Ludwigshafen - BASF Toastmasters

02 Jun

Make them say “Yes” (2/2)

As a speaker you try to convince the audience of your opinion. They should agree to the major views of the speech. Apart from the contents there are certain techniques that can be uses for to create a feeling of firm conviction. Proceeding one of the previous posts I’d like to give some more suggestions that are based on Robert Cialdini’s principles of persuasion.

Liking or “just be nice”

Have you heard that a waiter in a restaurant can increase the tip simply by adding another peppermint sweet to the bill in front of the customers? Showing sympathy to someone increases your chance that she / he will agree with your own needs. So try to buil a good relationship to your audience. How can you do so if you have just limited time in your speach? Some ideas:

use positive body language techniques,
share something personal with the audience that makes them feel special
show appreciation that people came along to listen to your speech.

Authority or “the prove by power”

Usually we tend to follow people in positions of authority, we feel more obliget to accept what they say. Most of us will do what our managers request us to do or agree with someone who is in a high position.
For this reason try to find a prominent and outstanding personality of your point of view or your proposal. Got a quote or an example given or experience by a well known person with best reputation? Brilliant — take her / him to strengthen your thesis.

Scarcity or “now or never”

If people have the feeling that they might miss something if not acting immediately they decide quicker. To pile pressure on customers limited stock or closing dates for special offers are announced to gain a buying decision on the spot. That way you can influence your audience if you expect them to support your idea or project. By exposing an urgent problem that can (only) be solved by your suggestion your audience will likely agree. When speaking in front of a decision-making body point out the need for a clear and positive decision.

Give it a try, working with the specified techniques will make the audience agree to the strong points and ideas of your speech!

pictures:
Jetti Kuhlemann / pixelio.de
Tim Reckmann / pixelio.de

23 Mar

Make them say “Yes” (1/2)

By experimental research Robert Cialdini found out major principles of persuasion. He focussed on the behavior of “compliance professionals”, e.g. people working in sales, adertising or marketing. People working in these fields find themselves often in a position where they have to persuade their vis-à-vis for a positive decision.

Usually a speaker isn’t in such a “dialogue” situation, but she / he also wants to convince the audience of an opinion or make them agree to the speech content. So why not try to adapt Cialdini’s principles of persuasion to your speech?

Reciprocation or “give & take”

It’s human nature that we respond to try to react in a corresponding matter to someone’s (friendly) gesture or action. This principle is used in sales – you get a taster or a freebie and feel obliged to buy a product or service. As a speaker you usually would not scatter little presents among your audience like pens or pocket lighters.

But sometimes you have prepared a handout of your presentation anyway. So why not handing it on to your audience with a remark like “It was an additional effort for me to prepare this handout / paper but I thought it might be useful for you.” May be you have arranged an object of demonstration or a special simulation to support your speech. Talk about it: “Especially to make it clear for you I have this and that, I hope you like it”. Receiving a “gift” like this makes your audience feel that they are in your debt. The need to “repay” can lead them audience to agree, for example if you need acceptance of a proposal or a project.

Commitment and consistency or “yes, yes, yes”

Once we are dedicated or used to an activity or an attitude we usually remain constant to it. Quite the same is with opinions or commitments. The challenge is to find a basic opinion or question the audience will easily approve. Have a look at your them main idea or assumption of your speech, is there a part in it acceptable for everyone? Then you can build on this first acceptance and create a chain of agreements that lead to your request.

Let’s make a simple example. If you want to convince your audience to exchange conventional bulbs to energy-efficient lamps you probably won’t succeed with a statement like “You should exchange every bulb in your household immediately!”. Instead try this one

For sure reduction of CO2 emission is a major challenge of our society.
Do you agree that energy efficiency is a key factor for reduction of CO2 emission?
And everyone can contribute to make energy consuptiom more efficient.
Even small measures are helpful.
It’s clear that it’s up to each and everyone of us to each do something about it.
So a change to a change to energy-efficient lamps can be implemented easily by everyone.

Social proof or “success by imitation”

Our behaviour is mostly orientated to successful patterns we already know. Feeling uncertain about an issue we try to follow proven examples and decide in accordance.

