CC Speech 9: Persuade with Power
March 6, 2011 2 Comments
Project 9 in the Competent Communicator manual is: Persuade with Power.
The purpose of this project is to practice delivering a persuasive speech; to use to speaking skills developed in previous projects to convince your audience to adopt a certain opinion or follow a course of action.
My ninth speech was entitled: Be Your Own Toastmaster.
My goal in this speech was to persuade our club members to take an active role in working their way through the Toastmasters Educational Program.
I touted the benefits of the program: how it could help develop speaking and leadership skills; reminding them that this was what many, if not all, of them had joined Toastmasters for in the first place.
My emphasis was that the extent to which these benefits would be attained was entirely up to their dedication as individuals.
I presented a course of action which included, learning the program, planning your path through it ahead of time and sticking to the plan.
In the end, my speech came across as more informative than persuasive and I undercut one of my calls to action by mentioning the lack of outside accountability inherent in a self-paced program.
On a positive note, however, my promotion of the benefits of the Educational Program was well received and the need for self-motivation was clearly understood.
About Dan Kingsepp, ACS, ALS
On Language 
“Persuade With Power” always makes me think of electricity for some reason…Have you retooled your speech to better reflect your topic? I would love to hear it the next time you come over hon!
I haven’t done anything with the last speech. I will use the feedback I received to improve my future speeches. I’m moving on to work on Speech 10 where the assignment is to “Inspire Your Audience”.