TJ Walker advises that the most persuasive people often speak least and listen most. He emphasizes asking targeted questions to uncover a prospect's real needs, decision factors, and pain points, then tailoring pitches (products, services, ideas) to those specifics rather than delivering a rehearsed, one-sided presentation. Practical examples include adjusting for local presence, desired experience, or incumbent weaknesses.
Chapters
The most persuasive people in many offices are often the people who speak the least, who talk the least, when they are trying to persuade people. What do I mean by that? If you're not pitching, how do you persuade anyone? What I mean is you've got to really listen to the person you're trying to persuade. Now, whether it's an outside client prospect or someone internally, it's always good to first ask people about their needs. What are they looking for, what's the source of problem, irritation, pain and what do you have? What solutions do you have? Whether it's a product, a service, an idea, a budget concept, what is it you have that you now want to persuade them to do that you think will solve that. The more you can find out about what their actual source of conflict is, of pain, of need, then you can tailor your pitch to them. Big problem so many people have is they've got some product, some service, some idea. They're so excited about it, they're so confident in all their abilities, they have a chance to pitch to someone and they just start talking and talking and talking. It's one sided and if they had just listened to what the person was saying, they could completely tailor their pitch presentation in a different way and it could be 100% responsive. So one of the first things you should do, whether it's a client prospect, a customer prospect or someone within your company, is ask a bunch of questions, find out what is it they are looking for. If they specifically are looking for a service you offer, ask them what is the deciding factor in their decision process going to be. Believe it or not, people actually tell you quite often, people tell me this all the time. I ask them and if they say, and they're based on the other side of the country, if they say our number one factor is is the person local and there's zero transportation cost. I know this is not a good prospect for me and I'll maybe try to get them to do an online training, but beyond that, I simply know it's not a good fit. On the other hand, if they say, well, we really want someone who is experienced and has gray hair. Because they the CEO is very arrogant and he's more than 60 and he only wants to deal with some, then I'll mention them, hey, I got gray hair and I've been doing this for 35 years. So you've got to really listen to the people to find out what is going to be their decision process, what's going to motivate them and then you can tailor your messages in a way that's even more specific. So always ask. They might not tell you. They may give you something general. If you're trying to persuade somebody to hire your ad agency and they've cast a wide net and they are a ketchup company, they're going to say, well, we are going to hire the advertising agency that has the most creative approach to sell more ketchup. It may be obvious, but it might not be. You can still ask them what's wrong with the incumbent firm? What are you looking for that your current agency isn't doing? What's going to be your decision process in the deciding factor? So always ask. And because of that, you have to realize when you're trying to persuade someone. You can't walk into this with a sense of, well, here is my deck, and I'm going to go through the deck to sell them. No, it's not your PowerPoint presentation. It's not your deck, it's not your speech, it's not your presentation presentation. It's the other person's presentation. It's all about them. So you gotta listen, be in the moment, be present, and then put out messages that are the most relevant to your prospects. That's the way you'll be much more persuadable.
