The message and The receiver

Since world war ii, researchers have worked particularly hard to identify the elements of persuasion. Why? They  have some practical motives: improving advertising and marketing campaigns, motivating audiences, influencing the electorate, girding consumers and voters against propaganda, understanding the dynamics of brainwashing, and -yes-writing better proposals. From all this speculation and research, four elements have consistently been a vital part of nearly every theory of persuasion: the message, the receiver, the channel, and the source. Giving them some consideration will give us a deeper understanding of the process of persuasion.

Prove you can do it

• The last step in Persuasion is to provide the evidence necessary to prove you can do the job on time and on budget. Typical kinds of evidence that you might put in a proposal include references, testimonials, case studies, resumes team members, project plans, guarantees, third-party validation such as awards, details about management philosophy, your company history, and so on. Note that I am not saying your proposal should  contain every one of  these type of substantiation. Include only what the decision  maker needs to see to feel confident about choosing you. That will be determined largely  by the criteria that matter to this decision maker and by the specific requirements of the RFP, if there is one. Also, in a situation where you're responding to an RFP, your actual anwsers will be part of the evidence you provide -basically, evidence of your ability to comply with the customer's requirements and meet their objectives.

Recommend a solution

This is the third step of the most effective pattern for persuasion. Most proposals don't recommend anything. They lapse into informative writing and merely describe products and services you are recommending must be linked to the customer's specific problem. "One of the problems you are facing is declining transaction value in your e-commerce transactions. The aspect of our recommendation that will help increase transaction value is..." Also, when you recommend a solution, sound like you believe in it. Say the words: "We recommend the immediate installation of LeadPoint asset management software." "We urge you"..." "We are confident..." Don't be wishy-washy. Don't depend on telepathy to get your point across.

The Persuasive Paradigm step 2

• Second: Outcomes. Next, focus on the outcomes or results the customer wants to achieve. How will he or she measure success? What must the organization see in terms of results to make their investment in your products and services worthwhile? This part of the persuasive paradigm is probably a bit counterintuitive. After all, wouldn't it be more logical to state the problem and then give the solution? The thing to remember is that our goal is motivation. If we don't create a sense of urgency in the decision maker to go forward with our recommendation, we have not been successful in our persuasion effort. However, motivation does not come from problems and needs, most of which will never get solved. Why? Because in the mind of the decision maker, "it's just not worth it." In other words, the return to be gained from fixing the problem doesn't outweight its cost. You don't want your solution to fall into the category of "not worth it."you create a sense of motivation in your customer by showing that the problem you are addressing is one that really should be fixed. The potential outcome, the return on investment or improvement in productivity or whatever, is so big that the customer can't afford to wait. Focus on customers' pain to get their attention; focus on their gain to get their commitment.

The Persuasive Paradigm

First: The customer's needs. The initial step in persuading is to demonstrate you understand the customer's needs, issues, or problems. Your first job is to summarize the business situation briefly, focusing on the gap to be closed or the competency to be acquired. "The vice president of sales for a large HVAC firm once asked me" said Tom Sant "Why should I tell the customer what their problem is? They already know that. If they didn't think they had a problem, they wouldn't have called us." The answer, of course, is that we are not telling the customers something they don't already know. We're reducing their anxiety. They're worried that the solution we propose won't work because it's the right solution to the wrong problem. By showing customers that we "get" it, that we listened to them and understood what they told us, we raise their level of confidence. We help them feel confident that what we propose will be appropriate for them. Don't forget to leave a comment.

The most effective patern for persuasion,don't miss it

Persuasion combines element of information and evaluation. It should present facts accurately, and it should offer intelligent, informed opinions. But to be successful as persuasion, what we write or say should influence what the audience thinks,how they feel, or what they do. Fortunately, the most effective pattern for persuasion, which Tom Sant calls"the persuasive paradigm" is simple to understand and use. It consists of four steps.

Checkout Persuasion

From the previous post:- usually this part is a combination of text containing anecdotal information about their testing and a table or matrix in which every brand or model is presented. Finally, they conclude the article by indicating which model is the "best buy" in their opinion. Do they care if you buy a DVD player or an ice maker or snow tires? No.It doesn't matter to them if you never buy anything. Their sole purpose is to take a look at what's available and offer an expert opinion about the various choices. Now PERSUASION; With persuasion we care very much about whether the reader is motivated to buy.

Good examples of evaluative writing

Informative writing does not need a conclusion and its really does not require any setting of the stage or introductory content.Good examples of evaluative writing can be found in consumer Reports.If you were thinking about buying a DVD player or a refrigerator or snow tires,you could find articles there that would evaluate the various models available. first, they define what they are discussing, why you as a reader might care about this kind of products, and what criteria are being  used to evaluate the options.Next,they evaluate every model or brand point by point according to the criteria they listed.

evaluation

1. Sometimes people aren't trying to communicate facts alone. Instead, they're offering an opinion about the significance of a certain group of facts, what those facts imply. For example,consider what happens in a court case when one side calls in an expert witness. Such a withness isn't asked to establish facts about the case-"where was the defendant on the night of july 15?" Instead, the expert witness is asked to offer an opinion about  what a certain body of facts shows. "On the basis of these facts, do you think the defendant is mentally competent?" "Given this sequence of events, did the defendant act in accordance with the profession's current standard of conduct?" In the business world, each time you write a performance appraisal or do a competitive analysis,you're  writing an evaluation. If you merely recite the facts but don't offer your opinion,you aren't doing the whole job.

What did you think about the previous posts?

This is the continuation of the information;now wait a minute,you might be thinking.In the previous posts I talked about decision heuristics and putting the kind of stuff up front that matters the most to the decision maker. Isn't that the same as the informative parttern? It's similar, and none of the structural parterns we'll be looking at can afford to start with content that the reader doesn't care about.But remember that the goal of persuasion is to motivate the decision maker to take action. Simply listing facts in a descending order of priority doesn't create any momentum toward action.