Pain/gain framing for networking - emphasize positivity to influence them!
I'm transferring all of my notes on networking that I've written down in my "influence and persuasion" notebook to a "Networking Notebook" I just created in Evernote.
Throughout my work and studies, I've had some mentors who are networking experts and great at connecting with others as well as relationship building. I have a couple of mentors that were also kind enough to share real cold emails that have succeeded in creating connections. One 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."
Now, we see two things here:
"spare a few minutes for a brief phone conversation"
AND
"meet up for a quick coffee at your office"
We already know that the coffee idea is a bit of a WIIFT fail, but my focus is on the order in which the emailer has put these two options.
When you're looking to influence or persuade someone, you must remember that they are influenced by pain and gain (or "reward and punishment" as phrased in the research of the 25 cognitive biases). And, you must also remember that the vast majority of people are more motivated to avoid a loss than to seek a gain.
So, when you want to influence someone to do something you want, a way that John B. Ullmen says you can use positive sentence structure to influence their behavior is by delivering the bad (painful) news first and good (positive) news last.
Ex:
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: Also notice how Ullmen uses the word "but" to negate his previous (negative) sentence so it's even more positive by the end in the second example.
So, Ali, what does this have to do with the closer the emailer used?
Well, if you're sending a cold email to a busy, high-value individual, you need to remember that you're emailing someone who puts a high value on their time. So, it's important to take into account that they're motivated to avoid the loss of their time and that positive sentence structure will make you more persuasive in getting what you want from them.
By putting "spare a few minutes for a brief phone conversation" and then "meet up for a quick coffee at your office" right after, you're putting the option that will cause the receiver to lose the most at the end of the sentence 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:
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.