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How to Tell Better Stories and Convince More People

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Now that you know what works and what doesn’t work when crafting situational persuasion success stories, consider ways to enhance and customize them.

In business, you typically apply the powers of persuasion to accomplish one or more of the following: You want someone to buy your product, agree to your new idea or take you up on your offer. This can apply to customers and clients, colleagues and rivals, and members of the media or other organizations. So focus on creating situational persuasion success stories that seek to improve internal communication, boost your brand and explain why your way — whatever way that happens to be — is best.

Concentrate on who you helped (with that client’s permission, if you’re using actual names) and what you did — not how you did it. If you focus on “how” (“We’ve helped ABC Corporation convince investors this company is the real deal by increasing fourth-quarter revenue by almost 55 percent, crafting new closing tactics and tracking accountability.”), your target might be thinking, We already tried those things, and they didn’t work. As a result, he’s mentally checking off reasons why you won’t be able to convince him and his company.

Instead, mention what you did, with whom, and share the credit: “We’ve helped ABC Corporation convince investors this company is the real deal by increasing its fourth-quarter revenue by almost 55 percent. The firm has credited our insight with identifying and taking advantage of new opportunities. We think its willingness to partner and collaborate made the results possible.” The likely response from your prospect: “Can you do that for me?”

Just remember: In order to convince, you need to be convincing.

You must exude confidence without seeming arrogant, and know when to stop talking and let your story sink in.

Experiment with the ideas I’ve shared in recent posts by developing your own situational persuasion success stories. Then you’ll join a long and, well, storied tradition of communicating via storytelling.

Storytelling Stumbling Blocks: Why Saying Too Much Complicates the Persuasion Equation

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In previous posts, I introduced what I like to call “situational persuasion success stories.” These are pre-created retellings of how you previously helped improve someone’s condition in given situations. This elevated skill set can yield tremendous results in your persuasion efforts.

Just as dynamic situational persuasion success stories require certain elements to work, they also need to steer away from these four stumbling blocks:

1. Too much attention to detail.

What’s wrong with this story intro?

“Wait until you hear what happened to one of my colleagues, Jason! It was last Thursday — er, no, Wednesday. No, OK, it was Thursday. He called me around 10:30 in the morning; no, it was really closer to 11, and … .”

You’ve lost your listener at “er.” It doesn’t matter what day of the week it was or what time of day. If it’s not absolutely crucial to the story, no one really cares. Make your point, and keep moving.

2. Too disjointed.

Try following this story:

“I had one client recently who wanted to go ahead with a particular project. Well, it was a problem at first, because he didn’t think his company could afford it. But now he’s glad he partnered with us for the project. See, the company was just a small start-up eight years ago, and then they ultimately went with our best offer … .”

If, in your situational persuasion success story, you flit from you convincing the client, to the client having a problem, to that company enjoying the results of your efforts, to how you helped solve the problem, your story won’t go anywhere. Consider first introducing the character (a client), then the dilemma, then how you helped solve that dilemma, and finally, how the client is now living happily ever after.

3. Too long.

If you’re talking for more than 15 or 20 seconds at one time, stop. It’s as simple as that. 

4. Lacks authenticity. 

Make sure your situational persuasion success story doesn’t appear corporately vetted or brand-controlled. Today’s consumers are very cognizant of ideas being packaged. If people hear nothing but about how great you are, they will lend less credence to that information — and to you.

How are your situational persuasion success stories evolving?

 

Storytelling 101: Five Ways to Persuade (Part I)

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Storytelling is one of the oldest, most effective forms of human communication. Long before Twitter, Facebook and even the printing press, humans informed and instructed others via stories for thousands of years.

Why has storytelling as a communication art form stood the test of time? Because it’s compelling. Just try listening to only half of Jim Croce’s “You Don’t Mess Around With Jim,” Gordon Lightfoot’s “The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald,” or Harry Chapin’s “Cat’s in the Cradle.” It’s almost impossible. Even if you’ve heard those songs before, you still want to know how the story ends.

Stories also can be instrumental in helping you convince others — a colleague, a potential customer, maybe even a complete stranger in an elevator. I call them “situational persuasion success stories.” These are pre-created retellings of how you previously helped improve someone’s condition in given situations. This elevated skill-set can yield tremendous results in your persuasion efforts and will accomplish five things. You will:

1. Create a nonthreatening way to share information.

In many persuasion situations, your target can be on hyper-alert, wanting to avoid feeling uninformed or ambushed. And if the conversation is focused on him or her, personal defenses are often heightened. But if you attempt to make your point with a story that does not involve the individual to whom you are speaking, it’s much easier for that person to relax and focus on the discussion.

