What’s the definition of persuasion? What does it mean to persuade someone?
Dr. Yaniv Zaid’s definition of “persuasion” – changing the other side’s behavior.
In other words, at the end of the persuasion process you want to move a person from A to B, and make him change something about his behavior – to buy from you, hire you for a job, invest money in your enterprise, vote for you in an election, join your mailing list, and more.
On the way to changing their behavior you might have put the other side through a process of changing their awareness, changing their thinking, changing a “tape” in their head or changing their consumer habits, but at the end of this process they should and need to do something they weren’t planning on doing before. That’s how you’d measure your success.
We all need to use persuasion skills on a daily basis – with colleagues, customers, employees, managers, commanders, consumers, spouses, family members and friends.
The trick is to persuade the unpersuaded, not those who are already on board.
If you approach your boss, for example, and ask him for a promotion, a budget increase for your department or more manpower for your team, and for inner-organizational or political reasons which the boss cannot reveal he has already decided, prior to your meeting, to give you what you’re asking for, then there’s no need for persuasion. It practically doesn’t matter how you speak, how you present the issue, how much you prepare for the meeting, etc. – you’ll end up getting what you want.
The trick, the challenge or the difficulty, is in persuading a boss who wanted to promote someone else, to promote you. Or to persuade the company’s accountant to give your department a budget increase, when he says he has no money.
Let’s say I go into a kiosk and ask for a can of cola. The seller gives me the can, I give him a dollar and I leave the kiosk. Was there any persuasion here? Was there any selling?
The answer is no. There was buying, not selling.
Why? Because my behavior wasn’t changed. I could have just as well gone to a vending machine, put a dollar bill into it and gotten a can of cola. There was no need for the seller’s mediation.
When would there be selling here? If the seller says things like “Why only one can? Take a six pack, it’ll be cheaper”, “We have excellent discounts at the register”, “If you’re having a cola, what about some chips and nachos?”
If I do end up buying some of these things, there’s been a persuasion process – I went in to buy a can of cola, and I left with some other things as well. I changed my original behavior.
In the marketing oriented and competitive world of the 21st century – the power of persuasion is the secret of success! Even if you have the best product or service – without persuading your customers and marketing it right you won’t sell a thing. Even if the idea for your enterprise is the next global success story – without persuading investors and raising capital properly you can’t succeed. Even if you’re the most talented person – without marketing yourself properly and persuading employers you won’t get any jobs.
The “Dr. Persuasion” activities offer you the most up-to-date, effective and proven tools for improving your persuasion skills – regardless of your public speaking experience, your age and your profession, and regardless of your personality (introverted or extraverted, intellectual or practical, competitive or cooperative). Every one of you can receive huge “added value” from these activities, and strengthen your persuasion skills in every aspect of your lives.
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