Persuasion: Ten Years and A Bag of Bagels

Still fresh after ten years.

As you prepare your persuasive presentations, you’ll probably use a lot of facts and data. You’ll want to marshall your evidence and create a powerful, logical, irrefutable argument. The trouble is, your audience will almost certainly forget your facts and data soon after you finish your presentation. What they’ll remember is the emotion.

Emotion is the basis of trust and trust is the basis of persuasion. If your audience trusts you, your arguments will be more persuasive. People remember their emotions much longer than they remember facts and data. If they trust you, they’ll probably continue to trust you. If they don’t trust you, they won’t change their minds unless you make a significant (and highly visible) change.

In the Persuasive Communication series, I focus mainly on what happens during your persuasive presentation. But what happens before and after can be equally important. Long before your presentation, you can build a sense of trust with your audience that will make your presentation much more persuasive. In fact, as you’ll see in the video, you can start the process years ahead of time. All it takes is a bag of bagels.