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What is a Powerful and Persuasive Presentation?

By Tom McCarthy
Apr 7, 2003 - 3:00:00 PM

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Think about the great presenters you have seen, or you’ve heard about from history. What do they have in common? What was it about them or their presentations that caused you to go, “Wow, that was great”?

I’ve made a study of great speakers and presentations, and I believe that a powerful, persuasive presentation can be defined very simply.

A powerful and persuasive presentation moves the
audience to take action toward a predefined outcome
while maintaining high levels of integrity.

Let’s spend a few moments exploring that definition. A powerful presentation must move your audience emotionally. Every salesperson will tell you that logic can only go so far in persuading someone to buy. Emotion is what ultimately makes the sale. Therefore, your presentation must touch your audience’s feelings. And that emotion begins within the presenter. If you aren’t feeling it, your audience won’t either. Or even worse, if you are feeling disempowering emotions like fear, doubt or anxiety, your audience will start to experience those emotions in combination with your content and be repelled by them. The best powerful presentations are transfers of empowering emotion from you to your audience.

But just touching people’s feelings isn’t enough: the audience must be moved to take action. Otherwise all you’ve done is to entertain your audience, and that’s not persuasion. The emotion you create in your audience must be focused on a goal of creating some kind of decision or movement in their minds and hearts. There’s a story about Cicero and Demosthenes, two great orators of the ancient world. When people heard Cicero, they would say, “What a wonderful speech!” But when people heard Demosthenes, they would say, “Let us march!” Demosthenes knew how to move his audience to take action.

It’s also critical that you know exactly what you’re moving your audience to do. Think about another great speaker, King Henry the Fifth, from Shakespeare’s play, Henry V. Henry was getting ready to lead his vastly outnumbered troops in a desperate battle against the French army. He had to inspire his men to fight despite horrible odds. But if he’d just fired his men up without knowing exactly what he wanted them to do, all the emotion and action Henry’s words created wouldn’t have achieved his goal of defeating the French. But because Henry had a clear, predetermined outcome, he was able to engage his army’s emotions and get them to take action toward the very clear outcome of winning the battle. And as a result, the English won the battle of Agincourt by beating an army ten times its size.

Henry’s speech was clearly an example of a powerful and persuasive presentation. But there are far too many examples of other powerful and persuasive presentations in history that have produced more devastating and horrible results. From all reports, Hitler was a powerful and persuasive speaker. Mussolini was a powerful and persuasive speaker. These men moved their audiences to take action toward very clear, predetermined outcomes. But no one I know wants to emulate these two horrific figures. Therefore, I believe that powerful and persuasive presentations must have high levels of integrity. Being a great presenter is not about manipulating your audience. It’s not about getting people to do things that are unethical. The cost for that kind of presentation is always too high, both for the audience and for the presenter. Powerful and persuasive presentations must be based on your commitment to be honest, truthful, and true to your values, and to lead your audience to be true to their values as well.

Part of any presenter’s commitment to integrity must include a focus on what’s right for the audience first. If you stand in front of a group to sell a new software system, for instance, and you know your system won’t do what they need it to, how can your presentation be based in integrity? How can you be honest or truthful with your audience? And would you be leading your audience with integrity if you sell them a system they don’t need and can’t use?

A persuasive and powerful presentation must have as its goal an outcome that will be a win for both sides. Not getting the sale wouldn’t be a win for you; selling this company something they can’t use wouldn’t be a win for them. The best way to present with integrity is to know that your predetermined outcome will be a win for both sides. Remember Henry the Fifth? His outcome was to have his troops beat the French. That victory was absolutely vital for him and his country. He also knew that his troops were more likely to survive despite the odds if they were inspired to fight. So his goal in speaking to his troops was to create a win for him and for his army—in this case, a literal victory. Therefore Henry could speak with complete honesty and integrity as he inspired his men to attack the French.

When you know that what you have to say is based on your integrity, that you are being honest and truthful with your audience, that you are interested in their values and their well-being, then it becomes far easier to speak from the heart, to create emotion in your audience, and to move them to take action toward an outcome that will serve them.
Here’s a checklist for the characteristics of a powerful and persuasive presentation. It . . .

* moves your audience emotionally
* causes them to take action
* has an outcome (predetermined by you) that is clear and specific
*is in alignment with your values and the values of your audience, and creates a win on both sides
* allows you to speak honestly, truthfully, and with integrity.

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