Persuasion

Covert Persuasion Toolbox, Part 1

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Mastering covert persuasion is not just about memorizing language patterns and improving your body language – it’s also about understanding how people think and behave during social interactions. People are generally more likely to refuse than to say yes because that is the human brain works.

Agreeing to something may cause change and people don’t like change because it disturbs the existing equilibrium. Any disruption of the equilibrium may result in loss of different kinds of resources. It doesn’t matter if a person isn’t sure if he is right in refusing an offer.

He will think of refusing before trying to justify his decision to do so. In this light, you will begin to see just how irrational humans are. I’m not saying that this is a bad thing. There is essentially nothing wrong with following one’s imagination and emotions.

It just so happens that when a person is trying to influence or persuade someone, he turns to logic/rationalism. Do you see the dissonance between how people think and how influencers generally approach the problem of persuading others?

In today’s discussion, we are going to address a number of pressing issues that may affect your ability to persuade others. Sometimes, even the smartest people are unable to persuade others for the simple reason that they don’t know how to get into that persuasive zone where people are more likely to agree than to resist.

Tool # 1: Questions

I have mentioned this countless times before but I am going to repeat it here because it’s so important to the whole persuasive process: learn the fine art of asking questions! The problem I see with most people is that they don’t like the idea of asking questions.

Sure, you can prepare all you want before a conversation but you cannot possibly know everything that you need to know about your subject. It’s easy to hypothesize but in the end, the most accurate source of information would still be the subject.

So before you shy away from asking questions, ask yourself this: how confident are you about your knowledge of your own subject? If your answer to this question is “not very confident” then I invite you to just ask questions.

Try to discover how your subject thinks and what he values most in his work or life. This is pure influence gold – because once you discover what matters the most to a person, you will be able to modify your arguments based on this new information.

Tool # 2: Attitude Counts

Attitude is defined by the Merriam-Webster Dictionary as the “organismic readiness to respond to a certain stimulus”. A person’s attitude is his pre-configured manner of reacting to specific events in his life.

When you are talking to someone about something that you need, that person would already have a preset attitude and response to what you are requesting. It is your job to determine what this attitude is and you have to break the mental trance that allows this attitude to work during the conversation.

It’s also important to evaluate your own attitude toward the subject and your goal so the subject can emulate your attitude. A mental state can easily be broken by interjecting specific emotional triggers.

You must be able to change the subject’s perception of the object (your goal). Ideally, he should end up taking your goal as his own goal because he will eventually get a benefit/advantage.

Tool # 3: Mental Images

We all know that a person’s imagination is his most powerful thinking tool.  A person makes use of his creative imagination more than his logic center because this region of the mind is more malleable and therefore easier to use.

People imagine events that have happened and events that have yet to transpire based on input given by the environment and by other people. If you want your subject to imagine something, avoid using statements “visualize yourself getting A, B, C…”

This approach barely works and people generally don’t want to be told to visualize anything. People like to imagine things but they don’t want to be told to use their imagination to arrive at conclusions.

To avoid this sticky situation, what you can do is to simply ask a series of questions that will trigger an imaginative response from your subject. Let your subject reach his own conclusions. Of course, you will be leading him to these conclusions yourself, by merely asking questions. Let his imagination do the rest.

Tool # 4: Discover What He Wants

People often know what they do not want to get from a given situation but are often reluctant to say what they do want. It might sound strange but this does happen a lot so we just have to deal with this tendency.

One way around this elusiveness trap is by asking questions like “I know that you are not sure about what you want right now, but if you did know what you like, can you describe it to me?”

To a person who is not involved in the conversation, this question will seem redundant and pointless, but to a subject who doesn’t want to share all of his thoughts to another person, this question is a safe way out. But little will your subject know that when he does answer this question, he is allowing the influencer to look inside his mind.

And when you get that glimpse of what the other person might want to get out of the interaction, you can devise alternative solutions to get him to say yes to you.

Sometimes, indirect questions are more helpful than direct questions especially when the subject is clear that he does not want to fully cooperate with the influencer.

After gaining insight as to what kind of benefit your subject wants to get from the interaction, you can then lead him to accept the type of benefit you are offering. Make your subject want the advantage that you are offering. You can tie it up with his goals or you can just say that your offer will make him achieve a different kind of goal.

The Role of Questions in Persuasion and Influence, Part

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Strategic questions can be used to improve the influencer’s approach during a conversation – but more importantly, this technique can be used to improve your chances of changing the subject’s mindset. In a previous discussion I gave a list of different questions that the influencer can use to increase his insight during any social interaction.

In today’s discussion we are going to discuss how you can use questions to alter the subject’s perception and decision-making. One of the hardest truths that every master influencer has to contend with is the fact that you cannot replace good questions with any other language pattern. Nothing comes close to the impact of questions.

So before you use complex language patterns, ask yourself this: have you maximized the potential power of strategic questioning? If you haven’t, I highly recommend that you do and for good reason – formulating and using good questions is far easier than using complex language patterns.

I’m not saying that persuasive language patterns should be ignored, all I’m saying here is that if you can conserve your cognitive resources for a potentially long battle ahead, do so.

