Developing the Skills of Persuasion Is an Art and a Science
Tyler Odean kicked off our meeting with a contentious statement: "For startups and founders, existence persuasive is fashion more important than having vision." Given how many thousands of articles have been written most finding and nailing downwards mission and vision statements, this is jarring to hear. But when he explains, it makes sense.
"The reality is that visionaries like Steve Jobs haven't been successful because they idea of something amazing and original out of thin air. Rather, they were gifted at constantly persuading many people to follow them on their journey to something amazing and original." To succeed, startup founders need to cultivate persuasion as a skill and habit he says. "That'due south how they're going to get the funding, the talent, the momentum to make their vision piece of work."
As a long-time product leader for Chrome at Google, Odean plant himself using persuasion equally a tool to herd massive organizations — engineers, designers and executives — toward product decisions and developments. He realized how powerful it was — as a product manager in detail — to be able to rally people to his and others' points of view. Today, he regularly speaks on the topic and applies it in his function directing ranking, relevance and search products at Reddit.
In this exclusive interview, he presents the scientific discipline that has informed his approach, also equally the many patterns that take emerged in his own work: how our brains process information, the cognitive biases that shape our realities, and how this information tin exist used to alter other people'southward minds. Read on for persuasive tactics startups and founders can use to raise money, build effective teams, and convince the world to love what they build.
Understand How Our Brains Make Decisions
"When we look at what visionaries really succeed at, they give us a confident, consistent and coherent plan that makes united states feel safe," says Odean. "We trust them non because their vision is perfect, but because they have information technology under control. They communicate conspicuously without giving united states of america all the answers. What most people recall of as vision is actually persuasion."
This feeling that visionaries create tin can be explained past the 2-system model for how the brain receives and experiences information. (On his fashion to becoming a persuasion expert, Odean took a deep dive into scientific literature that he'southward distilled below).
System I is the part of the encephalon that handles the simple things: sensory input, automatic and unimportant decisions (i.e. I'1000 going to reach for my drinkable), coincidental social interactions, and other entering signals that can be processed speedily and rather easily.
System II is the higher-social club, logical part of the encephalon. "It'due south the part that thinks at the speed of the voice in your head," he says. It brings processing power to bear upon decisions and problems that require deeper thought.
System I is involuntary; Arrangement Two is deliberate. Arrangement I thinks in black and white; System II sees many shades of grey.
"If you think well-nigh all the things the brain is constantly handling — information technology'south non just impressive, information technology's insane. But you're able to do it because the part of your brain that y'all're aware of, System Ii, is always outsourcing the majority of the work to System I," says Odean. "I like to remember of Arrangement II equally a beleaguered, overworked but very intelligent manager. Organization I is the army of interns that she's hired to solve all the elementary problems she can delegate — fifty-fifty though they mess some of them up."
Recollect of System I every bit artless. Simply like a 5-year-former views everything in terms of cause and effect — and has accented certainty about the things they know — this part of the encephalon will either believe something with bang-up conviction or non. Nothing in between. "System I has no time for, 'This thing has a 30% probability of being true.' That's reasoning. That'southward System II," he says. "And the thing well-nigh Organisation Ii is that it's always looking for evidence that something isn't right or isn't to be believed. Information technology'due south a skeptic."
What does that have to do with making a persuasive statement? If y'all speak to Organization II (i.e. pose something complex enough that it requires reasoning), y'all're request to be doubted. Many of u.s.a. have had the thought while listening to someone: "I don't know why yous're wrong, just I even so don't believe you." That'southward System 2 doing its task.
To persuade someone, you lot need to speak every bit much as you lot can to System I — the child, the interns — who want to believe you (because information technology just makes so much darn sense, what'southward not to love?). Trouble is, nearly tech operators express themselves with complexity, nuance, facts and figures. That's their default, and it doesn't appeal to people's unconscious processor.
Throughout school and in our professional lives, we've learned to build strong, well-reasoned arguments with a lot of show. Simply nobody taught us to talk to Organisation I — even though that's what we need to do to really get things done.
