The Inside Secrets of Maximum Influence
Your Prepersuasion Checklist
Before anything else, getting ready is the secret to success.
—HENRY FORD
A medium-sized business was looking to do business with an employee-leasing company. The business announced that they had narrowed the choice down to two companies and wanted to hear both present their products. The representative from the first employee-leasing company was not prepared, and the presentation did not go as planned. Monitoring the presentation, I could see his nervousness began to shoot through the roof. The manager stopped his presentation midsentence and bluntly stated, “I already know all this. Can you please just answer a few questions for me?” The sales rep started to answer each question as though it were a threat. Things went downhill from there. The representative started to run through all the features and benefits of his company’s program and how they would help. This actually generated more questions.
The manager asked the rep what percentage of the payroll this would cost his company. The rep looked surprised and spit out a number. The manager said, “That number seems high.” The rep spit out a smaller number. The manager said, “Can you do better than that?” The rep came up with an even smaller number. After 10 minutes, the number fell by 30 percent. The poor representative was negotiating with himself, and, as I found out later, the final number was barely profitable for his company. The manager later revealed that he was happy with the first number but wanted to see where the negotiation would go. In the game of business, you are either going to pay with your preparation time or pay with lost income or lost opportunities.
To be an effective persuader, you cannot use the same techniques for all people all the time. You have to customize your message to fit the demographics, interests, and values of your audience. This chapter reveals what I call the Prepersuasion Checklist. It will help you to effectively adapt your persuasive techniques to your target audience. The foundation of the Prepersuasion Checklist is rooted in a solid understanding of human psychology, in the ways to handle resistance, and in the methods of effectively structuring a persuasive presentation. This is the knowledge necessary to make the Prepersuasion Checklist work in any persuasive situation.
All battles are first won in the mind. You have to be mentally ready to persuade. I know you are busy, but preparation is great time management and an incredible boost to your confidence and productivity. Prepare yourself by knowing as much about your audience as possible. The persuasion process can be thought of as presentation engineering. You have to draw up the blueprint for your persuasive techniques instead of flying by the seat of your pants. Preparation is like programming your GPS before you drive. You need to know where you are going, what route you should take, and what the driving conditions will be. Prepersuasion operates the same way. Feeling competent and prepared increases your motivation, reduces fear, and enhances your ability to influence. Just remember the three D’s: discover, design, and deliver:
Discover what your prospects want and need to hear.
Design and structure a powerful persuasive presentation.
Deliver the message with passion, compassion, and purpose.
We all have our own “personal programming.” As a Power Persuader, you must unlock your prospects’ programming code. Most of this code is hidden from the untrained eye, so you’ll have to know what to look for. Consider how code is used in software programs or phone apps. Underlying each program is code that causes the program to work (or not work) and that makes each program look and act differently. These programs all have hidden code that is difficult to find and understand. Similarly, each of us has code that is apparent and some code that is not apparent. Our code is the sum of our beliefs, experiences, motivations, thoughts, attitudes, values and personality. The key for you as a Power Persuader is to decode the situation or the prospect, so that you can know how to most effectively persuade and adapt to your audience.
Finding and interpreting code comes with knowledge and experience, and the more awareness and more understanding you have, the easier it becomes to find and crack the code.
The following items make up the Prepersuasion Checklist:
1. Change: Get inside a closed mind.
2. Monitoring the Acceptance Level: Where does your audience stand?
3. Your Listening Skills: Crack the code.
4. Meta Programs: Your persuasion radar.
5. Persuasive Presentations: Structure to win.
CHANGE: GET INSIDE A CLOSED MIND
Life is change; persuasion is change. As a Power Persuader, you must be able to create and motivate change. Understanding human nature is knowing that most people will resist change and burrow into their comfort zones. We tend to follow the path of least resistance. However, change is the only thing that can lift us up from where we currently lie. Oliver Wendell Holmes said, “Man’s mind, stretched to a new idea, never goes back to its original dimensions.” We all want to become better persons and to be stretched to accomplish more, but we are stuck in our daily patterns.
As you go through the Prepersuasion Checklist, find out how resistant to change your audience is likely to be. Will persuading them be like breaking through a brick wall or a cardboard box? Are they ready and willing to make changes because of their circumstances and surroundings? Are they already trying to change? Some of your prospects will oppose you and blatantly resist your persuasive message. This is great news: They are listening, and their resistance is a sign of involvement. If the audience gives no feedback, they are not involved in your message.