Here are some strategic questions that you may want to use if you think your subject is more concerned with formulating objections than with agreeing with your requests:

How would you like to enjoy _____________ by ____________ ? (This question focuses on the main benefit of what you are offering; the subject must comply with what you are requesting before he can enjoy the main benefit)

Have you ever wondered how you can actually get _____________? (Instead of saying that you want the subject to comply, state that he can achieve something instead; follow up with the process that will help him attain the goal which is really just complying with you)

Tell me, what really matters to you in your __________? (While this question will not give you immediate compliance/agreement, it will help you understand how the subject thinks and this information can be used later on to mold or modify your plan of attack)

How much better would your ___________ be if ___________? (This question is a little tricky because you will have to connect your current goal with what the subject considers important in his own life. For example, if you are trying to sell a magazine subscription, you have to think of how the magazine subscription would actually improve his life. Think fast! This question pattern can really make your subject think hard and it will help you gain agreement).

Can you imagine how delighted everyone at __________ would be when they find out that you chose to ____________? (This question pattern is quite sneaky – you will actually be evoking specific positive emotions in the person so that he will create a natural connection between what you need him to do and the idea that people who matter to him will approve of what he will do)

These are just five patterns that you can use to improve your chances of gaining compliance from someone. Of course, not every question in the list I have just provided will be appropriate for every situation. There will be some situations wherein one question may seem odd or completely inappropriate.

For example, you wouldn’t say “can you imagine how delighted everyone at _________ would be when they find out that you chose to _________?” to your boss.

Asking such a question will most likely backfire on you and would result in a lose-lose situation because you will be seen as someone who does not know other people’s boundaries.

Before asking any strategic question, think hard twice, thrice or even four times. Will the question really contribute to your goal of gaining compliance in the first place?

You also have to examine the risk level. All persuasive tactics have a certain degree of risk attached to them. Master influencers are willing to risk it because they would do anything to attain their goals (this is probably the reason why influencers achieve more of their goals, because they are not afraid to test their theories in the real world).

Now, always remember that you should never use “orphaned questions”. When you ask one strategic question (and you get the desired response), follow that question with another strategic question to get the momentum going. Momentum is your best friend when you are using this technique because the more momentum you have, the higher the chances of being able to convince the other person to just say yes.

It is also important to note here that you should never be completely dependent on logic and rationalism when you are trying to persuade someone to see things your way.

You see, it has been long established that people are more likely to say “yes” if you make use of emotional triggers and response triggers that are rooted in the non-rational/non-logical. What does this mean? Well, a person can be very logical (because that is how he perceives himself and that is how he chooses to express himself to the world) but that does not mean that he can suppress his instinctual responses.

A person who suddenly becomes overjoyed at hearing something will say “yes!” more quickly than a person who feels depressed and betrayed. I want you to find that one trigger that matters the most to your subject and use that trigger to gain compliance.

Do not impose your own brand of logic to the subject because it may take too long before he comes around and second, he might not come around at all because logic is almost always subordinated by irrationalism.

In short – a person will most likely choose to follow his own irrational beliefs and emotions than to listen to you. So do not assume for one second that you can make someone agree with you just because you have a bulletproof, logical argument. It doesn’t work that way – and in our day and age, the more you rely on logic, the more you lose out on the opportunity to persuade people more quickly.

The Role of Questions in Persuasion and Influence, Part 1

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“To raise new questions, new possibilities, to regard old problems from a new angle, require creative imagination and marks real advance in science”
Albert Einstein

One of the most effective ways to turn around a dwindling situation is to ask the right questions. Questions work both ways – they can help both the influencer and the subject achieve a state of clarity and decisiveness.

Indecisiveness, skepticism and doubt are probably the biggest enemies of any master influencer because these mental states directly prevent the subject from agreeing with whatever is being asked of him.

Before you begin asking your subject different questions to guide him to a mindset or conclusion that will be favorable to your personal goals, let us take a step back to explore the different questions that you can ask yourself when you  feel that a particular interaction is no longer in your favor.

The following questions can be used in almost every situation so feel free to use some or all of them if it would help you strategize more efficiently during an actual interaction.

What do I want to achieve at the end of this dialog/interaction?

What kind of emotions do I want to feel during this interaction?

What is the most favorable emotional response that my subject can give me right now?

What do I really want to get from talking to this person? (Be really truthful when answering this question – there is nothing wrong with wanting to fully benefit from a social interaction!)

How much time should I be investing to get what I want from this interaction?

What is the bigger goal that I want to achieve by talking to this person? Will his participation really help me achieve that bigger goal or not?

Will the subject also benefit from agreeing with what I want him to do or say? Or will all the benefits of this interaction belong to me only? What can I do to make sure that he will also benefit from what I am asking him to do?

How familiar am I with the specific details involved in what I am asking the subject to do? Also, how familiar am I with all of the consequences that may take place after the subject agrees with what I want him to do?

Do I have to involve other people to achieve my immediate goal and my long term goal? Will the person I am talking to right now be the bridge that will connect me to these other key players?

Do I know everything that is relevant to what I am trying to achieve right now? If not, what do I have to do to get that special bit of insight that will help me influence my subject?