Harness Biases to Make Your Example
The next footstep to mastering persuasion is understanding the biases and shortcuts the man brain automatically makes to cope with the constant information the world throws at us. Learning how to lean into these shortcuts makes it easier to speak to Organization I more than of the time.
Odean highlights v cognitive biases that are specially relevant to the entrepreneur's task of getting customers, investors and employees on board:
Availability
Anchoring
Representation
Coherence
Framing.
Permit's delve into how each shows up and can exist put to piece of work.
Availability
"Availability bias makes the ideas that come to mind hands seem more true," he says. "Your brain is first and foremost a threat-detection engine. The more than times you see a matter, the more than confident yous can be that it won't kill you — because it hasn't killed you withal, right?" Think of it similar this: you're probably okay with the bugs where you lot live — only go to a strange country and the creepy crawlies are terrifying. We're all more than comfortable with the things we've seen a lot in our lives — including ideas.
Have Silicon Valley's tendency to favor trends as an example. "The more than everyone talks about blockchain, the more than everyone else thinks, 'Hmmm, this blockchain thing seems pretty legit…'"
For founders, this tin can be instructive in a couple ways:
You're also susceptible to trends. As you're developing your ideas, exist aware that you're probably being influenced to think that familiar, less outlandish concepts are better.
Your infant will ever be beautiful to you. Y'all spend more than time thinking virtually your idea and visitor than anyone else on the planet. So, it's going to seem similar a no-brainer to you — but probably not anyone else without doing some piece of work.
"We all eventually fall in love with the aroma of our own bullshit," says Odean. "You lot need to remind yourself to be suspicious of that. If yous assume that other people are as familiar with your ideas equally you lot are, you'll assume they'll exist far more than receptive than they actually volition be."
One tactic he recommends: Have a designated buddy in a totally different industry or milieu that you can call and say, "Hey, you lot don't spend all day thinking about this. How does information technology sound to yous?" If they tell you it sounds crappy, don't presume information technology's because they "just don't get it" (a common founder fallacy). "You're not going to be successful if people you talk to don't become it. Don't stop developing new ways to explain it until they exercise."
At the same time, you lot can use availability bias to your advantage by generating as much familiarity with your product or brand every bit possible. If y'all make yourself ubiquitous on social media (having influencers share near yous, for example), over email, in the news media, through word of oral cavity, you're going to become the no-brainer yous want to be. It takes a lot of preparation and elbow grease, but creating a sense of familiarity is one of your nigh effective marketing advantages.
Anchoring
When making decisions, the initial affair a person sees becomes a powerful reference point for them. And once established, these reference points are difficult to change.
The get-go number you throw out when yous're talking about pricing for your product (or size of your fundraising circular) volition always exist the most of import number y'all say. Be damn certain you're okay with the direction that number takes yous in.
This is particularly truthful in ambiguous situations, when you're dealing with unknowable values. "If you're a wine expert and I tell you lot that a bottle you're familiar with is worth a million dollars, y'all'll just say back, 'Okay, only it's not.' Only if nosotros're guessing the valuation of a three-person startup with just a slide deck and an idea in a brand new market, no i has a clue what that'south really worth. Y'all accept the chance to establish a durable reference bespeak that will give y'all an edge. Take the fourth dimension to consider that carefully."
Anchoring plays an even more important role when yous're comparison values. Information technology becomes a limiting cistron yous accept to acknowledge if you desire to move in any given direction. "If I initially throw out a valuation of $10M, but then I want to move it to $15M, I accept to basically convince you that information technology's worth all those values in between individually. Why is information technology worth $11M, $12M, etc.? Brand certain you lot respect your ain anchor points when making these types of arguments."
To requite y'all a simpler (and sillier) instance, there'south a good reason why late night show hosts always lead with, "We've got a really peachy show this evening!" It doesn't thing that you know they always say the same thing no affair what. As soon as you lot've contemplated whether this night's show is swell, it's been anchored in your mind that it is — your outlook on it is already positive, thanks to System I.
