Present Like A Pro: Impactful Content Development (II)

Present Like A Pro:
Impactful Content Development (II)

Let's look at ways that an audience measures your ethos-pathos-logos, and examine why it is so critical for a successful speech.

Tactics to Establish Ethos

If you have high ethos, your audience is listening and attentive from your first word. They expect that you have something valuable to say, and they are eager to hear it. They are likely to be persuaded by you, provided that your speech is compelling.

Ethos is about your audience’s perception of you, and this perception can be formed over time, or perhaps over many past speeches. So, first let's examine things you can do in the long run to improve your ethos.

(i) Have a clean online profile and social media presence. 

(ii) Develop deep expertise in topics you speak about.

(iii) Your introduction is probably the single best opportunity for you to establish your ethos with this audience on this day. For this reason, you should always write your own introduction.

(iv) You’ve got to take charge of your personal branding and make sure that it’s a brand that emphasizes the qualities you want to emphasize.

(v) Analyze your audience. Audience analysis will reveal valuable clues that you can use to adapt yourself to your audience. 

(vi) Seek to find common traits that you share and highlight them. For other traits, find ways to adapt your language, your mannerisms, your dress, your PowerPoint visuals, or your stories to match the audience.

(vii) Can you show up early to welcome the audience?

(viii) If your presentation is part of a larger event, try to attend as much of it as you can. Every minute you spend with your audience as an audience member builds your level of affiliation with them. The event becomes a shared experience. The audience sees you as one of them.

(viii) Tell stories or anecdotes which show you are consistent with your message.

(ix) Use language familiar to your audience.

(x) Use visuals/examples which resonate with your audience.

(xi) Reference people in the audience or previous speakers or events earlier that day. This forms connections with the audience.

(xii) Make yourself available to your audience. Whenever possible, stick around after your presentation is over. Mingle with the audience. Not only will you have the opportunity for productive follow-up conversations, but your audience will see you as accessible.

(xiii) Follow through on promises made during your presentation. One technique for managing a short Q&A session is to defer thorny or complex questions to a later time.

Tactics to Establish Pathos

Emotions — whether fear or love, pity or anger — are powerful motivators for your audience. An audience emotionally stimulated in the right way is more likely to accept your claims and act on your requests. By learning how to make emotional appeals, you greatly improve your effectiveness as a speaker.

(i) Choose emotional points and topics, for example "Beat your social anxiety" would trigger more powerful emotions than "Learn how to speak in a group."

(ii) Use analogies and metaphors - linking your ideas with something your listeners already know about and feel strongly about can trigger emotional responses. For example, "They are awful" compared to "They are poisonous." This will use the audience's knowledge that poison is bad and therefore this issue needs to be dealt with.

(iii) Use emotionally charged words, for example, say "This kitchen roll is a life-saver" rather than "This kitchen roll is great". Another way to make a statement more emotional is to use vivid and sensory words which allow the audience to experience the emotion. For instance, "The smell of your grandparents' house" will increase the recollection of hopefully warm memories, and therefore will trigger certain emotions.

(iv) Using humour increases the likelihood that the audience are enjoying themselves and so they are more likely to like you and listen to you.

(v) Visual aids can sometimes be more powerful than words, for example, showing an image of a scared small child will have more impact than saying that children are often victims of domestic violence.

(vi) Research your audience and find out what their shared values are. Target these values and beliefs because they are strongly associated to emotions.

(vii) Storytelling is a quick way to form an emotional connection. It's often used to link a part of a key message with an emotional response - you'll be familiar with seeing this in adverts asking for charity donations.

(viii) Match what you're saying with your body language, face and eyes. People often mirror emotions so by matching your body language with your words you increase the chances of triggering the desired emotions.

(ix) Also match your voice to your words, for example, if you want to show sadness speak in a soft voice, if you want to show excitement then increase your pace etc.

(x) Stand as close as you can to the audience so the speech feels more personal - don't hide behind the computer screen.

(xi) Be Authentic Remember that the goal of pathos is to connect with the audience and share emotions with them. To share an emotion, you’ve got to feel it too. Be honest. Share your presentation in a way that your audience will feel as passionately as you feel.

(xii) Connect with your eyes. Meaningful eye contact is about connecting with one person at a time. Your eyes should express your excitement, your confidence, or your joy.

Tactics to Establish Logos

Logos is often equated with “logical reasoning” or “an argument based on reasoning”. You might be thinking that logic is dry and boring. You might also be thinking that you want to be a dynamic and fun speaker, and so logical reasoning isn’t really that important to you. While you may not get turned on by logical analysis, it is critical to your success.

(i) Use language that your audience will understand. Avoid jargon and over-technical terminology.

(ii) Use simple figures and charts to make the presentations more understandable.

(iii) Make the relationship between your evidence and conclusions clear.

(iv) Analogies and metaphors are helpful especially when explaining new ideas and theories.

(v) Ask questions, and get your audience thinking. This will make them active listeners so they may even come to your conclusion themselves.

(vi) Talk about opposing views as this allows you to explain why your logical arguments are more reasonable.

(vii) Facts and stats cannot be debated and they signify the truth.

(viii) Talking about something in abstract terms is good, but using real objects or photographs carries more logos. Visual evidence, such as, objects and videos are hard to challenge. 

(ix) Citing specialists, experts and authorities on a topic increases the quality of your evidence and therefore your claims. 

(x) Tell stories, such as, case studies or personal experiences. The audience would like to hear your own stories. 

(xi) Cite your sources. A statistic may be accurate, but without citing a source, your audience may dismiss it. By citing a source, you tip the scale towards believability.

(xii) Use real examples and case studies. Real examples and case studies show that the theory works in the real world.

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