The Fundamentals of Selling Ideas through Strategic

Persuasion

By: Darin Pastor

The Fundamentals of Selling Ideas through Strategic Persuasion

A veteran of the finance industry, Darin Pastor currently serves as chairman and chief executive officer of Capstone Financial Group in Southern California. Darin Pastor holds a master of business administration from the University of Liverpool and has consistently sought out other opportunities for advancing his education, including several certification programs at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. One of these programs focused on strategic persuasion, looking at the selling of ideas as both an art and a science.

The Fundamentals of Selling Ideas through Strategic Persuasion

Becoming a good persuader largely depends on building credibility, self-awareness, and organizational intelligence. Credibility encompasses sincerity, trustworthiness, and expertise. Through self-awareness, leaders can develop emotional intelligence and the ability to communicate more effectively, while organizational intelligence helps leaders assemble a strong team.

The Fundamentals of Selling Ideas through Strategic Persuasion

Outside of these factors, selling an idea requires leveraging authority, not to make people comply, but to achieve cooperation. Strategic persuasion entails informing people of the motivation behind an idea, which in turn requires understanding a problem, its causes, and the proposed answer. In convincing people that the proposed solution is the best solution, leaders must work within corporate cultures rather than against them.