2. Allow your targets to insert themselves into the role of your situational success story’s main character.

The best situational persuasion success stories are ones in which the main character is someone other than you or the other person. Inserting yourself into the lead role could send the wrong message — suggesting that you are self-centered and your story is contrived. So don’t be the hero in every story; make the main character someone else, such as a friend or colleague.

3. Make the discussion an effective one.

Everyone enjoys a good story now and then, and situational persuasion success stories contain three subtle yet distinct objectives: to inform, to educate and to persuade. When you inform someone, you make that person aware; when you educate, you bring about understanding; and when you persuade, you enable the other person to embrace a particular point of view. Yours.

4. Provide a “social proof” component.

As one of my professional heroes, Robert Cialdini, Regents’ Professor Emeritus of Psychology and Marketing at Arizona State University, claims, “We follow the lead of similar others.” When we hear that “all the kids are doing it,” that has a profound impact on us. Using situational persuasion success stories leverages this idea of social proof, or informational social influence, and makes what you’re talking about even more convincing.

5. Break through the surrounding informational noise.

In his book, Data Smog: Surviving the Information Glut, author David Shenk states that the average American in 1971 encountered 560 daily advertising messages. By 1997 (the year Data Smog was published), that number had swelled to more than 3,000 per day. And the Newspaper Association of America proclaims that now the average American is exposed to more than 3,000 advertising messages before breakfast. There’s a lot of noise out there; to cut through it and convince someone to listen to you, you must have a compelling story to tell.

Sharing stories is a critical component of the Persuasion Equation, which is why next time, I’ll share elements and examples of compelling situational persuasion success stories.

Do You Know the Difference Between ‘Persuasion’ vs. ‘Influence’?

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Last year, I wrote a book about persuasion, in which I stressed that we all use principles of persuasion daily in our personal and professional lives. But what, exactly, does “persuasion” mean?

It’s a question I bet most of you haven’t spent a lot of time asking yourselves. “Persuasion” is ethically winning the heart and mind of your target. Whether you want someone to buy your product, agree to your new idea or take you up on your offer — if you are seeking a “yes,” you are engaged in persuasion.

“Influence,” on the other hand, can be defined as the capacity to become a compelling force that produces effects on the opinions, actions and behavior of others. Think of influence as your professional and personal credibility, your organizational political capital, your corporate “sway.” If persuasion is an action, influence is a state or condition.

Persuasion is not psychological manipulation, nor does it involve using bribes or trickery to get what you want. You should always be operating with the best interests of your target in mind.

Could you use persuasive tactics in a manipulative and self-serving manner? Sure. Will you reach agreement? Absolutely.

But only once.

After that, your persuasive powers are dead. Manipulation does not help build long and lucrative careers.

(Photo by Gratisography)

Bad Language: How to Diminish Your Persuasive Powers

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Some language and phrases used in today’s persuasion conversations should be abolished, no matter what.

Here are three examples:

  1. “At the end of the day … ”

    At the end of the day … what? You come home from work, you do stuff and you eventually go to bed. This phrase makes no sense and serves no purpose in your persuasion arsenal. Avoid. Always.

  2. “I’m just sayin’… ”

    I’m unclear as to when or where this phrase came into vogue, but its usage seems to have increased in recent years — usually as the universal get-out-of-bad-behavior line. People think they can make rude or inappropriate comments as long as they preface or conclude them with, “I’m just sayin’… .” Here’s what not to say in persuasion situations: “I’m just sayin’ that your idea doesn’t exactly solve the problem.” Or this: “Your team is incompetent and plain wrong; I’m just sayin’.”

  3. “LOL,” “JK,” “IMHO,” “LMAO,” “TTFN” and “TTYS”

    Others might not appreciate or even understand such abbreviated phrases. (I had to Google “TTYS,” which means “talk to you soon”). Text-speak is unprofessional and should not be used in written business correspondence, let alone in face-to-face interactions. I read about a mother who was texting her teenage daughter’s friend, whose own mother had recently passed away. In an attempt to comfort her, she signed off on one message with “LOL,” thinking it meant “lots of love.” She was horrified when she found out it actually means “laughing out loud”! Along similar lines, I once found myself explaining “LMAO” to my mother.

If you find yourself employing any of the above, make a mental note and find different ways to express yourself.

Language is like anything else: It requires practice. I try to verbally convey my point on three different levels. One uses simple language (“happy”), another involves slightly more elaborate language (“elated”), and the third encourages the use of multiple syllables and/or the creative side of my brain (“exuberant”). Or how about “help,” “comfort,” and “assuage.”

