Podcast — Persuading People at Work: 8 Steps

Every single day you'll be persuading others at work. Improve how you persuade

others and you'll save yourself more and more time and get what you want a lot

more often. And when you become a manager a good part of your day will be spent

persuading others, so being as good as possible at using persuasion skills at

work makes your life a lot easier and less stressful. I'm taking you through

eight approaches for persuading others at work. Most of you will be using each

to some extent. To improve your persuasion of others at work try to

remain consciously aware of what you're doing while persuading others and then

work on improving the approaches that you are not using as much. The eight

approaches are focus on consciously improving one approach at a time. Get

better at using the one approach that you've chosen so that you use it

naturally without too much conscious thought. Then move on to the next one

that you want to focus on. I started off being really rubbish at persuading

others. Learning how to persuade and then practicing transforms my influencing

persuading skills. You can have an even quicker journey to getting good at using

persuasion skills at work. Focus on one step at a time.

My name is Jess Coles and if you're new here, Enhance.Training shares

people and management expertise, resources and courses to speed up your

journey to becoming a great manager. I've included links to additional videos and

resources in the description below as well as the video's timestamps so do

take a look at these. And if you like this video please give it a thumbs up

and subscribe. So let's start with the first approach which is put yourself in

their shoes before persuading others at work. The better you know and understand

the person that you are persuading the more likely you will choose the right

approach or angle and use the right words to persuade them to do what you're

asking. When persuading a person you don't know, spend time thinking about

their position, the pressures they might be under, what they need to deliver in

their role, what problems they might have etc. i.e. put yourself in their shoes as

best you can. Think about what questions you could ask to confirm the assumptions

that you're making. Ask those questions and then listen to their response. When

you have some understanding of what they are thinking and feeling towards the

idea, viewpoint or action that you want to persuade them on, then you can start

trying to persuade them. Also think about them as a person. Do they like you

to get straight to the point or do they prefer a chat about what happened at the

weekend before they get down to business? Think through what you need to do to

build and maintain their trust in you. Put yourself in their shoes when

persuading your manager. Put yourself in their shoes when persuading groups. This

is such an important step to convince people to agree with you. The second

approach is to answer what is in it for them when persuading others at work. The

better you can present your request or idea in a way that answers what is in it

for them, the more likely you will persuade them to do what you ask. Talk to

the other person in terms of how what you're asking will help them. Don't talk

about how it will help you. This is a great step in how to convince others of

what you want. For example, you want a team member responsible for stock to

spend a few hours counting stock in the warehouse so you can have confidence

that stock balance in the accounting system is correct and this is not

particularly a fun task. To get the other person to action you might firstly ask

them about their confidence in the stock records. Secondly, ask them how much stock

would have to be out before they start getting embarrassed. Third, talk about

random accounts being a key control and a great thing to bring up if problems

with stock ever came to light in the future. And in fourth, talk about it

looking better if they found the problems rather than other people in the

business not directly responsible for stock found problems. You hopefully get

the idea. Think about what the other person will gain by doing what you ask

or agreeing with you. This is a great step in how to convince others. The third

approach is to show confidence in what you're asking. Confidence is a very

important factor in persuading others. If you are confident in what you're asking

and confident in the outcomes desired then the other person is much more

likely to be confident and be persuaded by you. If you hesitate, are unsure or

have doubts about what you're asking the other person will pick up on this

immediately and start doubting what you're asking them to do. Persuading them

will be very hard at this point. And when persuading a manager or persuading

your boss, make sure you are confident in what you're asking before trying to

convince them to agree with you or give you permission for what you ask. And if

you're unsure, go over what you're asking, do more research, gather more supporting

data and facts, check alignment with wider business goals, i.e. do everything

you need so that you can be very confident in what you are persuading

others to do or agreeing to. The fourth approach is to choose your timing

carefully when persuading others at work. Timing matters as I'm sure you

know. The person has to be in the receptive moods to what you're asking

them. Choosing a time when they have the space and energy to listen to you is

pretty key. Avoid choosing times when they are likely to be distracted or

interrupted. The more important the request or the bigger the impact on them

and the company, the longer you will need. Do your best to make sure that you

have plenty of time to explain what you want, why you want it and to go through

any questions or objections the other person may have. If you persuade them in

less time than you've booked in, great! And if you run out of time, you may have

to start from scratch to convince them the next time, which will cost you an

additional amount of time. Choose your timing as carefully as possible when

convincing others. The fifth approach is to use fact more than opinion. When you

have facts and data to back up your argument, you are much more likely to

persuade others at work. Everyone has an opinion, so just sharing what you think

does not work nearly as well as when you have a logical reasoned argument with

lots of evidence backing it up. Facts and data are hard to argue against. The other

