Using Stories For Persuasion

Influencing anyone will be child’s play if you know the basics of persuasion technique or persuasion psychology. One can persuade someone with brilliant ideas, attractive images and loaded words. However, one thing that can never fail in persuading someone is the art of story telling. Those who are masters of telling stories know how easy it is to persuade people using stories. In this article, you will get to see what role does story telling play in using persuasion techniques.

The Manner of Telling Stories

There are various ways of telling stories, like for a child it’s more like a fairy tale style and for an adult it may vary to proof-based style. Depending upon your audience, you need to first decide upon the manner of telling a story. Whosoever, your audience is, one style that never fails in persuading the audience, is the natural way of telling a story. Simply relax and practice as much as you can to tell your story in a natural way without any artificiality.

Choose Stories to Evoke Response

Once you have decided the manner of telling your story, move on to the next step of choosing a story that will evoke great response in the audience. The best stories that can be used to persuade people of any age are the ones that are powerful enough to evoke emotions, especially like that of pity and fear. Even Aristotle used this theory of ‘catharsis’, meaning arousing a feeling of pity and fear. Believe it or not, this theory stands true till date in using the technique of persuasion.

Fact or Fiction

Don’t forget to analyze yourself that whether your story is a fact or fiction before presenting it to others. If you are yourself not sure about its factual or fictional status, you are most likely to throw the axe on your own foot. In other words, a person who is himself confused in his own idea, can never succeed in persuading someone else with his idea. So, better analyze your story yourself first before telling it to persuade others.

Make Highlights of the Stories

Lastly, make highlights of your story to have a perfect persuasion on your audience. It’s not necessary that you come up with a new story, but you can definitely present yourself differently by highlighting things that were not highlighted by others. A same story told in a different manner with some clear highlights can easily persuade someone.

Believe it or not, those who succeed in mastering the interesting art of storytelling can never fail to convince people to sell their ideas. Practicing all the above-mentioned story telling tips, anyone can become a good persuader or convincer. A good storyteller can no doubt be a good hypnotist who can hypnotize others with his imaginative or factual stories. Just remember the golden rule, that more effective is your way to tell a story, the more effective you will be in persuading others. So, come on pick up a story and use it to make people follow you with your ideas.