Category Archives: Persuasion

Find Treasure Here

I went over to a friend’s house recently. I had promised I would help him clean out his garage. I don’t remember the conditions of the promise, as helping somebody to clean out their garage is not something that you throw around. I would definitely place cleaning out somebody’s garage on the same level as moving, perhaps even in a category all on it’s on. At least moving, you don’t really need to get very dirty, and you usually get beer and pizza afterwards. And if you are lucky, your friends hired a moving company, so you only really need to help with the small stuff. But in helping somebody clean out their garage, there is no telling how much filth and grime you’ll have to wade through.

Because he did successfully persuade me that I did indeed promise him to help clean out his garage, I really didn’t have a choice. He said that he would share the profits from his upcoming garage sale, but I had my doubts. I had known this guy for a while; he’s not the kind of guy that can discover treasure lurking in his garage. I guess that is a matter of opinion, however way you slice it. It’s interesting when you make a choice based on what somebody persuades you to do. It’s almost as if whether or not I actually made the promise isn’t the issue, but rather how well he was able to persuade which was the deciding factor. But I digress.

So there we were, cleaning out his garage. As I suspected, we didn’t find much of value. So much so that we decided not to have a garage sale at all (there go my profits) and haul everything to the junkyard. At least it didn’t take as long, because once we decided that everything was going straight to the junkyard, we didn’t waste any time deciding which we could sell, or which we should throw in the trash heap. It’s amazing what happens when you remove indecision from your decision making process.

We threw everything in the junk heap, except for one item, which he refused to part with. It was an old electronics kit that he had bought many years ago from a local camera shop. It was a kind of a do-it-yourself kit that was apparently designed to foster the imagination of a budding tech wizard. He seemed to be confused when he found it, as it was hard to remember this. Then as he was able to slowly realize what this is, he found himself being able to remember fond memories. He started telling me stories about the fun he’d had with a kid. Taking things apart and putting them back together again. It was like he was able to experience the joy of discovery all over again. Seeing how happy he was when he found his hidden treasure, I couldn’t help but remember the toys I had when I was a kid. You know how when you have this memory, and you don’t really think about it, and something just sets it off? Something completely random that you don’t expect, and you suddenly find yourself remembering all those wonderful experiences that you’d had before? I think it’s pretty cool when stuff like that happens.

But he did end springing for the pizza and the beer after we cleaned out his garage. Luckily we didn’t have to do a lot of sweeping or anything. And because he has one of those garages that you never park your car in, there wasn’t a lot of grime and stuff. So when we finally made it to the pizza place, we weren’t completely filthy.

Can you think of any treasures that you have stored away that you’d forgotten until now?

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Transfer of Resources

Last week I had dinner with a friend of mine. He was telling me about a problem that he was having at work. Not really a “problem” per se, more like an issue that had come up that he was wondering how he was going to resolve it. Even then it was really only an issue to him, and nobody else. He was a part time worker at an independent bookstore, and had been for several months. He reported directly to the owner of the bookstore, as it was a small store, and only had a few employees. It wasn’t like one of those huge chains that have about eighteen levels of middle management, with each manager only concerned with pleasing the person above them. Since this was her first store, my friends’ boss, the owner, was acutely aware of the day-to-day operations. It’s a tough gig these days to open up and run your own shop, as I’m sure you know.

The problem my friend was having was with an issue that had come up with stocking the shelves. He used to be an assistant manager at a grocery store, and was well aware of the strategies employed by large supermarkets to trick you into buying way more stuff that you’d originally intended. I’m sure you’ve had the experience of going to the supermarket to pick out one or two items, and then ending up with a basket of stuff that disqualified you from the nine items or less line. I don’t even want to start on what happens when you go grocery shopping when you’re hungry.

But my friend was worried about talking to her. He didn’t want to approach her, because she had spent a lot more time in a book-selling environment than she did. But he was sure that if he applied his expertise learned from the supermarket, he could easily increase her sales, her profit, and likely her happiness. All it required was arranging the books that would allow people the opportunity to browse through more of the store, then just grabbing the recent best seller and then making a beeline for the register. Her store had many treasures that people would love to find, if only they had the opportunity. My friend was absolutely certain of this.

It’s interesting when you think about it. Somebody from a grocery store applying marketing techniques to a bookstore. People buy food and buy books for completely different reasons. You’d never think that a strategy in one environment would translate well into another environment. Some people have the mistaken belief that if you learn a skill in one area, that it can’t apply to many other areas of your life. Others have realized that you can take something that works, and apply it in other places. One of the great things about being human is your inherent ability to find all kinds of resources that you already have and apply them in other areas of your life.