Many people won’t change or resist change because there is not enough pain. They like the warmth of their comfort zone. They know they should change, but the unknown pain of changing is greater than the known pain of their current situation. To get change to stick, you must make sure three things occur, whether within yourself or within your audience. First, there must be a commitment to change, and they have to conclude they have no other option. Second, your prospects must be willing to pay the price, persisting even when they feel weak. Third, you have to know where the change is taking them. How is this going to affect their lives? What are the end results?
The biggest obstacles to change are lack of motivation, lack of knowledge, and fear. As a persuader, you need to create a vision for your audience, one that shows them what they will be like in the future. When you can get people to see themselves in the future and witness where that change will take them, they will be more willing to embrace change. Understand that people will resist change unless sufficient reinforcement and tools are provided to assist them. Without having this knowledge, their attitudes won’t change, and if their attitudes won’t change, then neither will their actions.
MONITORING THE ACCEPTANCE LEVEL: WHERE DOES YOUR AUDIENCE STAND?
An important part of the Prepersuasion Checklist is determining the audience’s current acceptance level for the subject you want to present. Ask yourself the following questions when making this determination:
Knowledge: What does my audience know about the issue?
Interest: How interested is the audience in my subject?
Background: What are the common demographics of my audience?
Support: How much support (or lack of support) already exists for my views?
Beliefs: What are my audience’s common beliefs?
Understanding the types of audiences will also help you determine their acceptance level. Following are some categories of audiences and how to deal with each of them.
This group disagrees with you and may even actively work against you. For a hostile audience, use these techniques:
Find common beliefs and establish a common ground.
Use appropriate humor to break the ice.
Don’t start the presentation with an attack on their position.
You are trying to persuade on only one point; don’t talk about anything else that could trigger disagreement.
Because of your differences, they will question your credibility. Increase your credibility with studies from experts or anything that will support your claim.
They will try to find reasons not to like you; don’t give them any.
Don’t tell them you are going to try to persuade them.
Express that you are looking for a win-win outcome/situation.
If possible, meet with the audience more than once before challenging them on areas of disagreement.
Show them you’ve done your homework.
Respect their feelings, values, and integrity.
Use logical reasoning as clearly and as carefully as possible.
Use the Law of Connectivity and the Law of Balance.
The Neutral or Indifferent Audience
This audience understands your position but doesn’t care about the outcome. The key to dealing with this group is creating motivation and energy—be dynamic. To persuade the indifferent audience:
Spell out the benefits to them or the things around them.
Point out the downside of not accepting your proposal. Identify why they should care.
Grab their attention by using a story. Make them care by showing them how the topic affects them.
Get them to feel connected to your issues.
Avoid complex arguments.
Use concrete examples with familiar situations or events.
Use the Law of Involvement and the Law of Social Validation.
An uninformed audience lacks the information they need to be convinced. To persuade them, you should use the following techniques:
Encourage them to ask questions throughout the presentation.
Keep the facts simple and straightforward.
Find out why they are uninformed.
Use examples and simple statistics.
Quote experts the audience respects.
Stress your credibility, such as degrees, special expertise, and experience.
Make your message interesting in order to keep their attention.
Use the Law of Dissonance and the Law of Scarcity.
The Supportive Audience
A supportive audience already agrees with you. You may think that persuading the audience is easy, but remember that your goal is to get them to take action, not just to agree with you. The following techniques should be used with a supportive audience:
Increase energy and passion and motivate with inspiration.
Prepare them for future attacks by inoculating them against other arguments.
Get them to take action and to support your cause.
Let them know what needs to be done.
Use testimonials to intensify the commitment.
Use the Law of Esteem and the Law of Expectation.
Most audiences are a mix of all four of these types. Find out the dominant audience type that will be present, and tailor your remarks accordingly.
The Persuasion Pitfall
Understand your audience and what Laws of Persuasion you are going to use on them. Sometimes and in some situations, certain persuasive laws or techniques are not appropriate. You cannot treat every person or every audience the same way. If you take persuasion too far, you will run into what I call the Persuasion Pitfall. People are persuaded and influenced until they feel cheated, misled, or taken advantage of, and then they never tell you about their feelings or do business with you again.