party is limited to arguing how the data or facts are being interpreted or being

used, which is much easier to counter. Alignment to company strategy, objectives

and goals, or the equivalent at business unit or functional level, is another way

to present a course of action, an idea or a request for a decision. The more aligned

you are to previously agreed objectives, the lesser person who has also signed up

to those same goals can argue against what you're hoping to persuade them to

do. Social proof is another factor you can use when persuading others. We all

tend to agree with a group. If they think it's okay, then I'm safe to think it's

okay too. And when persuading others, use any information or opinions of others to

increase the weight of your argument. Try to avoid only relying on your opinion

when persuading others at work. The sixth approach is to plan your counter to

objections when persuading others at work. A key point of persuading others at

work is to think through all the objections a person might have and come

up with an answer for them. An example of countering objections, you know time will

be an issue for the person you are trying to persuade. You bring into your

conversation that while doing what you ask will take them an hour today, it will

save their teams three hours per week every week once it's implemented. Think

through the likely objections and address each one to persuade others at

work. You will have objections being raised or questions asked that you have

not thought through. Think through from the other person's position before

answering their objection or question. You're always looking to position what

you want in a way that is beneficial for them. And if you don't have a good

response to an objection, say you'll come back to them on that point and then use

the additional time to create a good response. The seventh approach is to

introduce scarcity and exclusivity when persuading others at work. We all hate

missing out on something we want. You can play on these emotions when persuading

others at work. The examples of ways that you could introduce scarcity are firstly

reminding the person that you or your team can only do so much in a given day.

Secondly, you could say that you only have time in the next two days and after

that you're maxed out. Third, you could say that the input and amends have to be

done today before a decision is taken later on. Examples of how you can include

exclusivity are if firstly say that you've come to the person first but will

have to go to the other managers if they can't commit now. Secondly, you could say

that they're going to get the output or the report first and have an extra hour

to prepare versus others. Or third, you could say that to your customer that

this offer is only available to the first ten people who sign up. Using

scarcity and exclusivity makes the other person more likely to agree with what

you want them to do and do it sooner. Do be careful not to overuse using

scarcity or exclusivity. You don't want to come across as trying to manipulate

especially as you'll have to work with colleagues going forward. The eighth

approach is face-to-face wins. Persuading others is much easier

face-to-face than over the phone. You have more feedback when standing

face-to-face through all the nonverbal communication the other person is

providing you. This gives you more opportunity to change your approach and

or message and thus become more persuasive. The nonverbal communication

is more than 50% of how we communicate when face-to-face. When you need to

persuade others at work, get up from your desk and walk around to see them or

book in a meeting. Video calling gives you, in my view, around 80% of what you

get face-to-face so this is the next best communication medium if you're not

able to physically meet. Next is the phone. You lose more than 50% of the

communication that you have when you see the other person. You still have the

voice, the tone, the pace and the pauses as well as the words being said. Don't

use email, chat or other text-based communications to try to persuade others

at work. You lose over 90% of the communication information available

compared to the face-to-face methods. Text-based communication is good for

sending information but very poor when persuading others. Don't use it. So in

summary, persuading others at work is very much an art. Building trust and

being competent at what you do are very useful building blocks to persuading

others at work on a regular basis. Use each of the approaches we've covered to

improve how you go about persuading others. Focus on improving one and then

move on to the next. You absolutely will get good at convincing others with

practice. And as a reminder, we have covered firstly, put yourself in their

shoes. Second, answer what is in it for them. Third, show confidence in what you're

asking. Fourth, choose your timing carefully. Fifth, use fact more than

opinion. Sixth, plan your counter to objections. Seventh, introduce scarcity

and exclusivity. And eighth, face-to-face wins. If you have any questions on eight

winning approaches for persuading others at work, then please leave them in the

comment section below and I'll get back to you. Thanks very much for watching and

I look forward to speaking to you again soon.

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