Representation
Later on whatsoever feel, humans create a representative image or memory of what happened — and they reason off that image. For instance, if they accept an argument with someone, they'll take abroad i or a handful of representative images of how that went downwards. No 1 gets to choose what sticks, it just happens.
For founders and marketers, this hits on i important point: "People volition recall a totally random sample of the data you give them nearly what you do." It won't be the best sample. Information technology won't be the summary you wish you could hand them. Information technology's a random set of information.
Many people, given the opportunity to go far front of an important audience — similar investors or an industry reporter — think they need to say it all. They take to tell a full story near their visitor or product so that it can be well understood in the verbal context you want.
People pack meetings with every selling betoken they tin think of. But that'due south really the worst affair to practise.
"They're going to remember hardly anything y'all cram into that hour," says Odean. "Considering they'll remember random parts, you want to construct a bulletin that — when sampled at whatsoever point — reinforces your argument and remains persuasive. Keep it to the highlight reel and stick to a very brusk, uncomplicated message that you repeat in different ways again and again. When there are fewer things to remember, your audience is more likely to recollect what matters."
Stick to only your strongest points, likewise. The style the encephalon works, even if you've fabricated a ton of extremely compelling arguments, one weak one tin can spoil the whole affair. Think of two hypothetical sets of goods:
The first includes 5 iPhones, one of which is cleaved.
The second includes three iPhones in good condition.
We all know that the beginning ready is the best choice (cheers, Organization Two), and nearly people volition choose it when presented with both options adjacent. However, when they're only shown ane gear up at a time, they tend to put a higher price on the undamaged set. Even though they intellectually empathize the value is the aforementioned, they even so emotionally answer to the damaged appurtenances.
"Your audience is ever creating a representative film of who you are and what you tin do for them," says Odean. "If yous requite them an paradigm that involves negative elements — in which annihilation that'due south not utterly crawly is negative — that can be more damaging than information technology should exist." A lot of startups have the impulse to throw unexciting benefits into their pitches — something like good bombardment life. This actually detracts from what's truly special about your app.
Coherence
"People desire everything to always be the same. Nosotros want smart people to be smart. We want expert people to be proficient," says Odean. "The same goes for ideas." Because nosotros then desperately desire equilibrium and predictability in our lives, we're pretty willing — eager even — to believe that things are more consequent than they actually are. This leads to a couple mutual behavioral concepts:
Halo outcome: If you like one thing about an thought or object, yous'll like other things about information technology too. Even so, if y'all dislike one thing about it, you'll tend to dislike other facets every bit well. "Life's but easier when your feelings on a subject have a consistent valence. A product recommended past a friend yous love will seem well-made. A product that seems well-priced volition also seem reliable."
Confirmation bias: "We would all prefer to live in a world where nosotros're the smart and able-minded protagonist. It takes endeavor for usa to contemplate our own mistakes or being wrong. We have to burn calories to practise it — it'due south been proven in the lab." As a issue, people always tend to translate new information in a way that confirms what they already idea or believed.
"It's infinitely more than hard to persuade someone that they're wrong than to persuade them that in that location'due south new information that should change their minds," says Odean. "Whatever time you're trying to convince someone to change their thinking, always frame it as an opportunity to exist correct going forward — not an admission of past error."
Let's say you lot're a product director or founder trying to get a team to send faster. There'south no point in arguing that they should have shipped code last week. Simply talk about when and how they can ship things at a quicker cadence in the futurity based on the information you lot have today. That'south the only conversation worth having.
Framing
Human beings are incapable of reasoning near the earth in the absolute, then we default to the next all-time thing: comparative reasoning. "Framing determines what choice is seen as default or normal," says Odean. "An like shooting fish in a barrel way to remember about this is imagining you take 3 cups of water — 1 hot, one cold, one room temperature. If you lot put a finger in the room temp h2o after the hot water, information technology will experience cold. If you exercise the same later the common cold water, it will feel warm."
