Scrupuli

He wrote that you must first help the person to doubt their existing beliefs. If they do, then they will become more open to what you have to offer as an alternative.

He offered a two step process for creating doubt.

• First, think through in advance the reasons the person might object to a new idea.
• Second, develop questions which isolate and create doubt about each objection in a non-adversarial way.

Be prepared for possible answers and your next responses.

Suppose you know a mother who tends to believe the anti-vaccine propaganda, and you want to sell her the idea to vaccinate her baby. An objection to the idea might be, “I hear that vaccines can cause autism”.

Instead of contradicting, an isolating question might be, “If it weren’t for the concern about autism, would you vaccinate your baby?” If so, a doubt-creating question might be, “Let’s talk about the risk of autism then. How much risk of autism would your pediatrician say is created by this vaccination?”

Be prepared for her to answer, “I don’t know,” or “none,” or, “my sister is a nurse and she heard lots of babies got autism from vaccines,” and prepare questions to ask next.

My friend pointed out that it’s impossible to anticipate or answer every objection, or to be sure of getting the person to the point of openness right away, or to make every sale. The goal is to plant seeds of doubt. Doubt will grow in its own good time. And that is when you pitch your new idea to them.

* I realize I may have lost my audience with that phrase alone :-)

I originally wrote this article on January 7, 2010 as a comment on the Swift Blog.