Persuasive Speaker Project Manual Speeches

Here is the compilation of my Persuasive Speaker Project Manual Speeches.

Persuasive Speaker Project 5 - Are you a DAY DREAMER or an ACHIEVER? (Persuasive Leader)

Persuasive Speaker Project 4 - Why do I want you to be a Vegetarian? (Addressing the Opposition)

Persuasive Speaker Project 3 - Wanna be a REAL Competent Communicator? (Winning Proposal) 

Project 2 - Did that without any written notes :)

Persuasive Speaker Project 1 - Telling is not Selling (Effective Salesperson)

Also read:

Competent Communicator Manual Speeches

Entertaining Speaker Manual Speeches 

Project 5 - The Persuasive Leader - Are you a DAY DREAMER or an ACHIEVER?

AC - Persuasive Speaking (Project 5)
The Persuasive Leader
September 12, 2008


Introduction

Close your eyes for 5 seconds and think about THE ONE BIG THING that you want to achieve in your lifetime. How many of you want to start your own business or be an executive in a big corporation? How many of you want to travel around & visit places? Now, be frank, how many of you used the 5 seconds that I gave for a short nap (snore here)?

We all have goals to achieve in our life. But, we hardly do anything about our goals. It is like aiming to climb Mt. Everest, but GASPing (demo here) to climb even a staircase. We postpone things to tomorrow. We give ourselves an excuse "I don't have time". But the fact is "WE ARE LAZY".

Lazy to Wash Clothes

At times, we are too lazy to do even simple things... like, washing clothes. During weekdays, you postpone to do the washing over the weekend. The much-awaited weekend comes. You say to yourself, "I will wash clothes as the first thing on Saturday morning". Saturday comes. But, you wake up only around NOON. By the time you have your breakfast it is 3 pm. You get a call from my friend - "Hey! Want to go for a movie, in the evening?" Your mind starts to weigh the options - "Wash & Iron the clothes (or) Watch Iron Man?" Your mouth makes the decision before your mind does. You say, "Yes" for the movie. You convince yourself "I have the whole day tomorrow. I can do the washing on Sunday". Sunday comes & goes. Finally, you postpone doing it, to the next week.

This happened to me once. I had two weeks of dirty clothes piled up like a HUGE mountain. A guest who visited me asked, "Is there a dead rat in this house?" I felt very embarrassed to tell him that I've two weeks of clothes to wash.

Lazy to Prepare for Exams

Let us see what we do in school. When the academic year starts, we all aim to get good grades. But we postpone to prepare for the exams until the VERY last day. Finally, the night before the exam comes. You take your book and start preparing for the exam. You count the number of pages (carefully excluding Table of Contents, Foreword, Index etc.,). You think, "There are 200 pages in this book. I can complete the whole book in 4 hours" You look at the clock. The clock shows 8pm. You start reading.

The clock strikes 10, you had just covered 20 pages and yawned 200 times. You are drowsy. A debate begins in your mind - "Should I continue to read (or) sleep now and get up fresh in the morning and read". Guess what! Sleep wins. Immediately, you close your book and set your alarm clock to ring at 4 in the morning. You get into a deep sleep. Your alarm rings like a SIREN at 4 am. Your eyes are still closed. Your hand searches for the alarm clock & BANG... the alarm clock dies. You say to yourself "Let me sleep for 5 more minutes". You sleep for 5 minutes & wake up again. The clock shows 4.05. You ask yourself "Isn't this alarm clock 5 minutes faster than the clock in the hall?" You go back to sleep again. But, this time you sleep for 2 hours. You get up at 6, scan a few pages from the book and go to the exam. How many of you have had a similar experience?

My Friend's Exam Experience

One of my friends had an interesting experience. He didn't prepare well for the exam. He went to the exam hall. The question paper was distributed. He stared at the questions for 10 minutes. None of the questions looked familiar because he didn't prepare well. He walked to the front and asked the examiner "Sir! Am I in the right exam hall?" The whole classroom laughed.

When are we Lazy?

