> Listen. Try to ascertain what the person really wants. This requires listening at a whole new level. When they talk, notice what causes their eyes their eyes to light up.<p>This a hundred times. When you have pitched an idea long enough (30 times? depends on the idea evolving) the words just flow out of your mouth; and then you can start reading the eyebrows as the words then require no cognition.<p>Pitch a story with a digest/summary of your idea, and dive into specific content right there when the eyebrow is raised. The eyebrow will tell you what their value system is. The eyebrow will help you make an impact by letting them lead the conversation, and get follow up meetings.<p>This means structuring your pitch as a quick scan for them, with reaction-triggering items first. Looking up the background of the interlocutor will help with the order of items.<p>Also, don't try to say everything you wanted to say. Just let them integrate your item into the coherence of their mind, at their pace. At this point, listening to them is them hearing you.
Please don't do this. This idea has spread ad nauseum through copywriting, sales, marketing and product management teams.<p>Whenever I visit a product page these days, I have no idea what it does. It's trying to tell me how much better it'll make my life instead.<p>Just be direct and stop playing games.
FTA : "Listen. Try to ascertain what the person really wants."<p>Funny, to me "convincing" is usually the act of making someone agree to what <i>you</i> have in mind. And I envy those who can do that 'cos usually I don't have the strength to do it :-(
“Suppose you want someone to quit smoking. The fantasy you want to plant is how youthful they’ll feel when they stop. The most effective way to incept a person isn’t to say those words. Instead, say something like: “it must feel wonderful to run 3 miles in the wilderness, take a breath of fresh air and really live life.”<p>When was the last time you met a smoker that wanted to run around the block, let alone 3 miles? This article was nonsense.
I hate these marketing ideas.<p>I actually tell vendors to strip the first 20% of their presentation because I am not interested in their history and learning that security is important (my pro topic).<p>I also tell them I will have extremely technical questions so they better have a technical guy.<p>Lastly, I tell them I will need their pricing.<p>About 50% of companies actually follow what I am asking them. About 10% is genuinely glad to go that way and we often contract.<p>I had one company once coming with a demo disk array (ca. late 90's). They told me that nothing can break their RAID technology so I just pulled a disk out and everything crashed. They told me that this is not the way I am supposed to behave and they will not do business with inconsiderate people.<p>They were so disappointed in me that it was borderline touching. These were the pre-powerpoint times and companies would send knowledgeable people. We ended not buying their product but stayed in touch.
Convincing is a function of the evidence and the jury.<p>If your evidence is strong, highlight the evidence.<p>If it's weak, practice your Cialdini and Carnegie. Manipulating people is a time honored tactic.<p>But don't kid yourself about which of the two you're doing.
How to Become Convincing<p>treat everyone like an idiot<p>disclaimer: only works on idiots<p>anti-disclaimer: that is 90% of the population, including "successful" people
tl;dr<p>Whenever someone tells you something, don't listen to their actual words, rather make up a story and apply it to them, respond to that instead.<p>Aso, if you do listen 'be like Kellyanne Conway' and disregard that as well and suggest something entirely different.<p>I don't have the strength to go on, but that is, and i don't say this lightly, one of the worst things i have read on an internet.