The Ancient Art of Persuasion

In the modern world, persuasion is an integral business skill—for entrepreneurs, salespeople, job candidates, politicians, and leaders of people and projects. We have long said that one of the greatest masters of the art of persuasion lived thousands of years ago. 

The great Aristotle shared his secrets in his classic Rhetoric. And recently, Harvard instructor Carmine Gallo, author of Five Stars: The Communication Secrets to Get from Good to Great, summarized a number of them in the Harvard Business Review:
​

• Character is Credibility: Aristotle believed if a speaker’s actions failed to back their words, they’d lose credibility and weaken their influence.   (Tweet it!)

 

• Lead with Logic: Use statistics, examples, and testimony from authority to form a rational argument and explain what’s in it for your audience.

 

• Emotion is Essential: People are moved to action based on how a speaker makes them feel. People don’t care what you know until they know that you care. 

 

• Master the Metaphor: Analogies and metaphors make abstract ideas concrete by comparing them to something familiar to your audience. 

 

• Be Brief: Aristotle recognized there’s a limit to how much information any of us can absorb and retain. He said an argument should be made “as compactly and in as few words as possible.”

Whether or not you are familiar with Aristotle, do you find you use any of these techniques when you try to persuade? Which do you find most effective? To join the conversation, click "comments" above.
​
If you would like to learn more about creating a habit around masterful communication, check out our online learning programs. 

---