps that I would take if I was writing a sample persuasive speech.
