How to persuade strangers to listen to you

Now there's one thing about social media which irks me no end - it is the fact that many users don't seem to understand that whilst anyone is entitled to spout their opinion online, there's no guarantee that they will be heard. Let me give you an example from today: there was a shock result in the women's balance beam finals at the 2016 Rio Olympics when the favourite Simone Biles of America made a huge error and posted a low score (which got her the bronze in the end). The door was left open for Sanne Wevers of the Netherlands who did a near perfect routine and narrowly won gold over another American gymnast, Lauren Hernandez who was also brilliant. I watched the finals and thought, oh wow, a significant victory for Dutch gymnastics - the Dutch women have not won a medal in gymnastics since 1928; looks like Simone Biles is human after all and can make mistakes once in a while. Biles did bounce back in the floor exercise finals and take her fourth gold medal though. Oh yes, I enjoy watching gymnastics at the Olympics.

Now I log onto some online gymnastics forums on social media - I usually want to read what the experts have to say about the routines and the judging, especially at a big event like the Olympics, we sometimes don't get to see all the routines on the live telecast especially when there's a lot going on and I can then receive updates from someone who is live at the Rio Olympic arena. So there's this woman on the forum called Yulia who isn't happy with the result today - she clearly thought that Hernandez of the USA was better than Wevers and that the gold should have gone to Hernandez instead. She was complaining about it on the forums and I read her comments and thought, she's on the warpath. I didn't respond as I tend to shy away from discussions like that online. Instead I went to the gym, then I went to the supermarket to get some food and I came home, had dinner then logged back onto the forums. Yulia was still at it, arguing with anyone who dared to respond to her on the forums, demanding that people respect her opinion. Ooh boy. I did think of writing something contrary just to irritate her, then I realized I recognized the name from somewhere and googled her. And I thought, okay, much respect to you for having been a very good gymnast (she once represented her country, but that was many years ago), but you don't really understand how social media works. Even if she had very valid points to make about the issue of judging, she didn't know how to make others listen to her.

So this Yulia believes that because she was a good gymnast (I'll credit her on that point, I found videos of her on Youtube), somehow people must sit up and listen to her because she has been there, done that, competed at a highest level and of course, she was making a valid argument about the judging system.  But even so,  it was the way she put her point across that made many people think, "who is this angry woman?" Gymnastics often delivers controversial results as it is a judged sport and it takes a penal of judges to decide who wins the gold medal (and I accept that it could have gone either way, given how a tiny margin separated first and second in this final), So even Yulia had some useful insider's knowledge about the issue, she simply didn't know how to argue her point. Okay, perhaps it is a language thing as English is probably her second or third language, but she just came across as quite arrogant in terms of the way she was telling the others you're wrong, I'm right, listen to me. Thus she was hardly going to get anyone to listen to her given the way she was expressing herself. I doubt she managed to convince anyone who didn't already agree with her point of view and all she did was probably make herself even more frustrated. Oh dear.

Do you have the knack of convincing strangers?

In a recent blog post, I talked about how to get what you want from strangers by manipulating them. Oh adult relationships are complex and it is never simply a question of asking the other person nicely. No, you have to convince them that giving you what you want is in fact in their best interest and how you manipulate them into believing that is an art form. Likewise, how do you get strangers to listen to you? If I were to place you in a crowded room and you had an important message, how do you make sure as many people as possible get that message if you weren't allowed to simply grab a megaphone and shout louder than everyone else? Yulia took the primary school teacher approach - a primary school teacher knows that the students will listen to whatever the teacher has to say attentively and will rarely question the teacher. That approach rarely ever works with adults, especially with strangers. I did notice that a lot of Singaporeans really don't have this kind of 'people skills' and it is an aspect of soft skills that is poorly developed in a culture where such 'soft skills' are hugely neglected.  PAP Politicians make gaffe after gaffe and still manage to get elected - it seems that in Singapore, there is no penalty for being blunt, tactless and saying the wrong things, so they have no incentive to bother being persuasive, charming or even articulate when dealing with people. This sets the tone for the culture and so many Singaporeans walk around, talking to others as if they are teacher addressing a bunch of primary school kids. Unfortunately, that is a huge problem in Singapore that has yet to be addressed properly.

Well, whilst I don't claim to be an expert on this issue - I have have a friend (let's call him Anthony) who is a brilliant expert at this. Now Anthony is a salesman in the world of financial sales - I used to work in that industry doing his job and Anthony represented a consultancy within corporate finance. So it is quite a niche market service, there's little point in his company spending money on advertising even in magazines for the banking industry as they have a very targeted client list. So what they do is they send Anthony to go to these conferences and networking events for the industry and he schmoozes. He is a good looking, slightly older English gent, very well dressed, exquisite manners, classy, eloquent and oozes charm. He would work the crowd, making sure that he tries to speak to people who could possibly use his company's services and that's a challenge because most people go to such events looking to get something out of others: be it a useful contact, gain some useful knowledge or even make a sale (just like Anthony). Nobody wants to get stalked and pitched by a salesman - so Anthony actually has an uphill struggle before him.

Oh shit, is he trying to sell me something? 

Firstly, Anthony believes in quality not quantity. He would rather spend quality time talking to five people than to go out of his way and try to talk to everyone in the room. The logic behind that is simple: if he has one hour to work the room, then spending 12 minutes with each person would enable him to spend enough time with each of them to get to know them well enough, understand their needs and find out which buttons to push. He would rather leave the event having convinced just one person that they need his company's services than to speak to everyone but leave without having made any meaningful contacts. So it is not a matter of how many people you speak to, but rather how many meaningful relationships you can actually form. That is why I think that online forums are a waste of time - it is so difficult to get anyone to listen to you there even if it does offer people the chance to speak up. By all means you can say what you want online (the way Yulia did), but really, is anyone listening to what you have to say?