To make any you're offering appeal to a human being, be aware than whatever information you put out there will be consumed through a comparative lens.
If you don't explicitly tell your audition which comparisons to brand, they'll make them on their own. And these automatic comparisons probably won't exist as flattering as the ones you'd choose for them.
The Tactics
"Cognitive biases create our reality. The best we tin can practice is adjust and lean into them — we can't escape them," says Odean. This can exist proficient news if you know how to turn them to your advantage in society to be persuasive. Next, he shares his peak vii tactics for leveraging the inevitable mental shortcuts humans brand to create messages that speak straight to System I — messages that are very easy to concur with and deed on.
Keep information technology simple.
This sounds incredibly obvious and unoriginal. Simply, Odean says, people vastly underestimate exactly how simple they demand to be. It'southward ane of the biggest areas where mistakes are fabricated. "We're not talking a curt paragraph, or even single syllable words, nor a question," he says. "The most people can process without consulting Organisation Two is a very brusque, declarative phrase using the simplest words possible."
Allow'southward say you lot're building a slide deck to convince an audition of something.
Whatever time y'all've included a bulleted list or a paragraph of text, or even a graph without a very clear, obvious explanation, you've already lost.
In whatever of those scenarios, Arrangement Ii has switched on and is already doubting the information it's existence given.
"Stick with a few words that viewers volition consume and understand before they even brand the choice to," says Odean. "Short declarative sentences on the slides behind you volition echo over and over again in your audition's listen while they're listening to you talk. 'We are growing fast. We demand coin to go along growing fast. With that money, nosotros would practice X.' You lot want your message to sound and feel similar a 'See Spot Run' story. The words you pick should feel intuitive, almost to the indicate of being too basic. That's the level that'due south going to speak emotionally to your audience."
This is where information technology's important to recollect that you spend all mean solar day steeped in your ain business concern programme. The people you're convincing of your plan do not. Don't rapidly shift between different parts of your story and expect people to follow yous. "I've seen a lot of startup pitches go back and forth between growth and acquirement plans. Don't exercise this. You want your story to build 1 cake at a time."
Repeat whatever it is you really want to take stick with people. "At the end of the meeting, when people'south brains are randomly sampling moments and trying to remember what y'all shared, it'south the very unproblematic, declarative points that will stick out because they encountered them more often and immediately understood and agreed with them in their heads. It's like the chorus of a song — very few of us remember the words to the verses, but we tin can usually remember the chorus."
Make your solution or plan vividly like shooting fish in a barrel to visualize.
While founders need to keep their own availability bias in check, they also need to accommodate and feed into others' availability bias to be persuasive. Just similar people are fix to favor things that experience familiar, they also have a potent tendency to favor what they can fully visualize.
"For example, if I were to offer you $100 verbally to be paid immediately or manus you a bright blue envelope containing five crisp $20 bills, the 2d offer would seem better because you tin picture it actually completely," says Odean. Our brains love this blazon of specificity, even when information technology'southward non logical. This is a powerful bias and tool for persuasion.
"A lot of people know this ane, but it hits this signal dwelling house: Allow'south says I describe to you lot a woman who loves folk music and was agile in the nuclear protest movement in college. Then I ask you whether she's more likely to be a bank teller or a feminist bank teller? Most people answer, 'feminist bank teller' because it seems almost in line with the rest of the story. Simply there are no feminist bank tellers who are non too bank tellers. By definition, 'feminist banking company teller' is a narrower category — which makes it less likely that'south the right answer."
How can you apply this do your advantage? By calculation descriptive detail to a scenario, you make it statistically less likely — but yous brand the film clearer so it seems more likely.
So, when yous're presenting your visitor or product to primal stakeholders, paint a picture. Don't just say you have a lot of users. Describe Jerry the CTO from a mid-market printing house in Ohio and how he loves using your production betwixt meetings because it saves him so much time. Literally prove a picture of him smiling as he uses your product. For any success you lot seek to convey, make sure that your clarification is underscored with a specific, physical paradigm — and not left as an abstract concept.
Ruin surprises on purpose.
