It’s About Them, Never About You

To be able to persuade, you need to have a connection between you and your audience.

Imagine a connection to be like a rope. You are holding one end and your audience holding the other end. The rope will be taut when the audience is pulling it towards them. The rope will be slack when the audience is not pulling or if they let go of the rope. It is futile to try to keep the rope taut by pushing it towards the audience.

The audience will pull the rope towards them when they know that we create value and can offer benefits to them i.e. we can solve their problem or meet their need.

So to make a connection, our part is to create value and focus on how our value can benefit our audience i.e. solve their problem or meet their need. The audience’s part is to want the benefits we can offer because it can solve their problem or meet their need i.e. the motivation to pull the rope to keep the connection taut.