Persuasion IQ

Rachel Salaman: It's like IQ, but it's to do with persuasion, is that how you would describe it?

Kurt Mortensen: That's exactly it; the more persuasion IQ we have the more successful we're going to be, and as we monitor those that are very successful, the millionaires, they have the ability to persuade and influence, and it's one of those critical life skills. In fact, Napoleon Hill author of Think and Grow Rich said that persuasion is the magic ingredient.

Rachel Salaman: So who needs to be a better persuader?

Kurt Mortensen: Everyone; we all persuade for a living, as parents, teachers, leaders, and managers, we all persuade, and the sad thing is, is no-one's ever taught how, and what we do know is wrong, you know, we see a boss say, "Do it or you're fired," that's not true persuasion, that's coercion. Or as parents we learn it's easier to say, "Do it or else," but can we truly persuade and influence without those old style tactics and techniques?

Rachel Salaman: So what tends to stop people from being able to persuade others?

Kurt Mortensen: Well the first one is they've never been taught how. Most people have learned maybe three or four persuasion techniques, and the reality is there's over 120, and as Abraham Maslow says, "If the only tool in your toolbox is a hammer, you treat everyone like a nail." So the big challenge is that most people tend to persuade others in the wrong way; they persuade others how they like to be persuaded, and that's wrong. We need to learn to persuade others how they like to be persuaded. People never learn how, and the big complaint, and one of the fun things that I do at the Persuasion Institute, is I interview people after someone's tried to persuade them to find out why it didn't work, and there's a lot of things that people are doing that are repelling the people. And here's the interesting thing, the moment somebody senses that you're going to try to persuade them to do something, even though they need it, want it, like it, and can afford it, they will resist you. So a goal of a great persuader is to help people persuade themselves, so you don't get that natural resistance.

Rachel Salaman: Now, just to be clear this isn't about trying to manipulate people into doing something that's not good for them, is it? What are the ethical boundaries in your particular view of persuasion?

Kurt Mortensen: That's an interesting question, because persuasion's neither good or bad it's just like gravity. Gravity is neither good nor bad. I mean, it's great when you're walking, but if you're falling from a tree it could be bad, and persuasion's used to keep children off drugs, but some people use it to get them on drugs, and so there is a fine line there. It comes back to intent, I mean, what is your true intent when you persuade somebody? When you really believe in your product or service, I think you have a moral and ethical obligation to persuade them, and if you're willing to reveal the whole truth, and reveal both sides and your intent is to serve that person, then it's true persuasion. Now if you're hiding things and covering things up, and your intent is to deceive them, then it would be unethical, and that's where I draw the line.

Rachel Salaman: Now you've identified ten skills that you say will help people get what they want, and these are laid out in your book, Persuasion IQ. The first is about the mental programming of top persuaders, what do you mean by mental programming?

Kurt Mortensen: Well we're finding, as we interview top persuaders, that the foundation of everything they do is mindset. The universe will not reward us physically until we believe it mentally, and the reality is when you look at people that persuade for a living, they pretty much earn what they feel they're worth. Let me give you an example: if you're looking at a commissioned salesperson, and they feel that they should make $100,000 a year, and it's October they've made $100,000 and they're excited to go and make more, but the reality is they don't, they still work, but they subconsciously sabotage themselves, because that's the amount they feel they're worth. And so until our mindset is right, and if people wondering what's taken so long, it usually comes back to mindset, and that goes back to Napoleon Hill's research, remember, the universe will not reward you physically until you believe it mentally, and that's what people tend to neglect first, and they don't work on, but it is a power tool of top persuaders.

Rachel Salaman: Now part of this skill is about improving your self-esteem and believing in your own ability, as you've just said. But you also say in the book that people are held back by thinking they're more talented than they really are, and you call this the 'Wobegon effect'. So how do you find the right balance between those two seemingly polarized positions?

