You can persuade people (use persuasion) to get outside support for your plans each time you propose. Your ability to convince people to agree with you and influence their behavior helps you achieve personal and professional goals. Innovation and growth are encouraged. In this article, I’ll explain why persuasion is essential and share 11 strategies for persuading others at work.
Why is persuasion helpful? Persuasion is essential for bringing ideas to life, building support networks, and achieving goals. I have more reasons to agree with you and support your proposal. At work, you use persuasion to promote your ideas to colleagues, get promotions, and convince customers to buy your products and services. Persuasion can be used in meetings, contract negotiations, and casual conversations. Some of the main advantages of persuasion are:
- Rapid project completion
- Updated with new best practices
- Create career opportunities
- Align team goals
- Reduce unproductive disagreements
- Earn social capital among colleagues
- Improved self-esteem
Persuasion is studied in many disciplines. Rhetoric studies modes of persuasion in speech and writing and is often taught as a classical subject. Psychology looks at persuasion through the lens of individual behaviour and neuroscience studies the brain activity associated with this behaviour. History and political science are interested in the role of propaganda in shaping historical events.
In business, persuasion is aimed at influencing a person’s (or group’s) attitude or behaviour towards some event, idea, object, or another person (s) by using written, spoken, or visual methods to convey information, feelings, or reasoning, or a combination thereof. Persuasion is also often used to pursue personal gain, such as election campaigning, giving a sales pitch, or in trial advocacy. Persuasion can also be interpreted as using personal or positional resources to change people.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persuasion
How to Persuade People
The persuasion process includes some basic steps that you can adapt to your situation.
- Set goals. Have a clear idea of your ideal outcome to stay focused when persuading others.
- Come up with a compelling point. Make a list of why people support your idea and the benefits if they change their minds.
- Consider your opponents. Imagine why people would disagree with you on preparing counterarguments about common points from opposing perspectives.
- Choose your ideal time. Talk to the person you want to convince when they are in a good mood and have enough time for an in-depth conversation.
- Start a conversation. Involve others in your thinking by interacting and building relationships with them rather than just presenting your own.
- Please seek support. End the conversation by including a call to action asking you to confirm your idea or consent.
Ways to Persuade People: Do Good
Complete favors and do good deeds for those you want to persuade. By making an effort to help someone, you can build relationships and improve your attitude towards your ideas. If someone sees you as someone to approach, they may want to hear your opinion. Additionally, your favor may help boost your gratitude, as many people feel the need to return the favor as part of a social arrangement.
Ways to Persuade People: Reflect on Their Behavior
Use physical and verbal mirroring to create an unspoken connection when interacting with the person you are trying to persuade. Copy minor aspects of a person’s behavior, such as B. Their hand gestures, poses, tone of voice or vocabulary help them feel more relaxed and see you as a friendly and trustworthy person. By repeating small phrases and reflecting on their quirks, you remember their energy and subconsciously show that your goals align with theirs. Ideas are more receptive and comfortable to hear.
Ways to Persuade People: Identify Your Frustrations
To persuade someone to change their minds or decisions, ask yourself why they are unhappy with their current decisions. Empathizing with other people’s problems can give you a starting point to connect with them and change their minds. Some people make decisions because they feel he has only one option. Therefore, knowing what they don’t like about their current alignment may expose them to better choices without the same difficulties.
Ways to Persuade People: Prepare for the Interview
Use priming techniques such as repetition to subconsciously prepare someone to hear your argument. Repetition is a useful persuasion tool because it helps people feel more comfortable with an idea before making a decision. Find ways to nonchalantly communicate the merits of your ideas without asking someone for their buy-in directly.
For example, if you’re trying to convince your boss to introduce a flexible work-from-home policy, you might want to start a casual group conversation about how happy your sister is after being away from home after working her full day a week. let’s start. Then you can mention how your competitor increased sales by a factor of 15 by allowing their employees to work remotely. After hearing a few casual mentions of working from home, your boss might be relieved to hear a formal pitch.
Ways to Persuade People: Imply Exclusivity
Make the person you are trying to convince feel special by building a sense of urgency and exclusivity around your point of view. Aren’t there a lot of people? When convincing people to agree with you, emphasize the importance of supporting your idea before it becomes a big success. This makes people feel unique and proud that they made an intelligent choice with the potential for big payouts.
Ways to Persuade People: Use Reliable Sources
Successful persuasion often requires sharing evidence to support a claim, so checking your sources carefully is essential. Research the opinions of the person you are trying to persuade and determine the most persuasive sources. It may be more effective to include evidence from an influential and respected colleague than to cite the new intern you hired yesterday. You can connect with essential and recognized people.
Ways to Persuade People: Ask Guiding Questions
Let people change their minds and believe they started an idea by asking a specific question. Letting people talk about themselves and feel involved in the decisions is a great way to subtly persuade them to defend your ideas without asking directly, ask questions that lead you to your ideal conclusion.
For example, if you want to convince your office girlfriend’s manager to keep her energy drink in the office, start the conversation by asking her about her day and what she brought for lunch. Ask if they drink coffee and if you’ve noticed how many people have long lunches to buy energy drinks at the corner store. Help them understand the benefits of self-storing energy drinks.
Ways to Persuade People: Use Silence
Show confidence and control of the situation by stopping and thinking when persuading someone in a conversation. Silence is an unpleasant common trait; people can become overly talkative to fill pauses. If you stop and wait, the other person may instinctively try to relieve their discomfort by revealing additional information about themselves or agreeing more with your thoughts. It also helps you listen, process information, and consider the following steps to connect strategically with others.
Ways to Persuade People: Specifying Options
Instead of offering someone a yes or no scenario, provide multiple options that benefit both of you. Start with an idea or request you think will be rejected and continue with more practical suggestions. By starting the conversation with a bold and extravagant statement, you can make your actual goals seem reasonable by comparison. This method also gives the other party a sense of agency by offering them multiple options and turning your request into a mutually beneficial compromise.
A classic example of this technique is negotiating payment rates. Start with a salary request that is much higher than you want. That way, employers will feel like you’ve closed the deal if you lower that figure to your target salary.
Ways to Persuade People: Combine Strategies
Use multiple persuasion tactics, pay attention to how others respond, and tailor your arguments to your audience. Some people respond best to emotional appeal, while others value a logical point of view. By implementing multiple methods, he can address different aspects of the decision-making process in one conversation. In each technique, note their involvement and highlight the tactics that elicit the most positive response.
Ways to Persuade People: Explain Your Results
After making a suggestion, let your imagination run wild by imagining a positive outcome of your choice. Use positive imagery and vocabulary when explaining how supporting your ideas will improve their lives. Storytelling is a persuasive technique that develops a compelling narrative that delights the other party and introduces an unexpected future while providing a convincing argument.
We hope this article was helpful to you. To increase your awareness of this topic, we suggest you read the “How to be More Charismatic and Attractive” article.
