Here is another great illustration of the power of Influence, which shows:

“It’s not what you present, but how you present it that influences your outcome.”

The property tax protests in my neighborhood played out just as the Science of Influence would have predicted because, while people were arguing their evaluations from the same data, they were getting drastically different results. Here’s how it went down:

Over the past few years, property taxes in my area have gone up, but last year’s rates jumped up more than 60%. Like me, many of my neighbors went to the tax assessor’s office to protest their property values. A couple of neighbors did a lot of comparative research with comps from the area, and were generous in sharing this data with the community. What were the results?

Five neighbors marched down to the property appraisal office with loads of data in hand, and came out with a 0% adjustment in their values. Three others went with the same data  and got up to a 20% reduction in their valuations. One neighbor went in with no data at all and got an 8% reduction appealing to the board emotionally, “I just don’t think this is fair.” We were able to verify that at least two of us had the exact same appraiser, but had achieved substantially different results. So what is really happening here?

Both in the scientific studies and in real business scenarios, it’s proven consistently that people are more persuaded by feelings than facts. That’s the value of The Marcus Method  leveraging “The Big 3” – Persuasive Psychology, Body Language and Strategic Messaging. (Want to test your influence? Take a quick quiz here)

Have you ever protested your property tax valuations? What did you do to get the best results?