The Power of Persuasion

Would you walk into someone’s place of worship, tell them what you think they should worship, buy some artifacts from you and then expect them to turn around thank you for it?

Of course not.

However, it can be achieved when you have a great persuasive power. Persuasion is not a science but a form of art, it’s rather like a game between what you want people to believe and what they really believe.

When people go to a shop and buy a product bases on the sales pitch of the salesperson /owner, 99.9% people will be disappointed with what they end up buying and consider themselves to have been fooled by the sales people.

This shows that persuasion is essential to gaining confidence and trust to not just sell customers the one time; but more importantly to make them believe what that they have purchased is what they really wanted and need and to keep them coming back for more.

Words are a tool of persuasion. When we communicate with people, we can instantly see the effect our words have. Make them simple and powerful when you want your words to be impressed. Use sentences that can easily be expanded and/or condensed to allow flexibility. Make your sentence that one will be remembered by making them to suit your own understanding and experiences.

A well-known marketing expert Blair Warren once said: “People will do anything for those who encourage their dreams, justify their failures, alay their fears, confirm their suspicious and help them throw rocks at their enemy.”

Apply the “Escape” principle to your persuasion. When it comes to taking responsibility, most people do not want to take responsibility for their own actions. We always heard of a variety of excuses such as “This is not my fault”, “There’s nothing I can do now”. No one wants to be blamed.

Therefore, when we apply the “Escape” principle to our persuasion, give your customers a way out, so they do not have to blame themselves if something goes wrong, if the product does not work for example. For instance, when you do a commercial for a fitness centre, the promo wording should be something like “If you failed to lose your weight, it may not be your fault, it may be your metabolism.” An absolutely a true statement, as obesity can be the problem of metabolism – but more importantly if your customer a way out – in case it doesn’t work – without making him/her look silly more making the initial purchase.

Try to focus on other people’s wants, not your own. If your product is of high quality and the price is competitive, why can’t you win customers? One of the reasons is you may look at it from the other person’s point of view. Think of all the things that are important to him/her. When you want to influence that person, put your primary focus on him/her. When we focus on the basic principles of human nature – and express them simply and with empathy , we create a one-on-one relationship in which people will naturally do thing for us.

We all have struggles in our life. When we struggle, we look for help and for people who understand what we are going through. Those on our side become more than our friend. They become partners. Try using “WE” instead of “I”, these small, but significant type of changes in language can assure people that we are on their side, and no one else’s.

Powerful persuasion has and is being used by many politicians and leaders. Hitler controlled Germany with powerful and persuasive speeches and many followers were eager to die for him. But ‘powerful persuasion’ techniques are not just for politicians, but be the difference between success and failure for the marketing guru, salesman and/or entertainer.

Once you learned to correctly apply the above persuasion principles, you will have a way to gain power and influence over other person. When this applies to any business – even if it is not as easy as it sounds - you will always be able to influence your customer’s decision and make them eager to buy from you.

As always, I welcome your comments and am available for further discussion on making your business grow - http://www.asiamarketing.biz/

ferdi@asiamarketing.biz