Joe Hockey and Poor People: Why He Can’t Win! – Public Speaking Tip
Public Speaking Tip: How NOT to argue your point if you want to win!
When Joe Hockey said that poor people don’t have cars and don’t drive as far he was technically correct. But that doesn’t mean he will win the argument.
The way you structure your message to market will determine if you are successful or not. Joe leaves out the most important element and therefore will never win. This is important in any public speaking situation, and even in one-on-one communication situations.
See what he does wrong and how you can avoid it in your marketplace. Full details below…
Transcript
G’day! Darren from executivespeaking.com.au.
Joe Hockey is on a hiding to nothing when he pushes his line, “Rich people will pay more through the fuel excise tax than poor people because poor people don’t have cars and they don’t drive very far.” The reason he is going to lose has massive implications for you trying to get your message out to your marketplace or through to your staff to motivate them on to your way of thinking. It’s important if you want to be a great public speaker.
If you’re not familiar with the statement that the Federal Treasurer of Australia made, have a look at this short bit of footage.
Joe Hockey: They say you’ve got to have wealthier people or middle-income people pay more. Well, the change to the fuel excise does exactly that – the poorest people either don’t have cars or actually don’t drive very far in many cases.
There’s three elements you need when you want to persuade and influence an audience. As I mentioned, this is important in any public speaking or presentation situation. The first is what’s known as your stance – your authority, who are you and what are you trying to push across. Being the Federal Treasurer of Australia, he has great authority to speak from where he’s coming from.
The second area is logic. You need logic to push your argument forward so people can follow what it is you’re trying to put across.
The third area though – and this is where Joe Hockey is massively falling down, and why he will never win this argument – is pathos, appeal to the emotions. If you want to persuade an audience, you have to appeal to an emotion within that audience. And Joe Hockey simply is not doing that. By putting forward the logic “rich people will pay more in fuel excise because they have more cars and drive further” – that is true – but the logic of pushing that argument introduces the class warfare, which is emotion, of “low people, well, they don’t have cars.” When you start introducing negative emotions, you’re never going to win an argument.
How does this affect your business? Well, with your business, what’s the personality and stance of your business? Are you a professional outfit? Are you seen well in the market? What is the logic, the logic of the message that you’re putting across? And finally, how are you emotionally engaging your customer base, your database, so they want to be part of your message? This is where things – simple things such as being able to deliver your message in a professional and concise manner – mean so much to your marketplace. If you’re thinking, “We’ve got a great product, yes, that’s awesome, we don’t need to have the message sold really well,” well, that’s going to tear at your authority. If you’re not engaging your audience through emotions and what’s possible to solve their issues when you’re speaking, well, that’s appealing to emotion. And if you don’t have the authority because you don’t look the part and you’re not emotionally engaging them, it doesn’t matter how good your product is, it doesn’t matter how good your message is – your audience won’t buy into it, and they won’t buy your product.
That’s what I teach my clients how to do – how do you sell yourself, position yourself so your audience want to buy your message in any public speaking or private conversation setting? If you’re having trouble getting cut-through in your marketplace, give me a call, send me an email. When done correctly, public speaking allows you to position yourself as a leader. Have the logic, and then finally, emotionally engage them. And then you will see a lift in your sales.
Give me a call, send me an email, and I can show you how to do it.
