The importance of context

One of the objectives of many of the people in management and sales positions is improve their influencing skills. A client asked me just the other day, “how do I influence people and get better results?”.

One of the most important things to remember about the process of influence is the use of context. You can change the way people feel about anything in relation to what you did immediately before it.

Let me give you an often cited example. Imagine a bucket of water at room temperature and then putting your hand in it. Obviously, it will just feel wet. Now imagine two other buckets of water, one hot and the other cold. Now imagine sticking your hand in the cold water and then into the room temperature bucket. It will feel much hotter than before. Now imagine putting your hand in the hot bucket and then into the room temperature bucket. It will feel much colder then before. So what you did immediately before putting your hand in the room temperature bucket makes a lot of difference.

So when presenting your ideas they should ideally be presented in comparison to something else. When preparing your idea or proposal you must ask, “what can I fairly and legitimately compare this against?” You can then show why you discarded the other options and present your idea in the best light.

Here’s a question for you. If you have two options to present to a client, which do you present first the more costly one or the less costly one? E-mail me what you think and I’ll let you know if you’re correct.

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