Persuasion That Takes 6 Months Is Still Persuasion

People in the work world who are really persuasive understand that no matter how good your presentation is no matter how good your communication skills are sometimes the person you’re talking to isn’t ready to give a yes.

Just because they don’t say yes today or endorse you today or hire you today doesn’t mean it’s no forever.

So you really get to listen.

You really got to ask them what else they need.

When should we talk about this issue again and listen to them.

Sometimes people will say you know what.

We’ve just decided we’re absolutely not going to hire any media trainer because The Interview was canceled and the board of directors is decided we’re not going to ever talk to the media.

Well that’s a pretty definitive no.

That means I don’t have to spend time pitching them it also means there’s nothing really valuable I could get from the feedback there because their decision has nothing to do with how persuasive I was.

It also means I don’t need to follow up with them.

But sometimes someone I’ve pitched someone you might pitch could say we still got to think about what we’re talking about or we’re undecided.

Call back in two months.

We’ve got to get through the next annual meeting.

A lot of people just say oh I was wanting that quick win I wanted to show the sales for the end of the month.

Forget it can’t be like that.

You’ve got to look at the long term the long game.

So regardless of how you manage your time or your calendar I use sales so I’m not plugging sales force I use sales force so I just go in every day.

So if someone tells me today call in two weeks or two months I’ll just put follow up two months from today.

It goes into my sales force.

I don’t think about them for two months and two months from now.

I go to my sales force it pops up there is the person’s name saying This person asked to be called today you might is Google Calendar.

There’s all sorts of systems you’ve got to manage that on your own.

The point is listen to people just because they’re not saying what you wanted them to say today which is yes approved by invest.

That’s not a no.

Sometimes they’ll say Call back in two weeks sometimes two months sometimes a year follow up now don’t hound someone every other day for the next six months if they’ve just said Oh I’m not sure yet.

That can be a follow up I can tell you in my own business.

I’ve had people contact me about media training and presentation training services and it was literally six years between first contact the first request for a proposal until they hired me and they sense hired me many many other times.

And sometimes they said we know we’re not going do anything for the next year.

OK I may have shared newsletters with them and sent them but I didn’t actually call to pitch them for a year because that’s what they asked for again.

So much of being a good persuadable presenter talker a business communicator is just listening to what people say.

If they tell you absolutely no never ever ever ever.

Don’t ever talk to me again about this.

Well listen to them.

But if they say maybe in the future ask them what I do in my own calls and I’ll say so would you like me to call you and say six weeks or middle of next quarter which would be three months from now and they’ll say well six weeks will be good.

I listen I make notes and then I follow up and I try to persuade them again when they asked for me to do so.

It’s not that complicated but a lot of people just dropped the ball.