Second Draft - The Art of Persuasion

                     In today’s business world, every channel of communication is carefully planned and there are several thoughts and ideas behind every email, advertisement, and product. The ability to adapt to your audience is the key to make people understand what message you have to deliver. Cultures, nationalities, gender, age, and personality are only a few attributes to consider before deciding what kind of communication would be most efficient when it comes to make it easier for the counterpart of the conversation to understand. When talking to a group of elementary kids, people adapt and talk with a more informal and “everyday language” compared to if they are in a meeting with the dean of their University. Clear communication is the key to share information efficiently between the sender and the receiver and by adapting the style, provide credibility, and know your audience; the message can be structured to better apply to the audience which will ease the understanding of the information.

In order to complete this research, I met up with Johannes Beck to get some real life experience from how important communication is in the business world. Johannes is the founder and CEO of Melonboard which is a company producing and selling electric skateboards and hover boards. Johannes is 21 years old and has been working with his company for about two years. During the interview, Johannes mentioned how being young in the business world is tough and without credibility and experience, people do not take you seriously. The lack of trust affects his way of finding investors but also companies to work with. He explained how hard it has been to come out of nowhere and try to appear credible. Today, two years and two companies later, he is much more respected and when he talk to people in the business world today, people get impressed rather than skeptical when they hear about his accomplishments rather than his age. Despite his age, he now has evidence of what he has accomplished which makes him credible and it explains to the audience he knows what he is doing.

Johannes provided me with a few different documents which show how the writing is important for him when it comes to conducting business. Except for his website, he gave me four different emails which all follow the same kind of style and as I mentioned earlier, we met up for a forty five minute interview to better discuss how writing and rhetoric is important when it comes to persuade his customers. During the interview, most of our time was spent on customer service and how to communicate with the customers to make them happy and satisfied. By always being connected to social media, email, and phone, the customers can easily connect with him when they have questions. Johannes value customer contact and believe in a transparent business model where the customers always are in focus. If customers help him sell products by referring people, Johannes is not late to reward those customers with free merchandise as a thank you. This approach of give and take philosophy is what creates a great relationship between the communicator and the audience and it proves how important clear and simple communication is for a business and by knowing what and how his audience wants things; he can easier satisfy his customers.

One of the most important parts when it comes to clear communication is the style of it. Most often, there are four different styles used in order to persuade the listener and the styles are analytical, intuitive, functional, and personal. In the analytical style of communication, facts and data are very important and the conversation is most often filled with numbers which makes it more informative than other styles. No emotions are included in the content which means personal values and beliefs are excluded from the conversation and it is only the actual facts that are being presented. This kind of style is useful when there are a lot of emotions involved in the argument and by only focusing on the facts, it will increase the odds of the conclusion to be “correct” instead of involving bias to the argument. Instead of focusing on the facts, the intuitive style focuses on the big picture rather than specific facts. This style is great to use to get a bigger understanding of a problem or scenario and when the importance of the facts does not play a big role to persuade that picture. (Mark Murphy)

The third style of communication is functional communication which is built on a step-by-step method to make sure nothing is left out of the communication. This kind of style is popular to use when it comes to timelines, processes, and plans since they cover all the information that is required to make the document useful. The problem with the style is that if the receiver of the message is more into intuitive or personal communication, they will most likely lose attention because it is too many facts to keep their interest up. The fourth and last style is personal communication which is about emotion and building a relationship with the people you are communicating with. This style is perfect if you want to build deep relationships and it works as glue in a group to keep everybody together. Personal communicators may have a problem when they interact with analytical communicators since they want numbers and not feelings to describe a situation. (Mark Murphy)

The knowledge of which kind of communicator your audience is should affect how you approach that person and the presented material should be adapted to the audience to keep his interest and make it easier for him or her to understand. According to Gerald Graff, the importance of explaining why something is important and why we should care is essential to keep the interest of the audience. By adapting to the audience’s style, the communicator can keep them interested by changing his or hers way of communication. If the audience is analytical communicators, the sender can interpret more facts and statistics to be more credible and trustworthy and when the audience is personal communicators, the sender can focus more on building a relationship rather than confusing the audience with statistics.

