TOW#453 — The power of persuasion
I usually like to ask participants at my sales trainings “what is sales?”, and many respond that it’s “persuading clients to buy what we’re selling”. Now, we could go on all day about whether it’s that or something more, but for the moment I’d just like to focus on the word “persuade”.
First of all, the word “persuade” should be thrown out of our dictionary, and replaced with “assure”. Our aim is not to con(vince) our clients, but instead to provide assurances about our product, i.e. we’re reassuring them that our product is right for them. However, we’re not talking here only about assurances during a sale. In any situation, whenever you want to highlight or promote an idea of yours, or you want to prove that it’s better than some other idea, you’re in essence assuring your interlocutor. Whether you’re “selling” to your spouse your idea for what you’re going to do tonight, or you’re trying to get a client to accept a particular project, or you’re defending your football team in front of your friends, the success of your pitch will depend on your power to assure.
So, how can we get better at assuring others?!
According to Aristotle, there are three basic pillars of rhetoric (also known as the art of speaking or writing effectively): Ethos, Pathos and Logos. Each one is founded on certain characteristics and according to the great philosopher all approaches aimed at providing assurances of your stance, idea or concept are based on these three pillars. They all create a special connection between a message’s sender and receiver, and are used in all situations in which verbal or written rhetoric is employed (film, literature, sales, marketing, politics, journalism…).
1. Ethos — the speaker’s character or credibility. According to this principle, the power to assure is based on the knowledge and image of the individual that is talking. We all prefer to believe people that we know and/or are regarded as credible by society. In other words, this model is founded upon the speaker’s ethics and background, and is widely used nowadays to reassure people, although it’s been twisted due to distorted societal values. There are many “credible” people (politicians, entrepreneurs, public figures and others) who the media presents as credible sources, but who are in fact very fake and immoral.
2. Pathos — emotional relationship/connection with the listener. This is one of the most influential techniques and principles. If you manage to touch your listeners on an emotional level, there’ll be nothing in the world that will be able to change their mind. That’s why this technique is very often used in practice, especially for promotional/marketing purposes. The majority of creative solutions depend on this principle: create an emotional connection with the receiver of the information. The reason this technique is so influential is because we humans react emotionally first, and only later do we rationally re-evaluate our decisions.
3. Logos — the use of rational thinking or arguments to support your view. Aristotle’s favourite technique, which I also like to use most, but is unfortunately the least valuable in practice. In general, all dialogues and talks should aim to provide evidence (arguments), use logic and think rationally. However, Psychology tells us that even though we consider ourselves to be rational beings, we don’t in fact like to think rationally. Sometimes when you’re talking to someone and you want to use logic and arguments, the other person will say something like “stop philosophising” or “don’t bang on about it”. Therefore, in today’s world, the previous two techniques are more influential than this one.
In any case, these are the three most powerful techniques used in all kinds of rhetoric, and they’ll help you become more assuring when you speak. Using any one of them will be extremely effective in practice. Of course, the greatest skill is knowing all three of them and knowing which one to use in any given situation.
Wishing you success with the changes to come,
Petar Lazarov
“Tip of the Week” Team member
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