It’s time to replace the old playbook of business persuasion with a new edition.

That’s according to Rotman associate professor John Oesch, who says the “new rules of persuasion” require a different approach, different guardrails, a different perspective, and seek to achieve a different outcome.

“A lot of people hold tight to that myth that [when it comes to persuading people to do something], it’s a zero-sum game — that whatever I gain, they lose, and whatever they gain, I lose,” he says. “That’s simply not true.”

Oesch credits that myth and others like it to corporate dramas of the ‘80s and ‘90s, which framed negotiations as having clear winners and losers. Now he says that approach is not considered ethical, sustainable or even beneficial in the long run.  

“If you think of that speech that Alec Baldwin's character gave at the beginning of the movie Glengarry, Glen Ross, ‘Great salespeople are born, not made. Always be closing. If you can't close the deal, you're a wimp. You’ve got to take the money.’ That's the old approach,” Oesch says. “The criteria for successful persuasion have changed, and a lot of that has to do with ethics, and the value of continuing a relationship.”

To update your persuasion skills to match the current business culture, Oesch suggests focusing on four principles.

Maintain relationships

The old approach to persuasion emphasized short-term gain, often at the expense of longer-term consequences.

“From marketing, we now understand the costs of acquiring a new customer are far greater than the cost of retaining an existing customer,” he says. For many businesses, that revelation has shifted the focus from immediate and transactional to lasting and mutually beneficial.

That is why he says every interaction with the other party needs to ensure those relationships are being nurtured effectively.

“Relationships should be enhanced at best, and not damaged at worst,” he says of such interactions. “Your criterion is relationship quality; neither party should be worse off at the end of it.”

Use pre-suasion

Who would you rather have lunch with; a longtime friend looking to catch up, or an old colleague who just got let go?

According to Oesch, the moment you need something from someone is typically the worst time to start building relationships with them, which is why he suggests engaging in something called “Pre-Suasion,” a tactic made popular by a 2016 book by Robert Cialdini.

“If you weren't trying to pre-suade, you would wait until you needed [something from them] to buy them lunch, and then you would sort of force a lunch upon them,” he says. “Do it because you want to have lunch with them, listen to what they have to say, because there might be some future benefit.”

In a business context, pre-suasion could take the form of a gift or promotion for existing customers, an employee bonus or a share buyback with no strings attached. “You ask them for nothing in return, because next year, you will be asking them for something, and if you're pre-suading, they'll feel a sense of obligation," he says.

Consider the community impact

Contrary to the famous speech delivered by Michael Douglas’s character Gordon Gekko in the 1987 hit movie Wall Street, greed isn’t always good.

If the traditional approach was a face-off with only one victor, the new rules of persuasion view interactions through a much wider lens.

“You’re not just trying to make sure the two of you are better off; you’re making sure that the company or the industry or the community is better off because of the persuasive endeavor that you've engaged in,” Oesch explains.

For example, Oesch says a real estate agent may push a buyer to the upper limits of their budget to earn a higher commission, but that ultimately hurts the credibility of the industry in the long run.

“It's bad for the community of real estate agents if you really press people,” he explains. “Real estate agents do that because they see a short-term gain, and they don't really take into consideration the long-term implications. And you know what? Real estate agents are facing consequences because of it.”

Practice makes perfect

Finally, Oesch emphasizes that persuasion isn’t a skill that you’re born with, but one that is developed over time.

“Very persuasive people make it look so easy — they must have been born that way — absolutely false,” he says. “It is a set of skills that anybody can learn and develop over time, but it does take time and practice — and to some extent, coaching.”

Oesch explains that understanding the various tactics at play and knowing when and how to use them effectively, often takes years to hone.

Such tactics include scarcity — which he describes as using “limited time offers” to create a sense of urgency and leverage a fear of missing out — and reciprocity, or the urge to return a favour, which requires not downplaying our own contributions with statements like “it was no problem.” Another common tactic is consistency, or the natural urge to follow through on our commitments, which can be leveraged through reminders of how far along the negotiation process the parties have already travelled, and how close they are to the finish line.

Strong negotiators, Oesch says, not only understand each of these tactics intimately, but also develop an instinct for when and how to use them tactfully. That is why he believes the only way to improve your persuasion skills is to continually work at it, ideally with a third party that can offer feedback.

“I always end any session on persuasion with a diagram of the learning curve, the x-axis is time, and the y-axis is skills development,” he says. “You cannot go back to work on Monday and just start persuading people as though you're highly skilled; it takes time.”