Chapter - 04

How To Make People Agree With What You Want

I want to tell you of a discovery that excited the entire world some years ago. It happened near the village of Cardiff, in the state of New York. This adventure tale will more than entertain you. It will keep you in remembrance of how to make people agree with what you want.

It all started when farmer William C. Newell hired a couple of neighbors to dig a well on his property. They had dug to a depth of only five feet when their shovels hit something hard. Thinking they had struck a boulder they started clearing the earth around the hard mass. As the earth slipped away from the object the two men stepped back, frozen with astonishment. There in front of their wide eyes was the figure of a giant. It was almost 12 feet tall and weighed around 3,000 pounds.

News of the giant's discovery buzzed around the world. Thousands flocked to the site. Several doctors examined the figure and declared it to be a genuine fossil, probably several hundred years old. Their conclusions were backed up by distinguished professors from leading universities. The noted author Oliver Wendell Holmes looked at the Cardiff Giant and pronounced it a most remarkable find. The farmer whose property had yielded the discovery promptly went into business.

Newell erected a tent over the site and happily welcomed the lined-up thousands with a one-dollar peek per passing.

A few experts dared to disagree that the figure was that of a fossilized giant. The President of Cornell University suggested that someone had done a clever bit of sculpturing on a block of stone. He was shouted down. Professor O. C. Marsh of Yale University also refused to accept the Cardiff Giant as genuine. He was ignored.

Tens of thousands of people insisted that their opinions were correct: The giant was genuine. Nothing nearly as sensational had hit them during their lives. Here was mystery, delight, and amazement—and they were part of it! No one was going to rob them of their excitement by declaring the giant a fake. They believed in it stubbornly and persistently.

Meanwhile, curious newspaper reporters noticed that a man named George Hull was a partner in exhibiting the discovery. Moreover, he was a cousin of the farmer Newell. Tracing Hull's activities the reporters found that he had shipped a block of gypsum to a Chicago stonecutter, a man named Edward Salle. From Chicago Hull had shipped an immense crate labeled as machinery to Newell's farm.

Faced with the evidence, Hull confessed that the Cardiff Giant was a gigantic hoax. He had ordered the gypsum carved into the shape of a giant, shipped it to Cardiff, kept it buried for a year, then had the laborers dig where sure to find it.

Finally and reluctantly, the believers agreed that they had been fooled. They turned away from the Cardiff Giant with a sad sigh and once more took up their daily duties in their homes and factories and offices.

Why People Behave as They Do—and How You Can Change Them

Two vital questions spring from this story:

1. Why do people believe and behave as they do?

2. How can you persuade them to change their belief and behavior?

Let's first find out why some people cling so stubbornly to their positions and attitudes, even when the facts of the matter clearly contradict their position. By finding out, we will have armed ourselves with ammunition that brings about their willing surrender.

Why did all those people believe in the Cardiff Giant in the first place? Also, why did so many of them persistently defend it even when it had been thoroughly exposed as the fake that it was? The explanation is simple enough: People wanted to believe in its genuineness because it added excitement to their otherwise uneventful lives. It was something extraordinary to chat about over the back fence. It gave their imaginations a place to play. It added mystery and a sense of adventure to a somewhat dull existence. As long as their minds were occupied with the Cardiff Giant, they didn't have to think about their daily pains and pressures.

In other words, those people had a deep desire to believe in the giant because to do so gave them a thrilling release from their boredom. They were not interested in what was true about the discovery, but only in what was pleasurable. Whenever the desire to believe something is accompanied by fun-filled feelings, people eagerly accept whatever is offered to them as truth, regardless of its actual distance from fact and logic. "We believe easily . . . what we desire." (La Fontaine) This is just as much a thinking habit of people today as it was to those who saw the Cardiff Giant. The authors of Psychology in Business sum it up, "People tend to take favorable, or positive, attitudes toward things that give them pleasure and make them feel secure."1

What finally changed their minds about the authenticity of the giant? They switched their viewpoint only when it became more profitable not to believe than it was to believe. For one thing, they didn't want to run the risk of being thought persistently foolish and gullible. Secondly, once the giant was thoroughly exposed, most of the people went along with popular disbelief because to do otherwise would mean to stand alone— and that would make them nervous and insecure. In other words, it finally became more rewarding to disbelieve than to believe.

