Business English Tips: The art of persuasion in 5 steps

You´re in a meeting and you need to persuade a colleague, a client or a supplier. What technique do you use?


Monroe´s Motivated Sequence (MMS) is a simple and highly effective technique to logically order your ideas to persuade. There are 5 steps.


1) Get their attention – ask a question or use an usual fact.
Have you ever wondered why…?
What if…? If I told you we could…, would you be interested?
It’s hard to believe but…    Did you know that…

2) Explain the other person´s need
The problem is due to…
The problem is because of…
The problem is caused by…

3) Solution
Doing (solution)….will give us… (benefit).
(Solution)…. ensures we can… (benefit).
(Solution)…. will help us to do…(benefit). 

4) Visualise benefits – positive
Under this plan, we could see as much as a 35% increase in…
Imagine this, with a…
By implementing this plan immediately the company will see…

4) Visualise benefits  – negative
Without quick action the situation could…
If we don’t do anything the situation is going to…
If we don’t adopt this proposal there’s no telling what could happen.

5) Take action
We need quick action and we need it now. I recommend that we…
I need your help to implement a winning solution for all of us.
The first thing we need to do is….

Practice Makes Perfect!