Persuasion. Marketing. Buzz-creation. PR. Copywriting. Propaganda. Selling. Word Of Mouth.
It doesn't matter what you call it...
Content-creator's offerings are often ignored because they neglect the most important skill they possess.
Capturing and holding the attention of others onto your creations in a noisy world. This is a pillar of persuasion, but for some reason, ~99% of content-creators neglect it.
They ignore a super-power they've had since birth, the ability to persuade.
As kids, we could persuade parents to get us that new toy or let us go to a friend's house. We could persuade our friends to pull pranks or skip school. We could even persuade ourselves to believe in a relationship or cause, whether it was good for us or not.
And I know what I'm talking about.
As a child my creativity was encouraged.
My parents had me tested and placed in a special 'gifted school', which gave me far more freedom to create than most kids. And that creativity has been kept up throughout my life. I've made more 'ignored creations' than anyone I know. (I'm not sure, but it might be more than anyone period.) I've made hundreds of posts & articles, created a book, been in the press, made animations & digital art, written and performed songs, coded games, and much more. Many of them went ignored.
"I’ve missed more than 9,000 shots in my career. I’ve lost almost 300 games. Twenty-six times I’ve been trusted to take the game-winning shot and missed. I’ve failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed." - Michael Jordan
My constant failure to draw the attention of others toward my creations made me feel the way I imagine Vincent Van Gogh felt. Van Gogh painted many artworks, which almost certainly "should've" been embraced and applauded by his society, but he died undervalued, underpaid, and in relative obscurity.
Do You know who made Van Gogh famous? His sister-in-law, Jo. Shortly after Van Gogh died, Jo was left with a ton of paintings, which she marketed, promoted, and persuaded like a beast. She took them to galleries, dealers, and exhibitions, loaning them out. She went one-by-one making friends and refining her pitches until people started to pay attention. Being a great content-creator alone wasn't enough, but when a passionate promoter took over, that's when things started to happen.
As a publishing creator, one of two things can happen.
- You can publish your materials and effectively capture the attention of your target audience / potential fans / the critics / the public.
- You can publish your materials and ineffectively capture people's attention.
And the most important factor in how things go is your persuasion abilities.
Do you ever feel like a 'Van Gogh', creating things you know in your heart are valuable, while society ignores your efforts? Many people do. I did.
And the deep pain of pouring out wisdom, creativity, and passion that gets ignored, led me to do something rare.
I began studying persuasion.
Because I realized that creating beautiful things is useless if we can't persuade people to snap out of their autopilot routines and pay attention to whatever we've made.
And when I started studying it something even stranger happened.
The internet let me down.
If I want to improve at League Of Legends, I can find countless wonderful resources freely available to learn from, even free coaching.
If I want to improve at graphic design, YouTube channels and forums are offering well-structured and valuable teachings.
But there's precious little out there on persuasion.
All I could find on it were haphazard, hit-or-miss, super-general, difficult to apply teachings.
I thought to myself, "how many content-creators, brands, and businesses are suffering as they pour their heart into creating wonderful things... but couldn't learn persuasion even if they tried?"
Schools teach us how to add numbers or create music, but I've never seen a course on persuasion. And even if I did, I'm doubtful as to how effective it would be.
I'm not sure I've ever seen such an important skill be so under-discussed and under-taught. For example, one of the first things I do when I want to learn a new skill is...
Seek out the masters of it.
I seek out the best 'practical appliers' of the skill and examine their examples, and I also seek out the best 'teachers and coaches' of the skill, to learn from their wisdom and knowledge.
So if I wanted to quickly learn basketball, I'd study, say... Michael Jordan footage for his application, and study Phil Jackson's teachings, for his wisdom/theory.
But when I googled for masters of persuasion, I could find plenty of examples of 'practical appliers', such as Cicero, MLK, Trump, etc., but very few teachers of persuasion outside of Robert Cialdini, Kevin Hogan, or Charlie Houpert (who, for me at least, weren't extremely helpful).
So I figured maybe my google-skills were lacking and poured in more effort.
I searched marketing, rhetoric, copywriting, controlling narratives, and more since they're all persuasion under different names.
Each of these research binges helped a bit, and I'd end up adding a name here and there to my list. After years of doing this, I'd created my own substantial list of 'persuasion masters.'
So the next phase of my research was reading as much as I could from these people, especially my favorites like Blair Warren and Eugene Schwartz.
And while truly learning persuasion usually takes much practice...
Often we can get a jumpstart by deeply thinking on the wise words of people who speak about persuasion.
And this thought inspired me to google 'persuasion quotes', but the results were embarrassing. Searching either brought a bunch of flowery romance excerpts from Jane Austen's novel, 'Persuasion', brainyquote.com's vague quotes from celebs who happened to use persuasion once in a sentence, or a scattering of good-but-over-played others.
So I decided to make my own compilation of persuasion quotes.
And hopefully, it'll inspire more content-creators to be better at this sorely neglected super-power.
Because once you have a basic grasp of persuasion, you'll find you can market any creation you've made reasonably effectively. You'll find you're much better at promoting any cause or project that's important to you. You'll find you're able to get the positive results that many content-creators dream of.
