Up-leveling Your Influence Quotient:  The Gentle Art of Persuasion

“I don’t understand why it didn’t work,” my client Barbara shared. “I had a tight argument, and I’m a skilled negotiator. But I couldn’t move the needle on Don’s decision.”

“Barbara, the problem isn’t your argument – it’s your approach. You are negotiating rather than using persuasion. You aren’t going to change someone’s fundamental beliefs in an hour,” I countered.

“I can’t just give up on this – it’s too important to the business!” she said.

“Yes – I agree. What’s needed here is not negotiation – it’s persuasion.”

Barbara is not alone. Many people mistakenly try their negotiating skills when persuasion is needed. And mastering the art of persuasion is just as important as negotiation, when it comes to moving the needle and getting business results.

Negotiation and persuasion require two separate psychological processes, and depending on the situation, you may wind up using both.

Here are some key differences – and some steps to start up-leveling your skills in persuasion.

Bob Bontempo, professor of Columbia University Business School, gives a nice comparison between negotiation and persuasion. He says, “Negotiation is the mutual exchange of resources for mutual benefit, whereas persuasion is changing what someone believes about the resource or outcomes. Negotiating is usually quick, and can be expensive; persuasion is free, and takes longer to work.” ¹

In other words, if you are negotiating, you can walk into a meeting and say, “Hey, can we talk? This is what I want, and I’d like to talk to you about how we make that happen.” And you can usually come to some sort of mutual decision within an hour or so.

But you can’t do that very effectively when there are high stakes involving someone’s core beliefs and convictions. For example, Decision-maker John harbors an unreasonable bias against Red Monkeys. You happen to know that by including a Red Monkey initiative in your 5-year plan, the business will generate much more revenue.

You aren’t going to change John’s mind about Red Monkeys by just walking in and saying, “I’m here to talk about how I believe that a Red Monkey initiative needs to be included in our 5-year plan, and I want to talk about how we can make that happen beginning next week.” It is not going to happen. At least, not that way.

Persuasion is a more gradual process along a continuum, made up of small movements, much like dating someone. First, you open up curiosity in the mind of the other person, you then begin to gently create consideration for other perspectives (and creating doubt in their conviction by doing so). You then generate a desire for more information, and move them along the continuum to your agenda.

Is this manipulative? Absolutely! We manipulate opinion every day. And persuasion, like any other tool, can be used for good, or for bad. Your motives are pivotal to this process, and having everyone’s best interest in mind is key.

Here are 4 keys to begin flexing your skills of persuasion to move others along.

1. Pinpoint the common interest.

You have to be interested to be persuaded. So as you think about next steps in your encounter, identify what would pique their interest about this topic, or about shifting their belief. John is interested in meeting the goal of generating more revenue, and hasn’t yet come up with initiatives that will produce a desirable ROI.

2. Identify what will pique curiosity or create doubt in their current conviction.

What is the other person ready to hear? What is the other person not ready to hear? John is ready to talk about generating revenue, and he is interested in exploring additional initiatives to help reach a goal. He is a risk-taker, and open to identifying those initiatives that will bring a greater ROI. He is not ready to hear about Red Monkeys yet, as one of those ideas.

3. Make it their idea.

Ego is not a factor here; results are. “So, John, if I hear you correctly, you feel that generating more revenue in the first 18 months will fast-track our 5-year plan and allow us to expand, right? And you are willing to take a look at some initiatives to do this may be risky, but if we can prove their efficacy with other industry examples, you are willing to consider them? What naturally follows from your idea to consider new ideas that are calculated risks, is to look at those things that we may not have considered in the past – am I right in hearing this?”

4. Ask the $3 Million Question.

I asked for $3M one time and got a ‘yes’ in 30 seconds. But was it all me, and was it all because I was standing there with the person, David, who held the power to considering the request? Absolutely not. My team and I had moved this relationship along the continuum over time. We were up against much – the entity in question had never gifted more than $1M to any one entity per year, and there were several key stakeholders to convince, as well as steps to take, to prime them to consider the request. So don’t try this question until you have a foothold into the relationship and process – but when you do, this is a great way to finally surface objections and meet them with suitable answers.

Here the question I asked: “Under what conditions would you consider a gift of $3M’?”

David, clearly surprised, stammered, “Well, we have never gifted more than $1M to any entity, and I’m not sure our board would agree to do this, and there are all kinds of legal complications to making a proposal work…  Besides, this whole process might take well up to 18 months!”

I answered, “So, David, what I hear you saying is that you and I would need to sit down and agree on terms, take it to our attorneys for review, and present it to the board, with the full understanding that the process of approval and funding may take somewhere between 12-18 months?”

“Yes – I guess so,” David responded.

“We can do that,” I said. “Let’s set a date to sit down!”

Let’s transpose this question to John’s situation. Once you have taken the preliminary steps to affirm common interest and create curiosity and doubt in John’s current plan to reach the goal; and once he has admitted he is open to considering initiatives he refused in the past, try the question…

“John, under what conditions would you consider including a Red Monkey initiative in our plan?”

John will obviously counter with objections – Red Monkeys are dangerous, they are costly, they make messes and scare children!

“So, what I hear you saying, John, is that you can see the value Red Monkey initiatives bring to other companies, but in order for this to work here, we would need to ensure that they are properly vetted, stay within budget, and are cared for and contained so we don’t risk any messes or frights. Am I right? We can do that!”

I challenge you to begin flexing your persuasive muscle, today!