Work on establishing these three levels of language based on what is appropriate for a particular target. It’s fun, isn’t it? Or amusing. Or even enthralling.

Why You Must Improve Your Persuasion Skills Every Day

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While persuasion is crucial to people’s success for many reasons, they actually spend very little time and effort improving their persuasion skills.

If you’re going to thrive in the eat-or-be-eaten contemporary workplace, you must be able to effectively persuade others. This will provide you with a competitive advantage, because your competitors are more than likely not focusing on their own persuasion skills.

Why?

I call it the “Persuasion Paradox.

The Persuasion Paradox can be summarized like this: At best, many professionals take a mindless approach to persuasion. At worst, they abhor the practice of persuasion, striving to avoid it.

The mindless ones, either consciously or subconsciously, assume that just because they’ve heard people say “yes” to them — and they’ve given the same response to others — they understand the complexities of attaining agreement. This supposition couldn’t be further from the truth. The act of persuasion remains a significant obstacle for many professionals, and they might not even be aware of it. However, like failing to check your blind spot before darting out into the oncoming lane on a narrow highway to pass a slow-moving truck, ignoring this obstacle can lead to disastrous results.

The ones who abhor persuasion want nothing to do with it. They think it smacks of the dreaded word “sales” and conjures images of white shoes, plaid jackets, and glad-handing used-car salesmen. But successful people — who are neither mindless nor abhorrent, incidentally — don’t see persuasion that way. Professionals at the top of their game understand that not only is it is okay for them to promote their ideas and issues; but that it is incumbent on them to do so.

Having someone say “yes” to your ideas, offers and suggestions ranks among the greatest achievements in the business world. It represents validation, respect and acceptance among your peers and others. In author Daniel Pink’s survey of American workers, “What Do You Do at Work?” for his book, To Sell Is Human: The Surprising Truth about Moving Others, he discovered full-time, non-sales workers spent 24 out of every 60 minutes involved in persuasion efforts. To say effective persuasion is merely important is to make an extreme understatement.

Persuasion requires intellectual heavy lifting. Understanding your target, knowing how to increase the value of your offering (or, conversely, decrease the resistance of your target), choosing the right words, and determining the timing of your persuasive efforts all are prerequisites of effective persuasion.

So to stay ahead of your competition and succeed among your peers, work on your persuasion skills on a daily basis. Here are some terrific places to start.

12 Better Ways to Use Your Language Skills

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Superior language skills build the confidence to engage and persuade more people. Here are 12 ways to put those skills to work while convincing others that your way is best:

  1. Teach the vernacular of your business to others, and they will feel more included in the overall experience.
  1. Use the language of your industry to give you “insider’s prestige.”
  1. Recognize that a superior grasp of language is one of the dominant factors in sales success.
  1. Use language to generate empathy.
  1. Lose the tired questions (“Do you play golf?”) and replace them with interesting ones (“How will the recent fires affect your expansion plans in Canada?”). You’ll be more interesting to your buyer and learn crucial information.
  1. Control conversations by strategically including terms like “recommend,” “suggest” and “advise.” Others will follow your lead.
  1. Use permission questions to soften your approach: “May I ask you a question?”
  1. Use adjectives to make your descriptions more vivid: “elegant design” and “compelling point.”
  1. Find relevant examples to prove your points.
  1. Metaphors, similes and analogies remain the bedrock of effective language skills.
  1. Use appropriate language; slang coming from an executive sounds silly.
  1. Practice saying things three different ways. Think basic, intermediate and sophisticated. To that end, I hope you found this blog post helpful. I anticipate you will find instructive ways to implement this material. And perhaps I have assuaged your anxiety about speaking more eloquently.

Click Tricks: How to Write Effective Email Subject Lines

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Arguably the most persuasive element of any email is the subject line. You must treat the subject line the same way you would an initial handshake; it may be your only chance to make a first impression.

And just as a handshake can linger a tad too long, keep the subject line brief, indicating why your message is worth the reader’s time.

There are multiple ways to do this. In his book To Sell Is Human: The Surprising Truth About Moving Others, New York Times-bestselling author Daniel Pink reports on research that determined people open emails based on three factors: utility (opened because the recipient has something to gain or lose), curiosity (opened because the recipient is, well, curious) and specificity (opened because the recipient knows exactly what he or she is getting once the message is opened).

