Top tips on the psychology of persuasion

Posted on: June 25, 2013

I was invited to lead a half day workshop for marketers and lawyers at LawNet recently on this topic. We covered a lot of ground – some of which I have written about in previous blogs (see links below), particularly the 7P buy in model and toolbox.

However, there were a couple of strands that were of particular interest in this session (effective communication and the psychology of persuasion) – primarily as it provided a framework around which to “hang” many of the other ideas:

How are we persuaded? (Zimbardo):

1. Who (the communicator)
2. What (the message)
3. Whom (the audience)
4. Effect (the desired outcome)

The six characteristics of effective communication (Heath):

1. Simple, brief, profound
2. Unexpected, surprising
3. Concrete, real experiences
4. Credible, trustworthy
5. Emotional – feel as well as think
6. Tell a story

Conformity

Both informational (where there is uncertainty) and normative (where we want to make a good impression) conformity were discussed as well as the importance of in-group bias and social identity theory in the context of a law practice.

Recommended reading

There were a number of references provided for further reading although my personal favourite, and the one strongly recommend as it’s written by a psychologist, is “Influence – the psychology of persuasion” by Robert B Cialdini. His six strategies have served me very well over the years. Although John P Kotter’s work on both buy-in and persuasion/attack strategies was also referenced.

Favourite persuasion tips

I always ask about delegates’ main takeaways from a session, and this is what they said:

• Visioning exercise
• Understanding comfort zones
• Deliver what you have promised and developing trust
• Communicate in a different way
  • Be sensitive and adapt to different personality, cognitive and learning styles
  • Use drawing as a tool
  • Consider “one page” summary diagrams, storyboards or schematics
• Strategies for dealing with different types of “difficult” behaviour
• Regular meetings to both review progress/successes and motivate next short term actions
• Physically sitting near and working with those you want to influence
• Avoid labelling and “reframing” behaviours positively
• Changing your own attitude and perspective

Related blogs:

http://kimtasso.com/two-big-guns-of-communication-face-time-and-reframe

http://kimtasso.com/getting-it-past-the-partners-all-about-buy-in

http://kimtasso.com/take-a-walk-on-the-client-side-empathy-and-emotional-intelligence-when-selling-professional-services

http://kimtasso.com/reflections-on-managing-change-and-leadership

http://kimtasso.com/6-top-tips-for-change-management

http://kimtasso.com/what-is-nlp-neuro-linguistic-programming

http://kimtasso.com/10-tips-to-increase-your-resilience

http://kimtasso.com/personality-assessment-as-part-of-the-coaching-and-development-process