Persuasive Communication: The Formats and Information Professional Messages Need to Win Support

Marketing is hard. But I'll tell you a little secret. It doesn't have to be. Let me point something out. You're listening to a podcast right now and it's great. You love the host. You seek it out and download it. You listen to it while driving, working out, cooking, even going to the bathroom. Podcasts are a pretty close companion. And this is a podcast ad. Did I get your attention? You can reach great listeners like yourself with podcast advertising from Lib Sin ads. Choose from hundreds of top podcasts offering host endorsements or run a pre-produced ad like this one. Across thousands of shows to reach your target audience and their favorite podcasts with Lib Sin ads. Go to LibSyn ads.com. That's L-I-B-S-Y-N. Ads.com today. Hey friends, welcome to Signal Strength. The Communication Podcast Coach Andy here. Today's episode is about something almost every professional struggles with even the smart ones, even the experienced ones, even the leaders persuasive communication. It's episode six, season one. This is the finale. We're going out with a bang. Lots of great stuff in store for you today. And when it comes to persuasive communication, I'm talking about what formats do you need to use? What information every professional needs? If you want people to support your ideas or back your proposals or approve your plans or simply to understand what you're trying to accomplish. And most people don't lose support because they have bad ideas. They lose support because they deliver their ideas in the wrong way. They present information instead of persuasion. They talk longer instead of clear. They push data instead of structure. If you've ever walked out of a meeting thinking, why didn't anybody react to my idea? Why didn't they see what I saw? It's probably because your message didn't have the right structure, not because you didn't have the right content. Today we're going to be fixing that. Now in episode five, we talked about how to create any communication. We talked about how to do that. And the steps I covered, the nine sweeps method that I use to develop any professional communication. In today's episode six, we're going to go from the construction process to the actual architecture and the content itself. You'll learn the essential formats and essential information that every persuasive message needs to win support. Now in my book, Signal Strength, I go deep on seven different persuasion frameworks. Today, what I'm going to do is I'm going to give you parts that will help you immediately without taking you all the way through the advanced training. But I'm going to give you some powerful lessons today. But I want to make a note of that in the event you want to learn my full list of frameworks and examples and see how everything works. Make sure to grab the book. But today in the podcast, we're going to cover three big areas. The first thing we're going to do is I'm going to show you the anatomy, the meaning of the ingredients that every persuasive message needs. Second thing we're going to do is we're going to talk to you about a couple of simple frameworks that you can actually use. So of those seven frameworks, I'm going to give you a couple of them, the details and some examples. And then the third thing we're going to do is we're going to tie it all together with a simple upgrade that you can instantly use to strengthen your message. So let's get into it. Before we even talk about persuasion, let's talk about why your communication falls flat. It's not because you lack intelligence. That's the good news. It's not because you communicate with a lack of confidence. It's because the communicator lacks structure. You've seen this happen. Someone gets up to speak or sends an email or delivers a recommendation and you can tell their smart, they're articulate. You can tell they know their stuff, but their message is all over the place. It's an information dump. There's no flow, no purpose, no direction. And when a message has no structure, the audience has no chance. I once coached someone, a leader, brilliant insights, killer data, rock solid proposal. We were reviewing it for one of her board of directors meetings. And when she presented it to them, it literally went nowhere. And when she said to me afterward, I don't get it. Everything I said was correct. And I said, correct isn't persuasive. You have the lumber, but you don't have the frame. You've got the material, but you don't have the structure. You've got the information, but you need the communication. And so what we did after she had gone through this process was we rebuilt it with structure. We completely changed some of the content, the persuasive arguments. She had another chance six weeks later, at the next board meeting, she had convinced them to listen to her again, give her another chance to actually present some new insight and even though she presented the same material, she did it differently. Same data, same ideas, entirely different outcome at the second, the second iteration, they actually approved it for her. So it was really, really helpful once she understood what the structure needed to look like, the sequencing, the information, the logic, the emotion, and everything that needed to go in it in order to win the support. So remember, your message is only as strong as the structure underneath it. So let's get into how do we build that structure? Well, the first thing is you need to understand the core anatomy of what a persuasive message looks like. Every message that's persuasive, no matter how long or short, needs eight ingredients. Think of these as the building blocks. If any of them are missing, the message loses power. If several are missing, your message will totally collapse. So let's walk through each one and why it matters. So first thing is the context. Number one, it's the starting point. You tell people where we are, what's happening, what prompted the conversation. Have you ever had somebody walk into your office or you could think