This last sentence is your chief clue. People believe and behave as they do because of a dominating desire or need to do so. Their behavior changes only when it is given a superior motive to change.

Another way of saying this is that people take whatever position offers them the greatest personal reward. I once knew a man whose grand passion was a belief in flying saucers from foreign planets. Meet him somewhere and sooner or later he tried to talk you into accepting his theories about strange men from Mars and Venus and other outposts of outer space. One day that man ran across a book extolling the benefits of physical fitness. Having something of a health problem, he became interested in improving his body. Today that man's great passion is health in all its aspects. Meet him today and he tells you why you should eat blackstrap molasses and yoghurt. Today he scarcely cares whether flying saucers exist or not; his new toy is more fun.

Another thing you should know is this: Whenever a person furiously defends his viewpoints or ideas, he doesn't really care much about the ideas themselves. Not really. What he does care about is his personal identification with his ideas and beliefs and opinions. This means that what a man is really defending is himself, his ego, his self-image of himself as being this or that sort of worthwhile person. No man defends or roots for a position unless he has first adopted it as his personal position. Once he calls it my political party or my hometown or my family he will defend them against all comers.

1 By permission from Psychology in Business, by Leslie R. Beach and Elon L. Clark. Copyright 1959. McGraw-Hill Book Company, Inc.

Also know this: A highly defensive person can never be persuaded by your calm presentation of the actual facts of a matter because facts played no part in the formation of his original viewpoint—the vital thing for him was that the adopted viewpoint gave him a feeling of security or perhaps a sense of power or maybe a surge of relief from some anxiety. Such a person will not readily submit to the facts of a matter because he feels threatened by them. He thinks like this: "You are not going to cut me adrift from anything that makes me feel secure," or perhaps he declares, "No one is going to make a fool out of me by proving me wrong all these years."

As you can see, no man is going to thank us for attacking those judgments or beliefs which give him such a strong sense of individuality.

What does all this add up to? Just this: Your first objective in winning agreement to your way of thinking is to gently and ever-so-tactfully dislodge a man's attachment to his present position. You do this best, as we saw in Chapter 2, by use of the secret passages. One of the most effective of these is to show him how the adoption of your position will reward him more handsomely than his present standpoint. Prove that your ideas or your plans will supply greater security or additional prestige or swifter financial advancement. Once you do that, his ever-ready desire for self-gain will do the rest. You don't have to call twice to bring a hungry man to his dinner.

Offer him more. No man is really ever won by any other method. The plain fact is, it takes a superior appeal to a man's self-interest to move him from where he is to where you want him to be.

The Power of Your Promise

Recently after I had concluded a lecture I was approached by a woman with weary lines in her face. Somewhat apologetically she said, "Mr. Howard, in your talk you mentioned something about a barbecue picnic that is coming off next week. Is it open to anyone; I mean, could I come?"

"You are wide-open welcome," I assured her. "I'll see that complete information about time and place is sent you by mail."

She gave an immense sigh of gratitude and relief. "I'll be watching for it. If you only knew how much it means to have something to look forward to. Thank you. It will be enough to keep me going for the next few days."

That weary woman had a deep need for additional strength to see her through her days so filled with lonely duties. The expectation of an exciting tomorrow with its fun and friends was the fulfillment of that need.

This introduces us to the power of your promise. It is something that makes people agreeable to your suggestions and enthusiastic toward your programs.

Whenever you promise something to a man you have used a dynamic force for convincing him that he ought to go along with you. Every man is interested in your pledge that you can make things better or easier or richer for him and his family. It alerts his desire and excites his hope. William Shakespeare proved himself to be as much the masterful persuader as the poet and the dramatist when he wrote, "Promising . . . opens the eyes of expectation ... To promise is most courtly and fashionable. . . ."

