Whatever your reason is for standing in front of an audience it is important to determine your goal. Let’s try this right now. What is your reason for wanting to know how to write a speech? Make a presentation for your boss? Are you taking a course in public speaking and this is your practice? Do you want to pursue public speaking as a career?

Several speakers will tell you that there are four reasons to deliver a speech: to inform, persuade, inspire, or entertain. On the other hand most college texts on public speaking will only list three reasons. They file inspirational speaking as either informational or persuasive.

When giving informative speeches, you are teaching your audience something. Whatever your topic is, your main goal is to deliver a speech that is descriptive. It might be over something as touchy and delicate as bedwetting or as straightforward as how to tile a bathroom with ceramic tile. You don’t need to sell anything or convince anyone, you only want to inform. Most books recommend to limit your main points to five in an informative speech.

A persuasive speech on the other hand is being given to convince the audience of something. This may be with an idea, a theory or a product but whatever it is the speech’s purpose is for your audience to understand your point of view. Imagine yourself as a lawyer giving a closing statement for your client. Imagine yourself running for political office. Or imagine yourself as an insurance broker trying to sell life insurance. Or you are a motivational speaker trying to improve the lives of your listeners.

In a nutshell, a persuasive speech aims to sell something. As a persuasive speaker you want to convince your audience because you need their support.

A persuasive speech works best with two main points. The first point should be a problem that must be resolved. The second will be what you think is the answer to the problem.

Whatever your motivation is for a persuasive speech, it is important that you are convincing. Your success is determined by how effectively you can make your audience see things your way.

Thinking about your goals and objectives before you even think about how to write a speech will make you a much more successful public speaker.

If you’d like to write a persuasive speech now but can’t find a topic try the Persuasive Speakers Kit with 2000 speech topics, 12 Quick Research Checklists, 6 Time-Saving Speech Outline Templates and more to create a not-boring persuasive speech!

Related articles

• Professional Speaker (professional-keynote-speaker.com)
• How to Become a Professional Speaker? No Ego (professional-keynote-speaker.com)
• How To Write A Speech – Structure (Part 2) (howtowriteaspeech.net)

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