Kurt Mortensen: Great question, well, you know, self-esteem, which is at an all time low, can be defined as, you know, how much you like yourself, and when you truly like yourself, your ability to accept your strengths and your weaknesses; you're not in denial about the things that you need to work on. But when we talk about the Wobegon effect that's almost a false self- esteem, when you're really in denial as far as your skills are concerned, and what the Wobegon effect is, it's almost a self-perception bias where you automatically assume that your skills are higher than they actually are. For example, over 90% of all managers rate themselves above average in their skills as a manager. Over 90% of people rate their people skills as above average, and Rachel, you probably have met enough to know that that's not true, and we get stuck in that area to where we think we're doing much better than we actually are. In fact at the Persuasion Institute we'll monitor a persuader and a prospect, and they'll go through their little cycle, and then I'll have questions for both of them, and I'll go to the persuader and I'll say, "Did you build the trust?" And nine out of ten times that persuader will say, "Yes, they trusted me." Then I'll go to the prospect and say, "Did you trust that persuader?," and it's only one out of ten times that there's been trust, and so these blinders are on, are inherently come from a low self-esteem; it's a cover up for low self-esteem to think we're doing better than we actually are, and top persuaders really can take that open look and say, "Look, I've got some strengths; I've got some weaknesses, let's improve on it," and have, kind of, a realistic check as far as where we are as far as trust, and people skills, and the ability to understand other people is a huge factor in people's success.

Rachel Salaman: So should we be asking the people around us to try and get this real view of ourselves?

Kurt Mortensen: Yeah, get people that can give us honest feedback. We – when we administer Persuasion IQ tests that's a great way for us to really understand where people sit, and, you know, it's just one of those natural things to where we automatically assume we're doing better than we actually are. Because it can't be our fault, and we like to point our fingers at other people, when we really can take ownership and say, "You know, I can improve my people skills and I can do this." That's when real progress starts to happen.

Rachel Salaman: It's tricky though, isn't it, because it's always difficult to see yourself as others see you, and as you really are?

Kurt Mortensen: It's very, very difficult for most people, and I talk to people like in a seminar situation, and I say, "Do you know that annoying persuader that nobody likes and that family member that rubs you the wrong way, or the neighbor that you pretend to like but really don't," and then I say, "that could be you," because people pretend to like you, people lie to you, they don't tell you the truth. When people say, "It's too expensive, let me think about it, let me talk to a spouse, send more information," over 70% of the time that is a lie, they're just saying that to get rid of you because they're not willing to tell you the truth.

Rachel Salaman: Well the second skill you explore is understanding how your audience thinks; can you give us any examples that show how to do that?

Kurt Mortensen: You bet, I mean, we've learned more about the human brain in the last ten years and the last 100 years combined, as far as how we make decisions, why we do what we do, and it's just a fascinating science, and it's what I study every day. For example, things like mood, people don't realize that when you persuade somebody mood matters. Now there's your mood as a persuader, you know, a lot of people think that they can get in a fight with somebody over the phone, and hang up, and then pretend that it didn't happen when they talk to the next person, but they can sense something's wrong. And then the mood of the prospect – the person that you're talking to. Here's the interesting thing, is that when people are in a bad or a foul mood, they recall negative things: why it's not going to work, and they're very difficult to persuade, but when they're in a positive mood, they recall the positive things: why it's going to work out for them, and study after study shows the great persuaders have the ability to get themselves in a get mood, number one, and number two, get their prospects in a good mood before they attempt to persuade them.

So really understanding how they're thinking; be able to read them, if they're lying to you, and understanding the huge difference between emotion and a logic. Most people tend to use too much logic when they persuade, and what people, and this is a big complaint when I talk to prospects, excuse my language here, is that what a lot of persuaders tend to do is they vomit, okay, the 112 reasons they should do business together, but they've given too much information, and it scares people. They're talking three times too much, and the people run away because you've given them way too much information. You've focused on the logic instead of really understanding the emotions people feel and why people buy.

Rachel Salaman: Is this a question of just taking time to be a little bit more sensitive to how people are feeling?

Kurt Mortensen: That's a big part of it, and here's a big shift in the world of persuasion. We're finding that introverts actually out-persuade extroverts, because an extrovert comes across as a salesperson, and no-one wants to be sold, an introvert listens, asks three times more questions, comes across as a consultant, and if we would just learn to read the person, ask the right questions, and listen, they will tell us everything we need to know to persuade them, and it becomes very easy, instead of trying to throw out the 112 reasons that we need to do business together.

