Sales, Persuasion, and Influence BA196.1

Directory

Syllabus
mmmRationale
mmmObjectives
mmmPhilosophy
mmmTeamwork
mmmGrading
Procedures
mmmPurchases
mmmEthics and rules
mmmmmmAttendance
mmmmmmCheating
mmmmmmTimeliness
Assignments
mmmGeneral
mmmWritten
mmmOral

Instructor: Arturo Pérez-Reyes
Phone: 510-642-4733 extension 2
E-mail: perezre@haas.berkeley.edu
Web: http://faculty.haas.berkeley.edu/perezre/unix/
Office: F473 Haas Faculty Building
Hours: By appointment only Friday after 4:00 PM
Class: 12:00-2:00 PM Cheit 125

Abstract and rationale

To succeed in business, you must be able to close a sale or deal. To succeed as a leader, you must be able to gain the willing cooperation of others. To succeed in management, you must be able to influence opinions as well as argue for and against policies. These skills require expertise, sophistication, and practice in selling, persuading, and influencing. Skills rarely taught in business schools.

This class is for professionals that need to persuade or influence others. You will learn techniques for changing peoples' minds, feelings, and behaviors. You will become expert at selling products, ideas, and yourself. You will learn many practical techniques; put this knowledge to work in breakout groups; and then come together again to evaluate strategies and tactics.

Second, this class will refine your skills in oral communication. You will make various sales demonstrations and presentations. You will make persuasive presentations that change the minds of subordinates, clients, and superiors. You will learn how to best your opponents and convince others to adopt changes of policy, behavior, or attitude. In sum, you will learn how to pull together all the elements of a business presentation to make your case.

Third, this class will also refine your skills in written communication. The course will focus on persuasive argumentation, because leaders must be able to communicate visions and persuade others to work their wills. Leaders must write up and down a hierarchy while maintaining the loyalty of subordinates, gaining the cooperation of peers, and managing competitive and adversarial relations. Finally, leaders must trade with the outside world. They must effectively write so as to sell ideas and products as well as manage their own image and that of their corporation.

Finally, this class will continuously examine how we influence others and are influenced and manipulated by individuals, organizations, and ideologies. You will discuss ethical issues concerning persuasion, influence, and manipulation. You will also explore examples of principled selling vs. hard ball and shineola. Our goal will be to develop an understanding of various ethical postures that weigh moral against monetary values and dialectically strive for long-term balance.

There will be several assignments and exercises. You will write an essay on the ethics of advertising. You will produce advertisements and brochures. Your group will turn in an executive summary as well as a three-page policy recommendation. You will make a sales demonstration before a large audience. You will make a sale one on one with another individual. You will make a group presentation using multimedia and visual displays of quantitative information.

Course objectives:

Demonstrate and Sell Products

• You will learn how to qualify clients, interview them, and analyze their needs.
• You will learn how to prepare visual materials and present illustrative samples that vividly support your claims about benefits.
• You will learn how to structure and deliver a sales presentation.
• You will learn techniques for drawing in audiences, maintaining their attention, creating a feeling of need.
• You will learn how to move clients from intellectually determined needs to feelings of desire strong enough to close the deal.
• You will learn how to anticipate objections and deal with resistance and

Persuasive speaking

• You will perform audience analyses.
• You will devise an argument plan that meets your audience's objections or corrects their lack of understanding.
• You will organize and sequence your talk preparing vivid examples and illustrations that support your case.
• You will present the audience with a course of action, and close the sale by rousing them to deeds.

Persuasive writing

• You will learn strategies for critically analyzing tasks, generating ideas and text, organizing material into coherent structures, and getting large projects done on schedule.
• You will learn how to analyze audiences and find common ground.
• You will learn the philosophy of logical syllogisms and the practice of enthymeme argumentation.
• You will learn how to organize ideas into logical sequences, forge arguments with probative force, and structure for ease in assimilation.
• You will examine the demands on leaders in hostile environments. You will examine strategies and tactics that allow them successfully to counter challenges, reply to competitors, and meet the objections of hostile or skeptical critics.

Social influence

• You will learn to convince others using logical and sophistical argumentation.
• You will learn to move and persuade others by exploiting symbolism, managing images, or making appeals to emotions.
• You will learn to influence others by employing contrast, reciprocation, commitment, band wagons, affability, authority, and scarcity.
• You will learn to change others by employing psychological theories and techniques for unconsciously reinforcing, discouraging, or modifying behavior.

