The Art of Woo: Using Strategic Persuasion to Sell Your Ideas

314 Pages·2007·12.69 MB·English

by  G. Richard Shell

the art
of
w o o
Using Strategic Persuasion to Sell Your Ideas
G. Richard Shell
Mario Moussa
Portfolio
PORTFOLIO
Published by the Penguin Group
Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 375 Hudson Street,
New York, New York 10014, U.S.A.
Penguin Group (Canada), 90 Eglinton Avenue East, Suite 700, Toronto, Ontario,
Canada M4P 2Y3 (a division of Pearson Penguin Canada Inc.)
Penguin Books Ltd., 80 Strand, London WC2R ORL, England
Penguin Ireland, 25 St. Stephen's Green, Dublin 2, Ireland (a division of Penguin Books Ltd)
Penguin Books Australia Ld, 250 Camberwell Road, Camberwell, Victoria 3124,
Australia (a division of Pearson Australia Group Pty Ltd)
Penguin Books India Pvt Ltd, 11 Community Centre, Panchsheel Park,
New Delhi - 110 017, India
Penguin Group (NZ), 67 Apollo Drive, Rosedale, North Shore 0632, New Zealand
(a division of Pearson New Zealand Ltd)
Penguin Books (South Africa) (Pty) Ltd, 24 Sturdee Avenue, Rosebank,
Johannesburg 2196, South Africa
Penguin Books Ltd, Registered Offices:
80 Strand, London WC2R ORL, England
First published in 2007 by Portfolio,
a member of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.
3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2
Copyright © G. Richard Shell and Mario Moussa, 2007
All rights reserved
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA
Shell, G. Richard,-
The art of woo: using strategic persuasion to sell your ideas / G. Richard Shell & Mario Moussa.
p. em.
Includes bibliographical references (p. ) and index.
ISBN-13: 978-1-59184-176-0
1. Selling. 2. Marketing. 3. Persuasion (Psychology) I. Moussa, Mario. II. Title.
HF5438.25.S48 2007
658.85-dc22 2007029601
Printed in the United States of America
Set in Sabon
Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be
reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any
means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise), without the prior written
permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.
The scanning, uploading, and distribution of this book via the Internet or via any other means
without the permission of the publisher is illegal and punishable by law. Please purchase only
authorized electronic editions and do not participate in or encourage electronic piracy of copy
rightable materials. Your support of the author's rights is appreciated.
Contents
Introduction Woo? 1
Chapter 1 Selling Ideas: How Woo Works 9
Chapter 2 Start with You: Persuasion Styles 27
Chapter 3 Connect Your Ideas to People:
Stepping-stones 59
Chapter 4 Build Relationships and Credibility: Trust 85
Chapter 5 Respect Their Beliefs: A Common Language 111
Chapter 6 Give Them Incentives to Say Yes:
Interests and Needs 137
Chapter 7 State Your Case: The Proposal 159
Chapter 8 Make It Memorable: The Personal Touch 185
Chapter 9 Close the Sale: Commitments and Politics 207
Chapter 10 Woo with Integrity: Character 235
Appendix A Six Channels Survey 249
Appendix B Persuasion Styles Assessment 259
Appendix C The Woo Worksheet 265
Acknowledgments 269
Notes 271
Topical Bibliography 293
Index 303
Vl1
introduction
Woo?
What's Woo?
We're glad you asked.
Marcus Buckingham and Donald Clifton, in their best-selling book
Now, Discover Your Strengths, tell us that "woo" is a talent for "Win
ning Others Over." The Wall Street Journal recently reported that
Barbara Broccoli and her half brother Michael Wilson, part-owners of
the James Bond movie franchise, "wooed" business tycoon Sir Richard
Branson to be a partner in their latest James Bond film. On that same
day, according to other news reports, President Hu of China arrived in
India to "woo" officials there on his plans for regional cooperation,
and the Central Kenya Initiative was formed to "woo" voters in that
African region. Meanwhile, officials from a small southern city trav
eled to Las Vegas, Nevada, to "woo" shopping center developers into
locating a mall in their city, and a major British university introduced a
new program to "woo" corporate recruiters to its campus. Around the
world, in places too numerous to name, people were wooing their
bosses, town councils, colleagues, and spouses to adopt their latest
plans to improve lives and solve difficult problems.
So what is Woo? It is relationship-based persuasion, a strategic
process for getting people's attention, pitching your ideas, and ob
taining approval for your plans and projects. It is, in short, one of the
most important skills in the repertoire of any entrepreneur, employee,
