Will you make it through the current economic turmoil?

 

Part 4.2 - Knowledge Power: People Persuasion Skills

In the previous newsletter we said that there are 3 types of knowledge that professional salespeople must have if they are ever to reach their potential for themselves and for their organizations they sell for:

• Product knowledge
• People persuasion skills
• Self knowledge management.
  

And again, whilst we acknowledged that the vast majority of salespeople and managers alike agree on the important role that product knowledge (P.K.) plays in selling, we stated that P.K. was only one of two other areas of the knowledge triangle required to bring home the sale. In the preceding newsletter we took an in depth look at self knowledge management. Today we will look at the key elements required to become proficient in when it comes to the skill of people persuasion.

People Persuasion Skills (PPS). Science or Art?
When it comes to the study of persuasion the most-cited living social psychologist in the field of influence authorities is Dr Robert B. Cialdini. He is the author of  “Influence: Science & Practice”, “Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion”, and “Yes! 50 Scientifically Proven Ways to Be Persuasive”. His books are the results of over 30 years of study into the reasons why people comply with requests in business settings.

Dr Cialdini states that when it comes to persuasion, “A lucky few have it; most of us do not. A handful of gifted “naturals” simply know how to capture an audience, sway the undecided, and convert the opposition. Watching these masters of persuasion work their magic is at once impressive and frustrating. What’s impressive is not just the easy way they use charisma and eloquence to convince others to do as they ask. It’s also how eager those others are to do what’s requested of them, as if the persuasion itself were a favour they couldn’t wait to repay. The frustrating part of the experience is that these born persuaders are often unable to account for their remarkable skill or pass it on to others. Their way with people is an art”

Which is all very fine for the eloquent few; in sales we call this fortunate minority “Rainmakers”. What about the rest of the selling population? What about those of us who weren’t born with this unique persuasiveness talent?

The good news is that over the past fifty years or so, behavioural scientists have been very busy conducting “persuasion” experiments. There is now a massive body of research which highlights the key steps and the particular means in which “certain interactions lead people to concede, comply, or change”.* The scientists can now tell us with a very high degree of accuracy that persuasion is “governed by basic principles that can be taught, learned, and applied”.*

* Source: Harnessing the Science of Persuasion - Dr Robert B. Cialdini

Why Persuasion?
Persuasion is about getting people to want to do what you want them to do. The primary goal of persuasion can be defined as “being able to change ones thoughts and feelings towards a particular subject/object, so that these will merge, and finally equal the persuader's thoughts and feelings.” (Johan Olsson)

The main challenge of the persuader is how to alter another person's thoughts and feelings. According to one of the pioneers in persuasion theory, William J. McGuire, Professor of Social Psychology at both Yale and Columbia University, there are five crucial steps in persuasion that have to be met to be successful in persuading others to your view. McGuire’s research suggests that it is impossible to skip one of steps, as each of these five steps needs to follow in a chronological order from one to five. McGuire calls them:

1. Attending
2. Comprehending
3. Yielding (lowering resistance)
4. Retaining
5. Acting

Attending
Gain their attention! Persuasion cannot begin until the listener’s attention has been won. In other words, before you can even get an opportunity to persuade you must be able to gain their attention, garner their interest and break their preoccupation. In his renowned audio series “The psychology of selling” Brian Tracy tells the story of the champion Corning salesman who would gain the attention of his prospects with a powerful opening line. “Mr. Prospect, would you like to see a piece of glass that doesn’t shatter or break?” To which the prospective customer, curiosity piqued, would always say “Sure!” With that, the champion salesman would whip out his sample glass and a ballpein hammer and with a mighty slam, would smash the hammer down on the glass in front of the shocked prospect. Then he would proceed to ask how much the prospect wished to order. This is what you call gaining their attention.
Good advertising headlines do the same thing. They grab the prospects interest. “How would you like Google to pay you to use the internet?”; “Earn 1 dollar for 20 cents you spend”; “Never cold call again!” are all headlines designed to breakthrough a prospective buyers current preoccupation allowing for an opening to persuade. Obviously, if you cannot garner the interest of the person you wish to persuade you will never get an opportunity to move to the next step of McGuire’s persuasion model, comprehending.

Another key element of getting people to “attend” and listen to your persuasive message is the first impression that you as the persuader make on the “persuadee”. First impression includes things like the clothes you wear, how you smell and how appealing you are physically. These are all vital elements in the first stage of the persuasion process. Credibility of the source, or the person (or group) who is presenting the message has an impact on its persuasiveness. The fact is that when we don’t trust the source of a message, it is highly unlikely that we will be persuaded by that individual. Research evidence demonstrates that the stronger the credibility of the expert, the more persuasive they are deemed to be.

Rightly or wrongly the more credible the source, the more they are seen to be trustworthy and thereby likely to change an audience’s attitude and perceptions. In other words, strange as it may seem, an audience’s perception of the source is the most important factor in persuasion. Whether the presenter really is an expert or really is trustworthy or not is of far less importance than whether the audience believes the source to be an expert or trustworthy. If the audience believes the source to be credible and trustworthy, they will likely be persuaded by that source. On the contrary, if the audience is in doubt as to the credibility of the source, it is very unlikely that they are likely to be influenced by the message from that source. Most often persuasion ends HERE!