In the interview with Johannes Beck, CEO of Melonboard, he explained how important it is for him to adapt his communication to his audience. Since he knows his target market is teenaged guys in college who lives a couple of miles from campus and work three or four times a week, he knows that the best way to communicate with them is most often through a intuitive style of communication because these people are rarely interested in stats about the board and they are not interested in building a deep relationship with the seller. If he would have applied another style of communication, he would not have been as successful as he is when it comes to customer satisfaction.

By looking at the artifacts Johannes use in his every day operations, it is clear that he is not only adapting his style but also his language to make it more understandable for his target market. Instead of sending out long manuals with formal language, Johannes sent out a short email regarding tips and tricks to help his customers to maintain the condition of the board but also to use it safely. The email is structured in a way which makes it very easy and fast to both read and understand which applies to the lifestyle of his target market. The emails are also very transparent when it comes to explaining how and when the customers will receive their board and why there might be a delay in the delivery. As an example, one email explains that the delivery of the board is two weeks late due to a delayed transfer payment to the factory but as soon as the transfer is completed, the boards will be shipped to Shanghai Airport and then by air to each customer. This kind of emails are very transparent and gives the customer greater understanding of how much logistics are involved in the process of getting the board to their front door. It also provides the customer with more knowledge about the reasons behind the delay which makes the company appear more credible since they are open about the truth towards their customers.

In order to persuade the listener or reader, credibility is essential to appear trustworthy and knowledgeable. Within rhetoric, ethos, pathos, and logos are playing an important role in how the message is communicated. Ethos is the first part of the concept and it makes the message become credible and trustworthy. By using ethos, the communicator will convince the audience of the author’s character and credibility by using a formal language and supporting evidences which are adapted to the audience. The purpose of ethos is to communicate your expertise in a fair and unbiased manner which makes the audience believe in what the communicator has to say. Pathos is the second part of rhetoric and covers the emotional part of the communication. Instead of using credible sources, the purpose of pathos is to appeal emotions into the argument to easier persuade the counterpart. Humans are emotional creatures and a lot of their actions are performed based on emotions. If the message invokes sympathy, anger, happiness, or joy, the audience is more likely to find interest in the message since they get affected by it. The third and last part of rhetoric is logos which covers the logical part of the message. Facts and statistics are playing a very important role when it comes to persuade the person through logos and by presenting numbers, the audience gets introduced to certain beliefs and arguments about the subject

Ethos, pathos, and logos are not used all at the same time. Depending on if your audience is analytical, personal, intuitive, or functional, the author or speaker must decide to use more pathos when persuading personal communicators and more logos if the audience are more analytical. Ethos, pathos, and logos are the base of rhetoric and by not adapting the style to the audience, the change of successfully persuade the audience will decrease.

Style, credibility, and audience relationship do all play an essential role when it comes to clear communication. By choosing the right style to communicate with your audience, you will most likely be able to persuade the listener or reader much better compared to using a style not adapted to the audience. By knowing who your audience is and what they want, the communicator can adapt language, content, and style which makes it easier for the audience to understand. Just like Johannes did in all his emails, adapting the message is essential when it comes to persuade people. What if Johannes would have sent out long manuals and instructions on how to use the board instead of the short informative emails? His audience would probably not read it or they would give it a try but give up once they realize it is not interesting for them. This would result in customers not knowing how to use the board or what to do to make is safe and keep it in good condition. By adapting the style of communication to better accommodate his audience, Johannes manages to provide important information through informal language which applies better to his customers. Clear communication is the key to be success and persuading people is an important tool to reach that goal. By thinking of our audience and how to help their understanding, the communicator will be able to change the world through his or her communication. The art of persuading people is one of the most powerful tools you can have and by master its techniques, no one can be too small to make a difference.