or professional manager whose work requires them to rely on influ
ence and persuasion rather than coercion and force.
Woo. Simple to say. Hard to do.
A manager we know once lobbied for a bigger-than-normal raise by
sending his boss a detailed e-mail listing all his recent accomplishments.
1
2 the art of woo
The boss circulated the e-mail to the senior staff and asked for com
ments. One of the executives copied on the e-mail was offended by what
he saw. It appeared to him that the manager was taking the credit for a
major project that the executive thought he should get the credit for. A
flurry of e-mails followed. Long story short: our friend did not get his
raise. Instead, he was fired for not being a "team player."
He lost his job because he ignored the ever-present danger of
office politics and forgot that idea-selling campaigns begin with
relationships, not e-mails. Lacking tone and context, e-mail messages
are easy to misinterpret. You cannot control who will see them, and
they are never deleted. If you want to get people on your side, go meet
with them face-to-face and see firsthand how they react to your ideas.
Then use e-mail later, after they are already on your team.
Woo is about people, not saving time.
Woo and You
Woo starts with a look in the mirror. If you do not know your own
goals, biases, emotions, and preferences, you cannot hope to see your
audience clearly. With this self-awareness as a foundation, you gain the
perspective needed to focus on the people you are trying to persuade. If
you look up the word woo in the dictionary, you will find that the first
definition relates to romantic courtship, as in "Charles wooed Victoria,
hoping she would marry him." Indeed, the root of the word persuasion
is "Suada," a Roman goddess who attended Venus, the goddess of ro
mantic love. You persuade others that you love them by showing that
you care deeply about their interests and needs. You demonstrate in
unique, personal ways that you "get" who they are, how they are
unique, and why that uniqueness attracts you.
But woo also has a more general meaning as we saw in the news
stories about everyone from James Bond's Barbara Broccoli to China's
President Hu. That meaning is "seeking favor and support." Once
again, woo carries a connotation of focusing on others-the people
being wooed.
The best books on management also emphasize this value. The
fifth of Stephen Covey's seven habits of "highly effective people" is:
introduction 3
"Seek first to understand, then to be understood." By understanding
your audiences, Covey argues, you have a better chance of being un
derstood by them. And, as we noted above, Marcus Buckingham and
Donald Clifton actually use the word woo in Now, Discover Your
Strengths to describe one of thirty-four personality "themes" that
people use to succeed at work. They define woo as a special talent for
establishing rapport quickly and easily with strangers by finding
"some area of common interest so that you can strike up a conversa
tion." Their definition of woo is much narrower than ours, but it
points in the same direction.
This all sounds fine. But what is the "art" of Woo?
The art comes in the balance you strike, each time you persuade,
between what we call the "self-oriented" perspective emphasizing
your own credibility, point of view, and level of commitment, and the
other-oriented perspective that focuses on your audience's needs, per
ceptions, and feelings. On the one hand, you have your own passions
and perspectives. On the other hand, your audiences may not be able
to hear you unless you speak in terms they can understand and in
ways that make your message attractive to them. How should you
balance your own need for authenticity with your audience's need for
a tailor-made message?
Two problems make this balance especially hard to strike in many
organizational settings. The first is familiarity. People often have per
sonal knowledge of (and, on occasion, animosity toward) those they
work with. Such familiarity breeds lazy habits when it comes to per
suasion. The second problem is formality. People fall into the trap of
thinking that all they need to know about those they are trying to
persuade are their job titles. They forget that persuasion involves per
sonalities as well as positions. These assumptions prompt idea sellers
to make careless moves, and this carelessness is what generally gets
them into trouble.
With Woo, you approach each persuasion moment as a fresh
event, even if it is happening with someone you have encountered a
hundred times. You come prepared with a plan, then improvise and
adjust as you go along.
That takes art.