6 Effective Strategies that can Help You Improve Your Persuasion Skills

Persuasion is one of the most important skills, not only at work but also in many aspects of life. Want to convince your mother to cook some chicken rice for you? Haggling with an auntie at the flea market? Trying to persuade your boss to give you a raise? Persuasion can help us live well and there are many ways to persuade someone.

Be confident
This one is already pretty obvious. Displaying an aura of confidence helps convince your audience that you know what you are doing and you are sure that you’re going to get what you want. The ones in the receiving end of your persuading will pick up in that confidence and will eventually learn to trust you.

Highlight the benefits
How will you even persuade someone if you mention nothing about the benefits right? But you shouldn’t only point out the benefits, remember to highlight how the result can benefit them. If you want to convince your father to play golf with you, point out all the benefits he can get from playing.

Keep things simple
If you want to persuade someone effectively, keep your words and ideas simple and easy to understand. This comes from the idea that people confuse easily. When we are faced with complex arguments that we do not understand immediately, we tend not to trust them because we think there might be hidden agendas. So, keep things simple and direct.

Choose the right words
The simple explanation for this is to use words that appeal to your audience. There are certain words old people use that don’t appeal to younger ones. There are words you can use when talking to your workmates but not to your boss, same with ones you can use with friends and not your parents. If you do choose the right words, you show your audience respect and they will be able to relate to you better.

Add a dash of flattery
This is another common strategy that many people use to persuade others. These days though, there are also people who easily notice flattery and therefore is not easily influenced by it. So instead of saying compliments directly, try to keep it subtle and mostly indirect.

Learn to Concede
If the argument is not going your way, learn to step down for a while. There is usually a benefit to taking a break and reconsidering the things you want. There are even times when you might benefit more from not having convinced the other person in the end.

Just a quick note. Although this article is about persuasion, you should never use any of these to take advantage of other people. Never try to influence them into doing something that can harm their health, safety, and dignity. Let’s all be good men and women for others!