How to Persuade and Influence People

Powerful Techniques to Get Your Own Way More Often

Philip Hesketh

• Publisher: Capstone
• Year: 2010
• ISBN:
  9780857080936
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Negocios y empresa
• Subtopic: Pequeñas empresas

Wouldn't it be great if you could always get people to see things your way? Now you can.

You won't go far in business if you can't bring people round to your way of thinking. Some people find it easy; the rest of us just need a little help. How to Persuade and Influence People reveals some of the most powerful influencing and persuasion techniques known to man. This enhanced second edition contains new tools, new research, new case studies and plenty of practical exercises to help you:

• Find the perfect way to win people over
• Become an amazing negotiator
• Overcome objections
• Appreciate and understand the other person's standpoint
• Understand why people buy what they buy
• Ensure people remember you and what you want
• Build long-term trust and credibility

Philip Hesketh is a full-time international business speaker on the psychology of persuasion. Thousands of people have benefited from his advice. In this book, he maps out countless simple and memorable persuasion techniques that can be applied to a whole range of life's challenges. It's up to you to use them.

How to Persuade and Influence People is a completely revised and updated edition of Life's a Game So Fix The Odds.

PART 1

THE STARTING POINT-PEOPLE, BELIEFS AND RELATIONSHIPS

1

DARING TO BEGIN

In successful relationships, people never stand still. They’re always moving forward and evolving to make their relationship even more successful. Happy and successful people continually work on their skills and their ability to be more persuasive and influential. So when you are going through a change in your life, you always need to counteract the uncertainty that generates with hope that things will get better. And the greater the degree of hope, the more positive vibes you give off to those around you and the greater the chance of a positive outcome and long-term success.

Research among businesses going through change reveals that employees who are hopeful of providing worthwhile solutions are much more likely to produce positive results. Why? Because people with hope enjoy themselves more and are a great deal more productive.

You no doubt want others to say ‘yes’ to you more often. You would like to get your own way most of the time. You want to be more persuasive and influential, so people will do what you want them to do. That’s what this book is about.

It teaches you specific techniques that allow you to become more influential and persuasive. Techniques that enable you to get your own way more often, whether you are in business—hoping to find ways of convincing colleagues and potential clients—or looking for ways to improve your relationships.

I also explore the difference between persuasion and influence. Persuasion is often something we ‘do’ to people—and most people don’t want to be persuaded. Have you ever gone home after a day’s shopping and said to whoever you live with, ‘Guess what someone sold me today?’

I didn’t think so. If you said to a friend ‘I’ve been persuaded to do this’, you almost certainly didn’t feel good about it. Because persuasion is something we do to people. And influence is something that we have.

HOPE

So it is with hope that I start to write this book. It is a Tuesday evening in England. It’s cold, dark and miserable. In fact, it’s snowing.

But not for me.

For me it’s a Wednesday morning and I’m sitting overlooking the bay in Russell, Bay of Islands, New Zealand. It’s a lovely summer’s day with just a little cloud. An early morning walker ambles by; the ducks float happily and the world is at one.

For me it is an epiphanic moment.

My story is of a lifetime of studying persuasion, influence, communication and relationships. I have been fascinated by how and why we do what we do. Though one is never sure, I think that the process of study began when a neighbour of my parents in Ashton-under-Lyne gave me a copy of Dale Carnegie’s How to Win Friends and Influence People. It was then, at the age of about 16, that I decided to live my life with the principles of that book in mind. Many years later, in my first year as a professional speaker on the psychology of persuasion, I vowed not to write a book until I could write one that was better than the book I had read all those years before. Carnegie’s book rightly remains a classic. You are the better for reading it.

But I had also set myself a number of goals in deciding to become a professional speaker. First, I wanted to become the best and most sought-after speaker on the planet, bar none. Secondly, I wanted to become a Professor at Harvard and speak at the likes of Oxford, Cambridge and Yale universities. Thirdly, I wanted to write a bestselling book, and fourthly, I wanted to change the weather in February. If you’ve ever visited the north of England you’ll understand why. And finally, I set a goal for my son Daniel and I: one day to play live, together, on stage with the great Ralph McTell. That’s my dream. Naturally, it doesn’t figure highly on Ralph’s list of goals, but remember what this book is all about: learning how to persuade and influence other people to do what you want them to do. Look out, Ralph.

