Persuasion is the Art of Getting What You Want
by Dave Lakhani
Published on this site: September 23rd, 2005 - See
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Traditional sales training has been broken for quite some
time.
Buyers today want something more than slick talkers and hackneyed
closing lines. They don’t want to be put through a process
that is designed to fit everyone, in fact, they are willing
to vote with their dollars and long term business if that
is what you offer.
What customers really want is access to relevant information
from knowledgeable professionals who move them.
Persuasion when done correctly creates change at a physiological,
psychological and biological level in the person you are persuading.
It allows them to check their internal map of what it true
or not against a story that you’ve carefully crafted
for them after eliciting their buying criteria, not a list
of features, but a list of emotional criteria that allows
them to say yes with total confidence.
How To Persuade
- Open With A Powerful Persona
- Elicit Information
- Tell A Powerful Story To Lead Them To Their Own Most
Logical Conclusion
In order to persuade effectively, you start with your persona.
Much of a decision about whether or not to buy from you comes
within seconds of meeting you and long before you have a chance
to open your mouth and say your first words.
In order to create a powerful persona you need to check several
areas. First, take a look at your clothes, go beyond the basics
like freshly shined shoes and pressed clothes. Ask yourself
if your hairstyle is current (note, if it is over 3 years
old, it is probably out of date whether you are a man or a
woman). If you’ve gained or lost more than 10 pounds
in the past year and haven’t had your clothing altered
or updated they will not give you a powerful first impression.
Are you dressed at the right level? You should dress at least
as well as the CEO of the company you are selling to or one
step better. But dressing is just the first step, there are
at least a dozen other areas that you must consider.
Simply by making those small changes to your current presentation
will increase your persuasive quotient instantly. If people
are going to judge you by what they see, be sure that they
see your very best package first. In my book Persuasion: The
Art of Getting What You Want, you’ll find a complete
persona checklist that includes clothing, your voice and communication
skills and the presentation of your total package, your compete
persona.
In order to craft a powerful story that will draw people
in and resonate with them in a way that makes them want to
draw your conclusion, you must ask better questions. The questions
you want to ask elicit not only product or service requirements,
but emotional requirements which will be the true criteria
by which your offer is judged.
To elicit emotional buying criteria you have to ask very
detailed and penetrating questions. Here are a few examples
of questions that will begin getting to emotional buying criteria:
- What specifically will successful implementation of this
product or service mean to you personally?
- How will you define success in relation to this product
or service?
- What was the final straw that made you decide to purchase
this product or service or to replace your existing product
or service?
- Other than you, who will be evaluating the success of
this?
- If you could wave a magic wand and get exactly what you
want, what would it look like? Why specifically would you
want it to look like that.
When you begin to stop asking open ended questions and start
drilling down, you’ll find the pain and the requirements
to successfully position your solution.
Stories lead people to draw their most logical conclusion,
the one that the moral relates to. We are deeply persuaded
by powerful stories because they are the oldest form of communication
we know. Rather than rattling off a list of features and benefits,
if you tell a story about how someone else used the products
specific features and benefits or used the service to get
a similar set of results and demonstrate it deeply by using
metaphor, the person listening can draw only one conclusion,
the one you want them to, but they’ll defend it as their
own forever.
Persuasion is both an art and a science, but one that everyone
must master. Your ability to earn is in direct proportion
to your ability to persuade. Persuasion truly is the art of
getting what you want.
Dave Lakhani is the author of Persuasion: The
Art of Getting What You Want. The book covers 17 specific
persuasion tactics and demonstrates the neuroscience and psychology
behind true persuasion. Dave is providing a rare free tele-seminar
for our readers. To register and to get a free chapter from
his book visit http://www.askthepersuader.com
right now, lines are limited, you can also learn more about
persuasion at: http://www.howtopersuade.com
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