August 16, 2011
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Effective persuasion is both art and science. .
The art lies in the intangible ability to establish empathy and build trust and to read your audience.
The science comes from the growing body of research on how consumers make decisions – and what factors cause them to respond or not respond.
One area on which there’s a growing body of evidence is the optimum number of examples to use and alternatives to provide when talking to an existing or prospective client. You want to provide enough examples to communicate that you’ve done your homework without having people feel overwhelmed.
Given that, research shows that remarkably often, you’re best off to use three examples when providing evidence to support recommendations. As a general rule, four is too many … people can’t absorb, assimilate, process and remember many examples. And if you’re trying to convey that you’ve thoroughly researched the options you’re presenting or to establish a historical pattern, two can be too few to inspire confidence.
So if you’re having a discussion of how markets have recovered from past declines, you could use 1980, 1991 and 2000.
If you’re looking to point to examples in which US banks have been unduly beaten down in the last while, again think about three examples – perhaps JP Morgan Chase, Citigroup and Wells Fargo.
And if you want to point out attractively priced multinationals that tap into growth into emerging markets, you could use BMW, P&G and Nestle as examples.
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