Become More Persuasive Using Three Magical Words

Yes, welcome to the biz communication show, I’m your host Bill Lampton the biz communication guy, many times on the biz communication show, I’m interviewing a guest having a very lively conversation with someone who has mastered business communication skills. Today, though, I’m talking with you directly, which I very much enjoyed doing. I’m sure that you have studied the art of persuasion, maybe you’ve taken courses in it, possibly you’ve attended seminars, and workshops, you’ve watched videos about it, you’ve learned many tips and strategies about boosting your persuasive skills. And yet, there’s always something else to learn. I mentioned that maybe you’d even taught persuasion I did, when I was teaching speech communication for several years, at the University of Georgia, and on the speech communication faculty. And I felt that I had a good basis in how to persuade people about your opinion about getting them to take some action or buying a product or whatever. Then I switched professions, I left academia, I said to some friends, I wanted to find out if some of those communication strategies that had been teaching in the classroom if they worked outside the classroom. And so I rather put it to the ultimate test, I became a professional fundraiser first for colleges and universities, and then later for healthcare spent two decades doing that, asking people to give donations very soon in that profession. I learned, however, that what had been teaching in the classroom about the steps to persuasion, and while they often worked, they were not the best method and asking somebody for a gift. So my supervisor who had been in their professional while taught me a three word formula for persuasion, applied to fundraising, which these words are almost magical. And I’ll give you an example. An example. And fundraising would be the older method might be the traditional method would be, you say, we hope that you will give us $10,000 For our campaign that’s direct. What my supervisor taught me and I use many years since and still do them and other circumstances, instead of saying, we hope you will give our we invite you to give us these three words, could you consider could you consider a gift of $10,000? The difference here, you see is that you haven’t asked them directly. There’s, there’s no even hint of coercion there. The decision is still up to that person. About that time when I was the development officer for that college, I’ll never forget somebody representing a local charitable organization, somebody I didn’t even know.<br /> They’d gotten my name from somewhere. And they came into my office and they said, we’ve got you down for a gift of $100 to our charitable organization. Well, how do you think I reacted that, that put up a wall instantly? Because they were acting like I had no choice in the situation? So let’s apply that. Could you consider, let’s say, for example, that you and your staff are very tired of your supervisor, asking for for a staff meeting to be held every Friday afternoon at three o’clock, my gosh. You’re bone weary of work and bone weary of meetings by then? Well, there are a couple of ways you could handle this. One way would be to confront the supervisor and say, This just doesn’t work and we’re tired of this. Catch. You see where we’re worn out. We’re not paying much attention. We’re checking our watches. But now, instead, you say Could you consider, let’s let’s think about moving our staff meeting from mid afternoon on Friday to Friday mornings, the advantage there would be that all of us would be fresher, we wouldn’t be thinking about our upcoming trip out of town or dinner on Friday night. Wait, you’d have our full attention? Could you consider doing that? Chances are very good. If you took that approach, your supervisor would consider that. And then another one, I’m sure that you probably travel a lot professional AR, personally or both. And so sometimes when you get a hotel, a friend of mine sugges