but also in the car and at home. She’s intrigued, and she tries them on. A few minutes later, she
decides to get fitted for her very first pair of multifocal glasses, spending $725. A taker might have
lost the sale. By asking questions, Kildare was able to understand her concerns and address them.
But maybe we’re stacking the deck in favor of givers. After all, opticians are selling in the health
care industry, where it’s easy to believe in the product and care about patients in need. Can givers
succeed in sales jobs where customers are more skeptical, like insurance? In one study, managers
rated the giving behaviors of more than a thousand insurance salespeople. Even in insurance, the
higher the salesperson’s giver score, the greater that salesperson’s revenue, policies sold,
applications, sales quotas met, and commissions earned.
By asking questions and getting to know their customers, givers build trust and gain knowledge
about their customers’ needs. Over time, this makes them better and better at selling. In one study,
pharmaceutical salespeople were assigned to a new product with no existing client base. Each
quarter, even though the salespeople were paid commission, the givers pulled further ahead of the
others.* Moreover, giving was the only characteristic to predict performance: it didn’t matter whether
the salespeople were conscientious or carefree, extroverted or introverted, emotionally stable or
anxious, and open-minded or traditional. The defining quality of a top pharmaceutical salesperson
was being a giver. And powerless communication, marked by questions, is the defining quality of
how givers sell.
Out of curiosity, are you planning to vote in the next presidential election?
By asking you that one question, I’ve just increased the odds that you will actually vote by 41
percent.
That’s another benefit of powerless communication. Many people assume that the key to
persuasive skill is to deliver a confident, assertive pitch. But in daily life, we’re bombarded by
advertisers, telemarketers, salespeople, fund-raisers, and politicians trying to convince us that we
want to buy their products, use their services, and support their causes. When we hear a powerful
persuasive message, we get suspicious. In some cases, we’re concerned about being tricked, duped,
or manipulated by a taker. In other situations, we just want to make our own free choices, rather than
having our decisions controlled by someone else. So if I tell you to go out and vote, you might resist.
But when I ask if you’re planning to vote, you don’t feel like I’m trying to influence you. It’s an
innocent query, and instead of resisting my influence, you reflect on it. “Well, I do care about being a
good citizen, and I want to support my candidate.” This doesn’t feel like I’m persuading you. As
Aronson explains, you’ve been convinced by someone you already like and trust:
Yourself.
Dave Walton knows why questions are effective persuasive devices. He sees great lawyers as
salespeople, and it’s important that they don’t sell their arguments too assertively, like takers. “The
art of advocacy is to lead you to my conclusion on your terms. I want you to form your own
conclusions: you’ll hold on to them more strongly. I try to walk jurors up to that line, drop them off,
and let them make up their own minds.” Thoughtful questions pave the way for jurors to persuade
themselves. According to Aronson, “in direct persuasion, the audience is constantly aware of the fact
that they have been persuaded by another. Where self-persuasion occurs, people are convinced that
the motivation for change has come from within.”
By asking people questions about their plans and intentions, we increase the likelihood that they
actually act on these plans and intentions. Research shows that if I ask you whether you’re planning to
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(Michael S)
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