Influencing Your Audience

Crafting Messages that Motivate People to Accept Your Ideas

IR professionals are called on frequently to write messages that attempt to get people to do things: to comply with a request, to accept ideas, or to provide support. It often requires overcoming resistance, swaying the skeptics, winning over the “undecideds,” or motivating the apathetic.

The ability to influence an audience is critical to business success, yet most people know little about the psychology of persuasion. It is not taught in high school, rarely in college, and almost never in an executive education program.

In this seminar, we will tap into the field of human behavior change and attitude modification. We will look at techniques you can use when you craft messages, for a written communication or for a speech, so that you influence the reader's thought process and increase the likelihood that the reader or listener will agree.

• What it really means to analyze an audience: knowing the difference between beliefs, values, and attitudes.
• How to open a persuasive message when the audience is resistant, skeptical, or simply uninterested.
• How to structure a written message or a speech so that you position information for maximum impact.
• Why credibility is essential when asking people to comply with your request, and what you can do to strengthen your credibility if the audience does not view you that way.
• How to use five principles of social psychology to make it more likely people will say yes to your ideas.

As part of the workshop, people will break into groups and discuss an angry memo. Participants will come up with their own way of making it more persuasive.