Class philosophy

This course is eminently practical. It will require effort, regular attendance, and a willingness to grow and run risks. You will hone yourselves to a sharp edge by providing each other with constructive criticism. Such criticism is difficult to give, and even harder to heed. In this class, we will practice skills in self-presentation, writing, speaking, conflict resolution, persuasion, and argumentation. These skills can only be learned by emulation, role playing, and performance. Your most significant work will take place in class. You must commit to attending class and coming prepared for work.

Our work will not be safe. Communication is about bridging. What you intend matters only to you and your god or gods. What your audience infers 'means' everything. Messages only have meaning in the mind of a beholder, and audiences are a fickle lot. They bore easily. They are filled with preconceptions, passions, and suspicion. They attend most to signifiers that they feel you cannot control. Thus, how we appear to others easily eludes our control. It is often painful to discover the gap between what we wish to project and how others perceive us. The comments of others are often less than flattering. They can touch on personal weaknesses or raise sensitive issues. This gives us special obligations. As receivers of criticism, we must maintain a spirit of openness and learn to accept criticism gracefully. As givers of criticism, we must maintain a spirit of helpfulness, speak the truth, and keep our comments constructive.

To assist us, we will set up rules of engagement and institutionalized conflict. Throughout the semester, we will use a system of devil's advocacy. Each person will be given the role of catching a classmate doing something right as well as doing something wrong. The instructor will not be exempt. Your class representative will serve as an anonymous voice to pass along comments good and bad. In sum, this class will require from us all the courage of conviction, the love of truth, and the desire to be more than what we are or appear to be.

Teamwork

Every class and assignment will have some component of teamwork. For example, oral presentations will be prepared by groups. You will meet in advance to give each other feedback and rehearse. On the day you present, each member of the group will have a role in videotaping and evaluating the assignment. Similarly, written assignments will be corrected and commented upon by peers. These corrections and comments will be collected and used to evaluate the final result. Both writer and reviewer will be graded according to Demming's principle of collective responsibility for quality assurance.

Grading

Course evaluation will be based on the clarity and grace of your prose, the effectiveness of your oral presentations, and on your capacity to guide others to excellence. Grading will be weighted as follows:

30% Oral presentation
30% Written assignment
15% Computer assignments
20% In-class exercises and participation
5% Final exam


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Class procedures

Purchases

• One VHS video tape
• A good set of reference books
• Materials for presentations and assignments

Ethics and rules

Attendance and tardiness

Attend class regularly. We will do most of our most significant work in class. We only meet in class fifteen times. Call me if you are not coming. A call is common courtesy and a requirement in any workplace. Three unexcused absences will result in failure. The only excused absences will be those caused by illness or a death in the family. Do not bother explaining about interviews with recruiters or poor planning with due dates and exams in other classes. They do not constitute excused absences. Additionally, please arrive and leave on time. Class will begin promptly and end exactly on time. Late arrivals and early departures disrupt class and ruin the presentations of others. They are unprofessional. Three will drop you one letter grade.

Cheating and revision

Do your own work. Plagiarism and cheating will lead to dismissal. Do not copy the work of others. Do not use others to do your work. Do not pass off work done in past semesters as work done for this course. Assignments must incorporate lessons taught in class. Personal assignments must be produced individually. Group assignments must be produced by the members of the group. Please note, however, that once your work is completed, you may freely exchange it with others to be proofed or discussed. Mutual revision and correction are strongly encouraged. This is particularly the case if English is a second language or if 'received standard' is an alien speech community. Make sure that several people work with you on each assignment.

Turn in work on time

Complete all written and oral assignments on time. Late work will drop one letter grade. To add some flexibility to this requirement, you may be late with one and only one assignment. If you feel that this is not enough leeway, please use this syllabus to prepare and submit your assignments in advance.

Assignments

General requirements

Face card

Please supply me with a 3x5" index card that has a recognizable photograph in the upper left corner. Your best bet would be to emulate a passport photo. These photos are head shots that are at least 1" square and crop the head at the shoulders. If you do not have such a photo, you can use our computer resources to make one. From the reservation desk, you can check out either a Kodak or an Apple digital camera. Shoot a picture with it and download the result via their respective cables and software packages to either a PC or Mac. Alternatively, the multimedia lab has digital scanners and a handout on how to copy, size, and print any existing shot. Just make sure that the result is crisp and reasonably recognizable. To the right of the photo, please type or print your name in large letters. Underneath please put your e-mail address.

