There’s no better place to learn and master the art of effective oration than political campaigns and rallies. Just listening to a speech being presented by a politician or a prospective political candidate is enough to cast a spell on most people. They have a way of enticing their audience with their words!
Political speeches are perhaps the best example of persuasive speech! A persuasive speech revolves around the speaker trying to convince his audience about a certain topic. And it’s safe to assume that no one except for politicians does that better. Most of these speeches utilize ‘call for action’, where the speaker tries to convince or persuade his audience about his specific point of view.
There’s a lot to learn from politicians, especially the art of persuasive speech! Let’s try to understand some common tips that politicians utilize while giving a speech
- Call for Action: As mentioned above, persuasive speeches mostly use call for action. This is a very simple but effective tool for a political speech. A call for action has enough power to tap into the subconscious of the audience and convince them regarding a topic. Marketing and advertising professionals are also known to use call for action.
- Understand your Audience: Politicians are effective orators because they have this so called innate ability to understand their audience very well. This is the precise reason they can give winning speeches everywhere they go. To become a good orator you should take your audience into account, like their behavior, beliefs etc.
- Empathy: Empathizing with your audience goes a long way in persuading them and in giving a winning speech. Empathizing with your audience shows them that you are just like them. Say, for example, when politicians talk about some problem specific to a city or a neighborhood, they are empathizing with the residents there. This shows them that you are also just like them!
If you look at the most notable speakers from the past and the present, you will notice a striking pattern that most of these famous orators are/were politicians. From Winston Churchill’s ‘Sinews of Peace’ to Abraham Lincoln’s ‘Gettysburg Address’ and even Obama’s ‘Yes we can’ speech, they are all known as timeless speeches! So the next time you have a speech to deliver, just take some time out, sit down and listen to some of these historic and iconic speeches!