Excuse me, the door is still open, and I am coming in
On why Persuasion is the ultimate art of seduction :)
I wrote this post back in 2012 - and I have grown a learnt a lot since, and I thought it would be a good to revisit this - largely to solidify my own learnings. I am taking a second pass at this story, because I often end up retelling the same.
The Backdrop .. firsts, first - Lessons from the best Persuasion pitch
I spent a large part of my childhood time splitting across many cities in North India - Kanpur, Agra, Allahabad & Sultanpur and in most of these places, there were hardly any public libraries,and I remember a substantial part of my childhood commuting between the private book lenders, often times many a day- to save money on rent.
My parents spent all their professional working life working in public sector banks, and since my parents were traveling all the while(because of intercity transfers at work) that meant – I often had to change schools middle of the academic year –here is a story that I think will teach you – the power of “seeing all doors are open” - as much as it taught me.
Circa Kanpur, 1996
My father had always been very ambitious of me- so naturally, he wanted to get me to the BEST school in the city. But the problem was
The school was saturated in terms of pupils (The only way to go to the next class was a natural progression from the previous) So to mention making it mid-year was almost impossible. Let me be precise – you wouldn’t be allowed to enter the School premise if they could sniff out you had come for an admission.
The school was trying to keep up the reputation by Supply-demand dynamics – i.e if you hear 30 people from your neighborhood who couldn’t make it – they must be REALLY special!
Knowing someone very very consequential (politically)
Coming up with a story one can’t just refute (and having the talent to back it off)
So, my father did the only thing that had decent odds - he made a persuasion pitch .
So this day, I clearly remember I had a few bourbon biscuits (Later I had come to believe that it must be about the correlation between what Indians think about having “sweet” before any “major” test) and I clearly remember my father asking me “ If I were to tell you … and his pitch followed ..” I can’t say if I liked it , but I do remember he worded it differently many times on our way to the school. Many times, yes .
When we reached the school, he told the gatekeeper at the main entrance that I was having trouble in my academics (never did he mention that I was studying at this school already.. clever !! ) and that we needed to see the principal/head .
When we finally got to see the Principal,my father started off the discussion with my sister’s progress , he then asked about the missionaries and the funds, and how the school was planning to grow in that city. The context & making the person’s goal the focal point of attention.
Gradually, the conversation became seamless ..and then he did something totally unexpected!
He pulled put all my poems (in Hindi) – and started reading one of them . I do not recall what it was about , or how good it was – and then argued about how good it would be if my talents were to groom in THIS school , about how much my sister is improving , and about how I was being mentored by sister.
To top it all – he pulled out the grades across all the mid-year academics sessions I had studied , across all cities I had traveled – and said – If my daughter CAN do this at THIS age, I am CERTAIN she can do MUCH BIGGER than THIS years from NOW. With this, I hope you would give her the chance to EXCEL.
The principal thought for a while, and then finally agreed to give me a chance to write the entrance exam – and I did clear that exam .
I have failed many times, at small things, big things, inconsequential things , and material things, and every time I collect myself and think about what my dad said years ago ..
All I have told myself after this experience is - Excuse me, the door is still open . And I am coming in . And that friction is there for a reason to see how badly we want something
Persuasion in real life.
An entrepreneur sent me this note to connect him to someone in a B2B context.
Person X is building ABC, that solves XYZ, and we have customers LMN and ...
I sent him this note. People do not care about what you do. They care about their own needs, vanity & problems. So I reworded this while sending an Intro.
Person X is building ABC, that solves XYZ, and we have customers LMN and ..
I told Person X about the value you bring in Area A, and some specific context C, and how he can benefit a lot from your experiences in E1, E2 and E3.
I can't imagine a better way two of you can add value to each other's goals. Over to both of you.
The second one has put the receiver at the focal point and has more odds of responding.
Parting notes : Seeing persuasion as the ultimate form of seduction
A lot of people see seduction as something that is manipulative, and that it’s against the grain. I see that (& persuasion) as a necessary life skill. More here
The reason we need persuasion more than ever now, is
There is huge constraints on resources and its our job to stand out, in the absence of meaningful signals on why we deserve a pie of those. These resources could be people(you respect & look upto) and their time
In a world where technology is shrinking Information structures, there is a huge cost to the receiver, but none at all to the sender, and quality persuasion makes this cost symmetric enough for the receiver to filter that you took the effort to draft a persuasive case (async/sync). A good amount of friction needs to inject to serve as a self-selection filter - and effective persuation does this.
We need to sell all the time !! To our people in compies we work and lead, to align people to causes we care about, to asking people to bet on us/ use their social capital
Lastly, be generous. It all comes back.