The promise is one of the most legitimate and effective means ever devised for winning men's minds. In your hands it becomes an accurate weapon for scoring hits.

Let's take a classic example from history:

Thousands of years ago Moses was in charge of his people as they wandered painfully through the Egyptian wilderness. The aim of this gifted leader was to guide his followers to the land of Canaan. You know the trouble he had. Every step of the way his people grumbled against their lot and rebelled against authority. They were tired. There was too much strain and not enough food. They threatened to give up, to quit, to let the wilderness swallow them up. Every day brought a new crisis in their onward march.

But Moses was a man of solid strength. He also possessed considerable wisdom. He knew a thing or two when it came to handling troubled people.

He promised them something.

He painted a verbal picture of the land that rested on the other side of the wilderness. He told them of its beauty and wealth. Just a few steps more, he assured them, and all shall dwell in a land flowing with milk and honey. That did it. That was all they wanted to hear. They kept going until they reached the Promised Land.

That is how one leader used the power of promise to keep his followers agreeable and cooperative. Let's next see how it works in the commercial world.

Look at an advertisement, for instance, one urging you to buy a particular brand of face soap. When you come right down to it, what is behind the message? It promises you something: A smoother complexion. More popularity. A cleaner feeling. Everyone goes for those things. We like the forecast. So we buy. We have been persuaded by a promise.

You go into a shoe shop. Watch the technique used to sell you. The salesman assures you of greater foot comfort, maybe a savings in price; perhaps he suggests that you will command a few compliments from admiring friends. If the shoes are for your children you may be assured that they are tough enough to withstand all that pounding and scuffing. Because you buy those promises you also buy those shoes.

The reason a promise is so compelling is because a man knows that he cannot personally tell how things are going to turn out before he personally experiences them—he is therefore eager for your assurance that he will end up happily rewarded. He wants you to tell him beforehand how great he will feel later as a result of his agreement with you. Your promise is his relief.

Needless to add, your fulfilled promise is going to make you doubly influential with the person who has just had his hopes aroused by you. You can win a man's confidence by offering him a reward for going along with you, but you keep his loyalty by making good on your offer.

"Promises are . . . necessary for the comfort and security of mankind." (Earl of Clarendon)

Thirty Sure Ways to Get Others to Say Yes to You

There is the story of the ardent lover who was trying to persuade his new lady-love to share the evening with him. Their dialogue went like this:

"You are beautiful. Pick you up at six?"

"Never."

"We'll have hours of fun. Six o'clock all right?"

"No."

"You'll meet some exciting people. How about six?"

"Won't."

"You are one in a million. Six o'clock about right?"

"Can't."

We'll have an enchanting evening. Shall we say six?"

"Maybe."

"I like you more and more. Pick you up at six?"

"Six."

Maybe that is an exaggerated version of the way things might actually go, but it does spotlight some techniques by which you can win an affirmative answer in almost any situation. Notice that it includes several basic principles governing persuasiveness, including persistence, the promise of excitement, and a contribution to the other persons self-esteem.

There are sure ways to get others to say yes to you. You will discover them in this section.

Stop and think of just about everything you own and you will see that they came your way by means of your personal request. You asked for it, in one way or another, and got what you asked for. Making requests of other people is a daily necessity for all of us. The baby sets off the well-heard howl to get his bottle. The young man coos sweet-talk in the moonlight and gets his girl to agree to share a honeymoon cottage with him.

The baker wafts the delicious aroma of freshly baked bread your way and that is how he asks you to buy.

We ask for things from almost everyone we meet. We want another's attention or cooperation or companionship or maybe his name on the dotted line. If the other person says yes we are much happier than if he says no.

It is fairly obvious that our requests of other people are pretty important to our daily welfare.

But the really important thing is to get the right answer to a request. And the right answer is, of course, yes.

Getting another to give you the affirmative nod is easier than you think. That is the viewpoint you should adopt first of all. As someone once put it, "Whenever you ask for something from someone there can be only two definite answers—he can say yes or he can say no. So even before you begin you have a fifty-fifty chance of getting what you want. A bit of practice on your part and you'll soon be commanding the other fifty percent."

