Make people BELIEVE you when you speak

I can’t believe I fell for it …. but I’m glad I did.

If you want to be 10 times more persuasive, just do this one thing.

This last week, I went to buy a couple of new suits. And I don’t really know a whole lot about suits. I just buy one and wear it for years.

But I’ve lost some weight, you know, I’m trying to get in shape. And when I went there, I didn’t really know what size I wanted. I didn’t know what brand I wanted. I didn’t know what the fit should be like.

Should I get one that’s a little bigger? So if I gain weight, lose weight, how does that work? So I went, and I was looking at some suits, and I liked the patterns.

And when the representative of the store came to me, she said, “Do you know what you’re looking for?”

I said, “Yeah, I’ve got some idea,” because I didn’t want to look like an idiot.

But then when I was looking at the suit, I said, “Hey, this is... I’m thinking of this one,”

and she said, “You know what? It’s a pretty popular one. It’s also a really expensive one, but personally, I don’t think that color goes well with you.

And I also think that for the price, you can get much better from some of the other brands. Are you open to exploring that?”

I said, sure.

So then she went out, she picked a suit, and then she put it right against my neck. And she said, “Ah, no, I don’t think this one looks good. Let’s do it again.”

And I was following her around the store as she was showing me things that were not a good fit for me.

Eventually, she landed on one and said, “You know what? This one, you’re going to look really, really good with this one. Try it out.” So I tried it out. I looked really good in that one.

I took a picture and sent it to my girlfriend. She said, “Wow, that one looks really, really good.” And eventually, I ended up buying the suit.

Now, what can we learn from this experience? I normally don’t really trust reps because I find that many of them don’t really know what the hell they’re talking about.

They’re just there because they’re supposed to talk to you.

But the reason I trusted this one was because not only did she know what she was talking about, but she gave me some advice that will be helpful to me.

It was against her best interest because if I wanted that first initial suit and she said,

“Oh yeah, that’s amazing, you should buy it,” she would get a lot of money from it or at least whatever commission her store pays her.

I would get the suit; everyone’s happy. But because she said, “Hey, don’t buy that one,” I felt like she was saving me, that she had my best interest in mind. And then when she recommended something else, I was going to trust her.

So the lesson to be learned here is when you admit to your own limitations, other people trust you more. Because what do salespeople try to do?

“Hey, buy this thing. It’s amazing. Oh my God, it’s the best thing in the world.” Immediately, you know, obviously, they’re going to say it’s the best in the world, right?

But what salesperson says, “Hey, don’t buy my product. It’s not going to be good for you. Buy this instead”? When you do that, you immediately earn people’s trust.

So if you want to be more persuasive, believe it or not, talk about the things that you can’t do.

And then when you talk about the things that you can do, they will trust you a lot more.

- Yasir Khan