Going Deeper Into Persuasion

For thousands of years, people have tried to figure out the best way to persuade other people to do things. We know that persuasion has been the subject of serious study since the days of classical Greece. Plato worried about the rhapsodes' ability to appeal to citizens' emotions and persuade them to do things that were not in the best of interest of the city or themselves. And Aristotle wrote one of the great treatises on persuasion. Among the Romans the ability to persuade was considered a hallmark of responsible citizenship.

Since World War II, researchers have worked particularly hard to identify the elements of persuasion. Why? They have some practical motives: improving advertising and marketing campaigns, motivating audiences, influencing the electorate, girding consumers and voters against propaganda, understanding the dynamics of brainwashing, and—yes—writing better proposals.

From all this speculation and research, four elements have consistently been a vital part of nearly every theory of persuasion: the message, the receiver, the channel, and the source. Giving them some consideration will give us a deeper understanding of the process of persuasion.

Message

The impact of your message depends in part on whether the receiver is receptive to it to begin with. If the evidence or logic in a particular persuasive message is in line with the audience's basic values, beliefs, or biases, the receiver is more likely to accept it and modify his or her attitudes accordingly. If the evidence runs counter to the receiver's basic beliefs, persuasion is far less likely to occur. Thus, the way you frame your message with regard to your audience's preferences is critical.

That may seem circular: You can persuade people to accept only the things they already accept or to do the things they already want to do. But that's not quite what's going on here. There is a difference between a belief and an attitude. Someone may issue an RFP for new equipment because he or she believes that production efficiency can be improved by using more modern technology. If you can base your proposal on the same belief and then demonstrate how your equipment will introduce labor-saving enhancements, the receiver's attitude toward you as the most suitable vendor will change in a positive way. However, if you send out a canned proposal, one that emphasizes the ruggedness and durability of your machines, instead of their impact on production efficiency, you will be not be addressing the client's basic belief. As a result, you may not persuade him or her to choose you.

This is the fundamental problem in submitting boilerplate proposals. Because customers vary widely in their beliefs and values, using the same text for everybody guarantees that a large percentage of them will find your message irrelevant or unconvincing. We will examine how to develop a client-centered message in the next chapter.

Receiver

The receiver is a vital component of persuasion, because it's the receiver who must take action, who must make a decision, or whose attitudes must change.

A message that persuades one person may leave another unmoved. Why? For now we can simply note that two of the factors determining how much influence a persuasive message has on an individual are the receiver's personality and his or her personal involvement in the issue. A person who feels threatened by change will be much harder to influence than one who feels confident and secure. Similarly, a decision maker will be particularly cautious in taking action on an issue that will directly affect his or her career.

In addition, people process information in different ways. Presenting a highly detailed and analytical document to a person who prefers the "big picture" will complicate the persuasion process. Presenting information at a technical level that is too difficult for the audience to grasp will also damage the effort. After all, most people tend to say "No" when they are confused or uncertain about the information they're receiving.

In Chapter 6 we'll talk about the best ways to adjust the delivery of your message to match the audience's expectations, preferences, and capabilities.

Source

The source is the person or thing doing the persuading—the politician making a speech, the sales representative trying to close a sale, the company submitting a proposal, the foundation running a public service announcement.

To be effective, the source must be both credible and appealing. People believe in people they trust, and trust is based on a combination of credibility and appeal ("rapport" is another way of defining the quality I have in mind here).

The audience must like the person delivering the message. They must feel comfortable with the source. They must believe that the person cares about them and understands them. They must respect or admire the company submitting the proposal. These are all components of appeal. If you don't establish a measure of rapport or appeal at the outset of your presentation or document, the audience may tune out and never look carefully at whether you are credible.

However, if there is an element of appeal, then listeners and readers will also look for evidence of credibility. The person doing the communicating must appear to know what he or she is talking about, must provide accurate information, must assemble relevant evidence, and must indicate that he or she understands the audience. These are all credibility factors.

If you think about advertising, you can see how companies choose representatives on the basis of these qualities. As a spokesperson for athletic shoes or sports drinks, Michael Jordan is both credible—he certainly knows something about sports—and appealing—he's good looking, successful, and apparently a friendly guy. He probably wouldn't be as effective in commercials for lawn fertilizer or dump trucks. He'd still be an appealing personality, but we'd have to question the credibility of his endorsement.

In Chapter 7 we'll discuss how you can establish credibility in your proposals.

Channel

The channel is the medium by which your message is delivered to the receiver. Traditionally, proposals have been delivered on paper in print, but there are now other options, and they are becoming increasingly popular.

For example, your proposal might be accompanied by a digital video of your equipment in action. Including a CD or videotape with your document expands the range of channels you are using to get your message home. Or you might present your proposal orally before handing over the document itself, using some form of multimedia presentation graphics. Combining an audiovisual channel with print is a good idea, because research indicates that for relatively simple messages an audiovisual presentation is actually more persuasive than print alone.

Remember that different receivers will respond differently to the same message presented in a particular medium. A decision maker who likes to study information in detail and who tends to be an introvert will prefer to base decisions on a written proposal. A more intuitive decision maker, by contrast, would probably glance through the details in a written proposal but rely heavily on any accompanying presentation and the overview elements.

The growth of the Internet and the widespread use of e-mail have spawned a trend for electronic submissions. Vendors are invited to send in their proposals by posting them to a Web site, e-mailing them, or responding in forms posted on the Web. To the extent that companies are using this kind of technology to save time and money, it's helpful. But when they post a spreadsheet or a rigid form, asking potential vendors to fill in the blanks, they are actually doing both themselves and the potential vendors a disservice. By reducing the buying process to spreadsheet comparisons, a company treats all products and services as commodities and limits the ability of providers to offer anything creative. Differentiators disappear and calculations of ROI or value become very difficult. All the same, you may still have an opportunity to use the principles we discuss in this book. For example, if you're allowed to submit a cover letter with your form, turn it into an executive summary. If you're allowed to provide a substantive answer, use the persuasive structural pattern for RFP responses (presented in Chapter 12). It's not an ideal situation, but if you're forced to respond in a spreadsheet, don't abandon your commitment to communicating persuasively.