Winning People Over: Persuasion & Influence (2 of 4) By Darren Hardy

No discussion on the topic of influence and persuasion is complete without a few words on Aristotle’s famous dialectic on what he calls the three levels of persuasion:

LOGOS, PATHOS and ETHOS.

In each installment I will boil it down to a single action item for you to walk away with in order to make this new knowledge have power in your own ability to persuade and influence others.

Let’s start with LOGOS—which can be understood as simply logic.

So the first form of persuasion has to do with convincing others through the use of logic. I interviewed Dave Lakhani recently (grew up in a cult, now best-selling author of Persuasion: The Art of Getting What You Want). Here is how he put it: “Persuasion is helping people come to their own most logical conclusion which happens to be one we share.” He goes on to say, “Persuasion is about being a more effective communicator and getting the best outcome for everyone involved.”

“Persuasion is helping people come to their own most logical conclusion which happens to be one we share.”

So, in LOGOS, we use logic and reasoning to persuade others to see things in a new way. Let me give you an example; this is how I lay out the argument for why someone shouldsubscribe to SUCCESS Book Summaries.

I do it through a series of logical questions…

Do you agree if you read 36 books from the best experts in the world over the next 12 months it would significantly improve your results?

Is it true you probably don’t want to spend the $1,000 to buy those books or have an extra 150 hours to sit on your couch to read those books?

So you want the results, but you don’t have the time, is that right?

Well, what if you could collect the best ideas from those 36 books, without having to read a single word… having them narrated to you… while you drive, exercise or walk the dog, taking zero extra time and for a price less than 10 percent of the cost to buy those 36 books? Would that be interesting? Would it give you a massive advantage over your competition? Would it help you make lots more money in your field? Why wait, go tohttp://www.successbooksummaries.com (and yes, I think you really should!)

LOGOS works best one-on-one, in small groups, and in writing, where you can focus your communication on one issue at a time and lead your subject through a series of agreements.

Now, as Dave said, “The difference between persuasion and manipulation is intent. Persuasion equals a mutually beneficial conclusion.”

Let me give you the best tip to crafting your LOGOS, or logical persuasive arguments or presentations. Today, the next time you want to persuade somebody to do something, before you speak, pause and ask yourself: Why would this person WANT to do this? What’s in it for THEM?”

I know this sounds simplistic but—trust me as the recipient of a lot of poor and unpersuasive communications—pausing to ask ourselves this question will stop us from launching into a diatribe littered with futile chatter about our desires, what’s important to us and why wethink they should do something… without the consideration or presentation of why the other person would really want to. Try it today.