You may think we are lazy always. But WE ARE NOT. We can watch Olympics overnight in the TV, without even blinking our eyes. We become drowsy only when we read our TEXT BOOKS in the night. We can talk for hours with friends about "how the government should keep the city clean". We become lazy only when we have to spend a few minutes to clean our own bathrooms every week.

Conclusion

Laziness is like taking drugs. It gives you momentary pleasure. But, it ruins your life.

Laziness makes you a daydreamer. Not an achiever. Have you heard about the "Hare & the Tortoise story"? The Hare can run faster than the Tortoise. But, in spite of that, the Tortoise won. Why? The Hare got lazy and decided to take a nap, whereas the Tortoise started to move right away. The Tortoise won the race because it wanted to be an ACHIEVER & not a DAYDREAMER.

Ladies & Gentlemen,

Do YOU want to be a daydreamer or an achiever?

Project 4 : Addressing the Opposition - Why do I want you to be a Vegetarian?

AC - Persuasive Speaking (Project 4)
Addressing the Opposition
August 29, 2008

Introduction


“Who in the world would eat that vegetarian food? It is not tasty. It won't give me enough energy. It won't provide me enough proteins. I am very comfortable eating non-vegetarian food. Why would I even think about being a vegetarian”

These thoughts may be lingering in many of your minds. Well, I can understand that. Because, I had all these questions before I decided to be a vegetarian in 2001. Today I'm going to help YOU understand the benefits of being a vegetarian.

There are 3 reasons why I want you to be a vegetarian.

I know you want to be healthy

How many of you think that you are healthy? How do you know if you are healthy? Well, the metrics that I use are
1) How often do I have to visit doctor?
2) How much energy do I have? Do I get tired soon if I go on a hike?
3) Can my body digest my intakes?
4) Do I have the right weight?
5) Do I feel healthy? At times, you can feel that you are healthier. You get extra confidence when you feel that you are healthy.

How can a vegetarian diet help you to be healthy?

I know you are environment conscious

The most commonly presented & discussed topic in our club is “Going green”. I know many of you are environment conscious. Did you ever realize that being a vegetarian can help the environment?

I know you care about other living beings

How would it be if 20 of us are pushed into an elevator that can hold just 10 people? Well, thousands of cattle spend their everyday life in densely packed sheds.

How would it be if someone locks you in a dark room without any oxygen or water and let you die? Millions of fishes go through this treatment when they are caught in the seas.

Do you feel happy on seeing a squirrel or a rat being run over by a vehicle? Do you feel happy if your favorite cat or dog is cut into pieces and served as a meal? Everyday, thousands of animals have to be killed & sliced into pieces before you get your delicious hamburgers and chicken sandwich. Millions of fishes have to die in pain for you to get your favorite sushi.

I know you all care about life – not only yours but also about other living beings. You are a non-vegetarian because you never thought about the pain that these creatures are going through.

Conclusion

The next time you go to a restaurant and scan through the menu card – you have a choice. You have a choice to be obese (or) to be healthy. You have a choice to be friendly (or) to be cruel to environment & other life. I know you'll make the right choice and order a vegetarian dish.

Imagine it is the morning of 29th August 2009. You'll be getting ready to go to work. You look at yourself in the mirror. You see a NEW you. You are slim & fit. You feel more energetic. You are healthy and happy. You'll appreciate yourself for the one decision that you made today to be a vegetarian.

Project 3 - The Winning Proposal - Wanna be a REAL Competent Communicator?

AC - Persuasive Speaking (Project 3)
The Winning Proposal
May 16, 2008

-->How many of you want to be better public speakers? How many of you think that you have a long way to go to reach the excellence in public speaking?

Do you think attending toastmasters meetings for an hour every week can make you a good public speaker? NO. Do you think participating in a 2 minutes table topics session every week can make you a good impromptu speaker? NO.

Improving communication skills is like fighting against a huge DINASAUR. But, what do we have in our hands to fight against this DINASAUR - tiny little chopsticks.

