During your time in the workplace, you might be asked to make an informational presentation, either internally or on behalf of your company at an industry function. To provide value to your listeners, persuade or convince your audience that you have information that can benefit them. Choosing from some common, broad-based themes will help you create a persuasive business speech that helps your listeners and raises your profile.
Team building might sound like a “rah-rah” motivational subject, but you can tie it to concrete benefits that go beyond simple morale building. Persuade your audience that team-building activities can help improve productivity and efficiency by creating an environment where employees are more likely to come to each other with problems and make suggestions. Show how a department or an office working together can result in decreased absenteeism, turnover and staff replacement costs. Visit websites of credible academic, industry, psychological, military and corporate experts to gather statistics to support your argument.
Customer service goes beyond simply handling returns or complaints and can have a direct impact on a company’s bottom line. Customer loyalty and satisfaction are subjective concepts. Increased referrals, repeat purchasing, decreased returns, fewer bad online reviews and less need to spend on new customer acquisition are all tangible benefits of a customer service program. Before you tell your audience how to improve customer service, persuade them to invest in such a program by showing them the measurable benefits. Teach businesspeople who work with the public how to listen more effectively to avoid miscommunication, recommends seminar speaker Dave Oakes. Points to cover can also include making a good first impression, dealing with angry customers and how to tell tactfully tell a customer no.
One person or department is usually in charge of a company’s supply chain management efforts, but most employees are part of the supply chain. A business is only as strong as its weakest link, so persuading management and staff of the importance of a strategic supply chain management plan has relevance to everyone. In addition to explaining what supply chain management is, show how a problem in any department can stop the chain dead in its tracks. Give an example from each department showing how a problem there can cause a bottleneck. This will help you convince everyone they have a stake in the supply chain.
Many small businesses focus on hiring the right people but may not do enough to keep employees long term. Persuade an audience of the importance of creating an employee-retention program by showing the expenses related to staff turnover. These can include recruiting costs, relocation expenses, signing bonuses and lost productivity during a transition. Find industry statistics from a reputable human resources organization or other source that show the cost of replacing an employee. Discuss the importance of succession planning to let staff members know their potential future at a company.
