The Golden Rule of Persuasion:
When someone says “yes”, shut up!
In other words, once they have agreed with you, stop trying to persuade them. They’re already persuaded!
Instead, turn their “yes” into actions. It’s easy. There are only two things to do:
- DO – Agree the next actions. What are you both going to DO, by when?
- DIARY – Schedule these actions in your and their diaries. That way, (1) you’ll remember and (2) you’ve allocated time to do it
Here’s my favourite way to achieve both DO and DIARY:
Mastering the DO
Once someone has said “yes” to me, I say:
“Great. So we’re agreed. Our next steps are easy. In fact there are only three things we need to do – X, Y and Z. Let’s agree our timings for these”
This works really well. The word “easy” and “only” followed by a number (here, it’s three) inject pace and enthusiasm.
(You’ve seen this above. I’ve used easy/only/number twice)
Mastering the DIARY
Once we’re agreed on the actions we’ll DO, it’s then just a case of scheduling timings:
“I’ll take the action of doing X. I can do that today for you – ok? And when shall we do Y and Z? (we agree dates)… I’ll schedule these in our diaries too – ok?”
What do you think?
Do you like this technique? Do you want to do it?
If so, it’s easy. In fact, there are only three things to do…
Action Point
- Look at today’s diary. Identify the first meeting where you can use this technique
- Use it!
- If it works, keep using it…