System I hates surprises. It freaks out really easily, summoning Arrangement Ii to the rescue, which can only say, 'I'yard not freaked out.' System 2 is never going to have a more positive reaction than System I will. "Every time you surprise someone, you lot risk making them suspicious. Even when they don't become suspicious of you lot, they'll still exist a fleck less comfortable with you and what you're telling them than they were before."
Of course, when y'all're first sharing an idea with someone, in that location's no way around a bit of surprise. But you can endeavour to ease them into it. "Ane of the all-time things you can do in a presentation or conversation where you're sharing something new is say, 'In the class of this talk, I plan to testify you X' before actually showing them annihilation."
Another mode to ease surprise is to tell your audience that someone or a visitor they already know and respect — or merely identify with — already use your production or works with you.
"People badly desire to seem normal and do what seems normal, so the more you can mainstream an outlandish or unseen production or idea, the improve," says Odean. "When Sylvan Goldman introduced the start shopping cart to his grocery store, he paid models to push them around and pretend to shop. People saw this, and even though they thought, 'That's weird. Why would anyone need that when they take baskets?' the models made it await normal — bonny people were willing to try it."
This might seem hard to foursquare with a tech world that's all nigh game-irresolute innovations and dramatic reveals. But remember, there's a big difference between persuasion and generating excitement. "There's persuasion and so there's hype," he says. "If y'all actually desire someone to buy into what y'all're saying or offer — and you don't have the massive brownie of let's say Apple — then you want to have every bit much surprise out of it as you can."
Make it like shooting fish in a barrel to agree.
'Trolley issues' help u.s.a. understand the style humans make decisions. In the context of one of these issues, there's a runaway trolley, and you lot — every bit the pretend track switcher — have to decide and rationalize who it should hit, given multiple choices.
"Allow's say that a trolley tin can go in one of ii directions, and in that location's a set of people in its style on each track you could choose. If I tell you the trolley is headed to the left, you lot'll probably let it go along going that mode. Aforementioned if I told you lot it's headed to the right."
Well-nigh people choose non to have activity because humans are very loss balky. We all want to minimize regret, and we tend to accredit more regret to acting rather than failing to human activity. Failing to act doesn't actually feel like our error.
If yous're trying to be persuasive, y'all tin anticipate this instinct. If you desire a particular outcome, brand sure that your stakeholders need to take activity to achieve a different one. "E'er, always, always phrase what you desire to take occur equally the thing that will happen if nobody does annihilation."
If you lot send an electronic mail asking your team, "Should we ship the widget?" you're putting the onus of the activeness on them. They have to proactively say aye. Simply if you instead say, "Nosotros're going to ship the widget. Any objections?" the default will be to do what you lot desire. The onus of action is on the people who want to object or push back and you just made information technology cognitively more than difficult for them. Sounds similar a modest thing, but information technology works about every time.
Set their reference point.
"People hate losses much more than than they like gains," says Odean. But they don't evaluate losses and gains relative to what they have — they evaluate them relative to what they feel like they have. "If you're totally convinced you lot're going to become a promotion, and and then it falls through, you lot might experience that as a loss, even though — technically speaking — you didn't lose anything. You only didn't gain anything."
When you need to persuade someone, you tin can purposefully adjust their reference indicate — alter what they feel like they already have locked in — to become them to exercise what you desire. If you talk like something is already truthful, and you do so simply, continuously, and in a way that's easy to visualize — people will start to feel like it is true.
"You run into this all the fourth dimension in sales pitches. Rather than telling customers to buy something, the campaign tells them that their time is running out to buy. They therefore have the opportunity to buy in hand, but are about to lose information technology if they don't act. This is why brands always incentivize you lot to endeavor on clothes or test bulldoze a car. Once people outset contemplating their ownership and meet it in action, that'southward their mental reference point. They'll have to suffer a loss if they make up one's mind not to buy."