about your spouse or a friend or anybody? Everybody just walk in the office to start talking and you have no idea what, why am I listening to this? What do you need from me? Why is this important? Why did you interrupt me? Do you need me to listen to every word that you're saying? Because you need me to remember it so that I can come up with a recommendation? Do you need me to listen so I can go and carry out instruction? Do you need me to go and do something? Do you want my opinion? Do you just want to bend my ear? You have no idea why you're listening, which makes it even harder for you as a listener to listen. Well, imagine you're the communicator. If you don't paint the picture up front on why this matters, nobody can follow along with your message if they don't know where it begins or why it's important. Without this context, your audience is spending mental energy, trying to orient themselves instead of actually listening. So good communication lowers the cognitive load. Context does that. The more upfront information you give them, the less they have to hang on to because they know what to hang on. The second thing is why it matters. So this is an extension of that context. It's the purpose, the significance. It answers the question, why should I care? If you skip this, whoever your audience is might listen politely, but they tend to listen passively. They don't engage because they don't see the point. So every persuasive message needs a clear why. People don't act on information. They act on meaning. And then the third thing is the whiffam and the whift. That's wi-i-f-m and wi-i-f-t. So most communicators understand the whiffam. What's in it for me? They forget the wi-i-f-t. What's in it for them? The extension of the people who are the me's, so to speak. There's meaning for the team, meaning for customers. So it's not just you who I'm communicating to and why it matters to you, or what's in it for you, but also what's in it for those you care about? What's in it for those people our company cares about? Or our team supports? So the whiffam is about personal relevance. The whift expands the impact. Greater impact, they care more. When people see a win for themselves, that's great. But when they also see a win for the people they care about or support, they're buying skyrocket. Your message carries beyond the person in front of you. But people just were human. We do care about what's in it for us or how it's going to affect us. And I'm not saying that everybody is solely concerned about that, but I'm talking about the third ingredient of eight ingredients that makes a persuasive argument a persuasive argument. The fourth element is the story or the emotional hook. People remember stories more than statistic. A story makes logic human. It makes data relatable. It makes your message easier to visualize, which makes it easier to remember. You don't need a long story. One sentence could be a story, but the emotion gives your information context. Then fifth, you need proof. Proof is the evidence. It's either case studies or data or examples or comparisons or quotes or something that provides insight, whether it's projection or historical evidence. The proof is what lowers their resistance when it comes to persuading them. When you support your point with evidence, your audience doesn't need to guess. And more importantly, they don't need to doubt you. So proof isn't optional in a persuasive communication. It's vital. And then the sixth thing is you want to make sure that you illustrate for them that you thought about any objections or risks. What could go wrong? You're acknowledging something can go wrong. There might even be great likelihoods that things will go wrong. But great communicators don't hide the downside. They name it. They call it out. Why is this matter? Audiences already know their risks. When you acknowledge them, you build trust and you take the surprise factor off the table. It also shows your rationale and the level of reasonableness that you're bringing to this. You don't dwell on the risks, but you do need to demonstrate your awareness that you're prepared and you've accounted for them. And then seventh, you need action. Persuasion. needs direction. Tell them to step, the ask, the decision, the behavior you want. What is it that you want them to do next? People don't into it. The action, you have to name it. It isn't intuitive to them. So be clear. And then the eighth thing, you need to close with some reinforcement. Maybe it's the summary. It's the last impression, the final nudge, whatever it might be. But research shows that at the end of a message, the end of the message is disproportionately remembered. When you go to see a movie, you had 90 minutes. But if the ending is bad, what do you remember that it had a bad ending? Ending is great. Might even fix everything else that happened in the first 90 minutes. You get the idea. Every persuasive message needs a strong close. So these eight ingredients are your building blocks. They're foundational. But the ingredients are not enough. You need to recipe. You need structure. You need a framework to assemble these pieces in a way. Your audience can follow and support. Now, before we get into those frameworks, I want to give you a quick kind of before and after example, using these eight ingredients. So if somebody walks into your office and says, we should run a customer survey, other companies do it. And it can help us understand our customers better. Well, that's not persuasive. It's vague. It's incomplete. All the whiff them is gone. There's nothing there. There's no structure. There's no proof. There's no meaning of that statement. And that's actually how a lot of people day in and day out communicate. But what if you said something like this, and I'll walk you through this slowly so I can point to the different ingredients? What if you open up with over the last six months, customer satisfaction is dropped for teen points? That's context. Why is it matter? Then why it matters? If we don't understand the cause, we risk losing renewals or