Being Persuasive

From our personal and professional lives to our interactions with mass media, people are trying to persuade us into something all the time. They may try to persuade you to join a project team, convince you to do a job you don’t necessarily think you should do, or talk you into buying a product or service you don’t need. Although these three terms are sometimes interchangeable, there are some subtle differences. People talk you into doing something, such as buying a product or performing an action. In other words, talking somebody into doing something has to do with actions, but not necessarily with changing your attitudes or opinions. For example, a salesperson can talk you into buying a coat, or your child can talk you into buying him/her a new cell phone. In all these cases people urge you to perform an action which you may later regret.

Unlike those, verbs persuade and convince have more to do with changing your attitudes, opinions, and beliefs. The difference between these two verbs is primarily the one of intensity. Convincing implies more pressure and insisting, whereas persuading is more gentle and subtle. If you don’t really want to participate in a project, and your manager insists, then he/she is convincing you to participate. On the other hand, people may present compelling arguments to change your attitude or opinion on an issue. Of course, whether you will be persuaded or not depends on how persuasive you are, and the level of trust that the other person has. If the arguments people use in the course of persuasion are said to be convincing, their strength does not depend so much on the skill of the person who is trying to persuade you or convince you (in this case there is no difference between them) but the arguments are strong in their own right.

When translated into Croatian yet another word will be translated as uvjeriti. If your subordinates are assuring you that they have done everything to avoid failure of a deal, it will actually mean that they will tell you what they honestly think is true and try to eliminate any doubts you might have. If you doubted that the project was going to be completed on time, and asked the project manager about it, you could say he assured you it would be as he said. It simply means he/she expressed their firm belief in the positive outcome, without necessarily providing persuasive or convincing arguments.

We were primarily trying to convince you that there are differences between these words. We did not simply try to persuade you or talk you into buying our story as a clever salesman would not simply persuade or talk you into buying their products without presenting convincing arguments. Even if you don’t buy our story, you can be assured we did our best.