Which is finally what my friend did. He finally got up the courage to go and talk to her, and express his desires and convince her to let him help her. Because he was able to speak with confidence, and that he had her best interests in mind, she was able to accept his ideas. When I spoke with him last night, he said that they had spent the last two days rearranging the bookstore per his experience. And they were both much happier for it. He for being able to express himself and his ideas, and she for being able to discover a new way to increase her business.

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How to be a Powerful Communicator

I remember I used to have this sales job. It was based on multi level marketing kind of structure. I don’t remember exactly what it was that they sold, some kind of paper products. It was a pure commissioned sales job, meaning that you only made money if you sold something. And if you recruited one of your friends, and they sold something, you got a piece of the profit. The job entailed going out and “cold calling” small business owners. If you have never experienced cold calling, I recommend you try it at least once. Basically it entails waking up to strangers and trying to sell them something. It’s a great way to force yourself out of shyness, and increase your self confidence. I’ll be honest, though, it’s incredibly difficult and can cause a lot of stress, if you are totally focussed on a need to make a lot of money. If you do it just for the experience, it can be a positive eye opener. You can learn a lot about yourself.

Because it was so high stress, at this company we would meet in the morning, have a kind of cheer leading type meeting, where we’d get all pumped up. Then we’d go out in pairs and cold call all day. We’d hit up about 60 businesses, and if we were lucky we’d get about three or four sales. That mean about fifty five rejections a day, ranging from polite to “GET THE HELL OUT OF MY SHOP! CAN’T YOU READ THE SIGN THAT SAYS NO SOLICITORS!” It really can be a way to develop thick skin, which can be useful in today’s climate.

After we’d head back to the office, we would have a breakdown meeting. I guess we would try and cheer each other up after getting rejected all day long. I discovered one very interesting thing during one of these meetings. One senior sales person asked how my day went. I said it was difficult, but it helped to be persistent. I remember that I used the word ‘persistent.’ And he responded with “Oh, so it helps to be diligent?” I kind of nodded, because it was late and I wanted to go home. Now it seems like a trivial difference “persistent” versus “diligent.” After all, if you look the two words up in the thesaurus, you’ll find the two listed as synonyms. But that doesn’t tell the whole story. When I used the word “persistent,” I specifically chose that word, because based on my own experience, that was the best word to describe my own personal experience for that particular day. When he reflected back my description of the experience back to me, he chose a different word. In my mind, that word didn’t describe at all the day I had. So the end result of his “coaching,” was that he didn’t appear to understand AT ALL what I experienced that day.

It reminded me of a seminar I went to once on communication. We were all asked to think of a duck. When we shared our ducks, they were all different. Small ducks, rubber ducks, even the AFLAC duck. A simple four letter noun yielded many different ideas of a duck. Is it any wonder that a abstract word like “persistent” can have such different meanings from person to person?

In some communication models, people are taught to paraphrase what people say back to them. I disagree with this. In the above example, the salesperson tried to paraphrase my words, which were a description of my own personal subjective experience, and failed miserably. In a split second, he became somebody that didn’t understand what I had gone through that day, simply by choosing one single word incorrectly.

How to get around this? How do you communicate to somebody that is telling you about an emotionally charged experience? Simple. Repeat back their exact words to them. I’ve heard this technique referred in some places as “parrot-phrasing” rather than paraphrasing, and I think the term is accurate. If the person in the example above had reflected back to me the same word, I would have felt respected and understood, rather than otherwise. It’s simple, and all that it requires is for you to pay attention to the person talking to you, and pay attention to the words they seem to put emphasis on. They might pause a litter bit before these words, they might say them with a different tonality. Be aware that these particular words have special significance to the person using them. When you treat the other persons word with respect, you will be treating them with respect. And it not only make you appear to be really a sincere, intuitive communicator, but it will make them feel safe in talking with you and sharing their experience.

How many situations can you imagine where this would be useful?

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The Power of Pacing and Leading

I love to cook. Even more than loving to cook I love to eat. And when I like to cook, I like to use many gadgets to help me in those endeavors. One of my weaknesses in life is buying stuff that I really don’t need. I don’t know what it is, maybe I have a weak resistance to an effective sales pitch. Maybe I like to imagine all the wonderful ways I can use that gizmo that looks so incredibly cool here in the store or on TV. Most of the time, when I buy something, I really enjoy it for a while until it loses it’s luster. Then I go and buy something else. Rarely do I ever regret making a purchase. Once I bought a kitchen gadget from an infomercial, used it frequently, and then saw the commercial again. It was such a persuasive commercial, I was tempted to buy another one.

