3 persuasion techniques you should know

Mes amis,

Happy New Year! 🥳🎆

I hope you and your loved ones enjoyed the holidays. I thank God for my metabolism because I had waaay too many mince pies and and chocolates.

Along with that, I hope you got to rest, recalibrate and are ready to achieve more this 2023!

How would you like some more insight into persuasion?

I knew you would.

Persuasion (Epilogue)

I want to visit 3 areas of Presuasion: Attention, Unity & Acting together. I want to explore these and give you insight into my experience with them. So let's kick things off with.

Acting together

This isn’t mimicry. Acting together looks at things we do in cooperation with each other. Mostly these things can include dancing, marching, playing music together and so on. We are more likely to be persuaded by someone who has worked with us. It’s just our nature.

Studies have shown that military units developed a better rapport and complete more tasks when they march in sync.

In another study, the Ikea effect, it was found that asking for advice is good advice.

What does that mean?

Well, asking for advice brings people in, in a sort of togetherness. For instance, giving other advice puts us into a merging state of mind.

The statement isn’t a demand or an order which could bruise egos, instead, it’s an offer, an invitation, for the other person to listen to and accept it.

This study nicely transitions us to the next point, which is…

Unity

This is written into our DNA as human beings. We have accomplished many incredible feats and it all came down to a couple of people saying the same speech we’ve heard in every film ever about teamwork.

Uniting everyone under the banner to defeat a common enemy (again as seen in every move ever…).

Unity is, of course, important because it helped us not only survive but thrive as a species. And I’ve already alluded to unity in the previous section, so what do I have for you here?

A personal account. This is how I got my first client.

Now, I’ve never told anybody this, so you’ll have to pinky promise this stays between us.

Cool?

Alright. My first client and I had about 4 chats before we finally agreed on the contract.

To be honest with you, I really needed this win.

It had been 3 months since I had taken the plunge into entrepreneurship and I was thinking I was a failure because Twitter had gurus and phoneys photoshopping their results, fast cars and endless holiday pics.

I was green with envy, I can’t lie.

But even though I needed to close this client, I couldn’t afford to go any lower on my price.

The only advice I got was “Give her an offer so good she’ll feel like an idiot if she says no”

So I scribbled down the best offer I could think of and jumped back on my last call with her to close this deal.

We exchanged pleasantries and got down to business.

I was a wreck but I had to push through it. I needed a win.

Finally, I said my offer and thankfully the two of us weren’t on the call. I was sweating up a storm.

And guess what?

The offer didn’t even seal the deal with her. In fact, she said she wanted to work with me since I was black too, but the price was just out of her budget.

Huh…? I’ll take it.

And boy did I. I dropped to my knees with tears welling up from ecstasy. I had secured my first paying client.

All because we were united by our race.

Got to love positive discrimination!

If you don’t have race on your side there are other ways to find something you unite with a person over.

Then, try to persuade them.

It’ll take some brain calories but I trust you’ll find that one detail which will change the trajectory of your chances through finding a unified goal.

Attention is Important

Everything over the past 2 emails won’t have any effect if the person you’re trying to persuade (or the person trying to persuade you) can’t get your attention.

It’s why hypnotists are all “Look at me, look at me. Focus on my voice and only my voice.” hypnotists know and understand the power of attention. Without it they can’t put you under their spell.

In 1972, a study conducted by Maxwell McCombs and Donald Shaw found that voter’s ranking of political issue importance had an almost perfect correlation with the amount of attention the issue received by the media.

The correlation was 0.97 (1 = perfect correlation)!

If it’s important then it needs attention.

And what I need to bring to your attention is the fact this concludes another weekly newsletter...

But I'll be back next week with all things ChatGPT: Rise of the Terminator.

A bientot 👋🏿

[What happened this week]

Music of 2022

My album of the year.

Even though it came out in 2021, this was on heavy repeat throughout last year. I don't really have words to describe it (ironic given my profession) but it just makes sense to me...

Podcast of the week

Mine (again)! The Work in Progress Show.

The guys and I kicked off this year with a bang. We even had a special guest 👀

Wall of Inspiration

This week is dedicated to God and the people He's put in my life to help me along the way. I pray and work towards giving back the support and love you've given me. Thank you 🙏🏿