Ask yourself: How do recommondations for a product or a service affect your personal buying decision? So by mentioning successful examples of similar cases in a speech your audience will follow the suggestions you make. Try to provide cases where the concept or the ideas of your presentation were already effective.

pictures:
S. Hofschlaeger / pixelio.de
Thommy Weiss / pixelio.de

07 Jan

BASF Toastmasters in 2014

Dear colleagues and Toastmasters,

best wishes for 2014! Perhaps one of your New Year’s resolutions is to improve your communication skills? Well, you will have to be patient until the end of January because our first meeting this year will be on Monday 01/27.

Everyone is welcome and will participate actively e.g. in Table Topics, presenting the joke of the evening or giving valuable feedback. As a Toastmaster you can proceed in the competent communication program by presenting a prepared speech.

As we want to become a regualar Toastmasters Club: Please spread the word by forwarding this message. Let us know if you need some hardcopies of flyers or material to promote our club to your fellow colleagues.

03 Jan

That’s worth mentioning: New Year’s resolutions

Thinking about a professional development, organising a family reunion, a new hobby? How about becoming a Toastmaster and improving your public speaking skills?

Twice a month members of BASFToastmasters improve their communication skills in many ways. Every club member works step by step through the program of competent communication and competent leadership at his / her own pace. This way everyone becomes more confindent in talking in front of a group. The feedback by every member and the speech evaluations help to identify opportunities for improvement and existing rhetorical skills. Furthermore speaking spontaneously can be learned by participating in Table Topics — short impromptu speeches given on a keyword or a question.

BASFToastmasters belongs to Toastmasters International. Toastmasters was founded in 1924 in the United States. The well-proven Toastmasters concept allows you to learn communication and leadership . Membership in a Toastmasters club is unique and different from other offers of rhetoric training. Good news: If you want to join BASFToastmasters, you only have to pay as little as 6 EUR a month.

Every BASF employee who is interested to get to know Toastmasters is welcome to visit us. Our regular meetings in 2014 start on January 27th. From that on we me meet on the 2nd and 4th Monday each month.

19 Sep

BASF Toastmasters starts successfully

On Sep 12th 2013 the Toastmasters at The Chemical Company had the very first meeting. With strong support of Mannheim’s Toastmasters the organizers were able to set up a full agenda. In a positive and friendly atmosphere people who are new to Toastmasters could experience the different parts of a Toastmasters’ evening.

By answering the question “Which item, object or matter has played an important role to you during the last days?” in our round table everybody could improve his / her speaking skills. Furthermore some of the participants had the opportunity to take part in a table topic session. Simple but striking was the idea of our Table Topic Master: Handing over a coin she asked the participant what happened to him / her in the year of the coinage — interesting and entertainig stories came out.

Hye Jin and Patricia presented different speeches of the manual “Competent Communication”. The audience could listen to the experience when visiting Germany for the first time and finding out that there is so much more to discover than just poets and thinkers. Furthermore we learned how ones posture can influence the self confidence.

BASFToastmasters will continue the series of meetings to start a club at BASF. Everyone is welcome to join and to make the Toastmasters experience.

04 Aug

Improve your public speaking skills at BASFToastmasters

Get to know Toastmasters International and the regular club meetings held on site at BASF in Ludwigshafen. During our first evening sessions we want to explain the idea behind Toastmasters and show how you can improve your public speaking skills. Each meeting will include

a warm up session to get to know each other,
Table Topics ® short impromptu speeches presented by the participants (no preparation in advance needed),
prepared speeches presented by experienced Toastmasters,
feedback on prepared speeches,
more information about Toastmasters International.

Meeting information:
Thu Sep 12th, 2013
Thu Sep 26th, 2013
Mon Oct 14th, 2013
Mon Oct 28th, 2013
starting at 6:15 pm for a duration of about 1 1⁄2 hours;
BASF SE, Ludwigshafen,
C104, room 240 (2nd floor), next to gates 1/2/7.
If interested, please contact us by e-mail or phone.