If you can turn off your automatic impulse buying response for a moment, you can learn a lot about persuasion from those infomercials. They grab your attention, lead you through a fantastically engineered sales presentation, and then make you think that you can’t afford not to buy what they are selling. Two of the techniques that they use fairly well are the principles of pacing and leading.

If you’ve read my article on rapport, then you know what I mean when I say pacing. Pacing is when you match the other persons reality as much as possible. You do and say things that they will agree with. You do this enough times that they slowly begin to turn off that “critical factor” that we all have in our brains that tell us be careful of things that we are not sure of. Once this “critical factor” is shut off, we will follow anybody,  anywhere. If you can pace somebody to the state where they have shut this off, you will be in a good position to begin to lead them.

When leading somebody, it is important to take them in small baby steps first. If you ask them to take a big step too soon, it will jar them back behind the protective guidance of their critical factor. If you’ve ever bought something from an infomercial, you’ve realized that the whole system is seamlessly set up to increase the amount of money you’ll spend. You start to watch the show. They are talking about how you hate to cook (uh huh). You have a long day at work, and when you come home you don’t want to slave away in the kitchen (uh huh). You wish there were a better way (uh huh). You’d like to spend only  few minutes to create a delicious meal for the whole family (uh huh).

Wouldn’t you know it? Here we have a brand new tool that can help you! (ok!) You can use this tool to slice (ok!), dice, (ok!) and puree (ok!)! And it’s not three hundred dollars, not even two hundred dollars, not even one hundred dollars. You can buy now (ok!) for the low low price of 39.95 (ok!).

Think about the actual product you are getting for your money. If you were sitting at home, and some guy knocked on your door, with the exact same product with the exact same price, you’d likely tell him no thanks. But watch a twenty minute infomercial, complete with studio audience and genius level engineered persuasion tactics, and you are rushing for your phone with your credit card in hand.

Same product and price, but two completely different methods of information delivery. Do you think it pays to be able to harness the power of persuasion? Do you think you owe it to yourself to learn this powerful technology?

Who would you rather be, the poor guy going door to door and getting rejected over and over, or the multi millionaire selling the same product on TV? Stay tuned for more articles on how to become a powerful persuader. Bookmark this page so you can come back and read articles under the “persuasion” category any time.

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The Magical Power of Rapport

Try a little mind experiment with me. Imagine a friend of yours, one that you’ve known for a long time. You trust that person, right? If they suggested that you do something,and it didn’t sound too crazy, you’d probably do it, right? Me too. Now imagine if somebody that you didn’t know came up to you, and asked you out of the blue to do the exact same thing. How would you react? Probably the same way I would . Tell the person no thanks. If they persisted, then tell them to get lost.

What’s missing from this is a feeling of connection. A deep feeling of similarity with this person. Similar beliefs, ideas, experiences. It’s very hard for somebody that hasn’t known you for a long time to create this feeling. But what if there was? What if there were a secret method, known only to a few of how to create this feeling?

This technique is called rapport. The word rapport is probably familiar to you, but unfortunately it gets thrown around so much, not too many people really understand the power behind it. Rapport is that deep feeling that you experience when you are really connecting with somebody on an unconscious level. And the best part about it, is it’s really easy to do.

Here’s how.

The first step in rapport is to match body language of the person that you want to persuade. Mirror them as much as you can without getting caught. When they shift, you shift. This is so simple, yet so mindbogglingly powerful its amazing so many people don’t use this on a daily basis. If they are slouched a little bit, you slouch a little bit. If they are resting their elbow on the table, you rest your elbow on the table. I’m not going to even begin to describe how powerful this is on a first date, because I’m sure you can think of many ways you can use this.

The next step is to match their speech, as closely as possible. This one is a lot more complicated, because most people feel weird when speaking in a voice that is not ‘normal’ for them. It gets easier the more you do it, though. It’s important to match their tone and speed. If they speak really fast, you speak really fast. If they speak slow, and pause a lot, you speak slow and pause a lot.

