MAY 13 —  What if you could win people over each time you speak to them? Whether it is to one or many, as part of your job or in your daily interactions with people, wouldn’t it be great if you have the power of persuasion?

It is a myth that only charismatic or extroverted people are persuasive.

My first boss was a former engineer turned sales manager. He was not smooth by any measure. His old-school tailored pants were sometimes a little short and if he spoke for too long, spittle would sometimes splatter on the client. But none of that mattered because he consistently made the sale and all the clients loved him, even those who got spittle on them. And for years I could never figure out his “magic”, until now.

The truth is that we are emotional creatures. Eminent neuroscientist Professor Gemma Calvert, using fMRI scanners to observe the human brain in real-time, has confirmed that we run on our emotions rather than logic. We make decisions based on a Feel-Do-Think model, which means how we feel decides if we take an action or not.

Consequently, our minds start justifying our choices. Despite what we would like to believe, human beings make decisions emotionally and justify them logically. And so the secret of persuasion is to engage people emotionally first in order to secure a buy-in, before providing hard data to help people, who have already positively decided, to justify their choice.

The problem is that most of the time, we are taught to use logic and facts to create an emotional buy-in, but that’s like fitting a newborn baby back into his mother! Neither will agree to it and neither would enjoy the process. The good news is that anyone can be persuasive by following four specific steps.

Four simple steps

The Effective Persuasion formula is the brawny replacement for any missing natural virtues. The four steps turn an average presenter into a compelling speaker. And it is simple to follow:

1) Create a link with your audience by giving one fact about them that you like. For instance, “Thank you for being on time. It is a pleasure to have so many punctual people today!”

Then, establish relevance by giving the audience a reason you are going to positively impact their lives.

2) People are interested in how to solve their problems. Quickly focus and establish the three problems that your solution can solve. Focus on their problems first, not the solution. Do not assume that the audience automatically agrees with what problems they have.

3) Based on the three problems, explain the benefit of solving each of these problems. Explain them from a neutral stance, so your audience will believe that you have an unbiased view. Otherwise, they might get turned off.

For example, “What if you could get pain relief from X but without the high price?” or “Would you be pleased with having extra cash?”

Create a positive feeling by using powerful benefit explanations. If done right, by the end of this step, people would already have decided to agree with you.

4) Reveal your brilliant solution. It is here that you can provide facts and figures to justify your points. Show how a feature provides a benefit that solves a problem.

Finally, have a call to action. Ask your audience for what you want and give them a chance to say yes to you!

So, do not be shy. Go forth and be powerful and persuasive! — Today

*Fred Then, a Singapore-based entrepreneur and business coach at Think Solutions, has more than 20 years of experience in the area of persuasion.

**This is the personal opinion of the writer or publication and does not necessarily represent the views of The Malay Mail Online.