Tag Archives: influence
The Final Three Persuasion Lessons from the Final Presidential Debate: Obama’s Zingers vs. Romney’s Restraint
This blog post first appeared on Forbes.com
In my last post, I shared some persuasion lessons from the first Presidential and Vice Presidential debates. Because each debate reveals new persuasion tactics and lessons, I couldn’t resist writing a sequel to my October 18 post.
1. Latch on to Your Likability. We saw some new (for President Obama) communications tactics in the last…
Underdog Watch: Rhode Island State Treasurer Gina Raimondo
I was gratified to see The Wall Street Journal run an opinion piece on Gina Raimondo, Rhode Island State Treasurer, for her work overhauling the state’s pension system.
I picked her as one of my “Top Underdog Persuaders of 2011”, which is featured on Fortune Management’s ’s CNN Money site: http://management.fortune.cnn.com/2011/12/30/the-most-notable-underdogs-of-2011/
I know what you are thinking—- she’s the Rhode Island State Treasurer, so she can’t be an underdog. However, underdog status is contextual; the position and resources of your influence prospect vs. your resources and position determines your underdog status. Raimondo was taking on the state public employee unions, who, when aroused, have a tendency to make public officials nervous.
If I were to study all of her…
Single Voice (On Steroids) Sinks Coast Guard Rule
I read a recent article in Roll Call entitled “Single Voice Sinks Coast Guard Rule.” It told the story of Susan Balistrei who “single- handily” caused the Coast Guard to rescind a regulation relative to life jacket design. The article was also featured in the September 27 edition of the K Street Cafe blog: http://www.kstreetcafe.com/
The Coast Guard issued a new rule regarding life jacket design without providing for public comment because it “considered this rule to be noncontroversial and did not expect any adverse comment.” Balistreri wrote to the Coast Guard that aspects of the regulation could enable currently approved inflatable products to be marketed to teens, and that these life jackets weren’t safe for teenagers. …
How to Spend Money on Surveys that Don’t Get Results Part 1
No, that’s not a typo. Although many organizations have the best intentions when it comes to conducting influence campaign research, I’ve seen some rival the “burn rate” of a circa 2000 internet start-up company without persuading their audiences. That results in wasted resources and a credibility hit for the government relations professionals at the scene of the crime.
On a somewhat related note, it reminds me of a comment (and I’m not making this up) at a recent conference where someone who was the victim of an “influence in a box” product pushed at them by an outside vendor, exclaimed: “We spent $400,000.00 (again, unfortunately not a typo) on a grassroots influence campaign and all we got was a lousy web…
How to Spend Money on Surveys that Don’t Get Results Part 2
Here’s how to really determine if ads are effective: advertise some products, and don’t advertise others. Then see which sells. All those “advertisements that don’t work” will sell the product. Those that are unadvertised will sit on the shelf. When you ask people why they bought the advertised product, they will mention positive product attributes, but seldom advertising.
No matter if you are selling a message, a request for action, or a PAC contribution, the lesson for government relations professionals is this: unsophisticated “merely asking” type of research won’t give you the insight needed to create compelling lines of persuasion.
So, that’s a long explanation of the number-one way to spend money on research that doesn’t get results: incorrect methodology. Here are…