damaging our reputation. Then the whiff them and the whiffed. This helps us stabilize the business and supports the teams who interact with these customers every day. What about the proof? Our competitors who implemented structured feedback loops increase satisfaction scores by an average of 11 points, maybe a point to the data. Then there's the risk. The only risk is not having enough participation. So perhaps we can incentivize the responses. Then you want to give them the action. Let's launch a survey, a targeted survey, and close. When we do this, we'll get clarity on what's hurting customer experience and what to fix first. All of this is the same request. It's a completely different structure and likely a completely different outcome and action. That is what I mean when I'm talking about persuasive communication. It has the context, the why, the whiff them, the proof, the risk, the action, and the close. Now let's shift into some frameworks that you can use. Now I mentioned earlier in the talk today that in signal strength in my book, I teach seven different communication frameworks. I'll actually run you through what those seven are. I'll at least name them for you. They work for presentations for emails for informal conversations, proposals, interviews, you name it, any kind of leadership communication. So today, what I want to do is I want to give you a couple that you can start using immediately. One of my absolute simple, but favorite frameworks is the what framework. It's what? So what? Now what? There's three pieces. What? So what? And now what? It's so universal. Works for data, works for analysis, works for reviews, works for strategy, works for recommendations. Here's how it works. The what? Tell them the fact or the finding. Then there's the so what? Tell them why it matters. Then there's the now what? Tell them what needs to happen next. So here's a quick example. Let's go back with the customer churn. The what? Customer churn increased 20% in the last quarter. That's the what? So what? This will cost us two million dollars in revenue if we don't address it. Now what? We need to invest in a better onboarding program and assign a retention specialist. All right, that's pretty clear. It's pretty direct. It's very decision-ready. The most common mistake people make with this framework is stopping after the what? They give the fact and assume whoever's listening or the audience will fill in the meaning in the action. Don't do that. Don't rely on assumptions. Complete the entire sequence. So there's what? So what? And now what? And then another framework that you can use, this is also very universal is the car technique. This is C-A-R. A lot of people that know me from job interviewing know my my C-A-R. But for context action result, it's a lighter framework. It's great for one to ones or standups or performance reviews or quick quick updates. Context what was happening? Action. What did you do? Result. What happened? Managers absolutely love this because it's fast and it shows accountability. So what does this sound like? Well, here's an example. Context. Email engagement dropped 15%. That's the context. That's the problem. Action. I tested new subject lines and cleaned up our lists. That's what you did. Result. Open rates improved by 12% in eight weeks. That's the result. Context. Action. Result. You're done. It's simple. It's powerful. It's wonderful for quick communication. It's right to the point. It tells me exactly why we're doing what we're doing and what happened. All that you took care of. That accountability managers absolutely love it. There are five more frameworks that I discuss in signal strength. And I want to at least let you know what they are in the event. It's intriguing to you. Perhaps you can grab the book and I'll also be teaching all of these in my leadership coaching program in 2026. So if you haven't jumped into that, you might want to check that out as well. But I'll tell you what the framework is and how how to use it. And if you want more, you can grab the book or you can jump into the coaching program for another first one. The one that I absolutely love problem cause solution benefit. There's four points to it. You use this when you want to walk leaders through an issue. You want to tell them the root cause and why it's happening. Whatever your recommended solution is and why it's worth supporting problem cause solution and benefit. Another framework that I love that I already mentioned was the what so what now what that's number two. Number three is what I call the story spine. This is perfect for speeches or keynotes or motivational moments. Big presentations where a narrative and flow matters. You really want to have a story oriented explanation of what it is you're doing that really brings the audience close and gets them to pay attention. And then a fourth one is a two sided message. This is where you want to show both sides of the argument. It's best when you need credibility immediately so you can show you're looking at this from multiple vantage points. It's especially good with analytical situations or skeptical audiences. You lead with the risk first and then you show the reward. That's the two sided message. That's number four. The fifth and sixth ones are the car techniques. Now I already talked to you about C-A-R context action result and I gave you a little example of that. I call that version the C-A-R version my coupe like like a car like a coupe car. Then I have the C-A-R. This one is my signature job interview storytelling structure. I call this one the sedan. It's C-A-A-R get it. Coupe and sedan. I know very clever. But it is my interview storytelling structure. I always recommend using this one when you want to show the processes you've taken and your mastery of executing whatever those project steps are. It keeps you in structure. It keeps it smooth. It keeps you from rambling. But this also takes into account your context why it was important. You foreshadow the result or the impact initially with the C. The first A you talk about the steps that you