What are all the negative things that could take place if I am able to influence this person to follow my lead?

How prepared am I to deal with the various objections that my subject can throw at me? Will I be able to answer these objections?

Among these objections, which ones will have the most weight when the subject is ready to make a decision? Which objections will be given just because the subject needs more information from me?

If I want to achieve something with the help of this person, will I really be better off with his help or not? Will I get better results if I do it myself or will the opposite be true? Will my subject be worth my time and effort at all?

Note that the questions that we have just examined can be used before a dialog and during a dialog (except the ones that obviously require some form of research).

You can glean a lot of insight by looking inward just before talking to a subject. Of course, you can perform a little ‘review’ of what you have known all along by asking these questions during a conversation. Among all of the techniques that I have come across in the world of influence, the strategic use of questions is by far the most effective in transforming a bad situation into a good one.

It is never too late to turn an interaction into your favor, remember that. By asking questions, you gain two obvious benefits. First, your mind is forced to focus closely on what is happening right then and there.

Sometimes, our minds can wander when we least expect it especially if an interaction is not producing the results that we had hoped for. When you are forced to focus, your mind is also forced to come up with solutions that you have not used before.

The second great benefit is you can start predicting what will happen during the conversation. I’m not saying that you will become psychic but by using this strategy you are fairly close to what others will perceive as clairvoyance.

There is nothing weird about this benefit – you will be able to predict what would happen because you can put yourself in the subject’s shoes if you have to. You can avoid potential problems which really speed up the persuasion process.

Questions also increase you overall involvement in all the aspects of the dialog, from details to how the subject is reacting. Sadly, not all influencers are acquainted with the fine art of analyzing subject feedback.

If you are one such influencer, it is imperative that you situate the subject as the central figure in the entire interaction because you are the one who needs something from the other person.

If you don’t pay attention to how the subject responds, you might end up making a lot of mistakes and this will only make the interaction more difficult to handle because the subject will begin to create more objections until such time that he will feel that you should not be trusted at all because you aren’t providing him with the right answers that will assuage his fears, anxieties and doubts.

A Deeper Look at Mirroring and Matching

A Deeper Look at Mirroring and Matching

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One of the cornerstones of NLP (neuro linguistic programming) and NLP is the process of the establishing rapport or harmony with the subject. It doesn’t matter if the subject is a man, woman or child – rapport has to be established if you want to really connect with the subject and influence him/her to do what you want. Without any rapport, the subject will find it hard to trust you and listen to what you have to say.

Usually, what teachers of NLP and hypnosis do is they teach would-be practitioners mirroring and matching. Mirroring and matching is a classical method of creating rapport.

The theory behind this practice is quite simple: when you match the actions and verbal expressions of another person, you pace him (or set the mood/tone of the interaction) and eventually you will lead him (or guide the subject to where you want the interaction to go).

Mirroring and matching is done covertly with the intention of speeding up rapport between two people. Hypnotists and NLP practitioners usually mirror the subject’s physical gestures, facial expressions, breathing rate, speech rate, etc.

Over time, the subject will begin to match the hypnotist or NLP practitioner and when the two are finally in sync with each other, one can say that a degree of rapport has already been established. This method has worked well for many decades and no decent book on hypnosis or NLP would be complete without a discussion of rapport.

Even the newer books on hypnosis included matching and mirroring because it is an essential skill that must be learned by anyone who wants to speed up rapport and the establishment of social harmony between two or more individuals.  While we do know that this classical method works, it would be beneficial for master influencers to know why this method works.

What makes matching and mirroring so effective in the first place? One study headed by researcher Rick van Baaren focused on the hypothesis that when waiters repeated what customers order word by word, the size of tips will increase significantly.

The hypothesis sounded strange of course, since repeating something verbatim has no real bearing on the enjoyment level of restaurant patrons. But nonetheless, van Baaren proceeded with the study to test his theory that people would appreciate the word-by-word repetition of their orders as opposed to just receiving a nod or a plain “okay”.

Van Baaren also included the responses of restaurant patrons to waiters who did not say a single word at all after the orders have been given. So van Baaren had three distinct groups of waiters to observe during the study.

The first group of waiters was composed of servers who said things like “your order is coming up” and “alright”. The first group of individuals provided the stock response of servers and waiters to customers. They gave a positive acknowledgement but they did not mirror or match restaurant patrons.

The second group of waiters simply left without even nodding or saying anything to the restaurant patrons after receiving the orders. And finally, the third group of servers repeated everything that the patrons said, word by word. They did not say anything else but the exact orders of the patrons.

After the study, van Baaren collated the results and discovered that the third group of waiters (the ones who repeated the order word by word) received up to seventy percent more tips than the two other groups. The waiters in the third group definitely had a really good tip day when van Baaren held his study in the restaurant.

One would wonder – why would repeating customer orders word by word trigger such positive reactions from the restaurant patrons? Social psychology points at the tendency of humans to gravitate toward other humans who share similarities.

Repeating the orders of the restaurant patrons created an instant similarity between the waiters and the ones who ordered; rapport was established instantly and the patrons felt that they were valued customers because the waiters were paying close attention to what they were saying.

