Arlene Dickinson - Persuasion: A New Approach to Changing Minds

H ow do you convince someone to do what you want, in a way that leaves both of you feeling good about it? I make a living trying to answer that question. My job as a marketer is to help companies and organizations establish and define their brands, then persuade the marketplace in general and consumers in particular to pay attention. So persuasion is something I understand, because when you get right down to it, its really what marketing is all about.

But figuring out how to persuade others isnt just my day job. Its also how I pulled myself out of poverty armed with nothing more than a high school diploma.

My path to becoming a CEO and one of the venture capitalists on Dragons Den was not exactly linear. It zigzagged, crazily sometimes, and Ive stumbled many times. But at critical moments along the way, Ive been able to convince key people to take a chance on me or stick by me. And that has made all the difference.

Before any of that, though, I had to persuade myself I belonged in the business world in the first place. Lets just say it was a hard sell. There was nothing in my background to suggest I had what it took to succeed in business, much less run a company. I grew up poor, was a mediocre student, and moved out on my own after graduating from high school at age 16. My father predicted, memorably, Youre going to be barefoot and pregnant the rest of your life because you dont have a university degree. At the time, I didnt care. Back then, my only goal in life was to find a husband and have children. And there I did succeed: by 19, I was married, and I had my first child a few weeks after my 21st birthday.

By the time I was 27, I had four kids and was stuck in yet another dead-end job. I wasnt a good employee, I have to admit. Ive been fired more times than I care to remember. I was forever challenging conventional wisdom and coming up with my own way of doing things, which is great when youre an entrepreneur but not so great when youre earning minimum wage and really need the money to feed your family.

The only job I managed to hang on to for any length of time was so horrible, they couldnt find anyone else to do it: I was a bill collector. I worked out of my kitchen with my childrenall under the age of sixroaring around in the background. Ill never forget sitting at my Formica table, staring at the fridge (avocado green, of course, and plastered with the kids drawings and pictures), and steeling myself to dial someones number. This was in the days when phones were attached to the wall, but Id purchased an extra-long cordprincess pink, to match the phoneso when the kids blasted through the room, I could run around the corner to try to get away from the noise.

Id received collection calls myselfwe were perpetually brokeand frankly, I found it really difficult to make them. I felt too sorry for the people whod overextended themselves and just didnt have the money. They were apologetic and embarrassed usually, and frustrated because they genuinely wanted to pay their bills but just werent able to. Id listen to their stories and wind up sympathizing instead of pressing them for cash. The rest of the people on my call list, the deadbeats, just made me angry. With them, it was pointless: they seemed to get pleasure from cursing at me and clearly had no intention of forking over a penny. But sometimes I even ended up feeling sorry for them, too. What had happened in their lives to make them that way?

The worst part of the job was when I had to pile everyone into my beat-up old car and drive out to someones farm to serve a summons. Dogs would chase the car up the driveway, one of the kids always suddenly needed to go to the bathroom, and the people who answered the door usually looked either scary or simply so battered by misfortune that I felt like a terrible person for contributing to their despair. It was depressing, not least because I felt that I was staring down the barrel at the kind of life I was one step away from myself.

Frankly, I might be living a life like that today if I hadnt got divorced when I was 31. It turned out to be my catalyst for change. Heres why: a family court judge told me that before I could have my kids with me full time, I needed to prove I could support themand I was absolutely determined to have my kids with me full time.

Every one of us has events in our lives that change who we are. Those events can become a negative or a positive influence, depending on whether we choose to use them as engines for propulsion or excuses for defeat. While it would have been easy to have a woe is me reaction to a failed marriage and an acrimonious custody battle, I decided to view my circumstances as a springboard: I had four amazing children who needed me, and I had to try, at the very least, to make enough money to take care of them. Everything I have done and built since has been because of my need to ensure my children were taken care of and loved.

This does not mean Ive always been the best mother. Just ask my kids! They have lots of good stories about me falling short. I was a young mom, after all, and I fumbled and improvised a lot. But there was never any question that my children were my purpose in life. Getting married as a teenager and having four kids in short order created a lot of challenges. But it also drove me to transform my life.

In 1987, I lost everything in my life that had previously signified identity: my home, my husband, and my role as primary caregiver to my kids. The only jobs Id ever had were clerical or administrative. I had no idea what else I could do. Or even wanted to do. I could not even have dreamed that, one year later, Id be a partner at Venture Communications, then a tiny Calgary agency. But thats what happened. Ten years on, I became CEO, and today, Venture has grown to become one of the largest independent marketing firms in Canada.

How did I do it? Ill explain in detail in the chapters to come, but heres the short answer: I figured out how and why principled persuasion works. The most incredible thing about it, as far as I can tell, is how easy it is. You dont need to be brilliant or a dazzling wordsmith or drop-dead gorgeous. You dont have to be an extrovert or wildly charismatic. It doesnt require an MBA or a background of wealth and privilege. To be a good persuader all you need to be is self-aware, willing to be honest even when telling the truth is difficult, and committed to reciprocity in all your relationships.

In other words, just about anyone can do it. And it can help you in just about any situation you find yourself in, in business and the rest of life.

Over the years in marketing, Ive learned that customers are persuaded to reach for a particular brand in the store because it represents something larger to them: good health, or happiness, or sophistication, or whatever the case may be. People who gravitate toward a Nike running shoe, for instance, arent focused on the quality of the rubber used to make the sole or the strength of the reinforcements around the shoelace holes. Theyre not attracted by specific features, but rather by the benefit the shoe promises: victory. Their connection to the brand is primarily emotional.

So as a marketer, I think about persuasion in terms of creating an emotional connectiona relationshipbetween a company and a consumer. And I tell clients that as with any relationship, if you want it to work, youd better be true to your own values and honest with the other party, and youd better make sure theres something in it for both of you.