How To Be Persuasive

How to be persuasive?

In this art­icle, you will get a few short and action­able insights into the mech­an­ics of per­suad­ing (not manip­u­lat­ing) someone.

The “secret” is to lay the ground­work before your per­sua­sion attempt.

Here we go:

I. The Golden Rule of Persuasion

The rule of thumb for being per­suas­ive is basic:

The golden rule of per­sua­sion: Never sug­gest any­thing to any­one who isn’t yet ready to comply. 

While this might sound straight­for­ward, there’s a caveat.

Anyone can ask for any­thing, but per­suas­ive people pro­cess their tar­gets thor­oughly before attempt­ing to close them.

So, how does this work?

II. Pre-Suasion — Changing State of Minds

Contrary to pop­u­lar belief, per­sua­sion is nev­er about coax­ing any­one into com­pli­ance because that’s manip­u­la­tion, not persuasion.

In 1984, Robert Cialdini wrote Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion, which has since become the closest thing to a holy book for thou­sands of mar­keters and com­mu­nic­at­ors — espe­cially those who work with online engage­ment and social media.

In his book Pre-Suasion: A Revolutionary Way to Influence and Persuade, Cialdini shares that suc­cess­ful per­suaders change people’s “state of mind” before try­ing to change their “minds.”

But what does it mean to try and change someone’s state of mind before chan­ging their mind?

III. Priming and Framing

Two cent­ral con­cepts in per­sua­sion are prim­ing and framing.

Priming = Getting an audi­ence into the right state of mind. 

Framing = Adapting your mes­sage to the spe­cif­ic context.

In ordin­ary life, the “easi­est” way to pre­pare someone to be per­suaded is to get into a cas­u­al con­ver­sa­tion; you need to fig­ure out how the per­son you wish to per­suade would reply — without ask­ing the actu­al ques­tion and put­ting them on the spot. 

Priming and fram­ing are about doing your home­work by get­ting to the bot­tom of how they feel and fig­ur­ing out how the reas­on­ing mech­an­isms of your audi­ence work.

IV. Preparation, Cold-Reading, and Investment

Preparation. Persuasion is more about prep work than most people realise.

Never make the ask until you’re sure about get­ting a pos­it­ive response. If someone’s not ready to com­ply yet, listen even more closely for what it will take for you to suc­ceed and start over. If the per­son you’re try­ing to per­suade isn’t pre­pared yet, neither are you.

Cold-Reading. Being able to tell when someone is ready to com­ply is a skill.

The true super­power is to devel­op a sixth sense for when someone is ready to “play ball.” The most com­mon mis­take in per­sua­sion is when people ask early on — and then find them­selves hav­ing to change someone’s “offi­cial stand­point” (which is much harder). An intu­it­ive under­stand­ing of psy­cho­lo­gic­al biases will help you.

Investment. Compliance comes at a cost; are you will­ing to pay it?

Every time you try to per­suade any­one of any­thing, there’s a “cost” to you. It could be pride, time, money, energy — or some­thing else. Part of being per­suas­ive is fig­ur­ing out the “cost of com­pli­ance” without mak­ing the actu­al ask and determ­in­ing if it will be worth the effort. Don’t fool your­self; if you’re unwill­ing to pay the price, walk away.

V. The Ethics of Persuasion

Persuasion is about get­ting someone to com­ply because they want to. A manip­u­lat­or always has his best self-interest in mind, where­as a per­suader must see the world through the eyes of others. 

Be a per­suader. Not a manipulator.

PR Resource: Ethos, Pathos, and Logos

Ethos, Pathos, and Logos: Three Classical Modes of Persuasion

“Aristotle’s three modes of rhet­or­ic­al per­sua­sion are eth­os, pathos, and logos, which are based on mor­al com­pet­ence, emo­tion­al appeal, and reas­on.”
Source: Sino-US English Teaching ¹Lin, W. (2019). Three Modes of Rhetorical Persuasion. Sino-US English Teaching. https://​doi​.org/​1​0​.​1​7​2​6​5​/​1​539 – ⁸⁰⁷²⁄₂₀₁₉.03.003

Ethos, pathos, and logos are three modes of per­sua­sion recog­nised since ancient Greece, and they play an essen­tial role in pub­lic relations. 

• Ethos. This mode of per­sua­sion refers to the cred­ib­il­ity or eth­ic­al appeal of the com­mu­nic­at­or, which can be estab­lished through demon­strat­ing expert­ise, integ­rity, and goodwill.
• Pathos. This mode of per­sua­sion per­tains to emo­tion­al appeal, which involves stir­ring the audience’s feel­ings to sway their opin­ions or actions.
• Logos. This mode of per­sua­sion is the logic­al appeal, which relies on present­ing sound argu­ments and evid­ence to con­vince the audience.

In PR, these three modes of per­sua­sion are often com­bined to cre­ate com­pel­ling mes­sages that res­on­ate with the audi­ence on mul­tiple levels. ²Modes of per­sua­sion. (2023, September 27). In Wikipedia. https://​en​.wiki​pe​dia​.org/​w​i​k​i​/​M​o​d​e​s​_​o​f​_​p​e​r​s​u​a​s​ion

Learn more: Ethos, Pathos, and Logos in Public Relations

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PR Resource: Six Principles of Influence

Robert Cialdini: Six Principles of Influence

Robert Cialdini pub­lished Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion in 1984 and his prin­ciples of influ­ence are widely cited. They provide a frame­work for under­stand­ing how people are per­suaded, and pub­lic rela­tions, advert­ising, and sales pro­fes­sion­als often use them. ³Cialdini, R. B. (2009). Influence: The psy­cho­logy of per­sua­sion (Rev. ed.). HarperCollins.

Here are Cialdini’s six principles:

• Reciprocity. This prin­ciple is based on the idea that people feel oblig­ated to give back when they receive it. If a com­pany gives some­thing to its cus­tom­ers (like a free sample or a dis­count), those cus­tom­ers may feel com­pelled to pur­chase in return.
• Scarcity. People tend to want things that are lim­ited or hard to get. Marketers often use this prin­ciple by cre­at­ing a sense of urgency around a product or ser­vice, such as a lim­ited-time offer or a lim­ited-edi­tion product.
• Authority. People tend to fol­low the lead of cred­ible experts. In PR and mar­ket­ing, this can be achieved by hav­ing an expert endorse a product or demon­strate expert­ise and cred­ib­il­ity in the field.
• Consistency (or Commitment). People like to be con­sist­ent with the things they have pre­vi­ously said or done. This prin­ciple is often used in mar­ket­ing by get­ting a small ini­tial com­mit­ment from a cus­tom­er, which increases the like­li­hood that they will make a more sig­ni­fic­ant com­mit­ment later.
• Liking. People are more likely to be per­suaded by people they like. Physical attract­ive­ness, sim­il­ar­ity, com­pli­ments, and coöper­a­tion can influ­ence this.
• Consensus (or Social Proof). People often look to the actions and beha­viours of oth­ers to determ­ine their own. If a product or ser­vice is pop­u­lar or endorsed by oth­ers, people are like­li­er to deem it good or trustworthy.

These prin­ciples are power­ful tools for per­sua­sion and can be used indi­vidu­ally or in com­bin­a­tion to influ­ence per­cep­tions and behaviours.

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