As an entrepreneur or a sales person, you will often find yourself in situations where you will need to convince a difficult customer for buying your product or service. These situations really put your convincing and persuasion skills to test. I was reading a blog post by Ivana Taylor which was a review of book titled “7 Triggers to Yes: The New Science Behind Influencing People’s Decisions”.

As per the book, there are seven different types of messages (triggers) which, when passed on to your customers, will get them to saying ‘Yes’. These triggers are:

• Authority - Messages that will get acceptance because of proven expertise in the field.

• Consistency - Creates positive perception on the basis of historical performance and successes.

• Contrast - Messages comparing your offering to those of others and proving it a better alternative.

• Friendship - Personal relationships and networks leading to acceptance.

• Hope - Building confidence and expectations that deliver agreement.

• Reason-Why - Providing reasons leading to an automatic Yes.

• Reciprocity - Simple Give and take philosophy where agreements are reached on mutual benefits.

While preparing a sales pitch for you products or service, you can include these messages to better convince your customers. I think that in most of the scenarios, these messages will not work in isolation and have to be clubbed with each other to make a successful sales pitch.

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