In sales and marketing, we have a tendency to push the envelope a little too hard when trying to persuade others. This could be in a personal one-on-one encounter with a stranger or during a visit to the local furniture store. Persuaders who do not possess the ability to read others or who do not have the skills necessary to persuade typically fall victim to the Persuasion Pitfall. They will take persuasion a little too far, using extreme pressure or trying to sell you a product you don’t need or want. When you use persuasion and influence the wrong way, people lose all trust in you and never will be persuaded by you again. When overpersuading, you do or say something that sets off silent alarms in your prospects’ minds. It could be a sensation of uneasiness or a bad feeling toward you, your store, or your product.
This pitfall also includes selling a product that does not meet their expectations. The challenge with this pitfall is that most people will say nothing to you about your product or about you overpersuading. They simply will never return your call, return to your website, or go into your store again. They will never want to associate with you. Or if you are a friend or member of the family, they will never trust or listen to your point of view again. This pitfall is a silent killer because most persuaders don’t even realize they made the mistake. You have probably had this happen to you many times, at a car dealership, in retail stores, and on the phone. You have to have a sixth sense in persuasion and know how hard you can push.
We hate to feel manipulated or pressured. We have all been burned or taken advantage of, and when we see signs of such behavior, we start to run. Many uneducated persuaders can be offensive, condescending, obnoxious, and insulting. Some people will need to have space, some will have to talk to a spouse, and still others will have to come back later before making a decision. You have to sense and know, by means of knowledge and experience and nonverbal cues, how many tools of persuasion you can use without falling into this pitfall. You have to sense your limits before you cross the line.
YOUR LISTENING SKILLS: CRACK THE CODE
Fortune 500 companies commonly require listening training, even though many employees think it’s a waste of time. The truth is that poor listening skills account for the majority of communication problems. Studies show that poor listening skills are responsible for 60 percent of all misunderstandings.1 Dale Carnegie asserted many years ago that listening is one of the most crucial human relations skills. Listening is how we find out people’s code, preferences, desires, wants, and needs. It is how we learn to customize our message to our prospects. Of all the skills one can master, listening is probably the one that will pay you back the most. There is a positive relationship between effective listening and being able to adapt to your audience and persuade them.2
Good listening is not just looking at someone and nodding your head in agreement. You have to acknowledge what is being said and let the other person know that you understand. The more you can acknowledge what is being said, the greater your ability will be to persuade and influence. Why? Because the person speaking with you will feel important and understood (Law of Esteem). Why is listening so difficult for most of us? Why is it that when two people get together and talk, they both walk away with two completely different views about the conversation?
TOP FIVE CHALLENGES TO LISTENING EFFECTIVELY
1. Prejudging speakers on their delivery and personal appearance. We often judge people by how they look or speak instead of listening to what they say. Some people are so put off by personal appearance, regional accents, speech defects, and mannerisms that they don’t even try to listen to the message.
2. Thinking about your response. Instead of thinking about what the other person is saying, we often think about what we want to say next or where we want the conversation to go. We are mentally planning our own agenda and game plan. In effect, we patiently wait our turn to talk, but we never have give–and-take between the two parties.
3. Not concentrating. We talk at a rate of 120–150 words per minute, but we can think 400–800 words per minute. This allows us time to think between words we speak. We can pretend to listen while really thinking of something else.
4. Jumping to conclusions. Sometimes we assume we know exactly what the other person is going to say next, and we begin forming reactions based on those assumptions. We start putting words into the other speaker’s mouth because we are so sure of what they mean.
5. Lack of training. Some people just honestly and truly don’t know how to listen effectively, even if they want to. If they haven’t ever had any training or guidance in how to listen effectively, they may not be accustomed to or even realize the mental effort or level of involvement required to do so.
When you know how to listen, you’ll always know what someone is thinking and what they want from you. Follow these proven keys for effective listening, and you’ll always be able to get below the surface of your audience:
1. Give them your undivided attention. They are the most important people in the world to you at this time; make them feel that way. Don’t get distracted by your surroundings. Stop talking or looking at your phone, and concentrate on them.
2. Look them directly in the face while they are talking. Lean forward to indicate interest and concern. Listen calmly as if you have all the time in the world.
