How to Become More Charismatic

Answer by Evan Asano, CEO and founder of Mediakix.com, on Quora.

Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart once described porn as: Hard to define, but “I know it, when I see it.” The same could be said for charisma. It’s hard to define because it takes on many forms through many personalities, but the affects of charisma are always the same: A likability of that person, being drawn to them and a willingness to trust them. With those effects on people, it’s not hard to see why they get what they want in life.

The bigger question is how can the rest of us become more charismatic and get what we want in life as well?

Charisma’s closest cousin in the business world is sales. They’re not one and the same, but great sales people are charismatic, and charismatic people get what they want because people like them and trust them.

Building likability and trust in a very short period of time is the quintessence of sales. What makes sales a great comparison with charisma is that with sales you can break it down to a set of teachable and learnable skills. In fact, that’s what sales programs and books are all about.

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The core of sales isn’t talking as it’s often misunderstood, but listening. Great sales people spend most of their time listening and doing so acutely. They’re not distracted, but giving you their whole attention, making you feel interesting and important.

That’s one of the strongest effects charismatic people have. You’ll remember someone who tells a great story, but you’ll remember better someone who makes you feel great. Those are the charismatic people.

There’s a story of a reporter interviewing two candidates for president. After the first interview, she declared: “He’s was the most interesting person in Washington!” But after the second interview, she declared of the second candidate “I felt like I was the most interesting person in Washington!”

Great sales people give their full attention and ask great questions. It’s not “So, what do you do?,” but instead “So, tell me about what you do.”

Another characteristic of great sales people is that they’re persuasive.

Persuasiveness starts with agreeing with people. You can’t get people to like you if you’re disagreeing with them, correcting them or trying to be right. No one will remember if you’re right, and you won’t change anyone’s opinion through argument.

People want to be heard, not corrected or challenged. So allow them to be.

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I was in a sales presentation to a vice president of top consumer electronics start up. A couple minutes into the meeting, she declared that she didn’t believe in what we did (paying influencers to promote brands and products). In the back of my mind, I thought, “Why, in god’s name, would you ever take this meeting then?!” I had flown up to San Francisco for this meeting and taken precious time from my work week, and now it seemed like a complete waste.

Instead of responding that way, I paused and composed myself. I smiled and responded, “It looks like you’ve done an amazing job marketing your company without having to [pay influencers]…”

She wanted attention and wanted to declare she was different. She also wanted to challenge me and would have gladly gotten into an argument if I had disagreed with her. Getting into an argument is probably the most effective way to ruin a sales meeting. Instead I agreed. Not only did I agree, but I noted that her approach had worked, and that allowed me for the eventual opportunity to be persuasive.

Being persuasive isn’t arguing effectively; it’s not arguing at all.

I asked her to tell me more about how she had created such success without paying influencers to promote their brand and product. She got her chance to talk, which is what she really wanted. Eventually, I brought up the point that many of our current customers were in her same position and shared why they tried our service.

So what are the things can you do to be more charismatic?

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This question originally appeared on Quora: Why do charismatic people easily get what they want in life?