Rachel Salaman: Well skill number three is: instant rapport and social synchronization. Now this is essentially about connecting with people, and you've got some great tips for doing that, can you share some of them?

Kurt Mortensen: Oh you bet. Rapport is critical, and if people don't like you and they don't trust you there is no persuasion. Rapport is critical; people want to be persuaded with people they feel that are like them. Now we can go over some of the basics, but the reality is we can always fine tune our people skills. We can fine tune our listening skills, and that's a huge one. You know, in the United States one of the top trainings for Fortune 500 companies, the big companies, is listening training, and of course nobody wants to go because they know how to listen, and I think, no, they know how to hear.

What we're noticing, if you really want to connect with somebody, when you start to learn to listen with your ears, your eyes, and your heart, there is an instant connection there; there's that rapport that you build. So listening skills is critical, people skills, understanding things like similarity, finding things that you have in common is such a simple thing to do. Now the important thing is, you know, find something in common that's relevant, something that's positive. You wouldn't want to say, "Really, you've been in prison too?" Probably wouldn't work very well. So a similarity is critical, and also little things like proximics, which is the study of space. One of the big complaints about persuaders is, you know, different countries have different amount of space that we like, is that they get too close too fast. They get too personal too fast, and they have the old style techniques of walking into somebody's office and looking around for a picture, or golf clubs, or a fish on the wall, and every person wants to talk about that, and it doesn't work anymore, because people see right through it and everyone else has tried that, and it doesn't work. And so being sincere and really learning to read people, and connecting and listening is a huge part of your persuasion success.

Rachel Salaman: Well this is linked to skill number four, which is, establishing automatic trust. How powerful is trust when you're trying to persuade people? I know you mentioned it before...

Kurt Mortensen: No trust, no persuasion.

Rachel Salaman: It's that simple?

Kurt Mortensen: And that's the hard thing in today's world, because 20 years ago it was, I trust you, give me a reason not to. Now it's, I don t trust you, give me a reason to trust you, so we're starting a lot lower, and trust is so important to be able to do that. You see, what's happening is when they meet you for the first time they're looking for every reason not to do business with you, and once you have that automatic trust, that trust with them, they are looking for reasons to do business with you, and different professions enjoy different trust levels. For example, you know, pharmacists and doctors are trusted more than lawyers or network marketers, or people in car sales. The reality is, whether it's fair or not, that they don't trust you when they first meet you. You could be a great person, a trustworthy person, but if there's no trust there's no persuasion.

Rachel Salaman: And you build the trust by doing the things you mentioned before, the eye contact, the listening with your heart, your ears, your eyes, that kind of thing?

Kurt Mortensen: That helps too. I mean, part of it too is, you know, people automatically assume trust deals with character, and that's important, but it's also your competence. Do you come across as competent or being the expert, your credibility there, and even your confidence level, and that's what you have understand is that we've been taught our whole life not to judge people, but when you meet someone in that first 30 seconds, they are judging you and deciding if they trust you or not. It doesn't matter if that's fair; we have to deal with reality, and here's the big thing about persuasion. What we found out with our research is that up to 95% of persuasion involves a subconscious trigger, meaning it feels right, I like this person; I don't like this person. Now that could be a gesture, the color of your clothes, a smell, word choice, all those things come into play where subconsciously we like or don't like the person, we trust or distrust the person.

Rachel Salaman: How much control do we really have over the impression we're giving?

Kurt Mortensen: We have total control, most people just aren't thinking about it. Now when you know what people are looking at, and what they're sensing, and what gestures you're using that repel people, what words you're using that repel people, and understanding subconscious triggers, you can really learn to connect with people and build trust.

Rachel Salaman: Well skill number five is, command attention with power and authority. What if you're not in a position of power or authority and frankly, don't feel like you have any power or authority?

Kurt Mortensen: Well there's a couple of different types of authority. Obviously a boss has some type of authority over you, or a law officer, a policeman has authority because they have a gun, but there's also different authorities like having knowledge is a type of authority, or being the expert. So even though if you're not the boss and have that type of power, if people feel that you're very competent, and you have the – you're an expert in what you do, then you can have power. If they feel that you have some type of solution that you can offer them, that there's something that they need from you, that's also a power position, knowledge, power really amplifies your ability to persuade and influence when you have – and it could be a degree on the wall; it could be your knowledge; it could be non-verbal things like wearing a white coat, all those type of things can give you different forms of power.