3. Show sincere interest in them. There is no need to talk. Just nod your head and agree with verbal sounds like “uh-huh.” Don’t interrupt and listen for main points.
4. Keep the conversation going by asking questions. Prompt more information from them by repeating their phrases.
5. Use silence to encourage them to talk. You have heard that silence is golden. Being silent encourages your prospects to talk about themselves and reveal truths that will help you in the persuasion process. Using silence shows you are interested in your audience and stimulates interest in the conversation.
6. Pause before replying or continuing. Wait three to five seconds and reply thoughtfully. Don’t leap in, even if you know the answer. When you pause, it shows the other person you consider what they are saying is valuable.
When you apply your listening skills, you will be able to glean golden nuggets of information from your audience. Because you must adapt your message to the persons you are talking to, there is nothing more crucial than listening.
META PROGRAMS: YOUR PERSUASION RADAR
The more we understand meta programs and personality types, the better we will be able to customize our persuasive presentations. A meta program is the way we lean most of the time in terms of how we act and react to most stimuli. We all hate to be put into a box and categorized, but the reality is that (most of the time) we are predictable. Certainly, people can never be 100 percent predictable, but you will be amazed at how predictable we actually are. I could write a whole book on personality types and meta programs, but let’s discuss the fundamentals.
Meta programs are essentially looking glasses through which we view the world. A perfect meta-program example is the classic, “Is the glass half full or half empty?” Meta programs dictate our personality and therefore how we behave and how we like to be influenced. For instance, do you tend to be more of an active or a passive person? Do you focus more internally or externally about the world around you? Is your orientation more focused on the past, the future, or the present? Two people may interpret the exact experience from totally different angles.
Each meta program will dictate how you customize your message. When you analyze the meta programs, ask yourself the following questions:
Is your audience mostly logical or emotional?
Logical
Use their heads.
Go with what makes sense.
Are persuaded by facts, figures, and statistics.
Rely on past history.
Use their five senses.
Emotional
Use their heart.
Go with what feels right.
Are persuaded by emotions.
Rely on intuition.
Use their sixth sense.
Is your audience introverted or extroverted?
Love to communicate.
Are talkative.
Involve others.
Tend to be public people.
Want face-to-face contact.
Introverts
Keep feelings inside.
Listen more than they talk.
Like to work solo.
Tend to be private.
Use memos and e-mails.
Is your audience motivated more by inspiration than desperation?
Desperation
Try to get away from problems.
Are stuck in the past, don’t want to repeat prior mistakes.
Avoid pain.
Want to get away from something.
Inspiration
Work toward a solution.
See a better future.
Are motivated by pleasure.
Want to move forward (have a vision).
Is your audience assertive or amiable?
Assertive
Consider results more important than relationships.
Make decisions quickly.
Want to be in control.
Are task oriented.
Don’t waste time.
Are independent.
Consider relationships more important than results.
Are friendly and loyal.
Like to build relationships.
Are great listeners.
Avoid contention.
Are nonassertive and agreeable.
Note: When it comes to persuasion, meta programs and personality types create a feeling of comfort and safety for us. Styles that differ from our own create tension and defensiveness. Power Persuaders can match all meta programs.
PERSUASIVE PRESENTATIONS: STRUCTURE TO WIN
Why should we be concerned with the structure of a persuasive presentation? The top predictor of professional success is how much you enjoy public speaking and how good you are at it.3 Studies also show that the ability to give presentations was ranked as the most critical skill needed to move up in today’s business environment.4 Persuasive messages require several pieces. Just as Plato stated that every message should have a structure like an animal (head, body, and feet), so must our presentations follow an understandable pattern.
If you make up your presentation as it comes into your head, it will be a detriment to long-term persuasion. If the audience can’t follow your facts, stories, or the substance of your message, their brains will not accept your message.
At one time or another, you have probably been in a classroom when the teacher has completely lost you. You had no idea where the topic was going or where it had been. When this happens in your prospects, your mind stalls, and the influence process stops. Confusion is a state of mind that creates tension. We hate to be confused, and a confused mind says no. When we create this mental confusion, we are shooting ourselves in the foot. Most uneducated one-note persuaders follow Harry Truman’s advice: “If you can’t convince ’em, confuse ’em.”
