Persuading Senior Executives

Name: Persuading Senior Executives
Author: Katharine Hansen

Learn to persuade senior executives to act on your proposals.

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Course: On-Demand

(gentle music) Welcome to Persuading Senior Executives. Persuasive communication is the most common form of business communication. In these lessons, you'll learn the steps required to research and plan persuasive messages to communicate with senior executives. Effective persuasive communication with senior executives requires thorough preparation. It's important to understand your audience, the senior executive, and the topic you'll be presenting for persuasion. Once you have this understanding, you can prepare a message that persuasively conveys your point of view. You can learn about the senior executive through research. Speech writers often use a tool called audience analysis when preparing a speech. This process identifies aspect of the audience members, such as demographics and their prior knowledge about the speech's topic. While speakers deliver speeches to multi-member audiences, you can conduct your own form of audience analysis on your specific executive, or group of executives, by investigating aspects like how the executive prefers to communicate, the executive's pain points, priorities, and objectives; the organization's mission, vision, and values, which you can assume the executive supports; the executive's motivations, including how interested in your topic they may be; the executive's background knowledge on the topic around which your persuasive message focuses, basic demographics, such as age, gender, education level, and relevant cultural background, and the executive's perspective or worldview. How do you conduct this kind of research? You can start by talking to those who know the executive, including colleagues, assistants, and secretaries who work closely with them. You can also read corporate publications and watch videos that contain content from the executive's perspective. Or you can conduct an online search on the executive to see how they're publicly portrayed in the media. If you're communicating with multiple executives at once, focus your research on the primary decision-maker, but do some research on everyone who will receive the message. Perhaps they can help sway the final decision in your favor. You may already understand the situation you will present, but dig deeper to ensure you'll be able to recall all the facts and figures, as well as answer any questions that come up. Keep in mind, you may not have the time to cover every topic in a single meeting. Still, it's important to gather as much background knowledge as you can, until you feel confident that you can effectively deliver your message. The last part of your research is crafting your message. You'll be governed largely by how much time you have to present. Your time could be cut even more if the executive is called away or asks you to finish faster. Try to craft a message that's as thorough as possible, but have a contingency plan that you can quickly pivot to if your time is short. Developing your message will depend on the intelligence you've gathered on your audience, the executive. Use what you've learned to tailor the message to your executive's mindset and needs. It's also a good idea to prepare yourself for delivering the message. Experts agree that when you're trying to persuade someone, confidence is far more effective than a neutral demeanor. You can also think of ways to make your communication memorable, such as integrating a personal but relevant story into the presentation. And remember, preparing to deliver a persuasive message is just like prepping for a job interview. Get a good night's rest, look your best, and be sure you have extensively practiced your delivery.

Intermediate Provider : Katharine Hansen 7 Lessons · 23m in Arabic, German, English, Spanish, French, Portuguese, Urdu, Chinese

Course Description

Persuasion is the most common form of business communication. Persuasive communication requires significant understanding of your audience, research into your message, and careful construction of your call to action for the executive. Your message must be clear and to the point. How can you ensure your message conveys the confidence and power to persuade? What data and techniques can you apply to strengthen your communication?

These lessons on Persuading Senior Executives will reveal how you can best facilitate persuasive communication with your company’s senior leadership. You’ll learn the building blocks of persuasion – audience analysis, research, message development, and persuasive techniques, and discover how to craft a focused, concise, structured persuasive message that is supported by data. The skills you’ll learn here will not only prepare you to anticipate and counter potential objections from upper management, but you’ll be able throw solid pitches to them that are supported by facts and data.

What You'll Learn

Formulate research that supports persuasive communication with senior leadership
Construct a clear, direct, and confident message
Analyze facts and data for relevance to your message
Apply persuasive techniques to strengthen your communication
Craft a structured, concise message with a sharpened focus
Anticipate and counter potential objections from upper management

Key Takeaways

Persuasion is the most common form of business communication and requires understanding your audience, researching your message, and carefully constructing your call to action.
A persuasive message to executives must be clear, concise, and to the point.
The building blocks of persuasion are audience analysis, research, message development, and persuasive techniques.
A persuasive message should be focused, structured, and supported by data.
These skills help you anticipate and counter objections from upper management and deliver pitches supported by facts and data.

Frequently Asked Questions

Who is this course for?

It is for anyone who needs to persuade their company's senior leadership and facilitate persuasive communication with senior executives.

What does the course cover?

It covers the building blocks of persuasion - audience analysis, research, message development, and persuasive techniques - and how to craft a focused, concise, structured persuasive message supported by data.

What skills will I gain?

You will learn to formulate research to support persuasion, construct a clear message, analyze facts and data for relevance to the message, and apply persuasive techniques, as well as anticipate and counter objections from upper management.

What topics do the lessons include?

Lessons include preparing and researching the audience and message, planning a direct, clear, and confident message, crafting a structured and concise message, sharpening your message's focus, introducing facts and data, using persuasive techniques, and a Test Your Knowledge section.

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