When you start matching the expressions, gestures and general behavior of another person, two things happen simultaneously: rapport or harmony is established between you and the other person (he/she starts liking you because you have similarities) and a bond is also formed. This bond can be used by an influencer to persuade the other person to agree with what you are saying.

In another study by Chartrand and Bargh, researchers studied the reactions of subjects who interacted with a research assistant. The research assistant sometimes mirrored the body language of the subject in front of him. The result of the study confirmed what the van Baaren study discovered.

The respondents of the Chartrand and Bargh study who encountered the research assistant who was mirroring their body language stated that they had a smooth interaction throughout.

So while there is no direct link between the mirroring activity and what we may be thinking of another person, the subject’s perception is what truly matters. As influencers we must become preoccupied with how the subject perceives what we are doing. Our own concerns and feelings become irrelevant when we are trying to persuade or influence another person because the whole interaction is hinged on how the subject would be reacting to what you are doing.

Now, does mirroring and matching work during a negotiation? In yet another study headed by researcher William Maddux, the researchers discovered that it can also help an influencer get a better result during an actual negotiation.

The respondents of Maddux’s study were instructed to subtly mimic the behavior of the other person. If the other person moved his hand across the table, the same gesture will be produce a few seconds later.

This subtle mirroring of very simple gestures and physical expressions actually improved the success rate of the respondents. A positive outcome resulted a staggering 67% of the time when subtle matching and mirroring was used by the respondents.

How Can Similarities Covertly Influence People?

How Can Similarities Covertly Influence People?

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We live in a largely globalized, multi-cultural world. The United States (as well as many other large, industrialized nations) has become a veritable melting pot of different ethnicities.

Guys like Thomas Friedman have acknowledged that ‘the world is flat’ and that we now live by different rules under globalization. Despite these monumental changes in the way we live and work, social psychologists and social scientists have pointed to the fact at the very core of our beings, we remain the same. We are driven by the same impulses that made us one of the most dominant species on this planet.

We may be sporting iPhones now with 4G but at our very core we are still warriors preoccupied with survival. You would do well to remember this when you are dealing with different people – because no matter how educated and sophisticated people are, deep down they share the same instinctual drives with you and me. They are not as infallible and foolproof as they are thinking.

Need proof? Let me tell you a story. In the year 1993 the town of Quincy (located in Illinois) was devastated by floods.

Everyone was feeling very pessimistic and hopeless at that time because supplies were running out and it appeared that very little help was coming immediately. Then everyone suddenly brightened – because another town was contributing a torrent of provisions. The generous town was Quincy (located in Massachusetts).

The two towns had no historical ties but the other town chose to help this town instead of all the other towns that have been hit with the natural calamity. How can we explain this somewhat strange move by another town that had no real affinity with the town of Quincy in Illinois?

To understand why this happened, we must turn to social psychology. Social psychology has long pointed out that people were most likely to be supportive of other people that showed some similarities.

By similarities, I am referring specifically to traits and objects that are shared by both parties involved. Why are similarities so important to people? Several years ago, social scientists conducted a different study that focused on children’s reactions to pictorial depictions of people.

Essentially, what they did was they used a single image of a boy or girl and made different copies. Each copy sported a different skin color so in the end, you would have a collection of identical images with different ‘skin colors’.

When the researchers showed the images to the children (which are of different ethnicities), they were astounded by the fact that the children felt more affinity to the representations of people who look more like them. This study reflects a basic fact about humans – we gravitate toward individuals that are similar to us. It is a survival instinct.

We do this because instinctually we believe that our group would take care of us more readily than other groups. Some degree of aversion to differences is also rooted in our instinctual ‘makeup’. This aversion to difference applies to every aspect of our personal lives, professional lives and even in the plainest social interactions.

You can see this most plainly in bars, schools or even public libraries. People feel more at ease when they are with people they know. People feel more comfortable hanging out with individuals who have identified with a particular lifestyle or way of life. And people are more likely to be supportive of another person if he shows that he is ‘one of the group’.

A recent study headed by social researcher Randy Garner confirms this. In Garner’s study, the researcher sent out a large number of mails to completely random individuals. Garner did not know any of the respondents and the respondents had no idea that they were chosen for a study that aimed to discover the power of similarities in social interactions.

The researcher wanted the respondents to fill up a form and mail it back to him so that he could record the collected data. Sounded simple enough, right? Here’s the twist: Garner wanted to know how the random respondents would react to name differences and name similarities.

Garner split the respondents into two groups. One group of respondents received mails from people whose names had no spelling or phonetic similarities at all. Another group received mails from people who had a similar-looking or similar-sounding name. For example, a guy in the second group who was name Jake Smith may have received a mail from someone name Blake Fitch.

The researcher played around with many possibilities and permutations but one thing remained constant – the similarity in the names had to be obvious and the similarities had to be striking enough to get the attention of the subject.

The result of the study proved that Garner’s initial theory was correct – people who received mail from someone who had a similar-sounding name were more likely to fill up the form and mail it back to the researcher than people who received mail from someone whose name had no similarities at all with their own names.

