Monroe’s Motivated Sequence Five Steps to Persuading Your Audience

Creator… Alan H. Monroe Purdue University Professor 1930’s Tried and true psychologically based

The Steps Attention Need Satisfaction Visualization Action

Step 1: Attention Get your audience’s attention Establish your credibility Present the need/problem

Step 2: Establish the Need Convince your audience there is a problem The need will not go away by itself Use statistics and examples Convince your audience there is need for action Build your case—prove there is a problem and relate it to the audience

Step 3: Satisfaction Solve the issue Provide a specific and viable plan of action Use examples, testimonials and statistics to prove the effectiveness Anticipate counterarguments to anticipated objections Think outside the box! Not a logical answer anyone could come up with in a few minutes!

Step 4: Visualization Help the audience visualize what will happen if the solution does or does not take place Positive Negative Compare/Contrast Include details/paint a picture Make sure your vision is realistic and believable

Step 5: Action Tell the audience what they can do personally to solve the problem Motivate them to take action now Don’t overwhelm them, give them options to increase their ownership in the solution Make it easy for them to take action—write a legislator, give them a prewritten letter and an address; organ donor, give them a brochure and tell them about the Facebook campaign (show them the page)

Example: Blood Donation Step 1: Scary story Step 2:Stories/Stats/Facts to prove the need Step 3:Blood banks guarantee a steady supply Step 4:Without steady supply, needless deaths occur Step 5: give them a card to fill out to become a donor; give them a brochure or phone number to call to donate; plan a time to drive people to donate.