Ladies & gentlemen, today I'm going to share with you a proposal to improve your communication & public speaking skills.... to give you more ammunition to fight against this huge DINASOUR.

Vocabulary

Norman Lewis, the author of "Word Power Made Easy" says, an average child learns several hundred words every year. However, an average adult learns only 25 - 50 words every year. This is very surprising. We adults literally stop learning new words.

The first and foremost step you should take to become a good communicator is to improve your vocabulary. A person with a good vocabulary can grasp more information & can convey information very effectively. Learn new words. Get comfortable with the word by pronouncing it loudly.

Watch News & Read Novels

Watching News has two fold advantages. You can understand how the anchors pronounce words, how they ask questions, how they narrate stories, how they use vocal variety, etc.,

You can also get to know about the current events, which will help you to participate in conversations and in socializing with people.

Reading novels or storybooks is also a good idea. When selecting novels, select the ones that involve lots of conversations. Try to read some of the conversations very loudly. Try to imitate the characters yourself and see you how are speaking. Reading novels and storybooks will help you to improve your vocabulary also.

SPEAK ... SPEAK... SPEAK...

Is there one magic pill that you can swallow before going to bed and wake up the next day as a good public speaker? I would be surprised if there is one. Otherwise, many in this world would be already effective communicators. Then, how can you become a good communicator? Well, the best way to become a good speaker is by SPEAKing.

Talk ... talk ... talk... tell your spouse and other friends that you are trying to improve your communication skills. Ask them to throw you with challenging situations or questions (like the Table Topics that we do in Toastmasters). Try to give one or two minutes of impromptu speech.

Volunteer for speaking opportunities in your communities or in your work environment. Sign-up for teaching basic courses in schools during your spare time.

You don't even need to get help from others. You can subscribe to websites that send daily Table Topics. Get an audio recorder or a PC and start to record your impromptu speeches. Play them back and see how you can improve.

Proposal

Let me give you a simple plan that you can follow every day. Spend about an hour every day to improve your public speaking skills.

Learn at least one new word every day. In a year, you would've learned 360 new words. Try to use the word throughout the day in all your conversations. You can be your own word master and keep counting your usage :)

Watch news for 30 minutes every day. Keep in mind that you are watching news to improve your communication & speaking skills - NOT just to listen to the news.

Practice table topics.

The next time, you hear someone asking for volunteers to speak. Lift your HANDS... both of THEM!!

Conclusion

Improving your communication & public speaking skills is like really fighting against a huge DINASAUR. But, what would the poor Dinosaur do if you really hit it hard from all the sides using powerful & sharp weapons.

Think of communication as a golden ornament. Attending TOASTMASTERS is like polishing it to look at its best. However, you need to have the jewel with you in the first place.

Project 1 - The Effective Salesperson - Telling is not Selling (Role Play)

AC - Persuasive Speaking (Project 1)
The Effective Salesperson
Apri 25, 2008

How many of you are interested in doing sales? How many of you want to be a successful sales person? Today, I'm going to share with you a simple technique that you can use to be a successful sales man or woman.

What differentiates a successful sales person from an ordinary sales person? The successful sales person knows how to take money from your pocket and put it in their pocket and still makes you feel happy about it.

Now, how do you become a successful sales person? Who makes you successful in the sales process? Your customer.... When would your customer make you successful... when you understand your customer's needs and satisfy them! Simply put, you should make them happy!

Ask a lot of open-ended questions to understand your customer's needs. Don't ever begin the sales process by giving an hour-long lecture about you, your company and your product. Your customer is least interested about who you are and what your company does. Your customer wants you to understand their problems and pain factors and provide them a solution. So, spend a lot of time in understanding your customer's needs. Then, tell them how your product can solve their problems. Give them the different options.

At the end, share the pricing information. Most sales people, rush to talk about the pricing in advance. Do not talk about pricing until you've understood the customer's needs and until you've explained about your product's functions and capabilities.

[The goal for this speech is to sell an inexpensive product in a retail store. I sold a new brand of soap during my speech]