Tacts of Persuasion

This is an interesting piece that I read today morning. It’s about the art of persuasion in sales. It’s a real time experience in Turkey.

One of they key points that I have deducted from the anecdote is: Make your customer like you first. Then he will be more willing to like your product on your price. Don’t focus on the product and the pricing initially. Make friends with him and give him an impression that you are going to remain friends even if they don’t buy anything from you.


This reminds me of my friend Praveen’s dad’s line. It just got etched in my memory.
During our Engineering days, Praveen wanted to buy a 1955 four wheel drive open top JEEP.
Negotiations were going on between Praveen and the seller for over a week and they were haggling on the price range of around Rs.80,000. Praveen’s dad entered the negotiation to close it.
His approach was totally different. His key points were:
• We are good friends.
• I am going to walk away from the deal, if the price doesn’t suit me.
• We are going to be good friends, even if we don’t make the deal.

He stressed the last point repeatedly. “Sir, the jeep is not as important as our friendship. If we don’t buy this JEEP, we may buy another one. But we should not let this deal spoil our friendship.”
Once the relationship of friendship was raised so high, the seller felt obliged to be consistent with the relationship that was supposedly growing and came down to Rs.55,000.

That was the first time I saw a practical application of Persuasion.

Read the article here.