Effective Persuasion

Hello!

In this blog post, I will attempt to teach you my favorite method of persuasion, including psychology tricks and I will also get into a topic called ‘People Hacking’, which is similar to social engineering.

Persuasion is a paramount tool, whether you are in charge of marketing, sales, or almost any other job or position. It can help to connect you with a customer to sell a product, or you could use it to try and get out of a speeding ticket (although this is not recommended).

Persuasion, defined as “cause (someone) to do something through reasoning or argument”, is an interesting, and sometimes cruel, way of getting what you want. With tools such as Ethos, Logos, and Pathos, along with many others, persuasion is a very broad topic.

First off: Let me explain my favorite way of obtaining information from people. I’m not sure of the name of this technique, I’m not even sure that it is a known technique, but I have found that it works approximately 90% of the time. Have you ever been in conversation with someone, when they bring up some issue, but then say that they don’t want to talk about it, or “never mind”? That’s the perfect scenario for this to work. After they say “I don’t want to talk about it”, or something similar, you want to say, “are you sure? I just want to help.”, or something along those lines. That will allow them to feel safe when talking to you, but they will most likely still say that they don’t want to talk about it, so that they don’t seem “weak” for changing their mind. That’s when this trick comes into play. If they say “never mind” again, just say “Okay, I won’t pressure you but just know that I’m here for you.” This lets them know that you want to help, but also makes them feel slightly guilty, since they know that you have good intentions, and they feel bad for not letting you help. That is key, if you can put even the slightest amount of guilt in their head, then in no time, they will come back to talk about it.

That’s my favorite way of obtaining information from someone. But let me be clear, you shouldn’t take advantage of this, since the person is trusting you to keep secret what they tell you. You should want to actually help the person, but you need to know what is going on, not that you just want to know what they’re hiding.

The other method of persuasion, people hacking, is just about the exact opposite. The point of people hacking is to gain access or information to something or somewhere that you should not have access to. For example, say you’re trying to get into a building that you don’t have credentials for. The easiest way to gain access is through people hacking, and to say that you are there for some sort of maintenance, and that you will need access to (fill in the blank) room. If they write you out a visitor badge, you might try sighing heavily to indicate that they are being an inconvenience to your work, and that you are in a hurry. If they do not give you access, there isn’t much more you can do. People hacking is an important tool, but it’s a big topic, and I won’t go any more into it.

Hopefully you enjoyed this blog post of effective persuasion, and hopefully you learned a thing or two. Just remember to be ethical if you try any of these methods. Thanks,

-Graham