When I was high school I entered in speech contests in the "persuasive" category. I was quite successful.
My strategy was to make my speeches stand out by picking an absolutely ludicrous argument, and use all sorts of logic and rhetoric to make it sound like an almost good idea.
For instance, I was living in Tokyo, a city with a wild and violent crow population. I did some research and formulated a speech that argued that crows were as intelligent as humans, only too clever to reveal it to us, and that they intended to overthrow the human race. I stretched a lot of facts out of proportion (in an obvious way) but I made my reasoning very clear. It was a huge success.
Another idea -- think of things that really annoy you but that other people don't mind so much. Clearly these other people need some convincing.
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