As you prepare your persuasive message, remember to focus on one defined issue, not on 10 different ones. Stay focused, and steer clear of sensitive issues that aren’t on your original agenda. In other words, don’t inadvertently offend your audience on one issue when your focus is on another.
Your persuasive message should be structured as follows
1. Create interest. You have to generate interest in your chosen topic. Your audience needs a reason to listen: Why should they care? What’s in it for them? How can you help them? A message that starts with a really good reason to listen will grab the attention of the audience, enabling you to continue with the message. Without this attention, you have no hope of getting your message across.
2. State the problem. You must clearly define the problem you are trying to solve. The best pattern for a persuasive presentation is to find a problem and relate how it affects the audience. In this way, you show them a problem they have and why it is of concern to them. Why is this a problem to your audience? How can you create dissonance?
3. Offer evidence. This is the support you give to your argument. Evidence validates your claims and offers proof that your argument is correct. It allows your audience to rely on other sources besides you. Evidence can include examples, statistics, testimonies, analogies, and any other supporting material used to enhance the integrity and congruency of your message.
4. Present a solution. You have gained your audience’s interest and provided evidence in support of your message; now you must solve their problem. You present the argument you want them to believe and satisfy the need you have identified or created. You revealed the problem, and now you are providing the solution. How can your product meet their needs and wants and help them achieve their goals?
5. Call to action. A persuasive message is not true persuasion if your audience does not know exactly what they need to do. Be specific and precise. To complete the solution to their problem, they must take action. This is the climax, the peak of your logic and emotion. The prescribed actions must be feasible. Make your call to action as easy as possible.
Using this type of structure facilitates people’s acceptance of your message and clarifies what you want them to do. We all have a logical side to our minds, which results in our need for order and arrangement. If we don’t sense some sort of structure, we tend to become confused. If you can’t be clear, concise, and orderly, your prospect will find someone else who is.
To create a good structure for your argument and to reach your audience, it may be helpful to consider the following set of questions.
Questions in Regard to Yourself and Your Message
What do I want to accomplish?
What will make my message clear to my audience?
What will increase my credibility and trust?
What Laws of Persuasion am I going to use?
What do I want my prospects to do?
Questions in Regard to your Audience
Who is listening to my message? (Audience demographics)
What is their initial mindset? (What are they thinking and feeling now?)
When will the call to action work? (What do you want them to do, and when do you want them to do it?)
Why should they care? (What’s in it for them?)
In what areas of their lives does this affect them? (Health, money, relationships, etc.)
How will they benefit? (What will they gain?)
These questions will help you create effective persuasive presentations in each of the key areas: interest, problem, evidence, solution, and action. The remainder of this chapter will present a variety of techniques that will be helpful in structuring your arguments.
CREATING YOUR CALL TO ACTION
The call to action is the most important part of your presentation. This is where your audience understands exactly what you want them to do. It’s where you define yourself as a persuader instead of a presenter. This conclusion should not come as a shock to your audience. Throughout your presentation, you should have gently led them to the same conclusion that you are now giving them. You should have already prompted them to want to do what you are about to tell them to do.
Some people hate this part of persuasion because they are asking their prospects to do something. This should be the best part of the call to action; this is the reason for giving the presentation in the first place. If you become tense and uneasy, so will your prospect. The whole presentation should be structured to make the call to action smooth and seamless.
You should create your call to action before creating the rest of the presentation. Your entire presentation should be built around the call to action. Create the call to action beforehand. From the outset of your message, you must be eager to get to this point. Be positive and enthusiastic. In your preparation, make sure your conclusion is obvious and that the audience is not left on their own to make sense of and understand your message. You need to tell them what to believe; draw the conclusion for them. Make the call to action easy for them to follow and simple for them to do. There should be no doubt in your prospects’ minds about exactly what you want them to do.
There is a story of an old man who goes to a dentist because a tooth is killing him. He has been putting it off for months, and finally he has to get the tooth taken care of. Once there, the dentist agrees that the tooth needs to come out. The man asks the dentist how much it will cost. The dentist replies that it will be about $150. The old man yelps and yells, “That much to pull out a tooth?” Then the man asks how long the procedure will take. The dentist replies that it will take about five minutes. “All that money for five minutes of work? That’s highway robbery!” the old man protests. “How can you live with yourself charging people that kind of money?” The dentist smiles and says, “If it’s the time you are worried about, I can take as long as you want.”
