THIS MOMENT COUNTS · 27

At the last public Talk Lab, someone said they loved the idea of “Don’t persuade harder, resonate stronger,” but found it incredibly hard to embrace in practice. They had a pitch coming up and really needed the client to say yes.

This gets right at the heart of what I love about the idea of resonance. Here’s roughly what I said:

You're treating resonance as the gentle option, the thing you’d try if the stakes were lower. As if there’s a nice way and an effective way, and when it really counts you’d better use the effective one.

It’s exactly the other way around. When it counts, resonance is much more effective.

Imagine you’re standing in front of the board or a group of decision makers. You’ve got your good reasons lined up, you’ve polished the wording and the slides, and you persuade the hell out of them. At the end, they really do nod. Wonderful.

But then you leave the room and the moment the door closes behind you, someone turns to a colleague and asks:

“So what do we actually think about this?”

Whatever gets said in that conversation decides your project. And you’re not around anymore to handle objections or persuade a little more.

In other words, the nod was for you. What they say after you’re gone is for them.

Persuasion is very good at getting the nod. Pressure works while you’re standing there. But it doesn’t travel well. People who were persuaded into a yes might not be eager (or even able) to defend it. And so the yes quickly becomes a no in the next budget meeting or the email nobody answers.

So.

When you tell me you absolutely need them to say yes, I believe you. But it’s exactly why I won’t let you persuade them. The higher the stakes, the less you can afford a weak yes that bends the moment the persuasion stops.

Resonance isn’t a softer way to get them to a yes. It’s an entirely different kind of yes.

Persuasion asks why they should agree. Resonance asks why they would. Should gets you good reasons and every one of us has a warehouse full of good reasons we ignore every single day. Would gets you to the real reason, the one that actually determines our choices.

When you find their real reason, you can stop pushing, because you’re no longer dragging them over to your side. You’re showing them something they already want. I call that the of-course-effect. You’re basically putting into words what they already felt long before you opened your mouth.

And if you know what to listen for, you can hear when it worked: People are speaking about your idea as if they’d thought of it themselves, as if it was the most obvious thing in the world. That’s the yes that survives when you leave the room.

So I’m not asking you to care less about the yes. I’m asking you to go after the one that lasts. The one you don’t have to push for. The one they always wanted, without even knowing it.

All it often takes is a flip in perspective.

Keep lighting the path,
Michael

Public Talk Lab (online) Oct 28th 5pm Berlin / 12pm New York Reserve your seat →

If you need your audience to say yes to something or if you simply want to change minds with your talk, join me for another public Talk Lab. You can ask me anything, from basic to the most difficult and meaty stuff. In the last edition, I loved the many tough questions about real-life problems. The ones you don’t find answers for on YouTube or LinkedIn. Plus, you’ll meet smart, like-minded people who want more from their talks. It’s free to attend, but spots are limited.

PS: If you’d rather want to work with me privately, that’s what a 1:1 Talk Lab is for.