What is Monroe’s Motivated sequence?
Monroe’s Motivated speech sequence was structured by Alan Monroe (Alan Houston Monroe; 22 April 1903 – 26 January 1975) an American Psychologist, author, and a powerful orator. He carefully studied the art of persuasive speech and utilised his psychological expertise in developing a tested, proven, and implementable technique which anyone can use to make their speech powerful, impactful, and persuasive. He first published Monroe’s motivated sequence in his book Monroe’s Principles of Speech.
Our group of professional speakers have personally used this technique and we were surprised with the audience’s reaction. This technique works. If you are looking to make your speech more impactful, mesmerizing, and memorable this is one of the techniques you can use in your next speech. Without further delay, let’s explore the 5 steps of Monroe’s Motivated Sequence.
5 steps of Monroe’s Motivated Sequence.
1. Grab your audience’s Attention
Capturing your audience’s attention right from the beginning of your speech or presentation is crucial.
Due to information overload humans’ attention span is lesser than that of a goldfish. You need to capture your audience at the beginning itself. Here is one of the tips on how to open your speech effectively.
Example:
Imagine
This is one of the powerful words to capture your audience. “IMAGINE”.
It has 3 specific impacts
● It’s a subconscious prompt to listen to the next statement
● You are including the audience as part of the speech
● You are taking your audience on an imaginary trip
Example:
Topic: Life
Speech Message: Collect memories in your piggy bank of life, not money.
Title: MY. . .piggy bank
Imagine. . .Going back in time and reliving one precious moment of your life. What would that be? Your first cycle? Your first gift? Do you remember the color of it?..
Note: Click on this link for more tips on opening speech.
2. Establish a need or a challenge
● Once you capture your audience’s attention, now it’s time to clearly establish a need, a challenge in your speech, or problem statement.
● Prove the problem with statistics, research and convince the audience that it is a genuine problem.
● In storytelling, you can also establish a problem or a challenge in your own creative way.
3. Satisfy the problem or Solve the problem
● Once you established a need or problem statement, you need to come up with a solution for the problem
● Make sure you explain this step in detail so that the audience can grasp it and accept it.
● Avoid conflicting statements.
● In a professional or corporate setup, you can show more data, case studies, or testimonials.
4. Visualization
● Now it’s time to take your audience into a time machine towards the future which you will be forecasting.
● Show them the future stating that, after applying the solution how things will change
● How this solution makes a difference in their life or business
This technique is widely used in marketing.
Apple advertisement: They make you feel how amazing it would be if you have an iPhone.
5. Call to action
● This is the last sequence of Monroe’s motivational sequence
● This is the last information your audience will be listening to, in your speech
● Call to action is nothing but asking the audience to take the next step
● You are involving the audience to take action on the solution you provide
Example of Monroe’s Motivational sequence:
1) Attention: First 5 seconds
2) Establish need: 1: 50
3) Satisfy the problem or Solve the problem: 3:35
4) Visualization: 7:10
5) Call to action: 7:24
What do you think about this technique? Have you applied this before? Do let us know in the comment section.
