A Simple Hack to Power your Persuasion.

Have you seen kids persuading their parents for a toy, ice cream, or a bar of chocolate?

Chances are that you would have.

They do it with such enthusiasm and persistence that they usually get what they want. 

A Simple Hack to Power Your Persuasion

As kids, we could also persuade our parents and others with a lot of confidence and conviction.

But this confidence and conviction seems to wane off as we grow!

We become more hesitant to ask, fearing rejection.

Many believe they are not good at persuasion and refrain from asking even simple things.

So how can you get around this challenge and get better at persuading people?

Here is a simple hack... 

Give people a reason. 

The chances of your request being accepted increase significantly when you use the word "Because" in your sentence while giving a reason for your request.

Can't believe it?

Even I could not believe it when I read about this for the first time.

But there is a scientific study behind this...

The Copy Machine Study 

In 1977, Social Psychologist and published author Ellen Langer and her team at Harvard University experimented to understand human behavior. 

Her team was tasked to cut in front of people waiting in line to make copies and record their responses. 

Each of them was given three questions to use alternatively while requesting the people to allow them to cut through the line.

The questions were as follows;

  1. "Excuse me, I have 5 pages. May I use the Xerox machine?" (No reason given - just the request)
  2.  "Excuse me, I have 5 pages. May I use the xerox machine, because I'm in a rush?" (Justified reason)
  3.  "Excuse me, I have 5 pages. May I use the xerox machine, because I have to make copies?" (Irrelevant reason)

The results of this experiment were as follows;

  1. The request with question 1 received a positive response 60% of the time.

  2. A whopping 94% of people allowed the person to skip the line when they used question 2 with a justified reason.

  3. The most surprising fact was that 93% of the people let the person skip the line, even when they used question 3, with an irrelevant reason. 

Power your persuasion with Because(Image Source and Data Source: https://jamesclear.com/copy-machine-study)

This research was later published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology (source) as The Copy Machine study.

Now that you understand the power of the simple word "Because," you can use it wisely to persuade someone to get things done for you.

A word of caution, though. You can get away with simple requests, even with simple reasons, after the word "because" in your sentence. 

But for more crucial requests, the chances of acceptance will improve with the quality of your reasons.

Now let me put this theory to the test with you...

You should signup and participate in the 30-Days Win With Money challenge because;

  1. It can help you raise your financial awareness
  2. It can help you build good money habits
  3. It consists of very relevant and simple tasks for each of the 30 days
  4. Completing these tasks will help you jump-start your journey to Financial Freedom
  5. And best of all, it is Free.

Click here now to join the Facebook group because it is fun and it validates Ellen Langer's theory. 😉

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