How to Design a Speech That Earns Buy-In, Every Time
Description: Discover the A.C.E. framework (Align, Challenge, Expand) for speech design. Learn to build compelling messages that resonate with your audience's beliefs, encouraging action and change. Perfect for speakers aiming to connect deeply and drive meaningful outcomes, regardless of the presentation's polish.
"I think we have a problem."
I'm meeting with my manager to discuss an important speech I'm giving in less than a week. The audience will be 1500 college students representing nearly 300 schools across America.
Ordinarily I'd be cool as a cucumber. I've spoken at hundreds of universities to tens of thousands of students. I know this market, and my speech is a proven success.
But what Scott just told me makes me question the speech I'm planning to give.
He said, "We're hearing from administrators and campus professionals that students no longer want to eat in the dining halls. They aren't attending campus events. In some cases they're even demanding all single rooms in the dorms."
"And this is..." I start thinking out loud, "because they don't want to interact with other people?"
"Exactly."
"Then we have a problem. The speech I've been giving since 2015 will not work at all."
Six days later I took the stage and delivered a brand new presentation that I wrote from scratch with less than 8 rehearsals. It lacked the polish of my signature talk, and had unusually long segments without a single laugh.
And yet, it drove tons of booking interest. We expect to secure at least 10-20 university bookings from the showcase alone.
(For the aspiring and professional speakers reading this, that's $40,000 - $100,000 in bookings)
In this article I'll walk you through precisely what I did, and explore the ONE THING you need to build a presentation or message that earns buy-in from the intended audience, even if the delivery is clunky.
How to Design Your Speech for Buy-In
How do you get someone to do whatever you want?
Sorry, let me try that again.
How do you get someone to do whatever you want... willingly, enthusiastically, and WITHOUT coercion?
(psychopaths, you're dismissed)
You build your argument up from a belief that they already hold.
That's because buy-in requires belief, and people reliably act in accordance with their own beliefs.
Which is why if you're an expert, leader, or speaker in any capacity, before you can build a persuasive argument or design your message, you need to uncover and understand the beliefs that your intended audience already holds.
Simple, but not easy.
In this article we're going to explore the nature of beliefs and how you can discover your audience's deeply held beliefs before designing a speech, presentation, or piece of messaging.
That way they'll not just find you interesting, but actually take action on your big ideas.
Four ways to ground your argument
At Clarity Up LLC we teach all of our students that there are four elements to build the premise, or foundation, of your argument: belief, fear, want, problem.
These are called 'psychographics'.
Take a moment and think of the intended audience for your next speech, presentation, or piece of communication.
➝ If I asked you to identify your audience's beliefs, fears, wants, and problems, which would you find easiest?
In my experience, most people find their audience's 'problems' are the easiest to identify, and 'beliefs' the hardest.
The order from easiest to hardest to identify is typically this:
And yet helping my clients design presentations that actually move the needle taught me that the most important psychographic to identify is 'belief'.
The order from most to least important is:
Focus on a weak premise, get a weak outcome
Most fears go away if you solve someone's problem, and most problems have simple solutions.
What we want speaks to something deeper and tends to reflect our values, which is harder to get at.
But beliefs?
They're what stops us from taking action, even when we know it would be good for us to do so.
My beliefs are causing me pain, but I hold on to them anyway
I've been having back spasms since my early 20s. They happen once a year or so and are debilitating.
Like, I'm stuck on the couch and can't get up, yelling for my wife debilitating.
Also like, I can't play with my kid or sit at my desk to write an article debilitating.
When I get a back spasm, it's a total life pause. But with the combination of a heating pad, rest, gentle stretching, and OTC meds, I'm functional again within a few days.
Meanwhile every doctor has told me the same thing: To prevent back spasms, I need to strengthen my core.
I've never done it.
It's not a money thing. I have the money to go to PT, and even if money were a problem, there's tons of free exercises and videos to follow.
Why not?
Because daily physical therapy takes time that I do not have and cannot make.
That's a belief so ingrained that no matter how many times people tell me the long-term preventative solution, or how many testimonials I hear from people that it worked, I cannot take action on the idea of a daily exercise routine.
I'm a dad who runs a business. I don't have time for physical therapy.
Until someone helps me break that belief, I'll never take action. I'll never sign up for your PT program or "fitness coaching for dads" service.
So if beliefs are the hardest to identify but the most important to understand, how do we do it?
Let's first agree what a belief actually is.
Beliefs are not opinions or values
Opinions are lightly or tenuously held assumptions that don't shatter our worldview when they turn out to be wrong.
We mostly shrug and go, "Huh, I would have sworn it was different," and then move on with our lives. Beliefs are not opinions.
Nor are they values.
In a recent interview on Diary of a CEO, Wharton professor and organizational psychologist Adam Grant said this:
"Beliefs are what you think is true. Values are what you think is important. This distinction is so important because when you base your identify and self-worth on what you think is true, then admitting you were wrong is a major threat." (watch the episode)
Grant argues that we should base our identity on values, not beliefs. And he's right. But that's not what people actually do.
As communicators we need to work with how people actually operate, not how we wish they would. And the truth is, most people have their identity and indeed self-worth wrapped up in a set of unquestioned beliefs that they are unwilling to challenge*.
*Hold that thought, I'm coming back to it.
Therefore if we want to convince someone that our big idea is worth adopting, sharing, and acting upon, one of the most successful ways to do it is to build the argument up from a belief that they already hold.
But how do you uncover your audience's beliefs?
Stop guessing and start asking to uncover beliefs
First rule of message design: Don't assume you understand your audience if you are not them. Instead, ask.
