Entries by Mark Rodgers

My End-of-the-Decade Wish

As we approach the end of one decade and the beginning of a new one, I wish all of you persuasion success in 2020 and beyond. Merry Christmas and Happy New Year from my family to yours.  Photo by Kira auf der Heide on Unsplash

Understanding the Rule of Three

When you want to convince people to say “yes,” don’t just give them one or two reasons to do so. Give them three. People love to hear things in threes. Psychologists have no idea why, but two seems like too few and four seems like too many. So three is perfect. What this means to […]

OK, Boomer: Crossing the Generational Divide

“What’s Omaha Beach?” The twentysomething looked at me expectantly. I frequently tell people that not every persuasion priority should be as difficult as taking Omaha Beach. I’ve said it thousands of times. But this was a first, as I realized I had crossed into The Twilight Zone. (Wait, he wouldn’t know that reference, either!) One generation […]

How Give-and-Take Can Result in Persuasion Success

Quick, what’s the most important lesson you learned in college? Go ahead, I’ll wait. No, it wasn’t the differences between a parenthetical or appositive phrase in English. And it wasn’t the law of small numbers, nor the accounting differences between a balance sheet and an income statement. The most important lesson you learned, whether you […]

Black Friday Tip: Persuade Buyers by Taking Their Photo

Black Friday is this week, so if you’re in the retail business, make sure your digital camera is fully charged. You’ll want to take lots of photos that day. You can literally put your buyer in the picture. In the Harley-Davidson world, I tell retailers to take a digital photograph of their prospective buyers when they […]

What Cheech & Chong Can Teach Us about Persuasion

On a late-night flight to Phoenix, Amy and I found ourselves seated in the first-class cabin with none other than comedians Cheech Marin and Tommy Chong. (Yep, I tell everyone I got high with Cheech and Chong; 37,000 feet, to be precise.) I relished watching passengers board the plane and recognize the famous duo who […]

Music & Motorcycles: A Persuasion Parable

As my wife, Amy, and I stood at the gate waiting to board a recent flight to Dallas, a 30-something traveler pulled up alongside of us and set down a guitar case as if placing the Ark of the Covenant at my feet. I recognized it immediately: an original circa-1950s Fender tweed guitar case. Very […]

Zip Your Backpack (And Other Pieces of Persuasion Advice)

Do you remember buying your first home? This time of year, my mind often drifts back to our first autumn of home ownership — oh, so many years ago. After years of carefree condo living, my wife, Amy, and I found ourselves overwhelmed with the chores a house requires. I do not live to putter, […]

Persuasion: How to Transition to a Commitment

In recent posts, I wrote about three ways to acknowledge another person’s viewpoint and three ways to respond to that viewpoint. Those are the first two steps in what I call the “ART” of persuasive communication. “A” stands for acknowledging, “R” stands for responding and “T” stands for transitioning. In this post, I will focus […]

Persuasion: Three Keys to Effective Response Statements

In a recent post, I wrote about three ways to acknowledge another person’s viewpoint. Another critical step in persuasive communication is acknowledging your target’s opposition and responding in an honest, substantive and compelling manner. Meaningful responses are at the heart of your persuasion effectiveness. Your responses should illuminate, inform and educate. So how can you […]