This might look sketchy at first but you can really see how people can easily agree to do something for a complete stranger just because he had a similar-sounding name! The individuals who did mail back their responses to the researcher may have not thought much about their decisions but the statistics point at a constant tendency that cannot be ignored at all.

How can you use this to your advantage? Simple: when you are interacting with someone, be sure to point out genuine similarities between you and the other party. Do not invent similarities! It won’t have the same effect because invented similarities would have to be followed up with even more fictional details.

Find common ground and delve into those commonalities to establish rapport with the other person. Think small and big similarities – because any level of similarity will help you persuade and influence the other person. Trust me – this works!

Admitting Faults Can Make You Trustworthy

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People usually go through life thinking that they have to be perfect in order to be truly persuasive and influential. While it might sound logical to want to be perfect, recent studies show that admitting little faults can actually help you create an image of trustworthiness and credibility.

How is this possible? A study spearheaded by Gerd Bohner sheds light on the idea of using faults to boost one’s public image and acceptability. In Bohner’s study, three advertising campaigns were created to test the effectiveness of admitting faults in boosting the appeal of a restaurant to newer patrons.

The first advertising campaign focused on just the positive characteristics of the restaurant. The second campaign on the other hand, provided positive characteristics and negative characteristics that had absolutely no connection with the positive ones.

The third advertising campaign provided related negative and positive traits. In the last campaign, the restaurant was touted as very cozy but relatively small. The negative trait of the restaurant was its size but that was exactly the reason why it was so cozy in the first place.

To the recipient of this message, the advertisement showed why the restaurant should be patronized in the first place (i.e. it was so cozy and the owners wanted to keep it that way). The negative aspects that were revealed in the third advertising campaign were not really meant to showcase the flaws of the restaurants. The advertisements covertly promoted the weaknesses as strengths.

While the second and third advertising campaigns raised the appeal of the restaurant to would-be patrons, it was the third campaign that created the most buzz because the negative and positive traits are related, as opposed to the second campaign which featured unrelated positive and negative traits.

What does this study show us? If we were to apply Bohner’s findings to our own quest for influence and persuasion, it is clear that if we were to reveal our weaknesses, we have to make sure that every negative side is associated with a positive side that would outshine the negative.

The positive traits should always stand out in any statement; otherwise, you might end up destroying your own image in the attempt to make yourself look good.

If you are building your own personal image so that people would find it easier to trust your ideas and decisions, do not be afraid to reveal your weaknesses and at the same time remain humble.

Humility is a sign of power and history has taught us that the individuals with the most bombast are often the ones who fall and fail the hardest. If you want to create an aura of power and authority, you have to keep your ego in check. If you let your ego run wild, people will most likely become defensive and they will reject you.

Now, if you want to use this approach to promote a service or a product, you have to take a slightly different route. When it comes to selling, the point of contention is almost always the price point of the product or service.

The price is also the most common reason why people turn away from an offer because people are hardwired to preserve their resources. So how can we convince a person to give up his precious financial resource? The secret is to show all of the great advantages of what you are offering (positive traits) first before showing the negative aspect (the price).

Does this sound like you are destroying your own chances of success? Not really. You see, people like sincerity. People love the fact that an influencer can be completely honest with them. Honesty is always a good route in any situation, bar none.

Your genuineness and honesty will bring you above the competition because you will be giving your offer a human face. You will be able to trigger emotional responses more easily if you follow this route. Some of you might be asking: if it were this easy then why don’t people just buy great stuff at premium prices all the time?

People usually turn away from pricey offers because they get the impression that the high price point is a good thing/positive trait. No one in their right mind would think that a high price point is always a good thing. But when an influencer comes out and says that the high price point is a negative aspect that comes with providing so much value.

After showing them the negative aspect of the product, you can then follow up with more feature-benefits. You can tell your clients that your product might be more expensive in the beginning, but it will pay for itself over time because it will serve its purpose for a longer period of time and it will provide all of the benefits throughout its lifespan. You must appeal to both the audience’s emotions and logic because some people rationalize while some let their imaginations and emotions do all the thinking. It would be better to appeal to both groups of people.

If you are interacting with just one person, do the same – appeal to his sense of practicality and logic while stimulating his emotions and imagination. He doesn’t stand a chance against a master influencer who is pulling out all the stops to get the deal.

Now, before we end our discussion I would like you to take a look at these two statements:

“My product is 40% more expensive than what the competitor is offering but it’s better.”

“My product is 40% more expensive but over the long term it will work better, consumes fewer resources and will help you save time and other resources. You can relax now knowing that something this good will be helping you along the way.”

Which of the preceding statements do you think would appeal to both imaginative/creative individuals and rationalistic individuals?

The Persuasive Power of Questions

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Have you ever wondered why veteran pitch men seem to get their way when they are selling something on TV? Part of their success is their ability to use questions to their advantage even if they are in a largely one-way interaction (i.e. TV audiences can’t really respond to their questions).

Questions have that unique ability to trigger an emotional response from the target or subject. If you say the right questions at the right times, you are bound to succeed in persuading or influencing your subject. Using questions to trigger a specific emotional response in a subject is a good example of covert influence.

