Greetings.

What are some good, effective ways to persuade people?
:confused:

Its actually pretty simple:

You persuade someone by promising power. You manipulate (which is what I'm guessing you want) by making them feel powerless. Like they have no other choice. The more power involved, the more persuasive you will be. Its really that simple.


Tell me - why do you want to persuade someone?

Most people think the trick to manipulation is telling people what they want to hear.
That's not true, not in my experience, anyway.
The trick is telling people what they really don't want to hear.
When you do that, they automatically think that if you are willing to be honest with them about something like that, then you are an honest person, and will trust you with lesser things.
Once you have that, you can take advantage of the more minor subtleties of maniuplation and have them eating out of your hand.
You don't even need to lie.

The key to persuasion is not sounding persuasive.
Present facts or atleast what sound like facts in such a way where there is an obvious answer but don't directly imply the answer or sound needy of winning them over.

I think the most persuasive case for conservation, for example, comes from david attenborough's natural history documentaries. And not the rare moments when he mentions conservation but the explaining of the lifestyles of organisms. In a simple objective matter of fact way. He says this is what is happening on earth and fully gives you the feeling of how amazing it is and then its just natural that anyone watching becomes keen on protecting the amazing spectacles and keeping them around.
Its more persuasive than directly being persuaded because we pick up on a persuasive tone and naturally try to be rebellious. If someone makes it clear they want you to do or believe something you'll go all out not to.
But if they strategically set you up to come to the conclusion of doing/thinking something by giving you the pieces to put together yourself you feel like reaching that conclusion was your doing and therefor be far more enthusiastic about doing whatever it is.

For example at my cousin's wedding a group of my cousins and myself were trying to get this younger cousin to take a crap on the lid of the port-a-potty. We tried telling him to and forcing him to and beating him etc etc but nothing worked. Later i was sitting alone with him near the port-a-potty just saying how funny it would be if there was a dump on the lid of the port-a-potty, giving scenario's of old people walking in and being outraged etc, never saying you should do a dump on the portapotty or anything like that, just saying a dump on the portapotty would be cool, and making up scenario's that I knew he would find amusing, and low and behold after laughing for a while he says "I can feel a turd coming on actually" and he snuck in and layed it right on the lid of the seat.

I made the idea attractive to him and let him decide to do it himself.
Thats the most effective form of persuasion I know of.

Although I am not sure why you would want to convince your cousin to take a crap on the lid of the port-a-potty, you make some good points.

If you can play it off really well, you can make THEM try and convince YOU of what you were manipulating them into doing.

It's really not that difficlut at all with most people.
People WANT to be led, but they don't want to know that they ARE being led.
The subtle finesse takes some practice.

I've been convinced when I've been paid money to do something. That's one way to convince people into doing something or believing something. Actions speek louder than words so if your out there doing something that in itself could tend to get others to join up with you.

This is weird... but stand to someone's left side. This side is connected to their right brain (non-logical side)... so most of what they hear and see will be processed by the right side and evaluation will not be logical. Helps with appealing to emotion.

Dr.Lou.. has it right:

The key to persuasion is not sounding persuasive.
Present facts or atleast what sound like facts in such a way where there is an obvious answer but don't directly imply the answer or sound needy of winning them over.

This is a fine example of 'mental' pursuasion. There is a difference, as Dr.Lou pointed out, between pursuasion and pursuade. To pursuade someone - in other words get them to 'act' in accordance to your pursuasion - takes a little more skill and talent. The most effective way in doing this is to create a scenario - key here is to control the information your object(s) recieve(s) - where a decission 'must' be made then provide choices. It doesn't matter how many choices you provide (less is better) because only one will be the logical one..

Our political authorities do this everyday and manage to rally the masses around sometimes frivolous patriotic actions i.e. the war in Iraq and WMD.

1. Hold a gun up to the persons face. :D
2. Say Please. :D

interesting inputs.

but now, how would i use your tips to persuade shy and snobby people.

the thing is, i am in a group of three people (me, shy person, a snob).

how do i lead these two people?
:confused:

Pay them allot of money or promise them things you cannot do.

I assume you're talking about persuading a person to do something, rather than to believe something.

You best source of material would be the training materials for salespeople. Since they have to persuade people to buy things in order to make a living, training them is a huge business. You can probably find a lot of good stuff on the internet.

Management is a similar profession, and it differs in the significant aspect that the persuasion must be long-term rather than just long enough to take their money and run.

Here are a few of the general principles that come from one or both fields:

Make the person think that doing what you want them to is their own idea, not yours.

Get them to trust you so they will more likely believe what you say. A good way to do this is to tell them things they already know or believe. In fact it's a maxim in the training profession: "Never underestimate the power of telling a person something they already know."

Put them in a good mood by being an entertaining speaker or doing something fun with them. Happy people are much more receptive.

Get them to like you so they might do what you want partially just to make you happy or to get you to come back again.

Get them to believe that doing what you want will bring them great benefits. Study advertisements for tips on this.

Alternately, get them to believe that not doing what you want will cause them great grief. While this method is popular in politics (vote for me or your children will be devoured by crazed weasels), in saner circles it is regarded as far less effective than the positive approach, above.

Finally, recognize that not everyone can be persuaded of any given notion. Decide at some point that person A is simply not going to go along with you and stop wasting your energy. Move on to person B.

Word things in a way that make them think they're getting what they want. Otherwise make things sound appealing in whatever way you can.

Pay them allot of money or promise them things you cannot do.

It's better if you promise them money that you don't have, and then come up with some strange excuse when they do what you want and you don't pay them. :)