What are Win Themes?

An obvious mistake most people make when trying to persuade someone is that they make it about themselves and not about the person they are trying to convince. Too few people find out what is really important to the person they are trying to inspire, influence or persuade. Knowing what is important to them is essential when it comes to delivering a High Persuasive Performance and winning decisions. Sadly, the consequences can be disastrous and prevent them from ever reaching their goals.

A Win Theme is a problem a decision-maker is seeking to resolve or a goal a decision-maker is seeking to achieve. Each problem will have an impact (consequence) and each goal will have a benefit and value.

If you solve their problems or facilitate achieving a goal, you will be seen as a value-add person.  The specific problems and specific goals are called Win Themes.  These are the right buttons to press.  You press them and you will get the answer you are looking for.

In order to establish some Win Themes, you must know your decision-makers intimately. This is more than knowing them on general terms with rudimentary data like roles, location, and contact details. Knowing decision-makers intimately is the difference between winning and losing.

You should seek to uncover their deepest and most primal desires. You need to delve into their fears, hopes, and dreams. This is the stuff they are thinking about the most. You need to go beyond the obvious and work out how the decision-maker thinks, feels, and acts. After all, our brains make decisions using emotion and justified with logic afterward…

Did you know that only 1% of salespeople use selling tactics that are compatible with the way the human mind works?

Aligning yourself with the thoughts, feelings, and actions of the decision-maker will guarantee your Persuasive Performance will resonate with them and migrate from a Standard Persuasive Performance to a High Persuasive Performance.

Knowing the right Win Themes will dramatically increase your chances of winning the decision you want. Getting them wrong means your persuasive efforts will be futile, your investment in time will be a flop, you will give a blind, ignorant low persuasive performance and you will not get the decision you want.

TIP: When doing research, pick a handful of keywords or search phrases around your product or service you are selling or the decision you want to win, like the role you want to win. Spend some time on Google looking for popular blogs, LinkedIn forums, YouTube comments, and social media platforms. Go wherever your decision-makers hang out.  You will soon learn what is important to people.

Look at what your audience is saying and feeling. What are they happy with? What are they unhappy with? What concerns or questions do they have. Have you noticed any themes? For example; many may be talking about the pressure of another legal change in their space, how overwhelming, time-consuming, and destructive it is to their business and to themselves professionally. They may be sharing a frustration around red tape, legal consequences, and risk. These are all buying signals and will have to identify Win Themes.

Once you have this information, you can draw out Win Themes and these become the buttons you need to press or more accurately, the wardrobe you can start to hang content, evidence, success stories in. You are now in a much stronger position to deliver a High Persuasive Performance.

The method we like to use to inspire and record our research is called an Empathy Map.

Now, it’s time to stop being the armchair detective and get amongst the people to really get under the decision-maker’s skin! It’s fun. An important part of your detective work is talking to your decision-maker. They say sales is a contact sport, so get in contact.

Here are a handful of questions to help learn more about your decision-maker.

1. What are their biggest frustrations and challenges?
2. What are they hoping to achieve?
3. What one change would they make right now towards a better future?
4. What does a typical day look like?
5. What makes them happy?

If you liked this blog and keen to learn more about how to inspire, influence and persuade someone, then you may be interested in our FREE eBook.  This FREE insider scoop will help you consistently deliver High Persuasive Performances and win the decisions you deserve while making sure you avoid failure, missed opportunities and, appearing incompetent.  Check it out here:  https://blu-j.co.uk#ebook

By the time you’ve finished reading, you’ll have all the information you need to kickstart your journey to success and delivery High Persuasive Performances.