Here's how to be a great persuader in your career

Every professional needs to be able to persuade. If you want to negotiate, sell an idea or receive buy-in from your colleagues, you need to understand the art of persuasion. To advocate for yourself you need to persuade. Great persuaders do three things:

1. They keep it simple.

If you want to persuade, you need to be understood. Great persuaders are effective communicators.

Think of the KISS principle: “Keep it simple, stupid.” Noted by the U.S. Navy in 1960, this design principle recognizes that systems work best when they are not complicated. Successful marketers and politicians translate the complex and communicate with clarity. Messages that are clear and understood are the ones that stick.

If you are applying for a job or want to be considered for a promotion, make a clear case. Clearly communicate your accomplishments on your resume and in interviews. Don’t make others connect the dots for you because they won’t. They will give up or lose interest. The clearer and simpler you are with your language, the more likely you will persuade them.

2. They are visual.

Effective persuaders don’t tell. They show. They show with pictures or with visual language. Images are powerful. They make the abstract concrete.

For instance, you have an idea for a product that you want to pitch to your manager. Don’t tell her about it. Show her. Sit next to your manager, and show her the prototype you created on your computer. Let her see it to believe it. Let her grasp the idea.

3. They make it emotional.

If you want to persuade, you have to identify what motivates the person you are trying to persuade. Greater persuaders make it about the other person, not themself. Listen more than you speak. Ask questions. Persuasion is about demonstrating to others that they are at the heart of the situation.

For example, you want to ask your manager for a flexible schedule. Remind your manager that she shared with you how she dealt with competing professional and personal demands, and ask that she consider a similar solution for you.

Helping people to remember their experience will allow them to understand your situation. Emotions have a profound impact on decision-making. When people can relate to you, you have the opportunity to persuade them. It is your job to construct the emotional bridge and illustrate that what you want is what they want, too.

If you want to persuade, keep it simple, be visual and make it emotional. Focus on the other person, not yourself. Make it easy for others to say “yes.”