Persuade your audience to listen

The beginning of your speech should always start with something the audience can relate
to, something that is common ground. From that point onwards you start with persuading
your audience to keep on listening.

Experts in the field usually don’t need much of an introduction, apart from the
topic. They are experts, meaning they will probably know why this (specific part of the)
information is relevant to them and how it’s linked to the rest of the information in the
field. They have an intrinsic motivation to keep on listening. But other audiences might be
less knowledgeable and therefore probably need more information to understand and
more convincing: You need to persuade them to keep on listening.


According to Aristotle (2) persuasion, and the willingness to listen to you, depends
on three things: Logos, Ethos and Pathos. Does it make sense what you’re saying (logos),
do they find you credible as a person (ethos) and/or are they emotionally moved by
something you say (pathos). These three are interlinked, influencing one another.

Since every audience is different, your introduction will strongly depend on the audience
you’re facing. To determine what introduction your audience needs you can use certain
structural elements (logos) to define the content of your introduction. I call these the
persuasion points: the facts you could use to persuade your audience to listen.

Persuading with logic

The one thing every audience needs to know is the goal of the presentation: What does
the presenter want to achieve and/or what does or should the audience want to achieve.
For example: (a) ’informing the audience on a solution’ or (b) ‘making a new product’, but
also (c) ‘giving your audience knowledge’.

As said before, experts in the field often understand why this is a relevant goal, but
other types of audiences might not. The latter you could help by telling them the reason of
this goal: the complication. The complication is the problem or the opportunity on which
the goal is reacting. 

For example: (a) ‘The problem you have the solution to’, (b) ‘A new technique which
enables you to make this product’ or ‘the fact that the current products are not good
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enough’, (c) ‘that fact that they don’t have this specific knowledge’. 

Experts probably know the problem and will instantly be reminded of this problem
when you tell them the solution. But certain audiences might not even understand the
complication or why it is a complication. In this case it might help to tell them the
(un)desired result of your complication. The ‘What if…?’. What undesired result will be
the consequence of you or your audience not acting upon this complication? Or what if
you or your audience does act upon the complication, what desired result will be the
consequence of reaching the goal?

Together the persuasion points will form your introduction. A few examples:

- “These kinds of problems currently take up a lot of time and money (complication,
problem). As a consequence we cannot fix all the problems in time, which means
people will get injured (undesired result). Your model can solve the problem quickly
with less money spent and it will be fixed in a better way (desired result).”

The fact that your audience should know about this model (goal) is hidden but your
audience knows this is the goal. They want to know now.

- “Currently chances are very low you will be cured from a certain decease (undesired
result). With this new technique (complication, opportunity) we might be able to make
a product (goal), which enables doctors to cure more people from this decease
(desired result).”

- “Not knowing this information (complication, problem) could lead to the wrong career
choice and you being unhappy (undesired result).” 

Which altogether refers to ‘obtaining this knowledge’ (goal).

If your audience understands all this, if they realise there is a problem, if they want the
desired result or do not want the undesired result to happen, in other words: If they want
the goal to be reached, you’ve motivated them to listen.

But what if they do not see how this is a problem or something (un)desirable?
Some goals are understandable by everyone and some only by experts in the field. The
same goes for complications and (un)desired results. If none of your persuasion points
are understood by your audience you need to explain the situation to them. Give them the
information they need so they’ll understand why there is a problem and/or why something
is desirable. The common ground might be quite far from your topic area, which means
you might need to start with something from daily life. Make sure you keep it to the bare
minimum though: The introduction is to persuade your audience to listen, not to make
them fully understand the topic.

Persuading with pathos and ethos

Your persuasion points (logos) might also raise pathos and/or ethos. A problem might be
so grave it touches upon peoples emotions (pathos) and they will feel this problem is
important and needs to be solved. Or you will build your credibility (ethos) when you are
able to logically connect your persuasion points using very little words.

When you create pathos your audience will accept some lack in logos, but trying to create
pathos without logos will not work. It will even reduce your ethos: If your audience
discovers there is not a good reason (logos) for them to have these emotions (pathos),
they will not trust you anymore (ethos). You’ve abused their feeling to convince them.

You could for instance tell your audience that people are dying due to failure of
certain techniques, and how awful it is to die in that way. You could even say you knew
someone who died from this decease. It’s quite personal I think, but you could do this if
you want. But do know that dying generally is not good, so you don’t háve to make it this
personal. But when you start to tell them why it was disastrous that this specific person
died at that moment, how many kids he or she had, plans for the future… then, in my
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