Persuasion is the skill that differentiates the order taker from the professional salesperson. Order takers don’t have much value and can be easily replaced with modern technology. If you want to stay viable and valuable in the post information age (now being referenced as the connection economy) then your ability to persuade is critical.

Persuasion in one of the major element of negotiation skills.

Cicero has been credited with the very earliest writings on humanism. His letters date hundreds of years prior to it becoming a recognized philosophy during the renaissance period. Humanism is, in short, a philosophy that emphasizes human beings as critical thinkers and rejects superstition and dogma.

Cicero’s quote could be mistaken for a definition of practical empathy (PE). I’ve written about empathy on several occasions recently and the term practical empathy is emerging as a term I use to describe empathy as a sales skill.

It seems Cicero agrees.

Our job in real estate sales is to sell. We must first sell ourselves as the best candidate to represent our prospective clients to obtain their desired results. Then we must sell the product. It could be selling a listing to the market or it could be selling a buyer client on the right house. We are continuously persuading people to do things we want them to do. When we are unable to persuade, we fail at the task.

Now this could all sound a little too agent centered but there is a higher dimension to persuasion. To truly persuade consistently, we need to earn a high level of trust. If our client, or prospective client doesn’t believe that we are working in his/her very best interest, they will not allow themselves to be persuaded. If they ever feel tricked, they will not only stop doing business with us, they will tell everyone about their experience.

So what Cicero writes is foundational to the skillset we must master if we are to be respected real estate professionals who people reach out to for our expertise, our professionalism and humanness in terms of empathy and care.

Take your inner Cicero with you to each and every social, community and philanthropic event you can this festive month of December and have some meaningful and deliberate conversations with people about them. You will be astounded at how this will attract great clients for the New Year.