Chapter Five
By Dr. Tony Alessandra
Jack pulled back into his apartment complex around 5:45 PM. He felt good about his day. He made one sale of about 150 sets of Zig Ziglar's Strategies For Success DVD/CD package. "That will be a nice commission," he thought to himself. He also felt good because he knew this product was really going to help his client. He also had planted some very promising seeds, and he knew some sales were going to grow from them. Life was beginning to turn around... and it felt good.
Jack decided to pop into the stereo DVD player one of his many samples of training resources that he sold. He decided on Dr. Tony Alessandra's program, Becoming More Persuasive. As Dr. Alessandra began to speak, Jack went into his tiny kitchen to prepare himself some dinner. Dr. Tony began:
Suppose you take your boss aside to tell him about your great idea for a new software product. It's an offshoot of your firm's present line, and one you're sure could be easily produced, thus nailing down a profitable niche. You expect him to be as jazzed about it as you are. Instead, he raises reservations about staff and funding. He voices doubts about timing and market. He questions whether the needed equipment and raw materials are available and, even if they are, whether foreign competitors wouldn't soon catch on and make the same product more cheaply. All in all, his response sounds suspiciously like a brush-off.
Why? Why are so many new ideas a tough sell? Isn’t it true, as the old saying goes, that if you invent a better mousetrap, the world will beat a path to your door? No, that’s baloney! In fact, it’s never been less true – for a variety of reasons. For starters, people everywhere have become more savvy, skeptical, and even cynical. We’ve all become more jaded about advertising, more suspicious of political claims, and less trusting of those who bring us a message, any message – even one that may be in our best interest.
Second, organizations build barriers to change. Change entails risks, and risk conflicts with the desire for control and predictability. Change also requires approval by a lot of people, people with differing needs and interests. Third, and most important for our talk today, many people just aren’t skilled at the art of persuading. No matter how brilliant your idea, no matter how technically advanced or economically sound it may be, it’ll go nowhere unless you get others to go along with it. And the only way you do that is by persuading them, by communicating clearly why they really should want to do what you really need done.
The Art of Persuading
John Naisbitt, the futurist author of Megatrends 2000, said our high-tech capabilities have outpaced our “high-touch needs.” In other words, we spend more and more time learning new technology and less and less time developing the interpersonal skills needed to explain an idea’s worth. As a result, learning to improve our persuasiveness is both easier and harder than it used to be. Easier because we’ve now got email and voice mail, CD-ROMs and cellular phones, satellites and skywriting, and a vast array of other tools for communicating. But it’s also more difficult, because the deluge of messages and ill-equipped messengers through all these forms cheapens them all. So nowadays, it’s more crucial than ever to hone the skills that heighten our power of persuasion and, in turn, our charisma.
We’re All Persuaders
The truth is, we’re all involved in persuasion of some sort every day. If you’re in sales, the use of persuasion is pretty obvious: you try to convince others to buy your product or service. But in our social and personal lives, too, there’s a more subtle but almost constant use of persuasion as you seek a date, debate politics, try to talk your way out of a parking ticket, decide which video you and a friend will rent, or just make the case that yams, not mashed potatoes, will go better with that Thanksgiving turkey.
But sometimes the process of persuasion is more long term and less obvious than that. Take recycling. Twenty years ago, most people would have thought it was too much of a hassle to keep piles of empty bottles, aluminum cans, or old newspapers in some corner of their home. Today, a great many people recycle, or at least agree that it’s a good idea to recycle.
What made us change? A couple decades of persistent persuasion from people in the ecology movement, from companies who care about the environment, and from our friends and neighbors who demonstrate how easy and worthwhile recycling can be. What’s in it for us, they said in effect, is that the benefit greatly outweighs the cost, we can help save the earth’s precious resources by just tossing bottles and cans in a couple bins in our garage.
The Four-Step Process
How can you improve your persuasiveness – and thus increase your personal connections? Well, a starting point is to make sure you and others understand the “need gap.” The need gap is the difference between the current situation and the desired situation. Whatever the specifics of a situation, when other people perceive a gap you’ve cited – a “because” – there’s a natural desire to want to fill it.
Here are four steps for determining, and then closing, the need gap and using it as a tool for persuasion. By the way, this tool is universal. It can be applied to large social issues, say, birth control or economic justice, or to more day-to-day challenges such as influencing your customers.
