Steve’s Rules of Persuasion

All Persuasion Is Local.

Never Always Be Closing.

More Is the Enemy of Less.

Power Corrupts Persuasion.

All Bad Persuasion Is Sincere.

If You Can’t Succeed, Don’t Try.

It’s about the Other Guy, Stupid.

Persuasion Is Strategic or It Is Not.

Drive with Science, Putt with Poetry.

You Cannot Persuade a Falling Apple.

If You Can’t Count It, You Can’t Change It.

All People Always Resist Significant Change.

Persuaders Can Either Be Famous or Effective, But Not Both.

The Only Behaviors You Can Persuade Are Interesting Behaviors.

If There Were Laws Of Persuasion, No One Would Tell You About Them.

You Can Get Farther with a Kind Word and a Big Stick Than with Either Alone.

Great Persuaders Don’t Need Rich Uncles, Kindness from Strangers, or Third Party Vote Splitters.

There’s a Difference between Persuasion, and Smoke and Mirrors; With Persuasion the Illusion Lingers.

All Persuasion Is Local.

Tip O’Neill famously observed that all politics is local and since persuasion is politics, persuasion is local.  Local means right here and now, all the variables in the persuasion equation you face immediately.  Something changes in the equation and your persuasion play changes, too.  Persuasion requires a laser beam focus of the moment.  And, since moments are like drops of water and drops of water make rivers and you cannot step in the same river twice, it’s difficult to find the One Play that always works because every always is always different every time.

Never Always Be Closing.

Coldhearted sales guys ABC.  Just watch GlenGarry Glen Ross.  To do anything always is to be obvious and to be obvious is Sincere and we know that All Bad Persuasion Is Sincere.  ABC marks you and makes you Famous and you can either be Famous or Effective, but not Both.

More Is the Enemy of Less.

Persuasion operates without fanfare, fashion, or falderal.  It is quiet, ambiguous, discreet, indicative, a smile not a laugh, coherent, smooth, simple on the surface and complex in the currents.  It seeks more through less knowing that much can destroy enough.  Keep it simple, sweetie.  It is just a kiss.

Power Corrupts Persuasion.

Give a child a hammer and everything’s a nail.  Power can make you childish, simple, direct, generalized, one dimensional.  And, too, persuasion skill is like any skill: It requires practice.  Power kills other skills.

All Bad Persuasion Is Sincere.

Oscar Wilde through Harold Bloom observed that all bad poetry is sincere.  When your words spring from genuine, authentic, spontaneous, and deeply felt emotion, they will rarely achieve poetry or persuasion.  Sincerity says everything about you and nothing about the Other Guy. Too, consider, the Nike Amendment, All FauxSincere Persuasion Is Worse, in honor of their initial Tiger Woods ads.

If You Can’t Succeed, Don’t Try.

Persuasion pokes the Other Guy and suggests a change which also suggests the Other Guy is wrong.  If you tell folks they are wrong, you better be right because if you’re wrong, they will right the situation by hating you and redoubling their belief.  Failed persuasion makes things worse, not even.  Thus, if you try for a birdie and miss, you aren’t at par, but at bogey.

It’s about the Other Guy, Stupid.

While there are No Laws of Persuasion, this one is close.  The only point of persuasion is this:  Did the Other Guy Change?  Nothing else matters to persuasion.  Anything else may matter to you or your Mom, but if you don’t change the Other Guy there’s no persuasion.  Just a failed persuasion attempt.  The only time it’s not about the Other Guy is when it is about You, as in self persuasion with New Year’s resolutions or when you wake up in the middle of a life transition and realize, if you don’t change yourself, other people will do it for you.

You Cannot Persuade a Falling Apple.

Persuasion only applies to the uncertain, limited, ambiguous, unknown, possible, probable, or maybe.  If you’re talking about a falling apple you’re talking about gravity and there’s nothing uncertain about that.  As a corollary:  You should not persuade a falling apple which means if you think you’re got science or truth, why are you using persuasion?