Rachel Salaman: Well the next skill you explore is the ability to influence other people, and I realize it's subtle, but what's the difference between influencing and persuading, and how does it help to know what that difference is?

Kurt Mortensen: The way I define it is, persuasion is what you do and you say, okay? The techniques that you have; the people skills and those techniques, influence is actually a higher form of persuasion. When you have influence with somebody, and influence could be building trust, passion, charisma, those techniques, when you have influence with somebody there's no need for persuasion technique. There is no persuasion resistance; they do it because of you. So when you tell them they need to do something, they do it because of you, there's no resistance, there's complete trust, they're brought in by your passion and charisma, and it makes a big difference. We always want to be able to influence first, but sometimes we need persuasion techniques too, and that's the key, the more tools in your persuasion toolbox, the more successful you're going to be.

Rachel Salaman: Now you talk about charisma, passion and vision, are these things that you can actually learn? They sound like things you have to be born with?

Kurt Mortensen: No, a lot of people think persuaders are born, but these are things and skills that you can definitely learn. Charisma is that way. You can tap into your passion, building the vision in other people can really be learned, and passion – just, for example, talking about passion, that's so critical, passion, more than anything else, recruits the hearts and minds of the people that you're talking to. When they sense your passion about your product, your service, your idea, they automatically want to be persuaded by you. They want to follow you, and it's interesting, as I monitor other persuaders and one accomplishes three to four times more than the other, a lot of times it comes back to passion, which is part of your belief and really knowing your product, and tapping into your emotions. And that's why I tell people, "When you're talking to somebody else, the question you need to ask yourself, are you singing the song, or are you singing the words?" They sense if you're singing the words you're just going through the motions, but if you truly believe in your product or service, which you could enhance by knowledge and research and really getting to know your product, they are persuaded by you. They want to be persuaded by you. That's definitely a skill that you can learn.

Rachel Salaman: Well you might be able to learn passion, but what about charisma, that's something you're born with surely?

Kurt Mortensen: No, I mean, obviously there's certain things that you are born with, with charisma, but it's also one of those skills that can be learned, things like self-confidence, you know, when we study charismatic people their self-confidence that can be learned, you know, appearance is another thing that has to do with charisma, how you look. Building a rapport, the ability to inspire and uplift people, after they've talked to you do they feel better about themselves and their future, and what they're going to accomplish? Becoming decisive, you know, working on eye contact, having good health, those are some subcategories in charisma that definitely can be learned. Now obviously some people have some of these more naturally than others, but I am a big believer, no matter where you're starting, you can become charismatic, you can enhance your passion and become a great persuader.

Rachel Salaman: Well skill number seven is, how to motivate yourself and others every time. So how important is self-motivation when you want to persuade someone to do something?

Kurt Mortensen: Well it's critical, you have to, of course, be able to motivate ourselves, and I'm a big believer that if you can't persuade yourself, if you can't motivate yourself you're not going to be very good at motivating and persuading other people. And so really understanding the psychology motivation that call to action why people do what they do, 'cause we see so many persuaders give great presentations, but nobody ever does anything. You need to have that motivation, that call to action, to get people to actually want to do what you want them to do and like doing that, and that comes all back into the psychology of motivation.

Rachel Salaman: And how do you motivate yourself? You might get up one day and just not feel like doing anything, are there any tips on how to motivate yourself?

Kurt Mortensen: Oh you bet, and this is true for yourself or other people, and we have to realize that there's just not one type of motivation. Everyone tends to focus on, you know, using the pain to motivate people, but we have to understand too that there's really two type of motivators out there: there's inspiration, and there's desperation, and we need to be able to use both, and so to stay motivated all the time we need to have a list of things out of desperation and inspiration, and if we ever have a moment when we don't feel like doing the things we know we need to do, some days it might be desperation, and that's better than inactivity. But some days it will be inspiration, and we have to really understand at different days, at different times different things will motivate us, and if we can make a list of the different things that give us desperation or give us inspiration for our own lives or for our prospects, it goes a long way. 'Cause everyone tends to focus on the desperation and doing the desperation, but the reality is, a lot of people are an inspiration – will buy your products and service out of inspiration, and if you motivate someone out of desperation, and use that pain when they're already in inspiration it'll backfire on you every time.