Here’s the process:
- Explore needs and goals
- Create and select a solution
- Commit to an action plan
- Assure success by identifying, monitoring, and measuring results.
Sometimes a need gap is obvious. Homeless people need affordable, safe shelter; businesspeople desire freeways that aren’t jammed every day at rush hour; and your customers may want new, less expensive technology that completely replaces what they are using. But sometimes the gap is not so obvious, and finding it requires exploring the current and desired situations.
1. Explore Needs and Goals
The main way to discover the need gap is by asking questions. Questioning is a very important skill. It makes persuasion easier by getting the person you want to influence involved in discovering the problem (where it “hurts”) and being committed to creating the solution (how to make it feel “better”).
“Judge a man by his questions rather than by his answers,” Voltaire said. Indeed, well-phrased questions are the mark of a skilled persuader. Such queries help people organize their thoughts and feelings. Thus, you’ll get tremendous insight into their needs, motivations, and fears. The answers will smooth the way for the building of a relationship.
Open versus Closed Questions – It’s best to begin with open questions, the kind that require a narrative for an answer. Such questions can’t be answered with a simple yes or no, or a simple fact. These open-ended questions encourage the other person to relax and to think broadly even as they give you a chance to explore.
Proper phrasing makes a big difference in the kind of answer you get. “How’s business?” will often get you a pat answer. “Can you tell me a little bit about your business?” is a much better open question. Similarly, “Are you happy with your current mutual fund?” is not as good as “Would you describe your current personal investment strategy?” “Can you tell me what’s important to you in a home-security system?” is likely to be more productive than “So, you want a burglar alarm?”
Open questions don’t lead the other person in a specific direction but, rather, increase dialogue and show your interest in his or her situation. Once you’ve gathered information that paints a broad picture, you can use closed questions to get specific facts.
Let’s suppose you’re thinking about remodeling your home. The first contractor comes to your home and asks a few questions like: “How old is the home?” “What areas do you want to remodel?” “Will you need financing?” “How much equity do you have in the house?” “When do you want the work to start?” Those are all reasonable closed questions that get the contractor some useful information.
Then a second contractor arrives and asks questions like: “Could you tell me a little about your lifestyle?” “Which area of your home is your favorite, and why?” “What do you hope to accomplish by getting this remodeling done?” Then, in addition, he asks the same questions the other contractor did.
Which contractor would you hire? My guess is, all other things being equal, you’d be more influenced by the second builder who started with the open questions, then went to the specific closed questions. He engaged you in an exploration of your need gap, your “because.”
Or perhaps you’re seeking donations to your university’s alumni fund. A good open-ended question to a prospective donor might be: “How do you feel about being an alumna of State?” You can follow this with: “Are you aware of all the good work the alumni fund is doing?” Again, that’s an open question followed by a closed question.
The Funnel Technique – The “funnel” technique of questioning involves beginning with broad, open questions and then building on those responses by making narrower, more specific queries. As you move down the neck of the funnel, you fill in more and more of the details by asking more pointed questions.
The broad, open questions at the top of the funnel (“What prompted you to look for a new travel agency right now?”) are comfortable to answer and give the respondent more freedom. By the time you get to the more specific questions (“How many national trips and international trips, on the average, does your firm book in a month?”), he or she can see where you’re going and will be more willing to share information with you. Not only that, most people will experience a higher sense of trust as they reveal information to you gradually.
Clarifying, Expanding, or Redirecting – It’s also important to understand the three primary directions for questions: clarify, expand, or redirect. Clarifying questions refer directly to the other person’s remarks. In essence, these questions suggest: I hear what you’re saying but I want to make sure I know what you mean. Clarifying questions are a form of feedback, and they reinforce what the person just said.
Thus, the contractor might say: “Am I correct in thinking you hope to substantially cut down on your heating bills with this improvement?”
As a fund-raiser, you might ask: “You’re saying that you’re proud to be a university grad but you’re not informed about what the alumni fund is doing these days?” By asking the person to repeat or affirm a statement, you’re attempting to reinforce his or her need for your service or cause.
Expanding questions get at more detailed information, such as what the other person’s priorities are. In essence, you’re saying: I understand, but tell me more.