Secondly, Anthony would always shake your hand, look you in the eyes and ask you how you are. He would always try to indulge in some small talk not related to work - about the weather, about the catering, perhaps about some topical event in the news to try to ascertain what kind of person you are before trying to engage you in any kind of conversation. Anthony is first trying to ascertain if you are a potential client or at least someone who could introduce a potential client. He uses that personal information that you will give him during the small talk in order to make that judgement call - he will then fine tune his approach depending on what kind of prospect you are (or if you're a waste of time, he'll politely excuse himself). Yulia on the other hand, got into arguments with strangers and I'm like - wait a minute, what's the point? You could be arguing with a 13 year old kid who doesn't know much about gymnastics for all you know - what would be the point of spending so much time and energy on such a conversation then? After all, one should at least take a moment to try to find out whom you are actually arguing with before even engaging that person.

Talking to Anthony is always a pleasure as he makes you feel special.

Thirdly, Anthony is highly persuasive because he is very charming and shows (or feigns) great interest in whomever he is talking to. He will ask you questions about what you are doing at the event, what your current projects are, what you wish to achieve this year etc - such open-ended questions will require complex answers (as opposed to simple yes/no monosyllabic replies) and you will end up divulging a lot of information about yourself to Anthony. He will then respond very favorably to whatever you tell him and often offer praise, flattery and encouragement. That would put you in a good mood and make you far more receptive to anything he is going to suggest to you. Of course, as a salesman, that's his job to make the potential customer receptive to the idea of buying his product. That's quite the opposite of the primary school teacher whose approach is putting her foot down and saying, "you guys need to understand this lesson, or else you will fail your exams and you will be in big trouble. So shut up and pay attention because what I am about to say is very important." Yeah, I am actually thinking of a primary school teacher I had who was pretty much like that during all her lessons and she wasn't interested in encouraging or praising us - she just wanted everyone in the class to pay attention. Now our teacher had that power over us as we all wanted to do well in our exams, but Anthony knows he doesn't have that power over his punters, so he has to use a different approach.

Lastly, Anthony has a very specific goal in his mind - the ideal outcome is for him to set up a formal meeting with the potential client, so they can talk about how they can use his company's consultancy services. Everything he says or does is carefully calculated so he can achieve that goal. The problem with Yulia on that forum is that I don't even think she knows what her goal was - okay, I get it she's not happy with the results that the judges in Rio delivered and the current judging system, but what will her rant on social media achieve? If she was merely trying to vent her frustration and let off some steam online, then she failed to do so because she encountered many who disagreed with her whom she then got into arguments with. Certainly, she wasn't going to be able to change the results or even influence the way gymnastics is judged in the future by ranting online like that. I could see that the only viable way for her to do anything about the situation was if she trained to be a judge (given her credentials as a successful former gymnast, that shouldn't be hard) and become a judge herself, so she can then be in a position of power. But wait, she would still need to abide by the rules of gymnastics as stated in the gymnastics bible, the code of points - she wouldn't be able to simply judge according to her own criteria. Her options are indeed very limited - so whilst she can become a part of the system but there is just no way for her to change it as an individual. How incredibly frustrating it must be for poor Yulia.

Did Yulia know what she was trying to achieve?

Now, what would Anthony do in such a situation then? He would simply pick his battles and not waste any time and energy on an issue which he knows he can do little or nothing about. So if Anthony encounters someone who thinks that his company's services are not good enough or not particularly useful, he wouldn't spend too much time or effort to try to change this person's mind. He would merely politely excuse himself and go talk to someone else instead and hope that the next person would be a lot more receptive. It is not a matter of pride or defending his company's good name, he has the good sense to put all that aside - for Anthony, it is simply picking an approach that would yield the best possible results. Mind you, I have a long list of things that I am not happy about in life, but it is a lot more productive to simply focus my energies on things that I can indeed do something about. And I simply accept that there are things that I cannot change, such as some of the criteria and rules that govern the sport of gymnastics. The one that irks me the most is the inane tie-break rules that state that there can be no ties in the Olympics even if two gymnasts are given the same score - there is then an arbitrary process to try to determine who gets the medal and who will be shafted. I'm sure Yulia would agree with me that this rule is pretty ridiculous as there are ties in other sports as well - but I simply accept that such is the nature of the beast and I can't do anything about it.

Well and here's one thing that I would do (that Anthony doesn't do). Here's something that I've learnt from one of my favourite comedians Margaret Cho. She uses comedy as a means of persuasion when she talks about serious issues - she realizes that she can't nag at people to change their minds, nor can she lecture them like a primary school teacher. Instead, she uses comedy to entertain them - so people listen to her because she is telling funny jokes, she makes them laugh with her. That is how she engages them and holds their attention; now that they are listening, she then begins to persuade them to listen to her point of view on the issue. So you see, she offers comedy and entertainment - humour is her weapon and she uses it to great effect. Now over the years, like Yulia, I've encountered so many things in life that drove me nuts - I've decided to take Margaret Cho's lead by creating some funny Youtube videos to deal with the issue. I wasn't prepared to do a Sister Bin style rant as nobody would want to listen to an angry bald man like me! Most people who watch the video don't even realize that it is a rant, they just think they're watching yet another comedy sketch video on Youtube. Perhaps that's something Yulia could try, if she is really keen to make a point. So, below are some of my best comedy rants over the years which my regular readers may have seen before:

So there you go, that's my take on the issue. What do you think? Do you have any special methods you use when it comes to persuading strangers to listen to you? Have you met people like Yulia who default to this primary school teacher mode? What do you do when you are very frustrated with a situation and want to talk about it on social media? Is there a sensible way we can use social media effectively without getting utterly frustrated? Many thanks for reading.