How To Kill Your Persuasive Efforts

Too many times the persuasive process is started and then prematurely killed by inactivity or incongruence.

Let me give you an example.

I’m a major consumer of technology products.
I’ve shopped nearly all of the big box stores and have had only mediocre luck with any of them.

But, an employee of one of the stores that I frequent who I did not know, happened to be at a book signing I did recently. He dropped me an email inviting me to get extra discounts by using a special program that they have only for people like me (Law of exclusivity), which made me VERY interested. I dropped him a note back thanking him and even offering to do a free seminar for his sales team (Law of reciprocity).

Guess What?

Three days later and no return email. Not a word.
Which can only lead me to believe that my previous belief (Big box stores have very poor customer customer service and their employees are not focused on building customer relationships) is correct.

By simply closing the loop with me, I’d have been persuaded to immediately do some business with him.
Now, I’m back to my original position when it comes to technology products which is . . . shop around.

When you are changing a deeply set belief the most powerful thing that you can do is demonstrate that the belief might be wrong, then show congruent evidence of the new information that you want them to consider. Then, follow through, demonstrate in the future how what you’ve just said is true and congruent with the new expectation.

Persuasion isn’t hard at all, but being consistent is for most people. The most consistent, congruent, and engaged people are the must successful persuaders.

If you haven’t had a chance to get my new book
Persuasion: The Art Of Getting What You Want may I suggest that you zip over to Amazon and grab it today? I was just notified that demand has been so high that they are just about out of their stock.
Here’s the link: http://tinyurl.com/a46wq