Persuasion, sales, understanding of human nature, charisma, whatever you want to call this “grouping” of skills is one of the most important that you can ever devote yourself to studying. Even if you never want to persuade another person of anything in your life, which being a human, is never going to hold true. We all convince and persuade each and every day. It’s something that never stops and understanding how this works and how to effectively do it, is critical for getting the most out of life.
Again even if you’re not a salesman by trade. Even to not get taken advantage of yourself or to better understand the world around you these are important skills to learn. Everyone should have at least a fundamental understanding of sales and persuasion. But with that being said there are more and less effective ways of persuasion. There are things that are more efficient and effective than other methods. But is there a single best method, one that stands head and shoulders above the others?
Yes and no. While I don’t think that there’s a best method for every form of sales and persuasion situation that just beats out all others, I do think there are certain forms and methods that are the most effective for different scenarios. In this essay I’m going to be addressing a scenario we all face, almost every day. And that is persuading someone whether friend, coworker, spouse, child, or other to our point of view on a subject, whatever that subject may be. Granted that we’ve put a lot of thought into the subject ourselves.
The Utility Of Persuasion
But before we get into that, let’s do a quick dive into the utility of persuasion and sales and how understanding and knowing this is so important in life. I’ve said elsewhere that money is tied to freedom, freedom meaning living the life you want on your own terms and being able to accomplish the things that you want in life. And the best way to getting that money, not to mention promotions and other things, is through learning and understanding sales.
Or persuasion or even charisma by another name. Not that they’re all exactly the same but they share so much overlap to almost be. And referring to the title above let’s think about how often you’re in the situation where you want to persuade someone to your way of thinking. Maybe it’s a political discussion, maybe you think something is a threat or has error and you want the other person to see that error. Maybe it’s with a child or spouse with the same thing. Maybe it’s a boss who you want to persuade you your way of thinking that you deserve to get the promotion.
Or a million other things. We call upon these skills so much in so many contexts, essentially all social contexts and gatherings, that it doesn’t make any sense to not development them. Even if you live by yourself in the woods you’ll still eventually have to to town for goods and supplies and even mountain men understand the importance of knowing how to barter. My point is, the need for this skill set never goes away, ever. In all human times and places, it’s needed. But back to the method.
How To Convert Someone To Your Way Of Thinking
The best way to start this might be by explaining how NOT to convert someone to your way of thinking, which is the way that most people revert to when trying to convince. And that is lecturing, berating, or making the other person feel stupid. Coming close behind this and almost just as ineffective is trying to convince someone with logical arguments about your way of thinking. People aren’t persuaded by logic, logic has very little to do with the conclusions that people come to.
So if berating, lecturing, and making the other person feel bad is awful, and using logical and rational thinking barely works at all, then what are we going to do? Well couple of things here. First off one needs to come to their own conclusions about things in many cases. Most people want to feel like their independent agents, so even when error is pointed out in their way of thinking and they know its wrong they’ll stick to it to not look foolish or to stay “their own person” so to speak. But there are ways to circumnavigate this.
And that’s by leading someone to your conclusion but through their own thought process. If you read the Bible one thing that stands out is that Jesus was a great salesman, and I don’t mean that in a cynical way. Whenever presented with error he wouldn’t point the person out saying they were an idiot or look how wrong they were. He wouldn’t get angry or defensive, the first thing he would do is ask them a simple question. Then he’d follow that up with another question and another and another. Leading the person bit by bit, crumb by crumb, to see their own errors in their thinking and lead them to the right conclusion. But they feel as if they got there themselves, through their own thinking and effort, so embrace the right conclusion as if it were their own.
Guide Them With These
So essentially you use questions to gently guide them to the answer that you think is right. It might sound cheesy but when someone expresses an opinion counter to yours the first thing to do is acknowledge their feelings about the issue, because its the feelings that the way of “thinking” stems from, even if you think its ridiculous. Then ask them a question about it, gently leading them towards the answer you want. Keep asking questions, flesh out the thinking and expose it all without judging it. That’s their job. Let them see everything lain out before them through their own effort.
Let them see the errors themselves without judging them, maybe even defend them a little. Sounds counter-intuitive but it works. Use questions to gently guide and lead them to what you think is right. That’s the best way to persuade someone of something. Just pointing out errors, especially with a critical tone, will make people defensive and cling tighter to their way of thinking, even, or especially when it’s wrong. So be gentle and ask questions, lead them to where you want to go and let them get their by their own efforts. That’s the most effective and efficient way to persuade someone to your way of thinking and will help you all the days of your life.
If you have any questions you would like to see answered in a future post send them to me at charlessledge001 (at) gmail (dot) com. If you found value in this post then I would encourage you to share this site with someone who may need it as well as check out my books here. I appreciate it. You can follow me on Twitter here.
-Charles Sledge
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