How To Deliver A Persuasive Presentation

In this article, I will show you several tips on how to deliver a persuasive presentation. Learning how to be persuasive is a definite must if you have any plans of becoming successful in life.

That’s because if you want to achieve something in this world, you have to know how to harness one of the greatest resources around – other people.

And I’m not just talking about persuading them to work for you or something like that because a truly persuasive presentation can make an audience do just about anything.

Tips On How To Deliver A Persuasive Presentation

Everybody from entrepreneurs selling their products and politicians trying to garner votes to students defending their dissertations and theses can benefit from knowing how to deliver a persuasive presentation properly.

Lucky for you, I’ve listed quite a few tips to help you with this. Just read on below if you want to learn more.

Have A Solid Goal In Place

When organizing and delivering persuasive speech, you need to have a clear goal defined right from the start.

What do you want to achieve with your presentation? What kind of reaction are you hoping for?

Write it down and start planning your presentation around it. Make sure that your presentation’s content is a direct answer to your goal.

Try to avoid listing down vague goals because this makes it hard for you to pinpoint what you have to do.

Know Your Audience

If you want to deliver a persuasive presentation, the first thing you have to do is know your audience. You can’t persuade a group of people if you don’t know how to appeal to them.

Do your research on your audience. Know what they like and dislike, what interests them, what they value, what they know about the topic of your presentation, etc.

Prepare In Advance

If you want to deliver a persuasive presentation, you can’t let your audience feel that you don’t know what you’re talking about.

Make sure to master your presentation and practice as much as you can.

You can start with a persuasive presentation outline and then try to learn everything there is to know about your topic.

You have to be able to explain everything clearly and answer every question adequately.

Be Clear And Concise

Keep in mind that people generally lose interest when something is taking too long or is too complicated.

If you want to keep your audience’s interest piqued, you have to make sure that your presentation is brief but comprehensive, without sacrificing clarity.

Don’t dwell on unimportant details. Focus on the information that would have the most effect in getting your audience to do what you want them to.

Try not to be too technical as well. Your audience will lose intersest if they can’t follow your presentation.

List Down Benefits For Your Audience

People will be more willing to do what you ask them to if there’s something in it for them. Don’t be afraid to take advantage of that.

Present your audience with benefits. Make them want to do what you want them to.

Just take care not to give them benefits that are too vague, because your audience might find that sketchy. When that happens, you’ll end up turning away your audience instead of capturing them.

Here’s a tip: one of the best ways to present benefits to your audience is by using testimonials or reviews. It makes the benefits feel more tangible for your audience, making them even more appealing.

Exude Confidence

When you give your presentation confidently, you give off a “Trust me, I know what I’m talking about” vibe and your audience will be more likely to trust you. It will be much easier to persuade an audience that trusts you.

Make Eye Contact

It’s easier to persuade people if they feel a connection of some sort with you, and one of the easiest ways to do that is by simply making eye contact.

Whenever you make eye contact with your audience, you give them the impression of dialogue.

Making eye contact is a fundamental aspect of communication, and it’s only basic courtesy that you make eye contact with the people you’re talking to.

So, whenever you make eye contact with your audience, you affirm that they’re included in the presentation not just as onlookers, but as the receiving end of your efforts at persuasion.

Making eye contact also serves the purpose of making you seem more trustworthy.

Avoiding eye contact is a common tell for people who are hiding something, so it’s only safe to assume that people who can meet your eyes aren’t lying to you.

And as mentioned above, when your audience trusts you, it’s easier for you to persuade them to do what you want them to do.

Appeal To Their Emotions

People are moved to action more easily when emotions are involved. Whatever you want your audience to do after your presentation – whether that’s to buy a product, join a group, adopt a certain lifestyle, etc. – you’ll find that it’ll be easier to persuade them if you appeal to their emotions.

Emotions play a huge part in decision-making, so use that to your advantage. Just be sure to do so properly.

You can’t just use an emotional appeal out of nowhere. It has to feel organic like it’s part of the natural progression of your presentation. Otherwise, it would just appear manipulative.

Use Effective Speech

I want you to read these sentences aloud:

You can do it.

You can do it.

You can do it.

Notice how changing the stress from one word to the next totally changes how you perceive the message? Keep that in mind next time you have a presentation. The way you say things make a difference, and there is always a right way to say something.

If you want to persuade your audience, you have to use the right technique for effective and persuasive speech.

Experiment and find out what tone, pitch of voice, volume, dramatic pause, etc. suits your presentation best (that is, that which works best for your goal).

Are You Ready To Start Delivering Persuasive PowerPoint Presentations?

Knowing how to give persuasive PowerPoint presentations can help you become more successful in your work or study.

Whether or not you’re a beginner in giving presentations, you’ll find that you can use the tips listed above no matter what end goal you’ve set for your presentation.

Just don’t forget to keep on practicing, because while many try to deliver persuasive presentations, not many succeed.

Work on it like you would with any other skill. Put in the hard work, and eventually, you’ll see the sweet, sweet fruit of your efforts.