Saleswomen do not make the best authors.
I've been reading the "Mass Persuasion Method", a book by Bushra Azhar. If I have to be honest, it has been a massive drag. The whole thing reads like a late night infomercial and I can't help feeling like at the end of the book the author would try to sell me the volume 2 of the book.
The ideas in the book do seem solid and have the back-to-the-basics approach, however there is just so much waffle and unnecessary conversational fillers that makes you want to scream "just get to the damn point!" and please stop swearing for the sake of it. It makes you seem unprofessional.
So to save you time, here are the 8 core ideas in the book that get repeatedly applied to various generic sales examples. I'm sure that many of you with marketing or sales background can create your own applications. The rule is simple, use each of these "Persuasion switches" to sell your stuff.
8 Persuasion Switches
Prestige
Boosters: wealth, physical beauty, charming personality
Believability
Two dimensions: a. Belief in you, your ideas, your products
b. Belief in themselves
Parity
Your product or service is a safer, better alternative to doing nothing.
Curiousity
When you get your customers curious, you have their attention.
When you have their attention you must deliver.
Urgency
Fear - of being left behind, out of the loop, looked over, forgotten.
Gets old fast.
Desirability
Draw the customer to visualise an emotion-rich, future oriented image.
Edutainment
Get the customer to learn something and have fun, before you get them to follow through.
Relatability
Get strangers to feel like they already know and trust you.
The Paradiddle's Book Notes series will focus on the core ideas presented in non-fiction books that I read. They also serve as my personal reference and a way for me to deconstruct ideas and learn better. They are presented in a way that I personally feel, which may be different than the author's original message.
