Discover the 2,000-year-old Secret That Makes Influence Effortless… No Divine Powers Required.
You may have seen the film Bruce Almighty, where Jim Carrey is given God’s powers. Imagine if you were given the power to persuade. The ability to influence people to do what you need to get done. Instead of Carol in accounts saying ‘Look, I said I’d do it next week’, knowing you had more chance of having dinner with Elvis next week than Carol actually doing what she said she would.
Hell may freeze over when she does.
Just imagine how much easier life would be, how much you’d get done, how much you’d achieve, how stress-free life would be. Well, we don’t need God’s powers to persuade, we just need to understand a few rules – and then do what Daniel Pink, the NY Times bestseller, suggests:
‘Observe. Reflect. Adjust’.
Try This Quick Persuasion Challenge:
Before you read on, consider this: ‘Persuade me to take the stairs’.
What would you say? We’ll come back to this in a moment.
The rules were written by Aristotle many Greek moons ago. He said that there were 3 ways to ‘appeal’ to people, as he called it:
Ethos, Pathos, and Logos.
No, not the 3 musketeers, though they do sound the same.
Instead, these are 3 ways that you can persuade someone:
Logos is logic.
The very foundation of the Greek civilisation. Apply logic, and you will get your point across.
Ethos is credibility.
Building on logic, this is about citing an authority, like when the judicial system talks about Smith Vs Jones 1867, or more simply, when we use a case study or have an award or a certificate.
Pathos is emotion.
Very powerful and used in a lot of marketing. The Mac I am typing on, I didn’t want to spend thousands on, but when Apple marketed it as a lifestyle cool product, I was hooked 25 years ago.
These are the 3 great persuaders, and combined, they are even more powerful.
So, coming back to the stairs challenge, what would you now say to persuade? Hopefully, your answer has upgraded from something like:
‘Take the stairs because it is good for you’,
To including all 3 persuaders. Something like:
‘Taking the stairs keeps you active, as many Doctors know, because they want to be around to see their grandchildren grow up too’.
Can you spot each of the 3 persuaders in that sentence?
This article was written by Darren A. Smith for The Grocer. View the original article.
