Comments on: “Is persuasion manipulative?” Yes. And that’s okay. Here’s why

By: Anto

Anto — Sun, 08 Feb 2015 18:27:26 +0000

There is a phallacy, sleazy persuasion works for some people. Good persuasion which might work for “us” so subtly we don’t realize, doesn’t necessarily have our best interests in mind. That’s what’s bad about it, that it works on a weakness, and of course it can be used for good, but seems like it starts by putting the persuaded below the persuasor (I’m Italian, I don’t know if it’s the right term) and assume we are right not because we are but because we are more convincing. It’s like a secret weapon, you assume other people don’t have it, and don’t want to share it with other people and instead of widening their knowledge and give information, stimulating indipendent thought it risks just formatting thought.

By: Neil Roach

Neil Roach — Tue, 24 Jun 2014 19:00:11 +0000

I love this topic!

I did a NLP course some years ago and it obviously comes up in the material quite a lot.

I agree that persuasion is manipulative, but its something every one of us does each day, especially when it’s a one-to-one exchange. It come naturally to may people and if you don’t have the skills is they can be learned.

There are many great leaders who naturally have persuasion skills and consequently the people that follow them do a great job and are happy to be led. These natural leaders simply have the ability to persuade others, without coming off as a bully. And that’s the thing, there are those that persuade the wrong way by bullying, or at least trying to, others.

I’ve not been through the entire blog, but I’d like to see perhaps something on persuasive language, especially in sales copy, you know the sort of things – embedded commands, presuppositions, linguistic binds, etc (something to consider). I don’t know if you’ve covered that elsewhere – I’ll go and take a look now!

By: ScrewtheSystemJoe

ScrewtheSystemJoe — Tue, 22 Apr 2014 10:41:31 +0000

Hit the nail on the head Derek, most people think they’re doing something wrong with persuasion/manipulation but in a lot of cases you’re actually helping people. So why feel bad about manipulating people to buy your great product?

By: Mike

Mike — Sun, 20 Apr 2014 04:06:31 +0000

The best case of persuasion that happened to me was when I got a speeding ticket and actually felt good about it.

The police officer pointed out the speed that I was traveling and the posted limit (I was about 30kms above!) and then knocked it down to 15kms over. He then told me that if I didn’t pay the ticket and it went to court that the judge would see the actual speed I was traveling at.

The whole time he was quite pleasant, and in the end I was happy to leave with paying for a ‘discount’ speeding ticket. It took me a few minutes driving away to realize that this guy sold me on the whole thing…my guess is that this greatly reduces the amount of court dates with speeders contesting the tickets…and it certainly worked in my book!

By: Kettle Folks

Kettle Folks — Sun, 13 Apr 2014 15:47:59 +0000

Great video Derek as usual,

I love your line “great persuasion is invisible”. It’s mainly because it always focuses on the “inevitable” stuff that the customer needs. When we persuade people on the necessary things, we don’t need to actually “persuade” them, we just need to tell them. And the customers understand the importance.

“over persuading” is actually negative marketing.

My 2 scents 🙂

By: Charlie

Charlie — Fri, 11 Apr 2014 12:53:01 +0000

Thanks a lot!

By: Julieta

Julieta — Sat, 05 Apr 2014 19:51:45 +0000

Derek, this is a winner. Next time I’ll will look fornthe yes, and ifn the hard “no” appears may be I send you a picture.

By: janet bonarski

janet bonarski — Sat, 05 Apr 2014 10:42:46 +0000

Wish you had a search field. I wanted to share your remarks about why you should be cautious using the color red, about people being more inpatient with a slow read when you use red. Can’t find it.

By: Mackenzie

Mackenzie — Fri, 04 Apr 2014 20:24:58 +0000

Derek,

What is an example of a response I shouldn’t take at face value?

By: connie curtis

connie curtis — Fri, 04 Apr 2014 19:07:52 +0000

This just represented me to the simplest thing if you dont know why someone said no just ask. I have often wondered when you ask a business person this will they be nice or tell you the truth? This was great. I know I will have to come back to watch this again.