3 Common Mistakes of Persuasive Speech (Guest Blog)

As a business owner, one method of advertising or marketing your business will involve making a persuasive speech to encourage someone to buy something or take an interest in your business. Selling something to someone is not an easy job. More than likely you will be faced with objection. And if you don’t know how to fire back and put away that objection effectively, you will lose that sale or that potential customer.

There are a number of mistakes made when one is using persuasive speech. Let’s look at 3 of them.

Failure to Anticipate and Prepare for Routine Questions

Failure to properly prepare and effectively answer questions will always have a negative result. If you are selling something, you should not be hesitate or not know the answer to the question. One of the first things any person should know when trying to sell something is to know the product. If you don’t completely understand your services or product, it will be very difficult to persuade someone else that they need it.

Failing to properly anticipate and prepare can look as if you are hesitant which is not good. Many people are suspicious when someone is trying to sell them something. If you sound hesitant, it may come across as a scam. To avoid this, do your homework. Have a good, clear understanding of what the product or service is.

An Information Dump

Don’t give the person a lot of information. People will often say, “Just send me some information.” However the more information one receives, the more likely they are to throw the information away or ignore it. Too much information is not a good persuasive active. More information rarely persuades someone to buy something. People don’t need more information they need valuable and persuasive information. This means they need someone to thoroughly explain it to them, breaking it down so they will understand it and realize how much of a benefit it is. Get to the heart of the message. What can the product or service do for the customer?

Talking Rather Than Listening

Don’t talk too much. Great customer service involves listening instead of just talking. Talking too much is the same as giving too much information. It’s information overload. People have a short attention span and if you are constantly doing all the talking, the message gets lost. Also, if you don’t listen to what the customer is saying you run the risk of offending the customer.

Nobody wants to talk to someone who does all the talking and doesn’t listen. Plus, if you are trying to persuade someone to buy a service or product you want to know what their interests are. They may not have any need of your product or service at all. For example, if you are selling lawn mower equipment and start talking too much and not listening to the potential customer, you may miss the fact that they told you they don’t have a lawn.

Author Bio:

Tina Davis has written hundreds of articles on a variety of topics for more than seven years. She has worked as an Administrative Assistant for more than 15 years. She understands that  persuasive speech topics must meet a certain criteria to get a point across. Many more topics other than business can be covered when conducting a speech for a business to get a point across.