One of the main reasons why questions are so effective is the fact that when someone comes up to you to ask something, you can’t really ignore that person’s question. Mentally, we have been conditioned to respond to questions – it is part of the linguistic learning that we have had through the years. To ignore a question would feel very strange indeed.

Studies have also shown that answering questions is actually a part of our automatic/instinctual behavior set. That means we humans are hard-wired to respond – there is no escaping it. A subject will answer regardless of his level of desire or willingness.

Pretty sneaky, isn’t it? Society expects people to answer questions because it is the ‘right thing to do’ in most situations. To ignore a question would be to act rudely and no one likes to be branded a rude person. That’s why people answer questions mentally even if they don’t blurt out their responses. If you can get someone to say yes mentally, that’s enough to get you what you want.

Benefits of using questions

Here are some key advantages of using questions during a social interaction:

Remember how trance states work? When a person is in a trance state, he is focused on something (not necessarily on what you are saying). Asking questions automatically dissolves a subject’s trance state because he is forced to process and respond to the question. So the next time your audience looks bored with what you are saying, you can ‘reset’ the interaction by asking a series of questions to help your audience focus on what you really want to say.

When you ask questions, your subject becomes a little defensive, which buys you a little time to plan ahead. As long as you don’t taunt your audience just because you want them to feel defensive, a little defensiveness probably won’t hurt your interaction. Asking big questions like “what do you really want to achieve?” can buy you a lot of time.

Asking questions gives your audience the opportunity to directly interact with you. Let’s face it – people love to hear themselves talk. It’s natural for people to want to speak because we are social creatures. If you allow your subject to respond to his heart’s content (as long as the response is still part of what you had in mind), your subject will feel as though you are a partner or ally.

Asking questions also kindle interest. By asking thought-provoking questions, you can easily grab your subject’s attention again and again.

If the subject is still not buying what you are saying, you can draw out any objections out in the open by asking a series of questions. Objections can be dealt with easily if you know how to ask questions.

Questions also speed up the process of convincing people that you are offering the logical choice. Since people will be forced to answer strategically crafted questions, answers can be anticipated and can be used to the next set of questions, and so on.

Asking the right questions

Here are some guidelines that will help you create questions that will create a strong impact on your audience:

Ask questions that will logically lead to one fixed answer. Don’t ask general and open questions that might lead to confusion. So if you are trying to sell an idea to your manager, try asking a question that appeal to his sense of efficiency like “would you want something that will make every team member work more efficiently than before?” The logical answer to this question would be “yes” because saying “no” would be tantamount to saying that one loves inefficiency.

Ask questions that can readily be answered by your subject. While it sometimes feels good to ask questions that can only be answered by you, this approach can actually alienate your subject. We don’t want to alienate our subjects. We don’t want them to feel disconnected and overly defensive. We want them to share what they know in such a way that it would support our cause. That is how you will ultimately influence others.

Ask leading questions whenever possible. A leading question is simply a statement that has been transformed into a question that can be answered by a yes or no. Your questions can be answered by a yes or no, depending on what you want the subject to think in the first place.

Don’t forget to add that emotional impact to your questions. For example, if you want the subject to buy a new house, try asking questions like “How happy would your kids be when they finally have a place of their own where they can rest, learn and have fun all they want?” Emotional triggers are more powerful than logical triggers because a person would readily act upon an emotional response. Logic and rationalism are somewhat subdued compared to emotions.

You can close deals more easily by using choice questions. A choice question doesn’t really give the subject a choice because in any case, he will be agreeing with what you are saying. Here’s an example: “When would you like me to ship this case of new shirts, tomorrow or Monday next week?” The question itself appears as if the subject has a choice but in reality, he doesn’t.

A Shortcut to Persuasion: Storytelling, Part 1

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A lot of people ask me: is there a shortcut to hooking people so that they would listen and pay attention to what is actually being offered? There are so many approaches out there and a handful of them might work in some instances.

But what if you need an approach that works in print, in meetings, in seminars or in other situations? What approach do you turn to? In the world of influence, one approach has stood out and has withstood the test of time: storytelling.

Storytelling can actually be so effective that it can be used in any scenario and you can be sure that you can get a good result. However, every technique can fail. That’s just how reality works.

You can’t have a completely waterproof technique because when you are aiming for persuasion and influence, a lot of things can go wrong. So the main goal for every influencer is to get the technique right first before all else.

That way, you can be assured that a good result will emerge from all your efforts. Because you can expend a lot of energy doing something but if the technique itself is flawed, you can’t expect perfect results.

What happens when you tell a story?

Why are stories so effective in the first place? When a person tells a story, the receiver or subject actually enters a trance state. This trance state gives you access to the subject’s subconscious mind.

A trance state is simply a mental state wherein the person experiences heightened focus and awareness of what is happening. It’s a bit like finely tuning the mind to block out everything else.

Distractions and other non-relevant stimuli from the environment are blocked out. Now, providing a story to a subject can produce either a good result or a bad result.

When the subject is captivated by what you are saying and is subconsciously agreeing to everything that you say, then we can say that you are a persuasive storyteller.

You are lending your energy to the subject and his attention doesn’t waver at all while you are relating your story.

