Persuasion is perhaps one of the most misunderstood words in business culture. People think it’s all about manipulation, force, lack of choice, or inducement, when actually persuasion is about influence. It’s the process of creating, reinforcing, or changing people’s beliefs or actions and this can be done when you apply effective persuasive communication techniques that allow your audience to weigh the potential benefits of doing something in relation to the consequences.
Persuasion is everywhere. Nearly all human interactions involve some form of persuasion, but that doesn’t mean that we’re naturally good it … or that we get the results we want.
The sobering reality is that few speakers achieve the level of influence they want. That’s because they approach it with little creativity or boldness, and they fail to apply persuasive communication techniques to their message.
I’m going to share with you THE most important persuasive communication techniques that you can apply to frame your message so that your audience TAKE ACTION at the end.
Understand your audience
How much do you really know about your audience? What’s important to them? What keeps them awake at night? When your message doesn’t speak to your audience’s desires and needs, it is going to be ignored every time. So if you want people to pay attention, you have to quickly grab their interest and engage them because your audience only cares about what you do when you can meet their wants and needs.
Remember that it’s your audience that matters most when you speak, not your content. Without a clear understanding of who you’re delivering your message to, you won’t be able to influence them. Before you go into any situation where you’re delivering a presentation, a pitch or a speech, make sure you know as much as you can about your audience.
Display credibility and authority
Being credible and trustworthy is the most effective persuasive communication techniques that will help you build a connection and relationship with your audience. This appeal to credibility is known as “ethos.” It’s a method of persuasion in which the speaker tries to persuade the audience by demonstrating his own credibility or authority.
If you’re a global leader, you will have created some element of ethos BEFORE you even get up to speak, but you still need to demonstrate it during your speech.
Listeners are more likely to be engaged if you’re someone they can instantly relate to, whether it’s your age, gender, status, race or culture. But if you don’t share these, you may need to adjust your language and the words you choose, this is where my cross-cultural communication skills training comes in to help leaders adapt their message to a global audience.
You can also create ethos by:
– Demonstrating your expertise or experience
– Create trust and respect through your honesty and compassion
– Referencing people in the audience or previous speakers earlier that day to form a deeper connection with the audience
Create an emotive and empathetic connection
To truly speak with emotion and impact, you need to create an emotional experience. When people are moved emotionally, when something hits them right in their gut, they are inspired to do anything you tell them. Think about inspiring rather than educating, changing lives rather than influencing and exciting rather than motivating, you’ll then start to adapt the language you use to be more persuasive and compelling.
Don’t be afraid to tell your own personal story to reveal how you yourself have wrestled with the very same issue you’re discussing. By doing so, you’ll be giving them inspiration to take the same actions that you took to give them the results they so desire.
Skills around persuasive communication techniques can be learned and practiced. Whether you have a presentation or pitch coming up, you need to be ready with those strategies to jump in at a moment’s notice.
Download my e-book : The 6C’s of Strategic Storytelling® to help you learn the key principles of persuasive communication and apply them with a FREE 15 minute session with me.
