Too Short for a Blog Post, Too Long for a Tweet 303

 

Here are a couple of excerpts from a book I recently read, "The Art of Woo: Using Strategic Persuasion to Sell Your Ideas," by G. Richard Shell and Mario Moussa.

Lacking tone and context, e-mail messages are easy to misinterpret. You cannot control who will see them, and they are never deleted. If you want to get people on your side, go meet with them face-to-face and see firsthand how they react to your ideas. Then use e-mail later, after they are already on your team. 

 

In closing an idea sale, you must first overcome "decision inertia"-that is, get decision makers who are "at rest" to move in your desired direction. Then, through persistence, you must add organizational "push" to maintain your idea's momentum so it will "stay in motion ... in the same direction," eventually becoming reality.