And so I sit in the Bay of Islands in the North Island of New Zealand, having achieved one of my goals. I have changed the weather in February. For me, at least.

This book is not just about understanding how the process of influence works and making yourself happier, it’s also about challenging yourself to establish what your goals are. It is about you deciding on your own equivalent of hope, of changing the weather in February, and how to achieve it.

For you.

Life is a game and this book helps you to improve the odds.

DARE TO BEGIN

But I said that I wouldn’t write a book until I could write a better one than Dale Carnegie’s classic. So why now? Will it be better? I don’t know. But I do know that there may never be a better time than this one to start.

So I’m taking my own advice and daring to begin. I don’t want to work in a biscuit factory again, but I’m glad I did. Two night shifts at Hills was more than enough for me.

Instead, I want to go to Kansas City and see if everything is up to date there. I want to go to Alexandria and have an ice-cold beer. I want to go to Nashville and play the guitar. They’re not so keen, obviously, but it’s what I want. I want to drive down Route 66 to see if I can get my kicks there. I want to stand on the corner in Winslow, Arizona and see if it is such a fine sight to see. I want to meet a Wichita lineman. At some point in my life, I want to actually be 24 hours from Tulsa. I want to sail on Kon-Tiki. I want to fly with eagles and swim with dolphins. I want to go for it all or die trying.

The first step in achieving your goals is to believe that you can. But you also need the courage to recognize that sometimes you are simply not physically or mentally able to fulfil a dream; so you do what you can and move on. Remember, life and happiness are about the journey and not the destination. In my previous life as an ad man for 25 years, I as often asked the question, ‘How do I become a director?’ My answer was always, ‘Start behaving like one now.’

So I begin this book because I can. Because I can’t think of a better time to start than when it’s dark and snowing in England in February and I’m overlooking the bay in Russell, having just finished breakfast.

However, before I start on persuasion and influence, an apology.

I am of the view that there is no need to use swear words. The English language is rich and deep and there are many words you can use when you feel that something is nonsense, whether it’s an idea, a belief or a point of view. You disagree, you think it’s wrong, very wrong. In fact, you think it’s rubbish. You get my drift?

Well, despite my best efforts, I can’t find a word that effectively conveys what my dad would call ‘absolute balderdash’. So I invented a word: ‘horrocks’. It means that I think a theory or view is horribly wrong. I’m afraid, dear reader, I use it 12 times in this book, including this one here.

Bear with me.

Just as studies have shown that people who score high on hope cope better with disease, illness and pain, so I find that because I expect people to say yes to me—to do what I want them to do—it happens more often than if I assume I am going to fail.

And so I ask you to read this book with hope.

I will not only share with you techniques to improve your ability to persuade and influence, improve your reputation and get your own way more often, I will also give you the secrets to happiness and the purpose of life.

Time to begin.

2

THE ROLE OF THE SUBCONSCIOUS IN INFLUENCE

In the decades-long battle of the colas, Coke continues to outsell Pepsi. Not because it costs less or tastes nicer, but because we, the consumer, just think that it’s better. Let me explain.

Back in the early 1980s, a series of taste tests found that most people actually preferred the taste of Pepsi over Coke. Provided, that is, they were blindfolded during the challenge and couldn’t see which one they were drinking. However, run the challenge without the blindfolds and the results were almost always reversed. Coca Cola—or Coke as it is universally known—proved itself time again to be the real thing. But why?

Well, years later, Reed Montague and his team at the Neuro-imaging Laboratory in Houston came up with an answer. His researchers discovered that the ventral putamen—one of the brain’s reward centres—behaved differently when people used only taste information than when they also had brand identification.

So brainwashed are you by years of advertising telling you that Coke is better, that when you see a can and take a swig your ventral putamen thinks ‘bingo’. My words, not Montague’s.

Technically speaking, this area of the brain is hijacked and the neuron connections go straight to your dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, which is the area concerned with opinions. So your brain is telling you that you love the taste even though your taste buds may be screaming for you to gag.