What if the contractor asked, “When this area is enlarged, what kind of furniture do you plan to put in here?” That would give him a better idea of your style preference. You might ask the prospective alumni-fund donor: “What kinds of activities were you involved in while you attended the university? What was your major?” Her answers might suggest a way to elicit her support.
Redirecting questions are useful for steering the conversation in other directions. In essence, you’re saying: I now have a good grasp of your point of view, so let’s look in another area. These questions can change the topic, or navigate a difficult exchange toward smoother waters. If the answer to an expanding question goes on and on, change the topic with a redirecting question.
A Collaborative Experience – Using questions makes persuasion more of a collaborative experience. Remember: increasing your persuasiveness is not an exercise in exerting power over people. Some folks may still cling to the old image of using verbal domination to get others to see things their way. But it doesn’t work that way in the real world anymore, if it ever did.
Whether you’re selling goods, recruiting people to work for political candidates, marshaling support for community causes, or trying to win over people for whatever reason, the emphasis now is on getting that person (1) to acknowledge and share a perceived need (again, a “because”) and then (2) to be willing to collaborate with you on solutions.
You’ll be a powerful persuader when you can align your vision with the needs, wants, and objectives of other people and get their feedback. Exploring those needs and getting the other person to acknowledge the need gap – the gap between what is and what can be, or the “because” – is the first crucial step.
2. Create and Select a Solution
Usually when you’re trying to persuade somebody, there’s more than one possible course of action. So in most cases, you’ll want to involve the other person in exploring ways to close the need gap. If they’re helping create the solution, they’ll be far more committed to implementing it than if you unilaterally create the plan and “inflict” your solution on them. For instance, if you’re a real-estate salesperson, you may find a great home that meets a family’s living requirements. But it may not meet their criteria for quality of the schools or access to shopping. Or you may be able to meet all the requirements – including schools and shopping – but not at the right price. By collaborating with your customers, you can help solve the problem by getting them to detail their priorities, telling you which of the factors is most critical to their plan. That way, you’ll help establish mutual respect and trust. Trust, says management author and speaker Gordon Shea, is the “miracle ingredient in organizational life – a lubricant that reduces friction, a bonding agent that glues together disparate parts, a catalyst that facilitates action.”
The point is, you want to make others feel they have a part in the solution, not feel as if they were coerced or manipulated. Coercing someone into following your suggestions may get you what you want in the short term. But in the long term, you’ll lose.
3. Commit to an Action Plan
If yours is a simple sale or other act of persuasion, if a yes or no is all that’s required, action is immediate. But if what you’re seeking requires several steps or phases, you’ll need agreement on how you’re going to proceed.
Doctors, for example, often complain that patients don’t get well because they don’t fully follow the prescription directions. When the patient starts feeling a little better, for example, he or she may stop taking the medicine. Even though the doctor is in charge of the treatment, the patient acts unilaterally and then the doctor gets blamed for the relapse.
Maybe the doctor needs to take time to explain the action of the drugs in relation to the problem. The symptoms of a sore throat can be alleviated in two days with an antibiotic, the physician might say, but the germs may remain for days afterward, and they need to be controlled. Patients who understand the process are much more likely to carry out the plan.
During this step, make sure the other person clearly understands the benefits of implementation. Have them restate the benefits and what it’s going to take to get them. For instance, the contractor might encourage the customer to say, “If I invest $10,000 in this remodeling plan now, my house will be worth more when it comes time to sell it, and I’ll also save between $500 and $700 a year in heating costs.”
An added plus of discussing the follow-up may be that the customer comes up with benefits that the salesperson never thought of. “If I remodel, I can also use the added space for a home office, meaning I no longer will need to rent space downtown and I may be able to take an added deduction on my income taxes.”
Politics. When you hit the “politics” barrier, it means that agreement will put somebody at odds with somebody else: “If I buy that new car, my wife will kill me.” “If I join one more save-the-environment organization, my husband will move my things out into the garden.”
Because you’re committed to collaboration, you won’t ignore such a concern or suggest that it just be ignored. Instead, find out why that third person feels that way. Maybe you can alleviate the concern with new information. You might say to the prospective car buyer, “Why don’t you bring your wife down here on Saturday for a test drive, and we can see what her specific concerns are.” To the prospective organization member, you could add, “Here’s what we do that’s different from all the other environmental groups. Do you think your husband would be supportive of that?” In a situation where agreement is blocked by politics, all you can do is help to create solutions.