A negative result emerges when the subject becomes bored and exhausted with the story that you are relating. So how can you avoid a bad result in the first place? Here are three main points that you always have to keep in mind before even thinking of using a story in a conversation, presentation, meeting, etc.:

# 1 Are you telling a story with an intention in mind?

Too often, people tell stories without thinking of any useful goal. Are you telling a story just because you feel like it or does your story offer deeper insight that will directly contribute to your bigger goal? Why are you telling the story in the first place? What are you trying to show the subject by sharing your story?

If you can’t answer any of the questions here, then it’s possible that your story does not have any significant bearing on your success. Drop the story or better yet, find or create a story that would help you achieve your goals. Don’t tell a story for its own sake.

Relate a story because you want the subject to understand or feel something. Because if your story does not connect to the subject at all, the subject will feel mental exhaustion fairly quickly. And when this happens, you can be sure that they won’t be paying attention to everything that you have to say.

# 2 What kind of effect or impact do you want to create with your story?

Stories have intended effects and unintended effects. A really good storyteller can have an immense impact on his audience without even trying. But for the rest of us, we must make sure that our stories are built around an intended impact or effect.

This will ensure that after telling your story, your subject would have that mindset that will readily accept your main points or arguments. Because in the end, influence is really just getting the other person to agree or say yes to what you’re saying.

That is what makes influence so tricky in the first place because people tend to say no because through disagreement, people are able to protect their resources more easily.

For example, if a salesman was offering an expensive new TV set to a young couple, the couple could just say no to the offer because they have this mindset that focuses on preserving financial resources. When you relate a story to a subject,

# 3 What is your game plan?

If you want to take the storyteller route, there has to be a game plan. What stories will you be relating to your audience to achieve your goal? What points do you want to enforce with your stories?

There has to be continuity and relatedness in your stories. You must not jump from one story to another without any clear plan. Some people make the mistake of shifting from story to story without any clear plans; nothing could be more exhausting.

Tell only the stories that you know will create a great impact on your audience. Tell stories to showcase important points that support your bigger argument. To make brainstorming easier, use this simple formula:

“I am telling ____________ the story about __________ so that he will ___________”

As you can see, the formula is pretty straightforward and you probably won’t have any difficulty creating the stories that will help you achieve very specific goals. It doesn’t matter if you are trying to sell a product or an idea to someone. If you tell the right story, you would be able to influence another person more quickly.

You don’t have to memorize complicated diagrams when you’re planning. You can create a short list of themes and topics as a guide. You just have to remember the main themes from your list so you won’t forget anything.

Keys To A Persuassive Presentation

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It is very important for you to be able to effectively deliver your message in a variety of ways so that it can become engraved within the minds of your audience.  However, at the same time, it is imperative that you find a way to accomplish this without rambling on and talking excessively about your subject.

Rambling on in conversation will have a similar effect as beating  a dead horse, it gets you absolutely nowhere.  The only thing that excessive rambling will be able to accomplish within your delivery process is taking away from your power instead of adding anything to it.

When you are preparing the overall structure and organization of your information, take the time to truly figure out how the information (regardless of who or what it is about) sets your expertise apart from all of your competitors.

This will allow you to stand out in the minds of your listeners even more so because they will mentally be able to clearly distinguish between you and everyone else that claims to be experts in the same field.  If they cannot make this distinction, then there is no way that they would ever be able to follow you.

Effective Repetition Adds Power

Repetition will continuously make your message that much more powerful.  Keep in mind that this is primarily focused on repetition of the overall message, but not repetition of the same words.  You don’t want to be repeating the same word or phrase that you have already used over and over again, because this will become annoying to your audience and take away some of the power that your information already has instead of adding any more to it.

You should be looking for ways to make the same message sound different each and every time; changing the wording and structure of the message while keeping the core purpose and meaning behind the message the same the entire time.

Repetition will also play in your favor in you use it wisely because you want people to be able to remember the material that you are sharing with them.  By effectively repeating it back to them, they will be better able to effectively repeat the same information back to others that they share it with.

In turn, their confidence in you is increased if they are easily able to repeat your message to themselves or use the same information to teach other people.  If they can’t quickly recall this information at any given moment, buyer’s remorse will quickly settle in and they will quickyl disconnect and disassociate themselves from you and your information.

Effective “word-of-mouth messaging” will also play in your favor because your reputation will spread faster and further than you would ever be able to reach by yourself.

When To Focus On Features & Benefits

You should always have an interest in finding out how extensive your audience’s knowledge about the benefits of your information is before you even begin speaking to them.

If they already have an abundance of knowledge, as mentioned earlier, you are simply wasting your time, energy and resources by stressing the importance of the benefits to them.  Focus more on learning how they were able to gain their knowledge in the first place and then emphasize the features of what you are offering to them.

Discussing the features will allow them to make conenctions to the benefits that they are already knowledgeable of and cause you to effectively be able to get through to them.

On the other hand, when your audience has no idea about what you are talking about, you are going to have to start from the beginning and truly take the time necessary to educate them on the benefits of what you are bringing to the table.