Rachel Salaman: Well after this you tackle the importance of presentation and communication skills; can you give some examples of why this is important?

Kurt Mortensen: You bet, and as we monitor top persuaders, it's interesting though they have great presentations skills. Now this could be one on one; this could be over the phone; this could be in front of a group. Again, people will judge you in 30 seconds based on your voice over the phone, that's part of your presentation skills, your non-verbal gestures. They're going to judge you on these different areas, and this is critical, and a lot of people have the fear of public speaking, getting in front of a group, or the fear of picking up the phone, but when you can really master the skills, get your point across, 'cause you could be a complete expert about your product or service, but if you can't get that to come across, if you are boring them or confusing them it goes against you because a confused mind says, "No," and here's the ironic thing is, you're telling about your product or service, and a couple of things are happening. If you confuse them, and you say, "Did you understand?" Nine out of ten times they're going to say, "Yes," because they don't want to look stupid, and that's very important. So if you – the study shows if you list ten things about your product or service, 58% of the time people misunderstood about five of those things, and you didn't get your point across, but when you asked them if they did understand they will say "Yes," because of that ego and esteem issue, they will pretend they understood and they never did and they'll never call you back.

Rachel Salaman: So how do you know if they've really understood or not?

Kurt Mortensen: That's a great question, and there's a couple of ways. We need to be able to read people. When they're confused you'll see, kind of, their brow for a little bit, and you'll see their bottoms of the mouth, kind of, turn down a little bit, and they'll lean back away from you and they don't really understand what you're talking about. So reading people, and the big one here is, when you ask a question, make sure they feel comfortable in answering it, meaning a lot of people will – the way they answer questions people feel, kind of, it's a little demeaning maybe or a little demoralizing, not that the persuader meant to do that, but the key is when somebody asks you a question you need to say to the persuader – first of all check your ego at the door and say something like, you know, "Great question, my fault, I should have explained it a little bit better," and keep the doors open for them to ask questions, that you appreciate their questions, that you want their questions, then they'll feel more open and more secure to ask you questions all the way through your persuasive presentation.

Rachel Salaman: Because sometimes it's really hard, isn't it, for people to realize that they're poor communicators. They think they're great communicators, but actually, they have no idea that they miss out key points and aren't getting their ideas across properly?

Kurt Mortensen: That's exactly right. It goes back to the Wobegon effect, and it goes back too, this is what they do every day and it makes perfect sense to them, why wouldn't everyone else understand? And you have to realize it's the first time you're bringing it up. It's the first time they're hearing about it. They're – you need to make sure they understand step by step by step what you're doing, and communicate, and can keep that door open for questions, for them to interject, to voice an objection, because if you don't they'll never tell you and you'll never hear from them again.

Rachel Salaman: Your ninth skill that you talk about in your book has an intriguing title, which is, preplanned anticipation: the secret formulas of the pros. Now, this is essentially about being prepared. What kinds of things should people consider when they're preparing to persuade someone to do something?

Kurt Mortensen: Well it is one of those critical skills, because you're either going to pay with your preparation time upfront, or you're going to pay on the backend by nobody wanting to do business with you, and it's simple things about always reviewing your notes or reviewing your product or service; that's what great persuaders do. Sure you can wing it and go through the motions, but they're going to sense that. But the more you can understand about their needs, why they're talking to you, what you need to say to them, more about your product or service, more about the competition, the more they're going to be open to be persuaded by you. I know it's one thing that people just, "Well, you know, I'll just go through the motions and I'll just wing it. I've done it before." But it really shows, it's a big complaint from prospects against the persuaders is that they weren't prepared. They were winging it. They didn't have enough information. They didn't know about the competitor. They didn't know about their true wants and needs. They just came in and vomited the 110 reasons they should do business together without really understanding their wants and needs, and maybe you do, but it doesn't matter you still need to listen. When you go to a doctor, and the doctor opens the door and says, "You know what, you need penicillin, I'll talk to you later," even if that's what you needed you would still be offended, because you need to talk. You need the doctor to listen, and persuaders are the same way, even if you know exactly what they need you still need to listen, and ask the right questions so they feel that you understand their needs. And when that happens, the doors of persuasion swing wide open, and you can be very, very successful.

