Persuasion IQ

The 10 Skills You Need to Get Exactly What You Want

Kurt Mortensen

• Publisher: AMACOM
• Year: 2008
• eBook ISBN: 9780814410257
• Topic: Personal Development
• Subtopic: Business Communication

Through his Persuasion Institute, Kurt Mortensen has sought out and studied the Persuasion IQ (PQ) of the world's top influencers. Now, in this game-changing guide, he's leveraging his vast knowledge to teach readers the essential habits, traits, and behaviors necessary to cultivate their natural persuasive abilities. Concentrating on the 10 major Persuasion IQ skills, the book provides readers an opportunity to assess their own PQ, identify their strengths and weaknesses, and start down a path to enormous success and wealth. Readers will discover powerful techniques that enable them to: read people quickly; create instant trust; get others to take immediate action; close more sales; win over clients; accelerate business success; earn what they're really worth; influence others to accept their points of view; win negotiations; enhance relationships; and--most important--hear the magical word "yes" more often!Your professional success, your income, and even your personal relationships depend on your ability to persuade, influence, and motivate other people. Whether you are selling a product, presenting an idea, or asking for a raise, persuasion is the magic ingredient. This powerful, life-changing book will transform anyone into a persuasion genius.

CHAPTER ONE
What Is Your Persuasion IQ?
The New Rules of Success and Wealth

What does it take to persuade with power in any encounter? Think about it. When was the last time you didn’t get something you wanted? What happened? Did you fail to get your point across? Were you persuaded by someone else? Our understanding of persuasion and influence has changed dramatically over the past twenty years. In the past, we did not know or care how consumers thought or what prompted them to buy or take action. Most people in sales and marketing were shooting in the dark. We hoped that what we were doing was working. Dr. Antonio Damasio of Iowa College of Medicine sums it up best: “More may have been learned about the brain and the mind in the 1990s—the so-called decade of the brain—than during the entire previous history of psychology and neuroscience.”¹

At some point, every persuader has lost a client, a customer, or even a friend, has failed at a business, or has blown a new account. Setbacks of this kind have no doubt happened to you. Sure, it hurts, but the question is: Who or what did you blame? It cost you money, embarrassed you, upset you, and someone must be blamed for your discomfort. However, when you embark on a new career, start a new business, or attempt something new, there are risks involved. When things don’t work out as expected, the knee-jerk reaction often is: “Well, this does-n’t work.” I say, “No, it didn’t work for you this time. But I know you can make it work.” There are thousands of people in your field or industry, in the same (or worse) circumstances as yours, with the same intelligence (and often less) who have made it work. It is not the vehicle(whether business, real estate, network marketing, the Internet, commissioned sales, or any other endeavor) but the gas (persuasion, people skills, self-mastery) for the vehicle that makes the difference between mediocrity and success.

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The power of persuasion enables and empowers you to:

Read people instantly.

Create instant trust.

Get others to take immediate action.

Close more sales.

Win over your adversaries.

Earn what you are worth.

Get others to accept your point of view.

Repeatedly hear the magical word “yes.”

Accelerate the success of your business.

Enhance your relationships.

Win negotiations.

Get your way.

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Persuasion is the number one skill possessed by the ultra-prosperous. If you stop and think about it, everything you want in life comes as a direct result of persuasion. Brian Tracy, a renowned expert in persuasion, says, “People who cannot present their ideas or sell themselves effectively have very little influence and are not highly respected.”² The converse of this statement is that if you can effectively present your ideas and persuade others, you will be highly influential and highly respected.

Did you know that more CEOs of major U.S. corporations come from sales and marketing backgrounds than from any other discipline?³ Being the CEO of a major corporation may or may not be your goal, but no matter what your career choices, dreams, or goals are, persuasion is the key to your success. Persuasion professionals—sales and marketing experts—are the most sought-after employees.⁴ Parents, teachers, leaders, managers, entrepreneurs, employees, and sales professionals all need persuasion skills. Regardless of our actual job title, we all persuade—we all sell—for a living.

Napoleon Hill spent twenty years researching success and prosperity, during which he uncovered the skills and habits of millionaires and discovered what the ultra-prosperous were doing that the average person was not. What habits, skills, and traits did the successful all have in common? Following the release of his famous bestsellers, Think and Grow Rich and Succeed and Grow Rich Through Persuasion, Hill dubbed the ability to persuade as the most important skill for reaching one’s “greatest potential.”⁵

Your area of persuasion might be selling a product, presenting an idea effectively, negotiating a better deal, getting a raise, influencing someone to become a better person, or reaching a troubled teenager. No matter what the setting, success in all these situations depends on persuasion. Persuasion is key in every aspect of life. Consider the following ways we use persuasion every day:

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Role

Parents

Sales professionals

Account reps

Persuasion

Guide

Close

Sell

Audience

Children

Prospects

Clients

Role

Managers

Leaders

Coaches

Advertisers

Lawyers

Presenters

Entrepreneurs

Marketers

Mentors

Politicians

Corporations

Clergy

Doctors

Persuasion

Recruit

Influence

Train

Educate

Sway

Inspire

Win

Convince

Advise

Urge

Assure

Enlighten

Counsel

Audience

Employees

Followers

Teams

Shoppers

Juries

Listeners

over

Consumers

Students

Constituents

Shoppers

Members

Patients

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The list could go on. The point is we constantly find ourselves in persuasive encounters, in every sphere of life, both publicly and privately. What is your persuasion IQ (PQ)? Where do you rank in the world of persuasion and influence? And how do you move from persuasive mediocrity to persuasion mastery?

