The Importance of Not Annoying Those Whom You’re Trying to Influence

On Daily Kos, Kos wrote about how people who whine obnoxiously about how their favored politician isn’t receiving proper coverage on the blog aren’t doing themselves or their candidates any favors. That gave me the opportunity to condense some of The Lifelong Activist’s chapters on persuasion into a short essay, which begins as follows:

“In a posting today, Kos wrote: ‘There will always be a number of people who aren’t happy that I don’t worship at the altar of their favorite candidate. Anything but blind worship is considered disrespect….Every election there’s a crew that screams about biases and the like….Really, all the whining does neither you, nor your favorite guy any favors. It does the opposite — it turns people off from your guy.’

“I discuss this phenomenon of ‘activists influencing people AWAY from their cause’ at length in my new book The Lifelong Activist: How to Change the World Without Losing Your Way (graciously reviewed on DK by both SusanG and OrangeClouds115). I write:

‘You also have to be attractive, not in the fashion sense but in the pleasant/personable/good company sense. At the very least, you shouldn’t be a person who repels others…Many activists, in fact, manifest a repellent—again, in the literal sense—personality: unhappy, sour, judgmental, bitter, alienated or angry. And then they wonder why they have such a hard time selling their viewpoint!’

“Badgering, guilting, shaming and otherwise trying to coerce people into adopting your viewpoint is not just bad behavior, but bad activism. The reason it doesn’t work is because, put simply, people are more likely to be persuaded by someone they like, and whom they think likes and respects them, than someone they dislike, or feel dislikes or disrespects them. In fact, they are likely to flee from the latter – which is just what Kos is describing!

“Salespeople learn all this in Sales 101, and so do the best activists, who shamelessly embrace non-exploitive marketing and sales techniques. What top salespeople and activists understand are three maxims I call Bitter Truths because no one, in my experience, likes to hear them…”

Click over to read the rest…