Persuasion is the act of convincing someone of something. When people think of “persuasion” they might imagine making someone act in some way against their will. However, this is not persuasion, but instead is an act of manipulation. Persuasion here means “convincing someone of the benefit of something.” In other words, persuasion is the act of convincing someone of the benefit of something in order to satisfy that person’s larger objective or priority. When you convince a customer of the benefit of something, they come to understand how what you want them to do is something that will more effectively satisfy a need that they already knew they had. This is the basic concept.
This course is packed with strategies and techniques to cultivate the cultural intelligence to speak in such a way as to persuade others of the validity and benefits of your proposal or position. At Berkeley Professionals we train Persuasion and Influencing Skills using what has been learned from the very foundation of the research into these skills from Aristotle’s Three Modes Of Persuasion to the techniques identified by modern psychology. In order to gain these skills over a short period of time, participants will take advantage of the skills and experience of Berkeley Professionals’ skilled and experienced trainers as well as training materials developed specifically for the needs of Japanese business people who need to improve their external negotiation skills and improve their ability to get the understanding, support, agreement, and cooperation of internal foreign colleagues whether they need to do this face-to-face, by e-mail, or through teleconferencing

Prior to the commencement of training, we will conduct telephone interviews with each of the participants to analyze their English ability, who they want to improve their persuasion and influencing skills with, and what skills they want to develop, in order to more effectively customize the training for each participant. Instead of lectures, training is participatory and interactive and will focus on role playing and feedback. Training exercises will be based on case studies directly related to participants’ jobs—information gained through the telephone interviews held prior to the course. Participants can therefore expect to gain language and techniques directly applicable to their work situations.
Participants will also receive a “training report” once the training is complete. These training reports include such information as the participant’s results and advice for future improvement, and the course handbook can even be of use even after training is over.