We all have to persuade. It’s part of life. The better you become at it, the more successful you’ll be in every 
aspect of your life.
At its core all persuasion involves negotiation.
Here are primary concepts all successful persuaders understand and embrace.
You cannot yank someone over to your point of view.
You know what you want. Find out what the other party wants. Then look for a common higher level objective and show them how they can achieve it by coming along with you.
Dealing respectfully and creating win-win outcomes is critical to long term success.
Imagine you’re standing in a field. There’s a fence between you and the field where the other person is.
You want to get them into your field.
Your choices are:
- Holler and shout at the other person and demand they come over. Unlikely.
- Reach over the fence, grab the other person and drag them across. You’ll get anger, resistance and resentment.
- Climb over into the other field. Gain rapport. Explain why you’d like them to come over to your side. Show them why it’s in their interest to do so. Have them buy into the reasons.
Then and only then, take them by the hand, find the gate and walk through.
Something our Federal Government could learn as it tries to ram through very unpopular budget measures.
Before I go on I’m not taking a political stand. Your politics is irrelevant to the discussion. This is an example of what you shouldn’t do and how to possibly correct it.
The Government needs to sell their unpopular budget.
They are in their field. The people they need to convince in the Senate are across the fence.
Rather than walking over and calmly presenting the facts. Painting a picture of a shared vision where we all win. Then presenting the arguments for change in a way their opponents understand, embrace and buy into emotionally, they stay where they are and shout at 100 paces.
Their attitude is one of belligerence, demand and “we’re right and you’re wrong”. They’ve resorted to threats and bullying tactics.
And no, they’re not getting very far with their persuasion.
Don’t make this mistake when you need to persuade.