As mentioned earlier, however, you only want to do this in moderation.  Too much information at once fed to someone that had no knowledge to begin with is ineffective and does not allow them to process and fully understand anything that you are saying to them in the first place.  Therefore, once again, you would just be wasting your time, energy and resources.

You’re Only An Expert If Other Think So

Another important part to be successful at becoming an expert of influence and persuasion deals directly with whether or not people view you as an authoritative figure and expert of the information being delivered.

Your audience has to be able to trust that your expertise, education, experience and knowledge are enough to qualify you as being the person that they should go to for expert information and guidance.

You have to be able to engrave a vision into their minds that clearly shows them what your products or services can do for them in their own lives.  If they can achieve this and visualize the results for themselves, the odds of them desiring to learn more and remember your message more will be in your favor.

On the other hand, if you are working on someone that already feels that they are an expert and knows all that there is to know about the information that you are presenting, you will be wasting your time by trying to create any sort of vision for them.  They more than likely already have their own vision that was first implanted in their minds when they first started to learn about the information.  Trying to put a new vision where an existing and still effective vision already dwells is absolutely pointless.

The Power Of Surprise

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Only a handful of people know how truly powerful personal communication is, even on the level of mere text messages. In our technology-imbued age, using devices to communicate with others is unavoidable. The circumstances that drive our personal realities often keep us far from some of our acquaintances (and even sometimes, our families).

While many would view this is as a hindrance, I personally view this situation as merely another opportunity to practice covert influence.

The challenge now is to pack as much power into one’s words so that the same influential effect would be achieved. In today’s discussion I am going to share with you two strategies that might come in handy when you need to persuade or influence someone – with just a text message. Doubtful? Welcome to the world of real covert influence.

The power of unexpected gifts

A recent study by a group of behavioral scientists (headed by David Strohmetz) revealed just how powerful unexpected gifts can be if given at the right time and to the right people. In the first trial (and other succeeding trials), the researchers asked the servers to abandon the idea of presenting mint baskets to restaurant patrons.

Instead, candies will be given away to the patrons directly right before they left the table. The goal was to increase the tips being given to the servers. In the first attempt, the servers gave one piece of candy to each restaurant patron.

A single candy (for each diner) yielded in a 3.3% increase in tips. In the second attempt, the servers gave away two candies instead of one. The tips increased from 3.3% to 14.1%. Sounds good, right? It gets better!

In the third attempt, servers were asked to give just one candy to each diner - but right before they leave, they would turn back and give each diner an additional candy for no reason at all. No words or niceties were needed and yet, the simple modification in the process of giving away the candies resulted in 23% more tips for the servers.

Amazing, isn’t it? The third approach really boosted the tips for the simple reason that the diners felt compelled to reciprocate the nice gesture of the servers. It’s still reciprocation, but it’s done in such a way that the reciprocation feels very natural and the ones reciprocating would feel happy that they have reciprocated what was done to them.

How can you apply this when you are texting someone? Easy – when you need to ask someone a favor or if you need something done, don’t start the interaction with the request or task. Instead, start by saying something that is completely unrelated to your request (make sure that it will benefit the other party) and let the other party enjoy your gift before you make a request.

Of course, you would need to back up your text messages with a real, unexpected gift (like a spa day for your wife or a new video game for your boyfriend). But you can relay your influential message through a simple text message and the effect would be nothing short of amazing. I’m not promising anything here since a lot of things can act as obstacles to any influential message, but I can assure you that unexpected gifts can ignite a sense of reciprocity so strong that the other party would offer to do a favor for you in no time.

However, I do have to warn you that this strategy works well if you don’t do it very often and you also have to limit the people that receive unexpected gifts from you so the technique doesn’t lose its power.

If you do it to everyone, word will eventually get out and people will stop responding favorably to your requests. So do this only if other techniques are no longer working. Because if you overuse this technique, chances are, it will soon backfire on you and you will lose your hold on your audience.

A note of warning about favors

Let’s admit it – we love favors. Favors are often lifesavers and in the long term, favors can often help us when we are out of options. When you are asking favors through text messages or even on the phone, be very careful as to how you frame your request. Recent studies show that the favor-doer and the favor-receiver often have very contrasting views regarding favors.

When Person A does Person B a favor, Person B often views the favor in high regard at first. Person A on the other hand, doesn’t view the act (the favor) in high regard (at first). What happens is as time passes, Person B’s view of the favor diminishes while Person A (the original favor-doer) begins to view his favor highly.

So in the end, Person A might ask Person B for a reciprocal favor and Person B might not look favorably at the request if it has been done a very long time ago. So if you are in the habit of seeking favors for past favors, I suggest that you don’t let months or years pass. If you need something from someone because that person owes you a favor, do it as soon as possible so you can increase the chances of receiving positive feedback from the other person.

Because if you wait too long, the other person might ignore your request because his view of the past favor has already been diminished by time. So when you need to ask for a favor through a text message, just send a quick and polite request – there’s no need to mention the past favor.

If your request is timely and has some connection to a past favor, the other party will understand and will probably comply with your request. If the other party declines for some reason, it is possible that the favor he owes has already ‘expired’ in his mind. I wouldn’t recommend pushing your case any further because that would only result in more negative feedback from the other party.