The 3 Keys of Persuasion You Need to Know to Sell more

Imagine mastering 3 proven traits that will enable you to get more sales, connect with the people around you and increase your influence. If there is a lifeskill which is more essential than others in determining your personal and professional life, it must be the art of persuasion and influence. As you master the psychology of influence, you are more likely get your desired new job, obtain the job promotion, make better business deals and sell more products. You can improve your community when you persuade people to support your proposals and ideas. In fact, we are all born masters of influence. Since the day we were born, we are already equipped with the ability to influence by communicating our needs through crying. Whenever a baby is hungry, he simply sells his needs and seeks attention by crying! Yet as we grow older, we seem to have lost our natural skill. It seems that the fear of getting rejected by others prevent us from stepping up to tap into the influence skills we are already gifted with. So in this article, you shall rediscover 3 simple strategies to improve your ability to sell. They are also the 3 proven ways that countless leaders have used to influence the people around them.

3 Elements of Persuasion

Ethos: The Greek origin of the English word “ethics”, Ethos represents an important element of influence that deals with credibility. Since everything counts in the area of personal credibility, everything that you do or don’t do either adds to or takes away from your credibility and your capability to influence someone. People tend to believe in people whom they admire or respect. If the communicator is trustworthy, has his listener’s best interests at heart, knows his subject well, and practices what he preach, he’s likely to be persuasive. Integrity is first and foremost. For instance, a public speaker who practices ethos must be able to portray himself as a master or an expert in the topic or subject that he’s going to present on. It is important for the audience to recognize him as the appropriate person to deliver the expected value. If you are a parent who is attempting to teach your kids certain life’s morals, you will have to be able to walk the talk yourself first. If you are a sales professional or an entrepreneur, you will have to be passionately in love with the products and/or services you are promoting.
Pathos: Perhaps the most critical component of influence, this is the area that deals with our emotions. It has been demonstrated time and again the great influence that emotion has over logic on a person when it boils down to making a buying decision. For example, most of us never buy a sports car based on logic. Instead it is our emotions that tend to get the better of us. In modern selling and marketing, pathos is the ability to communicate with the deep, subconscious needs of a customer. Human beings are largely emotional, in that everything that we do and say, all our decisions are determined by our emotions. Therefore, to have a great influence on others, we need to be able to connect with whatever causes them to feel strongly one way or another. When you are attempting to study and understand the perceptual position of another person, you are identifying their buying values; you are making an effort to understand what he/she needs and desires. By learning to match the needs and wants of the people around you, you tend to stand a greater chance of influencing and selling anything to them.
Logos: Finally, there is a part of influence which deals with logic or reason. When applying logos in enhancing our persuasive power, logic is used to back up a claim. Engaging logos as your tool of influence involves “making sense” of what you say. Since people are constantly trying to analyze the decisions that they make in their lives, it is also important for you to work on the logos appeal when trying to influence them. In essence, we have just learned that there are three means of selling and persuading others. These are the ethos, the pathos and the logos of motivating someone. Learn how to integrate and incorporate all of these three elements of influence and become a persuasive salesperson.