Think of the particular person (or group of people) whom you wish to win over to your side. Keep him in mind as you go through the following punchy pointers. Check off those suggestions which you think are especially valuable in winning your man to your way. Now, throw them into service the very next time you meet the one whom you wish to win.

1. Find and keep his attention.

2. Let him know you appreciate his cooperation.

3. Remove any serious objections he may have.

4. Make your plan sound exciting and adventurous.

5. Frankly ask for his help in promoting your plan.

6. Make yourself as attractive as your program.

7. Offer the richest possible reward for going your way.

8. Show him how others have benefited from your plan.

9. Keep your appeal simple and easy to understand.

10. Let him know that you will back up his cooperation.

11. Promise definite benefits for the future.

12. Present a personal appearance of confidence.

13. Repeatedly show him his need for your program.

14. Avoid all appearance of apology for your plan.

15. Keep him in the center of your appeal.

16. Be genuinely interested in him.

17. Permit him to be relaxed with you.

18. Act as if you expect an answer of yes.

19. Use every refusal as an opportunity to try again.

20. Present a friendly appearance.

21. Promise immediate benefits from your program.

22. Appeal to his need for something new.

23. Make it clear that you are not taking but giving.

24. Permit him to express freely his opinions.

25. Avoid pressuring him.

26. Keep thinking from his viewpoint.

27. Be natural.

28. Contribute to his self-esteem.

29. Prove why it is best to agree with you.

30. Let him know you enjoy his company.

I was once acquainted with a top-ranked businessman whose hobby took him to the spacious back yard of his suburban home. In a special section of that backyard there was a vegetable garden. There was only one kind of vegetable in that garden—tomatoes—but what tomatoes! There were without the slightest doubt the largest, prettiest, and tastiest tomatoes in the state. The ladies of the neighborhood eagerly waited for the day when he picked and passed around his superb tomatoes. His garden and its fabulous harvest made the local newspapers more than once.

Quite naturally he was asked how he had persuaded nature to yield to him so richly. He replied, "The secret of all success is to set up a high goal and then concentrate everything you have on it. I wanted to have the biggest and best tomatoes that nature could yield, so I concentrated on that one thing and that one thing only. I studied tomatoes constantly. I experimented with various types of seeds. I found out what tomatoes need for top nutrition and gave it to them. I cultivated tomatoes with a single-minded purpose. The fact is, I cannot fail. Anyone else could get the same miraculous results if he would set his mind on that single purpose. Nature yields to the man who constantly searches out her secrets."

This story illustrates what concentration can do in the natural world, but the same principle works just as miraculously for the man who applies it in the world of people. Any man who consistently follows the rules set down in this chapter cannot fail to possess the magic power to master and command people.

What you want is for others to say yes to you.

So concentrate on ways to get what you want.

It will be the beginning of fresh power for you and the ending of scarcity.

How to Get Around the Other Man's Objections

There is one golden rule that can place you in command of the person who raises an objection to the plan you are trying to put across. Learn it well and you will have taken a long stride toward persuading him to go along with you.

That rule is: Never make a big thing of a mans unreasonable objection. Regardless of how forcefully he may state it, do not add to his force by making a strong objection to his objection.

There are times of course when a man raises an entirely reasonable objection which you will want to answer in one way or another. This you can easily do, for a reasonable man is always open to a reasonable answer. For instance, a man once questioned my judgment in advising him to use his spare cash to clear off the mortgage on his home. He wanted to use the money for investment purposes. When I showed him the actual figures on how much money he would save on interest payments he readily agreed that my suggestion was a good one.

However, just now we are not talking about the reasonable type of objection; we want to discover the best way to handle the confused or the highly emotional type of individual. Let's face it, we sometimes run into difficult people along the way, but we need not be bothered by them once we get their number.

