Invisible Influence: The Power to Persuade Anyone, Anytime, Anywhere

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Here’s the Message for That Mood

Knowing as much as you can about the other person before you make any communication is critical. You can dramatically increase your success by noticing, in this case, the mood of the other person.

Research has found that if that other person is in a down or sad mood, your message will be received as more persuasive than it otherwise might be, depending on how you position it.

It’s all about cognitive load, or how much information people are processing.

Happy or angry people, in other words, those who are in an activated or impulsive mood, make decisions faster, so you can lay out your preferred choices as early on as possible.

In contrast, the person who is sad, hurt, fearful, depressed, or otherwise negative is handling information slower in one of these emotional states. So you need to present them with your preferred choice later in the proposal.

It might sound like this when talking to someone who seems downcast:

The Roofer: “Kevin, you have two choices. The storm has taken off about a third of the shingles on the roof. If we just replace those shingles, we’re looking at about $10,000 out of pocket, as your insurance deductible is just greater than $10,000.

“The other option would be to get your insurance to pay for most of a new roof, because when their adjuster gets out here they’re going to declare it a total loss, and the cost to you is still going to be $10,000. Your house—what do you want me to do?”