16 Ways to effectively influence people

1. Use multiple methods of persuasion.

Talk to people's central route of persuasion and their peripheral route to persuasion. The central route of persuasion involves stating facts, comparing your argument to others, and generally providing logical reasons to why the crowd should think what you want them to think. The peripheral route is less focused on logic, and more on emotion. For example, scaring the people into giving their children vaccines, baiting people by giving them good feelings about potentially being rich, make people angry about how drinking and driving causes death to innocent people, and so on. Studies have shown peripheral methods of persuasion to be much more effective.

2. Scare them

Studies have shown that emotional appeals can be much more effective than logical ones. For example, if you want to motivate people to stop smoking, you could scare them by showing them graphic images of black lungs, unhealthy hearts and babies born defective due to their mother smoking while they were in the womb. Then, you have to make them feel powerless over getting these conditions as long as they keep smoking. However, scaring your audience is not enough. It's crucial that you provide them with clear and specific instructions after you've scared them, otherwise people will respond by simply turning away and ignoring the danger.

Also, try and describe whatever you want to scare them with as an assaulter. For example, describe the smoke from the cigarettes as a silent killer that takes the lives of thousands of people each year. People are more likely to take action against something they perceive as an attacker. This is why people are a lot more scared of spiders than they are of food poisoning, even though more people die from food poisoning each year than from spider bites.

3. Use "sticky" phrases or rhymes

Most ads will use catchy phrases and jingles in an effort to persuade you. Why? Because by providing you with a rhyme or catchy song, you're more likely to remember the commercial and the product being sold. I'm sure you've caught yourself reciting a catchy song you heard on a TV commercial, or referencing a rhyme. McDonald's has "I'm loving it," Nike has "Just do it," hot pockets have their catchy jingle and so on. You remember these brands and products more than than products that don't have catchy phrases and songs.

4. Choose the right words

There are no good or bad words, but there are words that bring up good or bad thoughts in the people that hear them. For example, the word socialism is a "bad word" in the US. If you're a politician trying to promote government provided healthcare, it would be counterproductive to your argument to refer to it as socialism. Instead, you could refer to it as "single payer" healthcare or "universal care." By using one set of words instead of another, you avoid bringing up bad feelings or thoughts in the people you're trying to influence and hence, make it more likely for you to successfully persuade them.

An extreme example are the words used by food companies to describe things that we as Americans would be repulsed by if more direct words were to be used. The term "natural flavors" in food can be misleading, but not necessarily a lie. In cheap vanilla ice cream, the term natural flavors is actually code for beaver anal glands because of how similar beaver anal glands taste to vanilla (how someone discovered that beaver anal glands taste like vanilla is beyond me). I wouldn't recommend using such a misleading method to persuade those you want to persuade, but I think the point is clear that choosing the right words can be very effective.

5. Be a credible person or use credible people

Let's analyze a situation: A person knocks on your door. When you open it, he starts pitching a weight loss product to you. The individual who is pitching it is not in shape, doesn't have clean clothes and hasn't combed his hair. Chances are you won't buy the product. However, say that individual was actually an incredibly fit 65 year old woman with a degree on the subject. You most likely would be more receptive. The same is true for everything else. If you want to persuade a group of people, you have to appear credible and also have trustworthy experts on your side. For example, we believe people like Neil Degrasse Tyson when he speaks about astro physics, but we probably wouldn't believe George W. Bush when he speaks about astro physics.

6. Argue against your own best interest

When it comes to the argument for raising taxes for  the rich, who are you more likely to find more credible: a man on welfare or Warren Buffet? Most likely Warren Buffet because he would be arguing for something that would clearly impact him in a negative way. You might think to yourself: if Warren Buffet is for raising taxes on the rich even though it's against his best interest, then there must be a really good reason. By selectively picking things to argue for that are against your own interest, things that aren't as important, you will appear more credible. For example, if you're trying to sell a car, you could tell the customer how they shouldn't buy floor mats from the dealership because they're expensive. The customer will perceive you as more credible because of your willingness to argue against your, and the dealership's, best interest.

Find people who are willing to argue on your side, while at the same time argue against their own best interest, and you'll be much more likely to succeed.

7. Give the illusion that you're NOT trying to persuade

Say that the car salesman at the Ford dealership gave you a whole speech about how Ford vehicles are superior to any other type of vehicle. You'll probably listen, but you'll always keep in mind that this salesman is incentivized with a commission and it's in his best interest to tell you that Ford vehicles are the best on earth. Now, suppose that instead of having a speech recited to you, you overhear another customer speaking to his wife in private about how Ford vehicles are amazing, and he would never buy a vehicle that wasn't a Ford. You would most likely believe him more, simply because he was not trying to influence you, and furthermore you think he didn't know you were listening.

When someone is not trying to influence us, the likelihood of them influencing us is higher.

8. Be attractive and likable

Things that people find attractive are: being well groomed, having a smile on your face, have a pretty face, have nice body, and so on. Some aspects of being attractive are impossible for us to control. Focus on things you can control, such as combing your hair, having nice clothes, and being well groomed overall. People tend to go along with attractive people even if they are aware that the person has something to gain by influencing them. Perhaps, this is merely because their attractiveness earns more of our attention. Maybe, it's because we want to please the attractive person with our cooperation. Regardless, you should make yourself as attractive and likable as possible when presenting arguments in order to optimize your effectiveness.