When planning and preparing your call to action, remember that the process does not have to be long and painful. Be short, brief, and to the point. Your call to action should be no longer that 5 percent of your total presentation.
Offer Choices
A strange psychological phenomenon occurs when people are drawing conclusions. If someone tells us exactly what to do, our tendency is to reject that dictated choice because we feel it is our only option. The solution is to offer your prospects a few options so that they can make the choice for themselves. People feel the need to have freedom and make their own choices. If forced to choose something against their will, they experience psychological resistance and feel a need to restore their freedom.
We all need options. Once when I was camping with my family, I saw excited tourists, who wanted to take pictures, surround a young moose in a small lake. This moose felt trapped and charged at the people in an attempt to escape. This type of reaction can also present itself in your persuasive efforts. If you don’t offer options to your audience, they could try to charge and escape.
The strategy is that you can guide your prospects’ options. As a Power Persuader, you give them only options that will satisfy your situation. We have all done this with children: Do you want to finish your dinner or go to bed early? In sales, they call this strategy the alternative close. For example, “Do you want regular or deluxe?” “Do you want it in blue or green?” “Do you want to meet Monday afternoon or Tuesday evening?” The person has options, but both options meet the persuader’s goals.
Even if it is just something simple, people need to have options. For example, I heard of an elderly woman who desperately needed to take her medication, or she would die. Her doctor, nurse, son, and husband all tried to get her to take her medication but to no avail. The doctor insisted she take her medication first thing when she arose in the morning, but she just wouldn’t do it. Distraught, the family took her to a new doctor. This doctor immediately took in the situation and talked to the patient. He explained the benefits of taking the drugs and how it could help her. Then he gave her an option: “You need to take this once a day. Would you like to take it with your breakfast or your dinner?” The patient thought for a second and said she would like to take it with her dinner. After she made that decision, she no longer gave people a hard time about taking her medication. The key is that both options achieved the same goal.
If you absolutely have to limit your audience’s choice to one thing, you must explain to them why there are limitations on their options. If the audience understands why a limit has been put on their freedom, they are more likely to accept it without feeling trapped.
On the flip side, try not to give your prospects more than two or three choices. If you give too many alternatives, your audience will be less likely to choose any of them. Structured choices give the audience the impression of control. As a result, they increase cooperation and commitment.
A study was done on a Saturday at a high-end grocery store. Researchers set up a tasting booth with different flavors of jam. During the study, the booth had either six flavors or 24 flavors. They invited the store patrons to try the jam. The shoppers were allowed to taste as many jams as they wanted. They were also given a dollar-off coupon to purchase this type of jam. Remember that when we get overwhelmed or confused, our mind shuts down, and we don’t know what to do. This study revealed that when shoppers had 24 choices, only 3 percent of them bought jam. When they had only six choices, 30 percent bought the jam after the taste test. That is 10 times more purchases with fewer choices.5
Offering choices is also called binds. Each option offered gives the persuader what he or she wants without appearing to restrict prospects’ freedom. When you use the word or, the very opposite is implied, so try to structure your choices with the word or. For example, “Would you like to make an appointment now, or should we meet next week?” “Do you have five minutes now, or should we do it tomorrow morning?”
Once the call to action has taken place, your audience needs to remember, retain, and respond to your message. They have to keep doing what you want them to do. Have your points been memorable, easy to understand, and simple to follow? Your message will boil down not to what you say and do but to what the other person remembers.
INOCULATION: DEFEND AGAINST THE ATTACK
Great persuaders know how to presolve objections. Why wait for prospects to go down the wrong road and hit a brick wall or mentally go off course when you can handle the objection up front? This persuasion method is called inoculation, a term that comes from the medical field: Injecting a weak dose of a virus into a patient inoculates or prevents the patient from getting the disease. The body’s immune system fights off this weak form of the disease and then is prepared when the full disease attacks.
Likewise, when you are presenting and you know that an opposing viewpoint is standing in the wings, you have to inoculate the audience with a weakened form of that argument. If you know someone is going to attack your viewpoint, prepare your audience in advance. Give them the ammunition (the antibodies) they need to fight off the attack.
