If you find yourself having to make an argument that you know isn’t very strong, or presenting an idea that is under developed, you’ll certainly want your target to process your message heuristically (quickly based on irrelevant aspects of your message). Now luckily if you’re in this type of situation, the chances of this happening are already in your favor since heuristic processing is usually what’s on autopilot for most people. However, if you think they’ll analyze it systematically, or maybe you just want to increase their likelihood of staying in autopilot, these strategies will be useful to you.

One thing that can really help you out in this instance, would be to get your target in a good mood if they aren’t already. When people are in a nice happy mood, they have a tendency to perceive information in an optimistic manner that they may otherwise be a bit more cautious with. Because of this, they will be more likely to choose not to critically analyze your message which will give you a better chance of gaining their compliance. If on the other hand, they’re just completely determined to stay in a bad mood, you might want to hold off on your proposal until their state of mind improves. When people are in negative moods, you’ll find that they have a tendency to be a little skeptical about things. This attitude will most likely cause them to process your message more thoroughly than I’m sure you’d like for them to, so pay attention to your targets mood before you present your information to them.

After that, you could help your case even more if you increase the complexity of your message in a way that makes it a bit difficult for them to grasp everything you’re saying. If your content is just slightly too intellectually complex for them to completely understand, they’ll rely on other aspects of your message in order to make their decision. Things that are completely irrelevant to your proposal like your friendliness, confidence, appearance, your perceived intelligence pertaining to the subject matter, and several other things that have nothing to do with your actual proposal. Since this is the case, you could have a very weak case to present to them, but if you present yourself with confidence, dress to professionally, act in a friendly manner, and basically portray yourself as a very likable person, you may very well be able to gain their compliance anyway.

Knowing how to effectively use these skills can be a lifesaver when you find yourself in situations like the ones above. Most people don’t know how to properly implement these tactics which makes it all the more valuable to you by giving you the edge to come out on top in difficult positions.

When people evaluate information in order to make a decision, they do so using one of two methods. Knowing how to influence the process your target will use can increase your chances of gaining the response you’re looking for exponentially. The two types of evaluation processes people use are systematic processing, which is the process people use when critically evaluating all of the available information prior to making their decision, and heuristic processing, in which a decision is made quickly based on factors that are usually irrelevant such as attractiveness of the other person, amount of information presented, or confidence of the presenter. This post will show you how to get someone else to process information systematically.

If you were presenting a business proposal to a corporate manager and had an absolutely impeccable presentation set up that was full of all the information he would need in order to see that your offer would be beneficial to him and his company, you would certainly want to make sure he uses systematic processing when evaluating the information you give him. One thing you could do to influence his method of decision making towards a systematic approach, is to make sure you grab his attention. If you’re using a visual presentation, make sure that it’s very aesthetically pleasing by possibly including some motion effects that sustain their attention. Of course, be sure not to go overboard on this since doing so has a tendency to take away from your overall message.

Offer them some type of caffeinated drink. They’ll think of this as nothing more than you being kind and hospitable to them before the proposal. However, the consumption of caffeine will increase their likelihood of giving your proposal a systematic evaluation due to the stimulation effect it has on the brain. Another thing that could help is to make your presentation feel more personal and relevant to them and their company. When people believe that they’ll be directly effected by the subject matter, they’ll be a lot more motivated to actually pay attention to every detail you have to give them. You can do this by providing examples of other businesses similar to theirs that have benefitted from what you have to offer.

If you have a story that is relevant to your targets situation, and that would shed some positive light on your proposal, don’t hesitate to share it with them. To optimize the effectiveness of this particular technique, make sure it’s presented in a way that they could easily relate to, and if someone in your story is benefitting from the same proposal you’re presenting to them, make sure they can picture themselves as the beneficiary as well.

These are all great ways of getting people to really pay attention to the material you have to give them relating to your offer, request, proposal or whatever it may be, using a systematic approach. Of course you don’t always want the other person to process your information systematically, especially if you know your reasoning is weak or if you didn’t have enough time to put together a proper presentation. In that situation, you’ll want to elicit a heuristic style of processing information which we’ll discuss tomorrow.

Sometimes it can be difficult to get people to do things that you know would actually be good for them. We’ve all run into this situation before, and probably tried to come up with ways of gaining their cooperation to no avail. This can be quite frustrating, but fortunately there is a way you can solve at least some of these problems. It has to with desensitizing the message you’re trying to get across to them.

This persuasion technique involves minuscule, gradual changes that produce a much larger change overtime. Lets pretend that you have a rather stubborn child that sits far too close to the television screen whenever he’s watching a program. You know that it’s not good for him to do that, and have told him that a number of times, but despite all of your efforts he continues to do this. That’s where this desensitization persuasion technique comes in. Everyday before your child gets settled to watch TV, you could move his chair a few inches away from the television. Such a small change would become difficult for him to notice, and before long you’ll have the chair positioned an appropriate distance away from the TV and he wont even know the difference.

Of course, just like most persuasion techniques out there, it’s not going to work every time. He might notice that the chair is farther than it was to begin with before you’ve it moved back far enough. However, even if he does notice it, he’ll most likely just move it closer and proceed to turn the TV on. You can then start over using the same technique in smaller incumbents (maybe just one inch at a time) to minimize the chances of him figuring out what you’re up to even more. If he does call you out on it…at least you tried.

You may also find this persuasion technique useful if you’re trying to get someone to start eating healthy. In this case, you would continue to make the healthy(or at least semi-healthy) meals that you would normally prepare, while throwing in a few extra healthy ingredients in small portions. They may or may not see it, but even if it is noticed, they may go ahead and eat it anyway since it’s such a small amount. Once again, you would gradually increase the amount of this new ingredient until they’re eating enough of it to reap the benefits it has to offer. This method even incorporates some aspects of the repetition technique that I discussed yesterday. When you’re increasing the doses incrementally, you’re also exposing them to the new ingredient on a consistent basis, and like we talked about yesterday, the more you’re exposed to something (especially if you’re exposed to it subconsciously) the greater the chances are that you’ll end up liking it.

These are just a couple of many instances this persuasion technique could be applied. Remember, the smaller you make your incremental changes, the more likely it will be that what you’re doing will go unnoticed. This technique wont work all of the time, but when it does, you’ll be glad you knew how to use it.