Therefore, the first thing you should know about your preference for Coke or Pepsi is that you don’t really know what you are doing, so deep in your brain is the belief about certain brands. That explains why it’s such a hard job not only to get people to change their mind about brands regardless of how good the product might be, but also to get people to change their mind on anything. The stronger someone feels about something, the more difficult it is for them to change their view. You might well have that frustration yourself.

But the second thing you should know about Coke is who really won the cola war. Not the customer, for a start. If you go to any bar and ask for Coca-Cola you will often get the reply, ‘Will Pepsi be OK?’ That’s because bars that sell Pepsi don’t sell Coke, and vice versa. Maybe these establishments would gain a marketing advantage if they were able to offer both.

Incidentally, if you were Coca-Cola and you knew that people liked your brand but preferred the taste of Pepsi, what would you do to strengthen your market position? Of course, you would bring out New Coke, which tasted more like Pepsi. This is exactly what the company did, with disastrous consequences. It just goes to show that you can’t fool all the people all the time.

BELIEFS

Along with five partners, I set up an advertising agency in 1986 called Advertising Principles. In the ensuing years we handled some major brands. The focus of the agency was to convince people to buy those clients’ brands. My personal focus was on getting new business for the agency. And what always fascinated me more than anything was how brands worked. That is to say, how consumers have beliefs about brands; and indeed, in some cases, blind faith in a brand. We used to do the ‘625 Test’—which I’ll explain later—for a beer brand, which illustrated what Dr Montague also found: that people believe in brands (i.e. an idea) and continue to believe in them, despite being faced with subsequent, overwhelming evidence that contradicts their belief. It’s a bit like believing in Father Christmas when you are little.

I loved Father Christmas. I truly believed he existed and loved me. I’d seen him. My parents, friends, aunts and uncles all told me he was real and I trusted them to tell me the truth. And what better evidence was there than on the morning of December 25th? ‘He’s been!’ The thing is—I don’t want to ruin it for you here—but it wasn’t true, was it? It was just a belief. Many people have beliefs that aren’t true. People believe not only in their chosen brands but also in their chosen opinions. Or sometimes the opinion that was given to them by their mother, father, favourite uncle, or even old boss who promised, ‘If I want your opinion, I’ll give it to you.’ They—and you—have all sorts of beliefs and if you’re going to become more persuasive as a result of reading this book, we need to start here.

With beliefs. In particular, the beliefs of the people you want to persuade. Because it doesn’t matter whether the beliefs are true or not. People have beliefs, and they are held in the subconscious.

15 years after setting up Advertising Principles, I enrolled on a course at Harvard Business School. That had been one of my goals since I visited the place on holiday some years before. After all, if I was to be a professor at Harvard, I needed to study there as a starting point. You’ll remember that I also set myself the goals of playing live with Ralph McTell, being the best professional speaker on the planet, going to New Zealand and, of course, changing the weather in February. One of my partners at Advertising Principles, Bernie May, came with me. The lecture I most remember was when Professor Gerald Zaltman was speaking on the subject of the subconscious.

‘95% of our thoughts are subconscious,’ he said.

‘Wow!’ I thought. That means 95% of our thoughts are not within our control! Frankly, I doubted him. I thought he’d made it up. So I put my hand up and asked the question, ‘How do we know it’s 95%, Professor Zaltman? Why that figure?’

He paused. ‘Do you mean beyond the fact that I, a professor at Harvard, who have written 14 books on the subject, am a past President of the Association for Consumer Research, have an AB from Bates College, an MBA from the University of Chicago, a PhD from the John Hopkins University and am widely regarded as the world’s leading authority on the subconscious, say so?’

Oh dear. You know those times when you’ve put one foot in and there’s no getting it out again? You have foolishly said something that if you’d thought about it a little more you would never, ever say? He basically changed the lecture and told us about the subconscious. The point was that what people say they do isn’t necessarily what they actually do.

UNDERSTANDING WHAT PEOPLE THINK

I sat in, or listened to, dozens and dozens of focus groups when I worked in advertising and I drew three conclusions. First, most people, most of the time, don’t know why they do what they do. Secondly, they don’t really know why they buy wha...