To repeat the rule, never make a big thing out of a man's illogical objections. You would not add more wood to a blazing forest fire, and neither should you add fuel to the objection by feeding it with your attention. When you argue over it or even give it your attention by talking about it you make it seem important to the other man. Your very emphasis makes him think his position is far more valid than it actually may be. Inside himself he thinks, "Say, I must have a solid objection here, otherwise, why would he be so impressed as to attack it?" This prods him into doubling the force of his resistance, which is the very last thing you want him to do.

Make this experiment the next time you run into an objection from someone whom you are trying to persuade. Whenever he takes exception to your plan, simply ignore whatever he says, just as if he didn't say it at all. Blithely go on to a positive idea, one that appeals to him. You will find that in a surprising number of cases he won't mention it again. Why does he drop it? Because your refusal to give it importance makes it seem unimportant to him also. Your very silence dissolves his objection in a way that a direct attempt could never accomplish.

One advertising man has a remarkably high score when it comes to making people agree with what he wants. No doubt there are a number of reasons for his steady successes, but one of them is different enough to be studied. To state it as simply as possible, he has the habit of acting as if he never hears himself getting turned down. That interesting character trait contributes to his power to win his way.

He explains it like this: "I explain my services and the man tells me no. Somehow I just don't hear him. I casually go on with my sales presentation. He repeats that he's sorry, but he's just not interested. I act as if he said something about the weather and bring up another point in favor of his taking on my services. He tells me that he doesn't think he can afford it just now and I show him the latest plan we have for putting his business in the spotlight. Before long that man is so bewildered by my density that he signs the order just to clear his own head."

The advertising man explains in conclusion, "If you don't hear your customer tell you no, you just can't possibly be discouraged—so just don't hear it. Don't give the word no any meaning. It's interesting how many times your man will forget what he's talking about and start buying what you're talking about."

You may some day find yourself in a position where you will have to answer an unreasonable objection publicly. Every leader among men sometimes finds himself confronted with a difficult or confused person who makes up part of any audience. Such a man likes to draw attention to himself by asking pointless questions or by trying to trick the man in charge of the meeting. The first thing to realize, of course, is that you are dealing with a person of low self-esteem. He sometimes uses public occasions to bolster his faltering ego. How do you handle such a person? Obviously he cannot be completely ignored. His statement-no matter how unreasonable—must be met and answered in the right way. So how do you remove his public objections.

Actually, he can be quite easily handled. What you must do is to ignore the seriousness of his statement or question. Don't take him as if he really means it, for he really has no desire to get a responsible reply—he just wants others to look his way.

In my own talks and lectures I sometimes run into such a situation. I find that the humorous reply handles things nicely:

At one time I had been invited to address a businessmen's luncheon club in a California city. The program chairman warned me beforehand that a certain member of the club had the habit of heckling the speaker. He asked me to please understand and not be offended. I assured him I understood perfectly.

Sure enough, during the question-and-answer period the man got to his feet, made some sort of a vague objection, then told me, "I think you have a superiority complex."

Putting on a facial expression of intense conviction, I replied, "No, I don't have a complex—I really am superior."

That drew a laugh from the audience, of course, but the chief value in the reply was that it answered that objection by treating it according to its own nature, that is, non-seriously.

Try this system for yourself. See how much better you can remove a man's unreasonable objections by refusing to be impressed by them.

Summary of Steps for Winning Your Way

1. Remember that people tend to believe what they want and need to believe. To persuade them, build up their need for whatever you have to offer.

2. To change another's viewpoint, show him how your way will reward him more than his present way. Appeal to his desire for a change for the better.

3. Persuade by the power of your promise. Present people with an exciting picture of what they can expect to gain.

4. Take the attitude that it is easier to influence people than you may think. It really is, once you know what to do.

5. Back up your product or program with a self-confident personality.

6. Keep your appeal simple and to the point.

7. Establish an atmosphere of friendliness and relaxation.

8. Prove to the other person that you are here to give him something, not merely to take.

9. Concentrate wholeheartedly on the principles of persuasion.

10. Never strongly object to the other person's unreasonable objection. Quietly step aside and let it pass harmlessly by.

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