9. Use vivid personal examples

If you've ever seen a television commercial with testimonials by "customers" about how X product made their lives better and gave specific examples about how, then you know what I'm talking about here. People respond better to personal experiences than they do to a bunch of dry facts and statistics. For example, say that you want people to start brushing their teeth. You might give a personal experience about how one of your molars got a cavity and had to be removed, and go into explicit detail about the procedure and how painful it was to you. Simply giving people a long list of conditions will not be as effective as your personal experience.

10. Know your audience

If you're audience strongly disagrees with you, you don't want to present your argument in a manner that they would consider extreme or radical. Instead, you want to present your argument in such a way that it doesn't seem very different from what they believe. The less credible you are, in the eyes of the audience, the less discrepant your argument has to be. If you're a person of no or low credibility, you must stick to arguments that vary only slightly from what the audience believes to be true; otherwise you'll be considered stupid, insane or immoral.

If you're Bill Nye the science guy, and you go up to a crowd of people who believe science is bullshit, you have a better chance of influencing them to think that science is not bullshit even though that's extremely the opposite of what the audience believes. So, the greater the difference between Mr. Nye's opinion being conveyed and his audience's opinion of the truth, the greater the possible influence on the audience. However, if you're a high school science teacher, and you attempt to do the same thing, the chances the audience will change their opinion are slim. Instead, they'll consider you a wacko, stupid or etc. In the case of the science teacher, he or she must focus on influencing the audience using arguments that differ only slightly from what they believe.

11. Use references

Things can appear to be better or worse depending on what you compare them to. For example, if you compare capitalism to communism, all of a sudden capitalism looks a lot better. If you were arguing pro capitalism, you would use communism's failures and compare and contrast to capitalism's successes in order to make capitalism look even better. If you want to sell a credit card, you might want to lead the way with a really unappealing credit card with high fees, and immediately after show them a much better credit card with better fees.

12. Frame your questions to the audience in terms of how much they can lose

People hate losses more than they love gains. For example, if you're a stock trader, it hurts you twice as much when you lose money than it pleasures you to gain money. Frame your questions to the audience with this in mind. This is why I believe the recent H&R block marketing campaign will be very successful. They're presenting people with a question in terms of losses: do you want to risk losing money by not coming to a "professional?" That's much more powerful than simply claiming you will get a larger refund.

13. Warn them that others will attempt to persuade them

People are less likely to be persuaded when they know someone is going to attempt to persuade them. Using this knowledge, we can manipulate things in our favor just a bit more. Remind the audience that your opponent, or opposing view, is attempting to persuade them. For example, if you're debating someone publicly, after you finish your speech, subtly remind that it's your opponent's turn to try and "sway their opinion."

14. Create a good experience

It's important to create a relaxed and happy mood for your audience whenever possible. Studies have shown that people are more likely to be influenced when they're happy.  The opposite is also true. If individuals are in a bad mood, they are more likely to not be influenced. Also, when people are well fed with good food, they are also more likely to be influenced. Perhaps this is true because of pleasure chemicals released by the brain when we eat food we like. We've all experienced this and are probably either consciously or subconsciously aware of this phenomenon already. You won't go ask your boss for a raise when he's angry, you won't ask your mom for a new xbox when she's upset, etc. You probably wait until they're in a good mood to ask people for things you want, naturally.

15. Ask them the right questions

Ask your audience questions that will lead them to the conclusions you want them to have. If you're trying to convince them to take action against global warming, you might ask questions like: "Do you believe excessive warming will be bad for the planet?" or "Do you believe the mass extinction of species around the world is bad?" These are questions that 99 percent of people will answer yes to. Keep them answering positively to your questions, and perhaps they might discover how much they actually agree with you. This works especially well if the people/person you're trying to convince are confused or on the fence.

16. Nod your head to convey what they should think or say

When you're asking the audience a yes or no question, nod your head in a manner that tells them what you want to hear. If you want them to answer yes, then nod your head up and down. If you want them to say no, then nod your head side to side. This may give people who are on the fence a slight push in the direction you want them to go. However, this should done very subtly. Remember that any obvious sign that you're trying to influence someone will make them less likely to be influenced.

Extra things that might affect the audience's likelihood of being influenced

Self Esteem - If you can, try and gauge the level of your audience's self-esteem. Individuals with high self esteem are less influenced by others' opinions than individuals with low self esteem.

Political orientation - Studies have concluded that individuals who are conservative in their political views are more easily influenced by arguments that cause them fear. Liberals tend to react better to arguments based on facts. These are only generalizations, and doesn't necessarily mean that if you belong to one group that you will have the general qualities of the group.

Limiting people's freedom - When people are limited on their freedom, they're more likely to do or think the opposite. For example, if you're a retail banker and tell people they must have a savings account, if people know they have the choice to not open the savings account they will tend to do not open the savings account. The more intense the pressure is to stop people from doing something, the more likely they are to do it. This only occurs if the individual has a feeling that their freedom is being restricted.

If you would like to add anything to this list, or just comment on it, feel free to post a comment below.