Persuasion Is Strategic or It Is Not.

Delinquents, fools, and cynics seek change in others just for the hell of it.  You change others for another reason.  Because the act of persuasion aims at a goal beyond the immediate change, persuasion is always strategic.  Thus, persuasion may fail in two ways.  You may not achieve the change.  You may achieve the change, but it is the wrong change.

Drive with Science, Putt with Poetry.

The science of persuasion gets you there to the actual point of delivering the communication.  But, when you are in the real moment, there will be too many variables, howevers, and but ifs for our limited science and you need poetry.  You need your imagination, feral craftiness, and just plain inspiration for that last second as you deliver it.  Use plans, principles, and plays – the science – to get you in the room, but when you’re in the room look to metaphors, prophecies, and history that never repeats, but always rhymes.

If You Can’t Count It, You Can’t Change It.

For all persuasion artists who count with their hearts, souls, and guts, I only suggest counting like this:  1 = Yes the Other Guy Changed or 0 = No the Other Guy Did Not Change.  And, if you cannot tell when, whether, or if the Other Guy changed, then persuasion is useless because persuasion is only about change.

All People Always Resist Significant Change.

Persuasion aims at change and change requires a difference before and after which means the Other Guy must be wrong before and will be right after.  People do not live their lives believing they are wrong.  They can’t get out of bed unless they think they are right.  Only depressives and delusionals live life thinking they are wrong.

Persuaders Can Either Be Famous or Effective, but Not Both.

When the Other Guy knows you to be famous for your persuasion, you’ve got a problem.  Now, instead of merely being persuasive, you have to be persuasive and famous.  Now, you can be famous as long as no one suspects you are also persuasive.  People thought Tiger Woods was what he said he was, so his success made him famous and his fame made him persuasive.  Then people saw behind the curtain and realized that Tiger was both famous and persuasive.  You can’t sell Buicks, Gillette razors, or Gatorade like that.

The Only Behaviors You Can Persuade Are Interesting Behaviors.

Certainty is not interesting.  Uncertainty is.  Uncertain means possible, could be, if we push a little here, pull a little there, It Could Work!

There are No Laws of Persuasion and If There Were Why Would Anyone Tell You?

Imagine that the Queen of Tomorrow knows the Laws of Persuasion like Isaac Newton knew the Laws of Physics.  With one word, one gesture, one beguiling smile, she would drop your apples to the ground, have you pick them up, and deliver them to her.  She’d corner not only the Apple Market, but any, every, and all Markets of Human Activity.  Why would she tell you?

You Can Get Farther with a Kind Word and a Gun Than with Either Alone.

Power works best the less often you use it while persuasion gets better with practice.  They are the natural team like horse and carriage, love and marriage, husband and wife.  It’s the combination, stupid, that makes you effective, not one to the exclusion of the other.  Each allows you to be better at the other.  If you are smart, the proportion of each (properly done) tells you how dangerous your life is.

Great Persuaders Don’t Need Rich Uncles, Kindness from Strangers, or Third Party Vote Splitters.

If you know your business, then you make it happen under control and with prudence.  You do not need any one else to help in any form, however, if assistance comes your way, you know how to use it to best effect for all concerned.  It’s why Paul McCartney wrote songs under pseudonyms during his Beatles days.  He needed to demonstrate to himself that his talent made it happen.  Great persuaders make those demonstrations to themselves and persuaders who don’t test themselves will find that others will do it for them.

There’s a Difference between Persuasion, and Smoke and Mirrors; with Persuasion the Illusion Lingers.

Persuasion endures.  It creates a change that lasts long enough to achieve the real change you see, the strategic goal, the thing you get when the Other Guy changes.  With Smoke and Mirrors the change is an Illusion that ends when the Smoke clears.  With Persuasion, the Illusion persists.