The trouble with asking people to tell you their beliefs is they often don't know. They hold them, they would recognize them if you pointed them out, and they act accordingly to them - but they couldn't rattle them off or articulate them.
What are YOUR beliefs?
See? You have them, but you wouldn't know what to tell me if I asked.
So instead we need to ask our intended audience questions that give us clues about their beliefs.
Here are some questions to help you uncover your audience's beliefs
Let's imagine you're a tech expert speaking to teachers and school administrators about innovation in education.
Narrative Inquiry: Ask about their experiences, particularly those related to your topic.
Example: "Could you describe a situation where technology significantly enhanced learning for your students?"
Hypothetical Scenarios: Pose hypothetical situations to your audience.
Example: "If you had unlimited resources, how would you integrate technology into your curriculum?"
Direct Questions About Change: Ask directly about change.
Example: "What values do you think are most important to maintain when introducing technology into education?"
There are specific words that hint at beliefs
If you pay really close attention, you'll notice that most people include the following words and phrases when describing deep-seated beliefs:
Always
Never
Should
Shouldn't
Can't
Deserve
"I'm not the kind..."
"There's no way..."
"If only we..."
Listening Between the Words
Listen not just to what is said (words and phrases), but how it's said. Look for:
Recurring Themes: Pay attention to any consistent messages or viewpoints that emerge across different responses. These patterns can hint at common beliefs within the group, reflecting shared values or concerns that might not be immediately obvious.
Contradictions: Keep an ear out for any statements that seem to conflict with each other. Such contradictions could indicate complex, nuanced beliefs that the audience themselves may not have fully reconciled or articulated, revealing areas where further exploration could be particularly revealing.
Emotional Responses: The intensity and nature of the emotions accompanying the responses are also telling. Strong emotional reactions—whether positive or negative—can illuminate what truly matters to your audience, underscoring the beliefs that drive those feelings.
The message design A.C.E.™ up your sleeve
Using what you've learned, you can now structure your argument according to the A.C.E.™ up your sleeve: Align, Challenge, and Expand.
Align: Directly acknowledge the belief they already hold, and explicitly articulate why it's justified.
Challenge: Present stories and evidence to demonstrate that the belief might be untrue, at least in certain situations.
Expand: Guide them to a deeper understanding and replace the old belief with a new one that serves the audience even better in achieving their goals and overcoming their problems.
So, how did that work in the context of my college showcase?
This is how I earned buy-in from 1500 college students
The signature speech I've been giving since 2015 is called "How to Magically Connect with Anyone" and is based on my TEDx talk of the same name.
That talk is grounded in the belief, "Connecting with others is difficult but worth it."
But as Scott was telling me about campus culture in 2024, it became clear that this generation does not hold that belief.
Instead they hold something like, "New interactions are too risky to be worth it."
And so I built a brand new speech without using a single line or story from the TEDx talk that made me famous.
Align
I opened my speech with a story about passing out during my 6th grade book report. The incident led to bullying and social isolation, which in turn made me very comfortable hanging out by myself, alone in my room, for many years.
By opening with this story I acknowledged the fundamental belief commonly held by students in the audience. Furthermore I sympathized with that belief by showing an example from my life why it might be justified.
Thanks to my colleague Francisco Mahfuz for helping me find and tell this story.
Rather than an authority figure shaking my head and telling them they're wrong, I demonstrated understanding- which earned me their buy-in.
Challenge
Then I told a follow-up story about a time in 9th grade that I took a huge risk on an interaction and it turned out to be a pivotal point in my life, when I started making real friends and learned how to be confident in social situations.
Without that risk, I'd have never built a career as a magician, which has since taken me around the world and given me everything good in my life.
This story challenged the belief that interactions are too risky, and showed that it may be hard, but sometimes it's worth the risk.
Expand
Once I told those two stories I was able to establish the core message of the showcase presentation:
Everything you've ever wanted is on the other side of an interaction.
Having moved them from a deeply held assumption about the world that was unknowingly hindering their happiness and success, to a new belief that serves their interests even better, I could deliver my final story about a chance encounter that changed my life forever.
You know you've earned buy-in when they ask the right questions
After the presentation I spent hours speaking with students who had attended the presentation. They asked questions like:
“When people don’t respond the way I hope, how do I avoid a negative spiral?”
“How do you find motivation to keep going when you’ve lost hope?”
“I’m shy, how do I develop the confidence to speak up?”
“How do you go on stage without fear?”
“In a relationship, how do you avoid getting impatient with your partner?”
In sales, we call those buying questions, the kind of questions people only ask when they have bought into your idea, and are ready to take action.
That's why despite the clunky delivery of a brand new speech on very little notice, we're still going to get potentially dozens of bookings.
And by the time I hit the campuses to speak this fall, the presentation will be much, much tighter, polished, and hopefully funnier.
In the meantime, I'm calling it a win.
Beliefs are the hardest premise, but they're worth it
It's much easier to design a presentation based on an external problem, or a simple fear.
And sure, if you do it that way you'll get engagement. But moving the audience to take action? Real change?
Buy-in requires belief. And people only take action in accordance with things they already believe.
If they don't already believe what you need them to, use the A.C.E.™ up your sleeve: Align, Challenge, Expand.
Ready to build a world class keynote speech that earns buy-in from your audiences, every single time?
Francisco Mahfuz and I are running the Build Your World Class Keynote 2-day workshop again this May 15-16.
Join the waitlist below to be notified as soon as tickets go on sale.
Last time we sold out in just 3 weeks, and this time we're only going to offer 10 seats in order to make it even more valuable to each individual attendee.
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Topics include:
How to book, write, and deliver TED-style talks
Clear and consistent messaging
Professional speaking