Rachel Salaman: Finally, skill number ten, self-mastery and personal development. What are the main points here?

Kurt Mortensen: Well we monitored successful people and top persuaders, and they have a very intense personal development program. There's a one-to-one relationship between your personal development and your income, and they're taking ten, 15% of their income and reinvesting in their education, and they know they haven't arrived. Because there's two ways to learn in life, and you can learn by trial and error, or you can learn from somebody else. Everything you need to master to be more successful someone else has already figured it out, and they can teach you in a CD, or a book, or a seminar; you can find mentors out there, and even the bigger thing we notice is that a Harvard study shows that those who are learning and growing every day, they're more optimistic about life. They're more enthusiastic about where they're going and what they're going to accomplish, but those who aren't learning and growing everyday become negative, pessimistic; doubtful about themselves and their future. So, a) it's a great motivator, b) contrary to popular belief, what you don't know will hurt you, and we need to turn our car into a University on wheels. We need to be able to read the books every day, and have the mentors; this is what successful people do. We don't have time to figure it out on our own; that is a waste of our time. That's not what successful people do. If there's a skill that we need to learn and master, you find an expert, get the book, the CD, the seminar, mentor, whatever you need, and you're going to learn it 100 times faster and save yourself a lot of money and make a lot more money.

Rachel Salaman: Well some people listening might be thinking, I'll never be able to be charismatic, or empathetic, or motivated enough to be a good persuader. Do you have any examples, from your experience, that proves that people really can lean these skills?

Kurt Mortensen: Oh yeah, I can give you hundreds of examples, and it's, you know, when people learn persuasion and influence it gives them so much confidence in their life to do what they want to do, to follow their passion, to be able to read people. I remember working with a client, and her name Sarah Angel. She had a photography business. She had quit her job, put everything in this photography business, and she had never learned the persuasion skills, and people said they would come back, and they would do things; they weren't buying from her. And it was just subtle changes here, learning to connect with people, building the trust, doing things, and she, in her first two months, made an extra $48,000 just by involving these skills, and it's just small changes, not major changes, small changes here, learning to connect with people, learning to read with people. And when you can do this anybody can do this, it's such a big difference to not only your income, but your ability to help people, your ability to have that confidence. Because everything we want in life is on the other side of persuasion, and the hard thing is, is when you need to learn to – when you need to persuade somebody it's too late to learn, and that's why I focus on persuasions, because I went after a college degree and a graduate degree, and I realized real fast that I hadn't learnt some of the basic skills I needed to know to be successful, and one of the major ones was persuasion, influence, people skills, self-persuasion. That's 85% of our success, and the sad thing is, is very few people have ever had any lessons on those, and that's one of the most important things to be successful in life.

Rachel Salaman: Well out of all the skills we've talked about, which do you think is the most important?

Kurt Mortensen: Mental programming, and if people are wondering what's taken so long, and I've been guilty too; I'd go to the seminars, listen to the conferences or podcasts, and all these successful people who talk about, you know, vision and mindset and goal setting, and I used to say to myself, yeah, yeah, heard that before, give me the tools. And then one day I realized, when things weren't happening for me, now, if everyone talks about those, if Napoleon Hill talks about those in Think and Grow Rich, after interviewing hundreds of millionaires, those must be the skills, and when I made that shift it made a big difference. Because you could have the most powerful computer on the planet, but if you don't have the right software, or if that software's full of bugs, you are not going anywhere. You could have the most powerful car on the planet, but if you don't have gas, it's not going anywhere, and that all comes back to the mental programming.

Rachel Salaman: Kurt Mortensen, thank you very much for joining us today.

Kurt Mortensen: My pleasure.

Rachel Salaman: You can find out more about Kurt and his work at www.persuasioniq.com.

I'll be back next month with another Expert Interview. Until then, goodbye.