How to Coach Yourself and Others How to Influence, Persuade and Motivate | Page 58

to them.
Part of planning a message when you want to persuade the other person is
that you think ahead of time about what some of their thoughts or
experiences might be. For example, if you are releasing a new product and
want to persuade customers to try it, you would want to be certain to
address the specific benefits to the customer, or what improvements have
been made since the last version was released.

2.2.7 Feedback
No matter what channel you have used to convey your message, you can
use feedback to help determine how successful your communication was.
If you are face-to-face with your audience, you can read body language
and ask questions to ensure that you have been successful in persuading or
influencing them. If you have communicated via writing, you can gauge
the success of your communication by the response that you get or by
seeing if the result you wanted is delivered.

In any case, feedback is invaluable for helping you to improve your
persuasion and influencing skills. You can learn what worked well and
what didn't so that you can be even more efficient the next time you
communicate with that person or the next time you need to try to
influence or persuade them.

2.2.8 Context
The context is the situation in which you are communicating. It involves
the environment that you are in and that in which your audience is in, the
culture of your organization(s), and elements such as the relationship
between you and your audience. Your persuasion and influencing process
will not look the same when you are communicating with your boss as it
will when you are communicating with a friend. The context helps
determine the tone and style of your communication.

58