Postponement. When the other person says, “I need time to think about it,” it’s very important to find out the real reason for postponement. It can simply be a polite way of saying no. It could be that the person never makes hasty decisions. Or the person may not have all the information he needs and is too embarrassed or too timid to ask for more.
This is where clarifying questions come in handy. “Is anything confusing to you?” “What specifically can I do to help the process along?” “Will you be comparing my offer with someone else’s?” Asking questions keeps the door open for agreement.
At the root of this postponement may be personal discomfort. Something about what you’re suggesting makes the other person uncomfortable. Maybe they can’t even put their finger on it. But chances are their discomfort has to do with risk. You need to find out what they see as the risk.
One technique is to have them list the pros and cons from their point of view. If your suggestion costs money, you can offer a money-back guarantee. If it’s membership in an organization, invite them to a meeting with absolutely no pressure to join. If they’re put off by a product’s unfamiliarity, invite them to try it out.
Provide whatever information you can to give the other person confidence in what you’re offering. You can even help them identify the key factors they should take into account before agreeing with you. You can also alleviate personal discomfort and postponement by showing – and this is very important! – that the benefit far outweighs the risk. So remember to explain clearly the WIIFM factor, or “What’s In It For Me?”
Personality Conflict. Even if what you’re suggesting or offering seems positive to the other person, he/she may not like you. The relationship between the two of you is the foundation of the persuasion process. If that relationship collapses, so does everything it supports.
One of the most common causes of a personality conflict is a breakdown in trust. Maybe what you were offering really didn’t have the other person’s interest at heart. Or you made promises you didn’t keep. Or something went wrong, and you made no attempt to address the problem. At other times, the personality conflict is simply the result of different styles of communicating.
Priorities. The other person may think that your idea, product, or cause is a good one, but it’s not among his/her top ten priorities. This is when knowing yourself well is very important. The better you can articulate why you value what you’re advocating (the “because” factor again), the better your chances of striking a chord with the other person.
When trying to persuade others, you might need to help them articulate what their priorities are – in other words, what they value most. The exploring phase we talked about earlier is the perfect time to investigate the other person’s priorities. Then you can emphasize both the intrinsic value of the idea, product, or cause as well as how it serves the person’s priorities.
4. Assure Success by Identifying, Monitoring, and Measuring Results
In California's Silicon Valley, where many of America's most technologically advanced firms compete fiercely, there's an adage: you can'tmanage whatyou can't measure. Things change so fast in that high-tech arena, those computer executives say, that it's absolutely critical to get your hands on the numbers and to do so quickly.
There's a lesson in that for the rest of us. While the real secret to long-term influence and power with people is exceeding their expectations, they often don't have a firm idea of what they expect. So you need to help them, first, identify criteria for success. As much as possible, put those goals in quantitative terms - return on investment, say, or number of years a product should last, or the maximum amount of maintenance needed. Offer them something concrete.
Second, you need to help them manage their expectations. If they expect too much, you'll fail; if the expectations are too low, anybody could match them. So the secret is helping the person you're influencing try to come up with realistic quantitative expectations.
Finally, you need to measure the promised results and be available if a problem develops. You've got to keep an eye on the results and consult with the other person about how he or she sees them.
What happens if the room addition your company built develops leaks during the first rainy season? What do you do if the elderly woman you recruited to save the trees in the park gets put in jail for joining a protest? In either case, you need to be there, be supportive, and do what's needed to correct the situation.
In other words, the real work of persuading people and maintaining influence with people occurs after they say yes. Staying in touch with the people you want to influence, and staying tuned in to their values and needs, are what this fourth stage is all about.
As the DVD presentation shut off, Jack was finishing his dessert of his favorite ice cream "Extreme Moose Tracks." He pulled out his sales journal and began to write.
My Takeaways on Becoming More Persuasive by Dr. Tony Alessandra
- Remember, we are all persuaders. We do it every day.
- Four-step persuasion process:
a. Explore my clients’ needs and goals
b. Create and select a solution to their challenges
c. Commit to an action plan
d. Assure success by identifying, monitoring, and measuring my results
- Questions open doors. Using questions makes persuasion more of a collaborative experience for all involved.
- Have clients list the pros and cons from their point of view when they push off taking action.