Information is useless without retention; faces mean little without a story. Consider using the balance of the front page or all of the back side to tell me about yourself. For example, there are several topics about which I would be interested in hearing. Do you have special needs? Is English your mother tongue? Are there any particular communication skills that you wish to improve or master? What are your most interesting past exploits, hobbies, experiences? What you would like to get out of this course and the business program? Where would you like to be five years from hence with respect to your career?

Computer accounts

You must purchase a full-access account with the Haas Computer Center. We will work closely with computers. We will have several classes in the computer labs. Many of your assignments will require you to work with advanced equipment and applicatioins. For example, your oral presentations will require presentation graphics and access to multimedia technologies. Additionally, you will need to have access to the Internet and to the fileservers of the business school. Please activate immediately your Internet e-mail account and secure a Walter password.

Requirements for written assignments and revisions

• With all written assignments, print with a new ribbon or toner cartridge
• With draft versions, bring enough copies for your group
• With all drafts submit a hard copy to the teacher
• With final versions, submit to the teacher two hard copies

You will have both homework and several major assignments. All assignments will go through a three to four week process. On the first day that papers are due, you will work in class as groups. Bring a copy for each member of your group and two for the teacher. You will read each other's work, discuss the good and bad points of each paper, and decide how they might be improved. You will then go home and rewrite. The finished product will be due in the next class. I will only grade the final version. My criteria for grading will be based on the highest registers of 'received standard' and on the principles taught in lecture. It usually takes me from one to two weeks to return papers.

Let me say a word about this iterative approach to assignments. Unfortunately, it creates a great deal of churn and paper. On the other hand, it sets up a dynamic where we as a class become concerned with betterment, rather than grades. It will help us focus on the "process" of improving our writing, rather than on the onerous task of producing fresh "product." This will increase quality and cut back on busy work. The iterative approach has another advantage. It creates appropriate motives. It encourages you to make the most progress possible within a semester by giving you a strong incentive. Hard work will earn a good grade. At the same time, this process is good for reinforcing and advancing instruction. Multiple iterations force you to hit a moving target, because each lecture ups the ante on the requirements for a successful performance. Finally, this process allows me to deal differentially with students according to their needs and excellences. Students with good communication skills have less to do and can teach those that are less prepared. Students who struggle with compositions and presentations get the combined attention of many different people, and get to practice and practice until they get it right.

Copies of your work

In this course, we will do a fair amount of copying. You will often revise and correct homework and assignment in class by passing around copies within groups. Additionally, written assignments will go through various drafts that will need to be copied. As a general rule, you will need to bring enough copies of your work to share with your group. You will also need to submit one to two hard copies to the teacher.

Requirements for oral assignments

• Bring your own VHS video cassette
• Complete your presentation in the assigned time
• Provide props and equipment as required

We will have video equipment present during all oral presentations. It will be used to maintain a visual record of your work. Bring a VHS tape to class on the day that you are due to present. Your team will use a video camera to record your presentation. This recording will be used in three ways. You will take this tape home to evaluate yourself. It will allow you to see how you look to the audience. Each tape will also contain a recording of the feedback you received; thus you can use it to review and evaluate the comments of your peers. Finally, these tapes will be used by you and your groups to perfect your stage presence and prepare for future presentations.

Oral presentations should be prepared and rehearsed several times before delivery in class. Do not attempt to "wing it." All good extemporaneous speakers practice a great deal. Good speakers experiment with modes, topoi, and arguments in the same way that good improvisational jazz players practice riffs and melodies. In both music and speaking, poorly conceived execution bores; meagerly practiced delivery stinks. Bad presentations are embarrassing to witness; humiliating to produce; and waste the time of all. They show grave disrespect for audiences and little regard for one's self. In business and in this class, the stakes are too high for sophomoric disorganization. Come to class prepared, refreshed, and ready to knock'em dead.

Please work in groups to prepare oral presentations. Groups should serve as sounding boards and ready audiences. Meet in advance of class to give each other assistance, rehearse, and evaluate. On the day you present, each member of the group will have a role. While one member presents, others will take turns setting up, running the video camera, marking time, and leading the evaluation. Each group will receive a collective grade that will be factored into the grade for individual performance. Just as in the work place, teams will rise or fall on the strength of their weakest links. Everyone will have to pull together to do well.