Rapport is another critical ingredient in the attending phase of the persuasion model. The bottom line is that if the individual you are attempting to persuade doesn’t like or trust you they won’t trust your message and thereby be persuaded by you.

Comprehending 
For your message to be persuasive your communication must be effective. Your audience must understand the message before it can be influenced by it. Simply stated, the individual being persuaded must understand what it is you are proposing. A fundamental understanding of the data being presented is essential to enable the person being persuaded to either take a stand for or against the issue. Here too, messages delivered by a perceived expert or trustworthy source, will also influence this stage of the persuasion process.

As an example, one might pay more attention to an expert or to someone to whom we trust. Conversely, one might pay no heed to those whom we have limited trust or to those who we feel are uninformed. Typically we are also far more likely to hold on to the precepts and ideas from those to whom we believe to be reputable rather than disreputable sources. This is especially important when it comes to the “retention phase” of the persuasion process because if the listener fails to retain the information, persuasion is unlikely to proceed.

Yielding (lowering resistance) 
The person being persuaded must yield to the idea being presented. In other words, should the listener reject the information as either useless or untrue or both, the persuasion attempt will fail. Once again the credibility of the source becomes a key persuasive ingredient. As we said earlier, we are more likely to accept a message when we respect and trust the source. Often helping the individual to change their opinion is more a function of asking them pointed questions for them to self discover their own way forward. Just bombarding them with further facts and features will not necessarily shift their mindset.

**It is interesting to note that messages with more arguments are more persuasive than those with fewer arguments. The research shows that the more arguments in a message, the more likely it will seem to be true. The research suggests that two-sided may answer objections that might have kept the audience from agreeing with the message. Thus, one-sided messages may not create as much yielding as two-sided ones.

When a persuasive message succeeds at changing a listener’s mind (attitudes), McGuire says that the receiver has yielded to the message.

**(Calder, Insko, & Yandell, 1974; Chaiken, 1980; Cook, 1969; Petty & Cacioppo, 1984)

Retention
At this stage of the persuasion process the listener must retain the information long enough to act on it. If the listener fails to retain the information, persuasion is unlikely to proceed. As the persuader, your message is more likely to be retained, if it is interest to the listener. McGuire recognized that attitudes do change; if they were permanent, of course, we couldn’t hope to change them with our persuasive messages. However, the very fact that attitudes do change (and can be changed) means that when we succeed at changing someone’s attitude, that change probably won’t last forever. The truth is that some other persuasive message (or experience) could change their attitudes again. This is why it is so essential that the individual being persuaded both understands and can retain your message. So that when they are confronted with another persuasive and credible point of view to the contrary, they can still uphold your message. This is why simple picture, models and metaphors often have such persuasive power; because they are easily retained!

Action
In the final analysis, we can say that the measure of persuasive success is whether the listener is motivated to proceed to a course of action presented by the persuader. Did they act? Did they change? This is the milestone that counts. So if the above constitutes the process of persuasion then how does one do it? Can persuasion be learned? If so then what are the skills required to persuade?

People Persuasion Skills
Where does one begin? If you Google “Persuasion Skills”, you will attract nearly a million different sites you could review. If you go to amazon.com you’ll have the privilege of ploughing through close on two and a half thousand book results. So obviously there is a whole lot of data that surrounds this thing called People Persuasion Skills.

We know that some people already have a penchant and are more naturally gifted in this area than others. Having said that there are a number of skills that one can learn and improve on when it comes to persuasion. So rather than provide you with a list of specific skills a mile and a half in length, let’s just look at some of the basic skills required to meet the McGuire 5 Steps.

1. Attending

• Telephone skills
• Listening skills
• Research skills
• Understanding people styles
• Personality shifting
• Gain attention/interest
• Break preoccupation
• First impression
• Establish your credibility
• Product/service belief
• Establish trust and rapport
• Reading body language

2. Comprehending

• Diagnosis skills
• Listening skills
• Teaching/Instruction skills
• Facilitating skills
• Coaching skills
• Presenting skills
• Understanding what makes them tick
• Voice modulation
• Technical application knowledge
• Business application knowledge
• Return on investment awareness
• Tailoring your presentation to the listener
• Courage
• Appeal to their self-interest
• Reading body language
• Problem solving
• Use both logic and emotional appeals

3. Yielding (lowering resistance)

• As above
• Negotiation skills
• Deliver certainty
• Leadership
• Conflict/resolution skills

4. Retaining

• Simplify complexity
• Ability to describe in picture, models and metaphors

5. Acting

• Follow up skills
• Customer service skills

There are most likely a whole lot more than the skills mentioned above, however if you or your sales team will go to work, learn and practice and ultimately perfect the above list, you will set yourself in the top 2 percent of the sales population.

To summarise, I quote Bishop Charles Scott who suggests that when it comes to persuasion,

• People will listen to you if they like you.
• People will listen to you if you listen to them.
• People will listen to their peers more than they listen to you
• People will listen if they are convinced you are committed

 

Sign up to receive Ian's newsletters in your inbox regularly