took. The second A is the sweep back through it where you're talking about the activities that you actually took very quickly within each step. Then R is you echo the result and the impact that you made and then you crescendo with additional benefits. But that will help you in a job interview. It will ensure that you do not ramble. It's a very, very tight way to answer any job interview question. Then the seventh technique that I teach is the bluff technique. It's bottom line up front. B-L-U-F. It's excellent for executives, senior leaders, email communication when they want the conclusion first and the detail second. All seven of these frameworks work across different situations. So you need to know when to use each one. And when you know when to use each one, your communication will become much more flexible and much more powerful. Like I said, I cover all of these in-depth in the signal strength of the book as well as in my leadership coaching program. Check those out if you're interested for more on that. Now, one simple upgrade that makes any communication more persuasive that you can use right away is if you want to improve that communication instantly, one of the easiest things to do is to combine logic and emotion. Logic establishes credibility. Emotion creates meaning. You put them together, you get persuasion. It's impossible not to get persuasion. A data point is logic. A short human example provides the emotion. Together, they create understanding and motivation and the best communicators blend both. Here's a quick example just so you get the point. Logic alone would sound something like this. Our customer satisfaction score dropped 14 points is quarter. Credible, right? You have the data, but it doesn't move anyone. And when you add emotion to it, something like and when scores drop like that, our support teams get hammered with frustrated customers and it wears people down fast. The customer sack goes down. The employee sack goes down. Now the audience feels the impact. So when you blend it together, it sounds much better. Our customer satisfaction score dropped 14 points. points this quarter. And when that happens, our support teams get hit hard and morale drops. This is exactly why we need a better feedback loop so we can fix the right problems faster. It takes a few more words, but it's much, much more persuasive. It's one sentence or two sentences, one of logic, one of emotion, one clear reason to care that introduces persuasion. So let me give you one practical move as I like to do every week in these podcasts. I want to give you one practical move you can do right away. If you only take one thing from today's lesson and you have a tough time remembering all those frameworks I mentioned and all the ingredients, which you obviously can go back to the show notes and get all that information. But here's what I want you to practice this week. Before you write or speak a message, which is pick a message that you need to write or speak, take 30 seconds and outline three simple lines. What? So what? Now what? So the what? What am I telling them? So what? Why does it matter to them? Now what? What needs to happen next? If you do this before you draft an email or before you walk into a meeting or before you deliver a presentation, you'll be shocked how this one simple tip does one move forces clarity. It reduces unnecessary detail. It stops you from rambling and it instantly makes your message easier for your audience to understand and support. Try this for a week. Maybe pick one message a day and see how much cleaner, faster, more persuasive your communication becomes just one small shift, one huge, huge return. Now I want to let you know that brings us to the end of season one of the Signal Strength podcast. I have thoroughly enjoyed this. If you've missed any of the episodes, go back and check them out or if you loved any in particular, listen to them again. Each one builds on a different part of your communication foundation and they all work together and they all work in sequence. And if you enjoyed the show, please like it, review it, please review it, share it with somebody who could use stronger communication skills in their career. And basically that's everybody I know, even me included, everybody can get better at communication and it is an ongoing all the time process, a never ending journey. But that makes it fun. The more people we can help strengthen their signal, the more people that this show can reach, the better I will feel, the better you will feel. People need help. Let's support each other. Let's be a great community. It takes a village to navigate our careers. The other thing is make sure not to forget the show notes. There's a free booklet, a companion guide that I include in every episode because I want to make sure that you get all the detailed notes and you can reference this back. It's free. The link is in the description of the show. I also have a couple of budget friendly books that you can use. The zebra code is a wonderful foundational skill building book and signal strength. Of course, is a great communication book. And if you're really ambitious and you want to check out my leadership coaching program, I want you to know that throughout 2026, I'll be taking a deeper dive into every concept we've covered this season and a whole lot more. So if you like these six episodes and you want the full training, check out my leadership coaching program. Again, thank you for joining me for season one. I cannot wait for the book to launch. I'll see you hopefully at the book launching celebration on my YouTube channel in October of 2026. In the meantime, I'm really excited about getting season two done for you where we're going to be talking about a lot more in-depth communication skills. We'll take it even further, build that signal even stronger. In the meantime, I want you to know I appreciate your attention. I appreciate your trust and your faith in me as your coach. I am wishing you wonderful careers and a strong, confident communication signal. Until next season, have a great one.