Imagine talking to a chore candidate deciding whether to join your startup. Start speaking to them equally if they've already made the conclusion to bring together. "Say, 'You'll have this much equity, and this will be your desk, and these people will be on your team.' Beginning using the collective first person — 'We have this opportunity ahead of u.s.a.,' 'We tin can solve this problem together.' Information technology will sound like they already have something concrete — and they'll have to willingly give upwards all those things by turning down your offer.' People don't like to give up things if they can assist it," says Odean.
Command how you lot're compared.
There are many means to control how yous present data about your business, but the most important one is to curate how it'southward compared to other options in the field. Y'all can't cease your audience from comparison you to your competition. What you lot tin can do, though, is take steps to ensure those comparisons put you in the best light.
"Your presentation can control how salient and ascendant those comparisons are," says Odean. "For example, if you put two things correct adjacent to each other in your slide deck, that comparison will be dramatic. If you lot put one at the beginning and one at the end, that comparison will be much weaker. If y'all make a comparing really explicit — you bear witness value A, value B, and the delta — then people will call up that difference. If you know you're the amend option, you might want to make the comparison this stark. If, even so, you're nervous nigh comparison, y'all desire to mention the downsides of your competitor separately without putting it right next to your offering for piece of cake comparison."
Chore candidates are always comparing shopping, so this lesson is peculiarly applicative in this loonshit. "The most constructive comparisons you can make are to something or a company that's very similar to yours but slightly worse in some respect. The similarity makes it like shooting fish in a barrel to draw the comparing, merely in a way that's flattering to y'all," he says.
"Let's say someone has three options — A, B and some other version of A that's a little crappier. Information technology's actually piece of cake to simplify the choice by immediately discarding the crappier A. At the same fourth dimension, A starts looking a lot better. So, now yous've tilted the choice between A and B in A's favor, fifty-fifty though nothing well-nigh their A or B changed." You may desire to insert a slightly crappier version of your production or argument into a comparison to push it in your direction.
Then there'due south pricing — where comparing becomes a powerful marketing tool. Many companies volition offer tiered pricing for software: private, pro and corporate packages. "A lot of companies make the fault of thinking they have to sell each one of these packages. You don't. Sometimes the purpose of offering a bundle should be but to forcefulness favorable comparing for a more than expensive bundle."
You can make something seem bigger or smaller or more or less likely, or more or less risky — all based on what you place next to information technology. When you want a fact or effigy to be more than memorable, for case — or to seem more likely — brand it easier to visualize. Conversely, for annihilation you're trying to downplay, make it more than vague and repeat it less frequently.
"A classic instance is that if you want a figure to seem large — utilise the phrasing: 1 in twenty or 1 in 150. If you desire a figure to seem modest, use a percentage. When you say, 'i in 1,000 children are affected,' your audience pictures a real child. When you say, '0.1% of children are affected,' the automatic response is to think, 'Well, that doesn't sound like very many.' If your mandate is to raise money to combat a disease that impacts children, you'd go with the former."
Coax — don't yank — people to your viewpoint.
Flick persuasion is non existent persuasion. Don't do what you run across on screen. We've all seen some version of a hero or heroine delivering a relatively long, moving, eloquent spoken language to movement the minds and hearts of the people around them. "Information technology appears as though a single argument expressed in a single moment entirely changes the way people experience," says Odean. "Suddenly everyone wants to fight the aliens, or agrees the monster isn't quite then bad."
That's not how the brain works. "In fact, if someone tried to exercise that to you in existent life, you'd probably get really defensive and shut downwards. You lot'd think, 'Why are you giving me this speech? I've got my pitchfork ready. I've got my torch. I'm monster hunting no matter what you say.'"
So put aside fantasies of grand oratory persuading your audience to do what you desire. Instead, think nearly how you lot can work with your team or board members or chore prospects to gradually movement them toward your viewpoint over time.
"When someone tries to change your mind immediately, you lot often entrench. Yous feel like they're trying to rob you lot of your own agency with a clever pitch. Y'all feel similar they're telling you that you're wrong. No one likes that," he says. "Salespeople who are too polished brand us suspicious and uncomfortable for this reason. How cartel they try to change the way we experience in such a short window of time?"
