Master the Art of Persuasion with Kenrick Cleveland, Ep 201

Just The Tips, with James P. Friel and Dean Holland

Most people think of persuasion as selling a product or service. That’s one use for persuasion, but there’s so many more. If you’re a parent, you’re persuading your kids to take a bath and eat their vegetables. If you and a group of friends are deciding where to go to dinner, you may want to persuade them to choose your favorite restaurant.

Plus law enforcement officers need to persuade people out of hurting themselves or other people. Doctors may need to persuade a patient to participate in a scary but life-saving surgery. The art of persuasion is not limited to selling something in your business.

In this episode, persuasion master Kenrick Cleveland joins James and Dean to reveal his secrets to persuading people in a way that feels good to them--and to you--instead of resorting to outdated tactics like problem-agitate-solution and grinding away at pain points.

Kenrick is known worldwide for his charismatic teachings in sales, including what’s known as conversational persuasion. If you want to get to Yes more often in your communications with other people--including your customers and clients--tune in to hear how to master the art of persuasion.

Outline of This Episode

• 4:20 How to use persuasion for good
• 8:01 Why problem-agitate-solution is garbage
• 14:23 You don’t have to grind people’s pain points
• 18:24 What to do instead of “bring the pain”
• 25:17 Leverage without negativity
• 30:32 Help them realize it for themselves
• 38:09 How to inspire people to buy in a way they feel good about

Persuasion Is Not Evil, It’s Misused

Like any tool, persuasion can be used for good or evil. Fire in the hands of an arsonist is dangerous, but to someone dying of hypothermia, fire is life-saving. A scalpel in the wrong hands can hurt people, but in the hands of a surgeon bypassing a clogged artery, it may allow you or a loved one to live for several more years. Use persuasion for good, and you can help a lot of people who might otherwise continue to suffer.

Sooner Or Later, Pain Points Backfire

In Kenrick’s extensive work with a neuroscientist, he discovered that when you get people into a negative, depressed state, their ability to see solutions shuts down. If someone’s not in a state to see or believe a solution exists, they’re not going to buy. Even if someone does buy while they’re in pain, they’re only motivated long enough to get away from pain. When avoiding that pain is no longer motivating, you’ll have to hit them with more to get them to stay. Eventually they’ll tire of being around someone who’s constantly reminding them of pain and suffering, and cut you (and your solutions) loose. Any way you slice it, grinding away at pain points will cost you the sale - either up front or in the long run.

Ask The Right Questions

Asking questions is a powerful way to persuade, but only if it’s done the way Kenrick teaches. A lot of salespeople ask irrelevant or obnoxious questions that make them seem disconnected, pushy, or both. For multiple examples of how to ask the right questions at the right time, in a way that leads to YES, tune into this episode. (Do this part right, and in most cases you won’t even need to close the sale, because your prospect is already persuaded.)

Ditch The Scripts

One of the worst examples of persuasion you’ll ever encounter is someone reading off a cookie cutter script. Companies often hand their employees a “sales script” and instruct them to follow it. If you’ve ever been on the receiving end of a sales call where someone’s reading from a script, you know how cringe-worthy it is. You don’t feel heard or understood, and you definitely aren’t inspired to buy. Ditch the sales scripts and instead do when Kenrick talks about in this episode.

From Nice Guy To Creep

One of the worst things you can do in persuasion is get needy and desperate. In this episode Kenrick shares a classic example of a guy trying to ask a girl out. The girl says no, she’s busy. The guy pushes, saying he’d really like to hang out with her, and she says she’s seeing somebody. The girl doesn’t want to go out and she’s trying to be nice in telling the guy no, while wondering what it’ll take for him to get the hint. In her mind, he’s gone from nice guy to creep pretty quickly. Many entrepreneurs resort to that same kind of behavior with their customers and call it persuasion, but it’s not. Tune into the episode to hear what to do instead of beg, plead, or push for the sale.

Resources & People Mentioned

• Kenrick Cleveland’s website: https://www.kenrickcleveland.com/
• Kenrick Cleveland on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kenrick-cleveland-b243b423
• Kenrick Cleveland on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/iamKenrickCleveland/

Music for “Just The Tips” is titled, “Happy Happy Game Show” by Kevin MacLeod (http://incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License

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James P. Friel:

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Dean Holland:

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