How to Coach Yourself and Others How to Influence, Persuade and Motivate | Page 85

remember the statement.
o Association
In this technique, you draw a connection for the listener between your
concept and another idea with which they are already emotionally
connected. You can use negative or positive emotions in this technique.
For example, you can persuade someone to keep a job by associating the
loss of a job with the loss of their home and their family’s comfort. You
can persuade someone to accept a delegated task by associating it with a
sense of pride in accomplishment or by letting them know you are
choosing them because you associate them with intelligence and prudent
thought. You see this in commercials when the ‘beautiful people’ are
using the product and smiling brightly, or when the guy who uses the
product gets the girl. The advertiser is trying to draw an association
between their product and the emotional experience of the people being
portrayed.
o Composition
This strategy uses the structure of your argument to compare the outcome
being portrayed against an outcome that is less desirable. You are
basically making your option look or sound better by contrasting it with
another possible outcome. In advertisements, you can think of ‘before and
after’ commercials or someone who is unhappy before a product and
happy afterwards. There can be a strong emotional tug here as well.

6.2.2 Downplay
On the other side of the intensify coin, you have downplaying. It is the
opposite strategy from intensification. Here the goal is to distract from
certain aspects of the situation. The methods you use to downplay a fact
or statement are the opposite of the ones you would use to intensify them.
In this situation, you would use diversion, omission, or confusion.

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