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Pain/gain framing for networking - emphasize positivity to influence them!

#1 · December 6, 2020, 12:25 am

Quote from Ali Scarlett on December 6, 2020, 12:25 am
One email I read before contained this as a closer:
Him: "If you would be able to spare a few minutes for a brief phone conversation or perhaps meet up for a quick coffee at your office in Santa Monica, I'd be more than grateful."
Although it succeed in creating a connection for the person who used it, it could still be improved.
We notice two things in this one:
"spare a few minutes for a brief phone conversation"
"meet up for a quick coffee at your office"
We already know that the coffee idea is a WIIFT fail, but my focus is on the order in which the emailer put these two options.
People are influenced by pain and gain (or "reward and punishment" as phrased in some research) and oftentimes people are more motivated to avoid a loss than to seek a gain.
So, one way to influence someone to do something you want is to use positive sentence structure to influence their behavior by delivering the bad (painful) news first and the good (positive) news last.
E.g.:
You: (negative sentence structure) "We've had some success on this initiative, but we need to address certain problems."
You: (positive sentence structure) "We need to address certain problems, but we've had some success on this intiative."
*Note: This specific example is from John B. Ullmen in his course, Influencing Others. Notice how he strategically uses the word "but" to negate his previous (negative) sentence so it's even more positive by the end in that second example.
So, bringing this back around to the closer the emailer used:
If you're sending a cold email to a busy, high-value individual, you need to think in terms of their greatest potential loss when providing them with any options and phrase your sentence(s) accordingly.
If they put a high value on their time (and almost all high-value people do), by putting "spare a few minutes for a brief phone conversation" first and then "meet up for a quick coffee at your office" after, you're putting the option that will cause the receiver to lose the most last—which makes your general ask come across less positive (and less persuasive) than it could be.
By simply reversing the two, your ask becomes more positive.
See, for example, this alternative:
Him: "If you would be able to spare a few minutes to meet up for a quick coffee at your office in Santa Monica, or perhaps even a brief phone conversation, I'd be more than grateful."
See how much better that sounds?
Now, it sounds less like a task and more like simple options on the table the receiver can choose from.

One email I read before contained this as a closer:

Him: "If you would be able to spare a few minutes for a brief phone conversation or perhaps meet up for a quick coffee at your office in Santa Monica, I'd be more than grateful."

Although it succeed in creating a connection for the person who used it, it could still be improved.

We notice two things in this one:

"spare a few minutes for a brief phone conversation"
"meet up for a quick coffee at your office"

We already know that the coffee idea is a WIIFT fail, but my focus is on the order in which the emailer put these two options.

People are influenced by pain and gain (or "reward and punishment" as phrased in some research) and oftentimes people are more motivated to avoid a loss than to seek a gain.

So, one way to influence someone to do something you want is to use positive sentence structure to influence their behavior by delivering the bad (painful) news first and the good (positive) news last.

E.g.:

You: (negative sentence structure) "We've had some success on this initiative, but we need to address certain problems."

You: (positive sentence structure) "We need to address certain problems, but we've had some success on this intiative."

*Note: This specific example is from John B. Ullmen in his course, Influencing Others. Notice how he strategically uses the word "but" to negate his previous (negative) sentence so it's even more positive by the end in that second example.

So, bringing this back around to the closer the emailer used:

If you're sending a cold email to a busy, high-value individual, you need to think in terms of their greatest potential loss when providing them with any options and phrase your sentence(s) accordingly.

If they put a high value on their time (and almost all high-value people do), by putting "spare a few minutes for a brief phone conversation" first and then "meet up for a quick coffee at your office" after, you're putting the option that will cause the receiver to lose the most last—which makes your general ask come across less positive (and less persuasive) than it could be.

By simply reversing the two, your ask becomes more positive.

See, for example, this alternative:

Him: "If you would be able to spare a few minutes to meet up for a quick coffee at your office in Santa Monica, or perhaps even a brief phone conversation, I'd be more than grateful."

See how much better that sounds?

Now, it sounds less like a task and more like simple options on the table the receiver can choose from.

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