Make no mistake about it. If you want to be persuasive, you have to be understood. I’ve seen so many good people go down in flames because their message did not have the right ‘logic’ behind it.

We’ve been spending time together exploring a set of principles called The Five Constant Factors by Sun Tzu outlined in his writings 2300 years ago, called The Art of War. In it he stated that all success in war was based on these five. 

So, leveraging off this principle that a certain group of factors could determine success or failure, we identified Eight Constant Factors for Platform Mastery and we are spending some time on Persuasion.
Here’s a simple but often brutal truth…
If your audience don’t understand you, they will not be persuaded by you.

To be an effective, you’ve got to be a clear communicator. To be a clear communicator, you must use words, phrases, examples, and visuals that are understandable, and you’ve got to deliver them at a pace that the audience can absorb.
This is best described in one word. Logic. As a platform master, this means to persuade the audience with simple, clear reasoning... the second rhetorical device ‘appeal to audience’s ability to reason.
This does not mean to stand in front of your audience and spit out facts and numbers like a machine. What it does mean is for you to weave those facts and numbers into your message in such a way, that it appeals to the reasoning side of your audience.

So, how do you do this? How does a platform master make logic… not boring? Dare we say… even appealing? Well, you start with simplicity. Go back a couple of episodes and listen to Be a Sticky Speaker and Use The Jazz Strategy to Become a Platform Master.

* Make sure you use words your audience can relate to.
* Avoid technical jargon that your audience (or a portion of your audience) isn’t familiar with.
* Favour short words and phrases over long and convoluted counterparts.
* Don’t imitate the language you might find in a legal transcript or an academic paper.
* Technical language is necessary for those contexts, but it isn’t helpful in a conversation or presentation.

Oh, just before we give you the action point of the day, note this...
Simple language doesn’t mean “boring” language. You can still use vivid and descriptive language and be logical.

Here’s the action point of the day.
As you shape your message, use the ‘If – Then’ Strategy'. Here’s how it works. “If this is the situation, then this would follow.”  Logos gives the audience a tangible comparison and is especially useful because it’s extremely difficult to argue with sound logic.

In the next episode, we will explore Pathos, which is the emotional appeal.

There is more to come.