The next step is to see their point of view. This doesn’t mean agreeing with everything they say. This means listening, not interrupting, and really making an effort to see things from their point of view. Even if they have a belief which is diametrically opposed to yours, one such controversial topics such as abortion and gun control, hold your tongue. Listen patiently, and at least let them know that you respect their opinion, and you can see how they would have such an opinion. This is a major stumbling block for people. So much so that some people refuse to date or even be friends with people that have opposite opinions than theirs. This can be very limiting, as being able to see opinions from viewpoints than your own can be very rewarding.

These are just the beginning steps of developing deep rapport with somebody that you want persuade. But because they are so powerful, once you master these, you will have an edge over almost anyone you meet.

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Sneaky ways to Persuade

If you’ve ever tried to convince somebody to come over to your side of thinking, you know how difficult it can be. No matter how hard you try, some people just seem to be set in their ways, their opinions, their beliefs. Imagine that you have a great idea that you want to tell your boss. One that you are completely sure that if your boss would take this idea, he could quickly and easily use this idea to make money, become more successful, and attract more customers.

And try as you might, you just can’t get the other person to see things this way. No amount of arguing, convincing, masterly designed powerpoint presentations can sway them. You may as well be banging your head against a brick wall, for all the good you are doing.

But what happens when you stop, now, and consider that there may be a whole new level of communication that you are forgetting about? What if you could realize that there is a layer of communication that supersedes mere logic and cause effect language? When you realize that exists another set of language skills at a completely different plane of thought, you can begin to leverage that to your advantage. When you do this, you will naturally begin to persuade people at will.

What I’m talking about is the language of structure. Language structure is very difficult to wrap your mind around because it is designed to take place outside of conscious awareness. Linguists have known for years, thanks to Noam Chomsky, that there is a ‘deep structure’ to language that children pick up automatically, without any conscious thought whatsoever. In other words, children consciously how to say words like ‘horse,’ television,’ ‘hot,’ ‘cold,’ and so on. But when they begin to string words together, the grammar rules of how to do this is completely unknown. Many scientists agree that we have some kind of ‘grammar structure’ organ in our brain, that is preprogrammed to learn grammar at a completely unconscious level.

Because people learn and use the structure of language at a deeply unconscious level, you can use this to your advantage. For example, it has become widely known, due to the work of Richard Bandler and John Grinder, that people take in, and express information through three main channels. Eyes, ears, and touch. Or to use the technical terms, visual, auditory, and kinesthetic. We also use words that are based on these senses in our speech and our writing.

Some people rely heavily on visual words: See what I mean? I can’t get a clear picture of what you are talking about. That idea is not clear to me.

Others are use more auditory words: Nice to hear from you again. I hear what you’re saying. Mexican food? Sounds great! Have you heard the latest news?

Still others use mainly kinesthetic words: I haven’t been feeling myself lately. I feel you, I really do. I feel uncomfortable with that idea.

Most people use a combination of all three. The trick is to listen to the person you are trying to convince, and pay attention to which category they rely on most. Then just simply use words from that same category when you are convincing them how great your idea is. You’ll be amazed not only how well this works, but how incredibly sneaky it is, because nobody will have any clue that you are doing it.

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Manipulating Minds can lead to Creating Happiness

So if you’ve read the previous article about manipulation, and you’ve decided, like most people, that you’d like to be a really good manipulator of people, or if you prefer, a persuader of people, how do you go about doing it? There are several methods. Some of which I’ll discuss here, others which I’ll discuss in other articles for your reading pleasure.

First, lets review. What we are after here is win/win manipulation (or persuasion or influence.) Which means that you want to convince somebody to do or feel something and have them be happy that you did. Before we go further, lets find an experience where somebody did this to you. Think of something you bought at least three years ago, that you still use and enjoy. There was a time in your life where you didn’t know that thing existed, or that particular model or brand. And you were in a state of mind where you were thinking about buying this, maybe not.

But then you walked in, and saw this sitting there. And you interacted with somebody that was involved in selling you this item. And you paid for it, either by check or credit card or cash or payment plan. And then you came into possession of this thing. With me so far? The salesman that persuaded you to buy this, at least in respects was happy. You are happy, because here it is, so many years later, and you still are using and enjoying thing. Aren’t you glad that they persuaded you to do something? What do you think of now, when you think of the person that you interacted with. Were they friendly? Helpful? Wasn’t it odd that you’d never met them before, yet you had such a positive interaction with this person that you can still remember them fondly so many years later?

This is the natural result of a successful outcome of a win/win manipulation. Everybody is happy. So lets explore the different methods of doing this.

