The logic of love

“The most moving thing in a speech is always the logic”
-Peggy Noonan

They say that we don’t fall in love with another when we are together. But rather, it’s when we are apart, but can’t get the other out of our minds, that love grows. I suspect that persuasive speeches and presentations are much the same.

We can certainly make a splash that has a temporary impact. Most impulse sales pros, such as TV shopping announcers, entertainment touts or sidewalk barkers, know that they have to make the sale while the prospect is hot, because the impulse goes away quickly. Once the pitch fades from the ear, and the mind starts chewing over the logic of it, an emotional appeal loses its power.

Motivational speakers also sometimes rely on the heat of the moment to fire up their prospects, but enthusiasm and emotion tends to last about as long as the echo of the speaker’s call to action. The next morning, or a week later, the audience is left only with vague memories of having heard an exciting presentation, but to little or no lasting effect.

But the underlying value of your proposition and the benefit it offers to your listeners, if presented in a clear, compelling and memorable way, builds in the listeners’ minds as they think back over what they remember. That’s what presidential speechwriter Peggy Noonan was referring to in the quote above from her book, On Speaking Well.

While there is certainly a time and place to go for the white-hot, emotional appeal, we make the strongest and deepest impact on the thinking of others, when our words or ideas later spring back to mind unbidden; when the appeal of the logic can be mentally chewed over.

That’s when the audience takes the message to heart.