Business Speakers. Use the 1-2 Punch: Connect With Emotion, Follow-up With Logic.

Most speakers are aware that people are a blend of both right brain and left brain skills. Yet, they speak only to the left brain. They present the material with a focus on linear thinking, analysis, facts, and logic; they completely ignore the right brain, the emotional angle. But, what makes the material more interesting and easier for listeners to remember is when it connects on an emotional level. 

Business presentations are often persuasive in nature; you are trying to persuade colleagues, partners, teammates to your perspective. But to successfully motivate someone to follow your suggested path, you need to appeal to both their logic and their emotion.

The way to appeal to the right brain is to bring more emotion to your presentation. Keep it conversational in tone, avoid a lecture-like approach. Choose emotional language. (Example: say, We must include the client, rather than, we should include the client.) Use descriptive language, adjectives, adverbs, etc.

Start by connecting with the listeners’ right brain, the emotional side, and then back it up by addressing the left brain, the logical side. This one-two punch will be the most effective.