ISSUE 28 - THE ART OF PERSUASION

Since the middle of last year, these articles have explored a variety of topics dealing with the challenges we all face in the market place as a result of the economic times.  Today we explore a path to recovery.

With or without stimulus money, there is a fundamental activity that must take place in order for the economy to start to move toward a better position - A SALE!  Without a transaction or exchange of goods and services for value, there is no economy.

To arrive at a sale there requires persuasion to take place.  Now persuasion tends to have a bad reputation.  It is viewed as that fast talking mumbo-jumbo that causes an unsuspecting person to purchase something they don't need.  Nothing could be further from the truth.

With the help from our Learning Library provided by our strategic partner, TTI Performance Systems, let's dig into persuasion.

People with good skills in Persuading Others can see and talk from another person's point of view.  They can understand another person's objectives and concerns and respond to them effectively.  These people have good intuitive insight, role confidence, practical thinking ability, and the ability to think on their feet.  In contrast, a person who is insensitive to others and has excessive role confidence may think that other people only want, or need, to hear what he or she thinks is important.

The skill of persuasion is one of the most basic and fundamental tools you will have to master as a professional.  Persuasion requires an understanding of a structure that was developed two thousand years ago.  Originally developed by the ancient Greeks, persuasion involved three components:

1.  ethos - getting the other person to accept you on an open, ready and willing basis.
2.  pathos - getting the emotional engagement, the involvement of the other person in your message.
3.  logos - presenting your idea, product or service in such a way that it makes sense to the person.
4.  pathos - ending your presentation or persuasive communication within emotion again.

Persuasion, as old as it is, is still a concept that is often misunderstood.  Persuasion is not just doing all of the talking.  Rather, it is presenting your solution in such a way that it appeals to the value structure, needs, senses and wants of another person.  Persuasion involves doing as much nonverbal communicating and listening as it does talking!

Before you can hope to persuade people of the merits of your ideas, of the value of the solutions you suggest or to change their behavior, you will need to work on how to present yourself.  In order to be a successful persuader, you must first learn how to present yourself as polite, knowledgeable and assertive.

Even if your presentation skills are excellent, the act of persuading others requires that you have a developed plan for gaining their support and knowledge about what information is important to present.  But be warned, no matter how diligent you have been in examining options and preparing a thoughtful presentation of your ideas, you may meet with resistance.  Gaining support from others takes time and practice to perfect!