The idea is to address the issues that your opponent will bring up and then directly refute them. But the inoculation must be a weak form of the opposing virus. If inoculated with the strong strain of a disease, a person could become sick or even die. The dose must be weak enough to prepare the body for the stronger virus, but not so strong that it overpowers the body. Likewise, in persuasion, don’t make the dose too strong. You don’t want to give your prospects all the ammunition from the other side of the persuasive message. On the other hand, if you don’t prepare your audience for what they are about to hear, the sting of your opponent’s words, logic, or testimony might be too much for them to handle, and they could switch sides.
We are surrounded by countless examples of inoculation, many of which are used in the courtroom. The attorney stands up and says, “The prosecution will call my client mean, evil, a terrible husband, and a poor member of society, but this is not true, as I will show you over the next couple of weeks.” So, when the prosecutor stands up and states anything close to what the defense attorney has claimed she will, the jury is prepared; She is acting exactly how the defense said she would, and the jurors have a way to ignore or even discount the prosecutor’s arguments.
Society needs to understand the importance of inoculation with regard to smoking, gangs, drugs, teenage pregnancy, and others issues that we know our children will face. Who should be the first contact with your children: you or the drug dealer? When you inoculate people, they can mentally prepare arguments supporting their stance. This reinforcement prevents them from switching teams. The more prepared they are, the more they’ll hold fast to their attitudes and beliefs. The more deeply this reinforcement is ingrained, the more difficult it will become for them to be swayed.
When do you use inoculation? The correct answer depends on the composition and attitude of your audience. If they already agree with your position, you need to present only one side. If they disagree with you, you need to present both sides. If an opposing speaker is going to follow you, you definitely need to inoculate the audience. Giving both sides of the argument works better with audience members who already know something about the opposition’s strength. Be careful if you use inoculation with highly emotional issue like politics or religion. When topics are highly controversial, the effectiveness of inoculation drops.6
Inoculation increases your credibility and your ability to persuade. You are not afraid of the truth and have done your research. You prepare your audience in advance about the negative things someone could say about you or your product. You will win a great deal of respect and trust when you answer someone’s questions before they even ask them.
When you know your audience, not only can you prepare them for pending attacks, but you can also answer questions in advance with inoculation. This places a solution in your listeners’ minds. Suppose you are persuading prospects about the need to use your product, and you know that the competition will describe your product as the most expensive one on the market. Inoculate. Tell your prospects upfront that this is the highest-quality, longest lasting, most expensive product on the market. Let them know why it is the best and the most expensive. Your product has won most of the industry’s awards, lasts the longest, and gives the most value for the money. These arguments, strategically planted in the minds of your prospects, will enable them to access these facts when the competition demeans the price or your product.
A study was done with a group of people who were about to be persuaded. The intention was to change their attitude about a certain topic. One group was told they were going to be exposed to a message that would attempt to persuade them, and the other group did not receive the same type of warning. The results showed that the group that was warned up front were actually persuaded less than the group that did not receive the warning. Hence, the group that was told they were going to be persuaded developed resistance before the message even started.7 This is why you never start your presentation with, “Today I am going to persuade you….”
Long-Term Inoculation: The Booster Shot
Inoculation is not a one-time shot. It must be continued with boosters. Remember that a medical booster shot is an extra dose of an earlier vaccination. The studies show that time does erode inoculations and that they do lose their effectiveness over time.8
When your goal is long-term influence, you need to provide periodic booster shots to make sure that your prospect can counteract any arguments from the other side. One study revealed that when you can add boosters to your message, they will reinforce and extend the persuasiveness of your original message.9 The more you can reinforce those attitudes—the more you can inoculate against future attacks—the more their attitude change will stick.10 What can you use as boosters shots? Any time you can introduce new research or third-party validation, it will increase the effectiveness of your inoculation. Other options include reciprocity, role-plays, additional information, or anything that would enhance your credibility.11
PREPARATION IS THE KEY TO INFLUENCE
Prepersuasion is everything. Prepare your mind, know your audience, know their code, and structure a winning persuasive argument accordingly. Know who, what, when, where, and why about your message and your audience. Power Persuaders know that information and structure are the seeds for perfect persuasion.
Additional Resources: Persuasive Presentations Audio (maximuminfluence.com)