Brute Force

This is the simplest, the oldest, and the most common. This doesn’t necessarily mean physical force. It can be peer pressure, social pressure, or other pressure where you are in a situation where you feel you experience emotional discomfort if you didn’t do what was asked of you. Surprisingly enough, many of these appear as win/win, at least in the short term, because the relief due to relieving the stress of even an imagined negative outcome can feel like a win. Once you give in to the pressure, the pain goes away. Unfortunately, the win can be deceptive, and short term.

Covertly Harnessed Natural Desires

This where most advertising gets its juice. Everybody wants safety, sex, money, love, affection. And to be free from pain. Advertisers usually use these in a unique way to get you to buy their product. They ingeniously hook their advertisement into your base human desires, making you feel as if you just have to have what it is that they are selling. Politicians use this method when they convince you that by voting for them, you will be safer, richer, have more opportunity, and freer from debt. Usually the best politicians are the ones that do the best job of doing this. 

CriteriaWhen someone you use this in a skillful and respectful manner, everybody gets a good long term win. This is when you find out what is important to a person, and craft your message so that it fits to what they think is important. This requires a personal, one on one approach, and only the most skilled and advanced salespeople and persuaders know how to do this. When done on a large scale, it is difficult to match each individuals criteria other than in a vague sense, and is almost impossible to follow through. 

 

So now you know three basic ways to influence people. Remember, when you sincerely have a desire to find out what is important to somebody, and you find these things out in a respectful way, you are more than halfway there to having them happily do whatever it is that you want.

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Manipulation: Give First – Receive Later

Manipulation. What do you think when you hear that word? Evil, bad, wrong, secret, selfish. Do any of these come to mind? If you so you are not alone. People that use other people to get only what they want are considered to be manipulative, and should be avoided. Suppose you met a friend, and thought they were an ok, person. You ask around to see what other people say about them. What would you think if they only said that they were ‘manipulative?” Would that impress you? Would that want you to stay away from them? What if you were at a party, and some people came up to you and asked to speak to you alone. It was really important, they said. It was about your reputation, they said. They take you aside, and tell you that other people have been talking. They have been saying that you are a manipulative person. How would you make that feel? Proud? Happy? Sticky?

The truth is, humans learn to be manipulative since the day we learn to cry. We cry, not because there are any rational thoughts in our brain, only because we know that when we make certain contractions in our throats and force air out, it makes a loud sound. We don’t know emotions, or feelings, or thoughts, we are still at the very early stages of the discovery period of our lives. We scream, and then something cool  happens. Those big people come and pick us up. Wow. Then they put us down, and leave. We take in a deep breath (although we don’t know yet what breath is) and do it again, and they return. Wow. We have discovered a new power within us. We can control parts of our bodies, and other people will respond. When we grow older and begin to learn to use words and phrases, we also discover how certain words, phrased certain ways, can get people to do what we want.

Evolutionary Biologists are starting to wonder if the purpose of language itself is for persuasion rather than simple data transfer. Think of the things you’ve said to people recently. Although they may have been factually based messages, wasn’t there underlying purpose to persuade somebody to think a certain thought or to feel a certain emotion? Isn’t a pure transfer of data anyway a persuasive effort to get somebody else to think the same thoughts that you are thinking? When you call your husband or wife to say you are running late, aren’t you using your language to persuade her to remain calm? When you write the correct answers on an exam, aren’t you using a specific form of persuasion to get the professor to give you a good grade? Isn’t television, radio and the recent explosion of the internet merely other means of grabbing your attention in an attempt to persuade you to buy the advertised products?

One of the forgotten elements of persuasion and manipulation is the win/win concept. Everyone persuades, everyone manipulates, all the time. The only times that it sticks out is when somebody selfishly disregards the win/win model and reverts to the win/lose, or the more popular win/i don’t care.  And when you think about it, the different kinds of manipulation are not good or bad, they are just effective and ineffective. Suppose you were to realize that the most effective form of persuasion and manipulation model is the win/win model? And suppose you took it a step further, and discovered that the easiest, friendliest way to manipulate and persuade somebody was figure out a way to let them win first, and then by winning, they would in turn feel compelled to help you get what you want, since you’ve already helped them get what they want? Imagine if you could let go of any expectation long enough to help somebody get what they wanted, with the full knowledge that the laws of karma would reciprocate, somehow, someway? What would happen if everybody lived according to this model? What kind of world would it be?

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Increase Your Abundance Through Focused Communication

One of the best ways to increase your influence with others is to be a secret agent. I learned this from a Dale Carnegie self study course I bought a long time ago. For those of you that don’t know, Dale Carnegie the guy who wrote the book “How to Win Friends and Influence People,” which if you haven’t read, I can’t recommend it enough.