So here are the best quotes I've found on persuasion, from some of the wisest people who cover the topic.
Enjoy:
'Rhetoric' is just a fancy way of saying 'persuasive communication.' People often make it sound 'evil' or 'bad', but rhetoric can be used to help others or harm them, just like any other skill or tool.
Blair Warren is one of my favorite persuasion teachers, and he points out that most of us are unable to admit humanity's irrationality, and anyone who can't honestly assess humanity's quirks and foibles, will struggle to properly influence people.
Content-creators have tons of great ideas, and they often work to bring them to life. It's a shame to see them die due to lack of persuasion.
I made a post about marketing Hive recently that got 350+ comments. Most of the commenters had very strong beliefs about how to best market hive. It's worth asking, did they get these beliefs through clear thinking, rock-solid proof, and years of marketing experience? Or did they get their beliefs through their fears, biases, and preferences? Food for thought, I'd say.
On average in our careers, we devote 40+ percent of our time on the job towards 'moving' others. We are all in sales now. We're all continually 'selling' everybody around us on our ideas, our beliefs, even our 'presence', whether we like it or not.
The most impressive feats people look up to in the world have been accomplished by persuasion, not force.
This is @cynshineonline 's favorite quote, and my least favorite. I prefer to persuade with rationality, proof, wisdom, and clear value, and would prefer if 'friendship' didn't really come into it, lol. Regardless, this is extremely important to the art of persuasion.
Just facts.
So... this dude probably isn't someone to celebrate, but he definitely knew a thing or two about persuasion.
Ask yourself how well are you accomplishing this with your content?
Many content creators don't think much about whether their words are 'felt' by their audience, but the ones who do tend to succeed much more than the rest.
If you're sure what you're doing is the right thing for all involved, and you want the support of 'the masses' or 'the majority'... it's on you to persuade them to agree with you or adopt a similar position. In a democracy, everyone has the freedom to make their case and attempt to persuade others.
The better you are at listening and understanding another's perspective, the more masterfully you're able to persuade them. If you're not great at listening & understanding others, you'll struggle to persuade.
The real trick to persuasion is that it happens inside another person's mind, and it's completely under their control. All you can do is make your strongest case possible, persuade as excellently as possible, and be as influential as possible... but ultimately, it's up to each individual what thoughts they think and what they choose to believe, no one else's.
And that wraps up my list of quotes.
Now, I'll mention that some people object to learning persuasion.
In fact, some people see persuasion as bad, evil, or 'manipulation.' But since persuasion is something we're all doing, all the time, (and have been since we were kids)...
Objecting to persuasion is like objecting to breathing. Or perhaps more like objecting to moving your limbs.
A person can use their limbs to injure someone else, or they can use their limbs to build a house. Similarly, a person can use persuasion to harm others or to benefit others. There's absolutely nothing wrong with improving one's persuasion skills, it's the same thing as strengthening one's arms and legs. And for a content creator, it's vital.
If you still don't want to use persuasion to better your life and the lives of others, that's fine, but the only result I see from neglecting such a powerful natural ability... is 'struggle.' People who are good at persuasion tend to struggle less and achieve more of their dreams. People who avoid persuasion like the plague tend to struggle more and achieve less of their dreams. This is easily observable if you look into it.
But I encourage everyone to do what feels best to them.
There's no pressure here. And you definitely shouldn't do anything that doesn't feel good to you. But I'd say it's worth giving some thought to the power of persuasion to help you realize your dreams before writing persuasion off or dismissing it.
Ask yourself some questions about it, such as:
- "Do the heroes and people I look up to use persuasion? If so, how?"
- "Was I more persuasive as a child? Did that help me grow and get what I want? What happened that made me weaken my persuasion muscles?"
- "If my options are a) persuade well, b) persuade poorly, and c) avoid persuasion because it's 'bad'... which choice suits me and my life best?"
Because all your dreams lie just beyond the threshold of persuasion.
- Want plenty of upvotes? You'll have to persuade your audience your content is worth their time and positive support.
- Want a sale? You'll somehow have to persuade clients to trust you.
- Want a bigger house? You'll have to persuade your family to move, or the seller to accept your bid, or your agent to do so for you.
Persuasion is a key in nearly everything you do, and many content-creators languish in obscurity while they ignore this super-power. And here you are now, reading some valuable information about it.
Originally I just wanted to share a list of wise quotes on an under-served topic. But I ended up inspired and wrote quite a bit. This has me wondering... have I persuaded you that your persuasion skills are worth improving?
Either way, you have a choice to make.
Remain the same as you've always been, with the same level of persuasion skill you've always had...
...or step up to the plate and invest more into mastering persuasion.
What do you choose?
P.S. I used a few persuasion techniques in this article, aimed at convincing you that persuasion is a helpful skill. Did you notice any of them?
P.P.S. If you want to learn more about the nuts and bolts of persuasion, please check out my primer "Persuasion Basics That Work: Tips & Tricks."
Also, I'll tag a handful of content creators who may get value from this: @danielvehe @starstrings01 @nevies @kgakakillerg @polarmystro @nioberojas @osarueseosato @wil.metcalfe #TogetherWeRyze
Bonus Quotes
