The art of persuasion is a highly useful skill.

In business, it is what you can use to get a promotion, to make a sale, or to encourage a particular business decision. At home, it is what you can use to watch what you want on television, set what you want on the menu, set vacation plans, or to encourage your partner to move to another part of the country. 

In short, we are forced to work with people all the time and if you don’t want to be constantly making compromises, then it can be highly useful to learn how to persuade.

Here we will look at a few tips that can help you to more effectively accomplish this:

Be Personal

If you are making a sale to someone that you don’t know, then making it personal can help you a great deal. Introduce yourself and then make sure to keep saying that person’s name, so that they feel like they don’t want to ‘let you down’.

Make Them Obligated

The urge to reciprocate is an incredibly powerful aspect of human behavior. In other words, if someone does something nice for you then you may be overcome with the desire to do something nice back. In fact, studies show that when you give someone money, they almost always give you back significantly more just to feel equal again.

To use this in a business context, you might decide to give someone a freebie, or to offer them a cup of tea when they come into your store. In your personal life, you can really get creative! 

Appeal to Authorities

People trust authority figures and if you can appeal to statistics, studies or authorities then it will lend weight to your argument. So don’t tell someone your product is great – tell them it is great according to studies. Likewise building on established facts is also a good strategy. Find something you can both agree on and then showing how that belief supports your argument is a strategy that often works well.

Stay Quiet

Just as people have an urge to reciprocate, they also have an urge to fill silences. If you can make your point or your offer and then remain quiet, you’ll find that the other person often feels compelled to say something – and to break the tension they will often say what you want to hear. Silence makes many people uncomfortable and is a useful persuasion tactic. In any standoff, the person to speak first is usually the person who loses!