The Man and His New, Shiny SUV: A Fable

After the purchase of a shiny red SUV, the new vehicle owner felt excited about his purchase but, at the same time, nervous about the large investment. It was a financial stretch to buy the car, but he felt so good behind the wheel. It just felt right. He was sure that this new car would open many doors—that it would be the start of something great. Things would be tight financially, but he felt the investment was worth every penny. Two weeks later, the gas light illuminated, and he automatically pulled into a gas station to fill up the tank. To his great dismay, he watched the counter on the pump go to $20, then $30, then $70 … it finally stopped at $82.77. “That’s highway robbery!” he thought. It wasn’t fair that gas was so expensive! He vowed never to buy gas again, and he never did. There his car sat, parked in the driveway, shiny and new and never moving because of his headstrong refusal to put gas in his car.

Meaning: No matter what type of vehicle (business) you have, it will go nowhere if you do not have the gas (persuasion and people skills).

Just as gas is critical to your car (regardless of cost), persuasion is critical to your business. Most people would love to be able to know how to persuade and influence others, on the spot, in any situation. Suppose you are talking to a friend, a client, or a prospect, and you can’t get your point across. Now imagine you could buy a spray can of persuasion, spray that person, and have her instantly change her mind to your point of view. What would that be worth to you? How much would you pay for such a spray can of persuasion? Imagine being able to persuade others with such power and ease.

YOU CAN MASTER THE ART AND SCIENCE OF PERSUASION

The good news is that persuasion skills can be learned and mastered. It’s amazing how little effort, time, or expense that individuals, companies, and corporations would have to spend on sales and persuasion training to equip themselves with these vital skills. Armed with such knowledge, the persuader’s income and the company’s profitability increases dramatically, and the client, customer, or friend is yours for life. The question I always get at this point is: “How much will it cost me to acquire, learn, and master these persuasion and life skills?” I want to shift the focus of that question. How much will it cost you if you don’t? As the billionaire Donald Trump said, “Study the art of persuasion. Practice it. Develop an understanding for its profound value across all areas of life.”

Why have I dedicated my life to understanding, mastering and teaching persuasion and life mastery? The reason is that I was mad I hadn’t learned these critical life skills while earning my college degree or advanced business degree. Who/what had failed me? If persuasion is the skill of success, why hadn’t I learned it from school, or anywhere else for that matter? Why had I been given a pocket knife to chop down the tree of success and wealth? Why had I been given the wrong tools? Why did these critical life skills have to be learned through the school of hard knocks?

I desperately wanted to master the priceless skill of persuasion. I read every book on the subject that I could get my hands on, attended countless persuasion, leadership, negotiation, and sales seminars, read thousands of studies on human behavior and social psychology, listened to every audiotape or CD on persuasion, motivation, and influence I could find. I gleaned lots of great information, but found something was still missing. All the studies, programs, books, and speakers touched on good ideas, but I couldn’t find a source that tied it all together.

Frustrated, I decided to take my research to the next level. I sat through countless sales presentations, consumer intercepts, and surveys. I listened to telemarketing scripts, endured many offensive old-school persuasion tactics, and witnessed innumerable closes. I took sales and sales management positions to find what was working. I sought out the top professional persuaders to learn what makes them tick. I monitored not only top persuaders, but their audiences as well to determine what they did and did not like, why they were or were not persuaded.

Overflowing with my research results, I founded the Persuasion Institute to catalog my findings and share the secrets of persuasion with others who desire to reach their greatest potential. Since its inception, the Persuasion Institute has administered over 20,000 Persuasion IQ assessments. My role is to teach you the skills of top persuaders. What talents, traits, characteristics, habits, and mindset do top persuaders possess? How can an average persuader become a great...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Contents
• Preface
• Acknowledgments
• 1. What Is Your Persuasion IQ? The New Rules of Success and Wealth
• 2. Persuasion Resistance: Ten Common Obstacles That Limit Your Persuasion Success
• 3. PQ Skill #1: Mental Programming of Top Persuaders
• 4. PQ Skill #2: Understanding How Your Audience Thinks
• 5. PQ Skill #3: Instant Rapport and Social Synchronization
• 6. PQ Skill #4: Establishing Automatic Trust
• 7. PQ Skill #5: Command Attention with Power and Authority
• 8. PQ Skill #6: The Ability to Influence Other People
• 9. PQ Skill #7: How to Motivate Yourself and Others Every Time
• 10. PQ Skill #8: Advanced Presentation and Communication Skills
• 11. PQ Skill #9: Preplanned Anticipation: The Secret Formulas of the Pros
• 12. PQ Skill #10: Self-Mastery and Personal Development
• Final Thoughts: Time to Capture Your Greatness
• Appendix A: Persuasion IQ Book Bonuses / Free Reports
• Appendix B: Abridged Persuasion IQ Test
• Endnotes
• Index
• About the Author