How to be persuasive –
Introduction👋
Whether it’s persuading an interviewer to give you a job, your boss to give you a pay rise, or convincing your mates to watch your favourite film tonight – persuasion skills are essential to getting what you want out of life.
Follow our 3 steps to become more persuasive! –
- Know your audience and what they want
- Use evidence (ideally with numbers)
- Communicate well
1. Know your audience and what they want 🕵️🤝
Consider their emotions, wants and beliefs.
You want to persuade them that it will be beneficial to them to listen to you.
In a job interview, you’re trying to persuade someone to hire you.
An interviewer could be feeling:
- Frustrated that interviews are taking them away from their work
- Impatient, wanting to quickly hire
They’re going to want:
- Someone confident, personable, who makes their hiring decision easy
- Someone who ticks the boxes for the job description in front of them
Making a table like the one below can help you to think of persuasive things to do/say to convince your audience!
| What I want | What they want | Things I could do/say to persuade them |
| The job! | Someone confident Someone who ticks the boxes | Speak confidently Read the job description, talk about why I tick the boxes |
2. Use evidence (ideally with numbers) 📊
Using evidence to persuade someone can show that you use sensible reasoning, making your opinions more trustworthy.
If you can fit numbers into your persuasive arguments, even better! Using numbers can help to make your arguments stand out and be more memorable.
For example, saying “I worked with 500 customers, across 5 locations” in a job interview sounds far more impressive and persuasive than “I helped a lot of customers in different places”.
Saying, “This film is has a 5 star rating online, can we watch it?” is far more impressive and persuasive than saying “Can we watch this film?”.
3. Communicate well 💬
Communicating well helps to build trust with someone, and therefore make someone more likely to listen to what you’re saying.
What you say/how you say it 🔊
Speak confidently
Speaking clearly
Adapting how you speak to suit the person you’re talking to – should you speak more professionally/formally or can you be more relaxed/informal with them?
Your body language 💃🕺
Focusing on the person speaking to you
Making eye contact – show that you’re listening to them!
Reacting to what the person says – smiling, nodding, or frowning depending on what they’ve said
Leaning forward
Facing towards the person you’re speaking to
Conclusion 👍
So that’s it!
You can be persuasive by:
- Knowing your audience and what they want🕵️🤝
- Using evidence (ideally with numbers)📊
- Communicating well💬
If you know any friends or family members who might benefit from learning about how to be persuasive, share this post with them!
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