Now when I say secret agent, I’m not talking about sneaking around in a trench coat like in “Spy vs. Spy,” but I mean using your latent psychic abilities to really understand what it is that the other person in question wants. Of course you don’t need to use any psychic abilities if you don’t want to, as some people don’t have their paranormal powers tuned in as much as the rest of you.

The secret to influencing other people boils down to giving other people what they need, and they will naturally want to help you any way they can. And you already know the secret to what it is they want, even without turning on your ESP. This is because underneath all of our surface desires, is really the same thing.

To feel wanted. To feel needed. To feel recognized. To feel approval from your peers. And this is the easiest thing to give to somebody. All you need to do is engage them in a simple straightforward conversation, and listen, really listen to what it is that they have to say.

Most of the time when we listen, we are too busy thinking of what we want to say next, or thinking of what we are planning on doing later, or wondering why whatever we did before didn’t turn out as well. Try this little experiment. Next time you are talking to somebody, just listen. And watch carefully for how they speak, and pay close attention to certain words that they use with certain emphasis.

And just simply repeat those words back to them, exactly the same way that they said it, and ask them to elaborate on it. When you do this you will naturally begin to realize not only how easy it is to make somebody feel good, but how to have a really positive effect on another person. And when you do that, you will naturally create an aura of charisma that will make it easier and easier to move through life and create the reality that you want.

Because when you think about, the whole of our existence is completely dependent on our ability to interact with other people. If you move through life with the easy to develop yet rarely practiced skill of really listening to somebody, you will find your expressed desires being readily filled by willing supporters.

It was Brian Tracy who described this secret agent policy of giving others what they want. By knowing what you want, you automatically have the inside scoop on what others want. And once you understand that by giving to others first you subsequently enrich your own life, your personal abundance will skyrocket to new levels. 

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Deliver a Powerfully Persuasive Speech

You stand up slowly, and turn to face the room. You face the spellbound crowd, waiting to hear your wisdom. You pause to collect your thoughts, imagining exactly how you want the crowd to respond to your call to action, knowing full well they will once they hear your irresistible message. You take a deep breath, not to calm your nerves, but to give your voice power and strength, enough to capture the attention and imagination of those sitting in the back row.

You can do this naturally and easily, because you have the learned the skill of persuasive oratory. You have learned to project your message so those that hear cannot help but to do what you say. In case you’ve forgotten this skill, here are a few pointers to help you remember:

Step One

Start with a powerful attention getter. Something that will yank thier minds away from their normal everyday thoughts and towards your incredibly moving message. Once I gave a speech to my local toastmasters group on fear, how to embrace fear and use fear to your advantage. My attention getter? I screamed at the top of my lungs as if I was terrified. Did it work? Absolutely!

Step Two

Pace your audience. Say things that they can’t help but agree with.

“Today’s economy is tough.”
(No matter how bad or good the economy is, people will agree with that statement.)

“You all want to get ahead in life.”
(Who doesn’t?)

“You’ve come here to improve yourself.”
 (Who hasn’t?)

Spend three or four mintues getting your audience comfortable with agreeing with what you are saying.

Step Three

Demonstrate that you know about what they need. Identify their pain. Show them that you understand what it is they want.

“You are having problems making ends meet.”
“You need to improve your skills so you can make more money.”
“You want to be able to increase your sales.”

You will need to tailor the above statements to meet the specific needs of the people you are speaking to. If you tell a book club they need to increase their life insurance, they might disagree with you. But if you tell a group of soon to be graduating college students they need to sharpen their resume building and interview skills, they’re more likely to agree with you. 

Step Four

Introduce the pain of non-action. Now, it might sound mean to purposely cause somebody pain, but if your purpose is to help them in the long run, and if you believe by doing what you say, it will benefit them, it’s ok.

“If you don’t get your resume as good as your competition, you won’t get the job you want.”
“If you don’t practice and sharpen your interview skills, the person sitting next to you will get hired instead of you.”

Step Five

A call to action. Review their needs, the pain of non action, and then give them a specific step to move in the direction that you want them to go. (Please note, if you tell them to go in a direction that will only benefit you and not them, then you should become friends with this guy.)  If you are truly giving advice that will help others, make sure you will benefit as well. Win win situations are the best.

The more you realize that simply because you have life experience that can benefit others, the more you will be able to not only help out people, but increase your skills and help yourself out as well.

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