To that end, craft your subject headers to fall into one of the following five categories:

  1. Descriptive: Free Estimates, Free Installation — Throughout 2016!
  2. Fast Fact: More Than 95% of All Adults Don’t Exercise Every Day
  3. Provocative: New Airless Tire Can Take a Bullet
  4. Rhetorical: Are You Tired of Being Left Outside?
  5. Nearly Naughty: Let Us Show You How Much We Love You

Also keep in mind to whom you’re sending the email. The above examples won’t work if you’re crafting internal emails for your colleagues. So try something like this:

Needed: Content Marketing Ideas for Wednesday’s Meeting

Right away, you’re establishing a need that you would like staff members to fill.

Regardless of your intended email recipient, a compelling subject header communicates the bottom line of your message before it’s even opened.

How ‘Thank You’ Can Boost Your Persuasive Power

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Nothing is more powerful in the world of B2B or B2C sales than a face-to-face encounter between a satisfied customer and a credible sales professional. This is the kind of human exchange in which influence can be wielded for the good of both individuals. When a customer or client says “thank you,” for example, you must be able to leverage those words — or risk blowing a major opportunity to take that sales relationship to a higher level.

Here are three things to do when you hear “thank you”:

1. Don’t waste words.

What’s typically the first thing out of your mouth when a customer thanks you? “No problem. That’s why I’m here.” A coworker thanks you for your assistance, and you say, “Sure, it was easy.” A supplier sends a note of appreciation, and you leave it at that. Not only are these relationships not furthered, but you actually also may be damaging them with the responses you give — or don’t give. Making someone feel unappreciated, incompetent or unworthy of a response is a surefire way to not increase your influence.

2. Drop the arrogance act.

Another potential problem is when the thank-you exchange is framed in such a way that the other person feels like he or she has just done a favor for Vito Corleone (“Someday I may call upon you to do a service for me.”) If you respond with a defiant, “And now you owe me one!” you’re just asking for animosity and opposition.

3. Rethink your response.

So how can you avoid under-responding or overreacting to a “thank you”? By using influential language. Robert Cialdini, author of the seminal work Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion, suggests saying something like this: “My pleasure, because I know if the situation were reversed, you would have done the same for me!” Then watch as the other person nods furiously in agreement.

That’s how you use language to expertly and subtly earn a “chit” — an informal influence credit. Practice this approach until you’re comfortable using the language of Cialdini or similar language you develop on your own to create compelling yet conversational and influential exchanges.

(Photo by Gratisography)

Killer Credibility: 7 Ways to Achieve It, Keep It and Win It Back

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What can I do to improve my credibility? It’s a question I’m asked a lot, and there is more than one correct answer. In fact, here are seven ways to build and keep — and, if necessary, win back — credibility:

1. Dress better. Let’s face it: We all are in the image business. If you want to be taken seriously, dress for success. That means you should look clean and neat, and wear shined shoes and clothes that fit well.

2. Speak better. The occasional colloquialism is OK, but if those are the only things that come out of your mouth, you could find yourself up for a role in the next season of Swamp People.

3. Know your stuff. Credibility starts with competency. Learn as much as you can from every verbal exchange. In my book, Accelerate the Sale: Kick-Start Your Personal Selling Style to Close More Sales, Faster, I asked executives about their greatest sale. The most frequent response I received? “My wife agreed to marry me.” (True story.) But the response that left the biggest impression on me was the guy who said, “My next one. Because I’ll know more, be able to do more and be able to help the customer more.” That’s a big idea.

4. Admit when you’ve erred. When you make a mistake, simply say, “I made a mistake. I’m sorry.” Then move on.

5. Channel Johnny Carson. Johnny Carson is one of my all-time favorite entertainers. When a guest would mention a piece of knowledge outside of Johnny’s realm, he didn’t try to take over the conversation or “one up” the guest. He simply said, “I did not know that.” That’s what I say now. You should, too.

6. Practice convergent validity. Make sure you have the correct information. Check with three different sources to get their take on a given situation. You’ll be shocked by how opinions vary. Doing this will help expand your network of contacts, better grasp the situation and make stronger decisions. And that, my friends, will give you greater credibility.

7. Guard your credibility. Your credibility is a precious commodity. Protect it with all you’ve got. Late in his baseball career, while playing injured, Joe DiMaggio still went all out during every at bat and every inning in the field. When a teammate said to him, “Hey, Joe, you’re hurt, take it easy,” Joe replied, “I can’t. There might be someone in the stands seeing me for the first time, and I don’t want to let them down.” Not a bad mindset for the rest of us.

Here’s to your credibility!

(Photo by Jared Erondu via Unsplash)