There are a few ways to implement more successful, gentle persuasion. If you're planning to use a deck to make your pitch, send it to your audience early. This will serve two purposes: one) it ensures that your deck is designed well enough that it tin stand on its own. This is an important examination you lot desire to make sure y'all pass. 2) It avoids surprise, and keeps you from making an overly dramatic reveal or appeal.
"Besides many people believe they have to be there in person whenever anyone looks at their deck. They have a vision that their skill and rhetoric will exist so overwhelmingly awesome that information technology will change minds on its own — which, if it were true, would probably be disadvantageous. Whatever you managed to button them into believing wouldn't stick with them the way you demand it to — the fashion information technology sticks is when they willingly buy in and make the decision to believe you."
In Summary
Persuasion is a multi-pronged endeavor that requires you lot to retrieve proactively and holistically about how you're building an argument. But hopefully the tools above requite you all the levers y'all need to practise just that. Consider using it as a checklist whenever y'all have a pitch or you're well-nigh to close funding or a candidate for a task. Are y'all taking all these elements into business relationship? For extra assurance, utilise Odean'due south five favorite gut check questions below before you ship any messaging:
Where would my pitch trip upward a child?
Of course, you shouldn't be treating potential investors or job candidates like children. But the goal is always to appeal to System I — the childlike role of the encephalon. So ask yourself whether there's anything most your root argument and how you're expressing it that a child wouldn't believe or understand. If in that location is, the odds are practiced that you'll awaken your adult audition's Organisation II, and you lot'll have to work much harder to alleviate their dubiousness.
What's the 1 thing I want my audience to recall? Is it also the most prominent thing in my statement, message or pitch?
"Basically, you want everything to be every bit prominent as it is of import for people to remember. Increase or decrease prominence using repetition (or not), simple and vivid statements (or not). Prominence and importance must match."
What words can I cut from my pitch?
Making a point prominently isn't most more — it's about less. "Cutting out literally every word you peradventure can from every message you send," says Odean. "And I hateful that in the almost neurotic, complete mode." No word is too small to cut. Modifiers are rarely necessary. Requite the encephalon as little equally possible to process. "If your argument is even slightly too dense, Organisation II will be chosen in to unpack it, and Arrangement I won't fifty-fifty have a gamble to accept what yous're proverb."
Is my preferred outcome the default?
Call up, people typically ascribe more regret to acting than failing to human activity. Leverage that inertia. Moving a team toward your goal tin be equally uncomplicated as phrasing an ask in a fashion where no action or no response really helps everyone make progress.
Is in that location annihilation I tin exercise to boost people'due south familiarity with my ideas beforehand?
"I ofttimes ask myself, 'Who are the people I need to have agree with me? Can I meet with them somehow before I demand to sell them or pitch them something?" says Odean. Perhaps an email tin can do the trick, or a conversation with someone they know and trust. "Yous want to speak to your audience'south availability bias. Understand what they care about, and so gradually evidence them that you're trustworthy and value the same things before y'all inquire for something."
Finally, resist your urge to downplay the touch on of cognitive biases. Once y'all sympathize them, they beginning to feel like mutual sense. Yous might be thinking that it's incommunicable to employ relatively simple tricks on the enormously brilliant people y'all're trying to hire or ask for coin. But it doesn't even thing if they know most biases themselves.
"I can explain to anyone how an optical illusion works — merely they still see information technology," says Odean. "People are non computers. Even if they understand the ways in which biases can exist used to influence them, they're non immune. The most important thing to know virtually cognitive biases is that they're applicable to everyone — without exception."
Odean credits the piece of work of Daniel Kahneman , writer of Thinking Fast and Slow , Amos Tversky , Charlie Munger , Robert Cialdini , and Dan Ariely for informing his arroyo to persuasion and how information technology tin be applied for success in the startup environs.
Source: https://review.firstround.com/master-the-art-of-influence-persuasion-as-a-skill-and-habit
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