In talking with people, don’t begin by discussing the things on which you differ. Begin by emphasizing – and keep on emphasizing – the things on which you agree. Keep emphasizing.
Get the other person saying ‘Yes, yes’ at the outset. Keep your opponent, if possible, from saying ‘No’.
When you have said ‘No’, all your pride of personality demands that you remain consistent with yourself. The psychological patterns here are quite clear. When a person says ‘No’ and really means it, he or she is doing far than saying a word of two letters. The entire organism – glandular, nervous, muscular – gathers itself together into a condition of rejection.
Hence the more ‘Yeses’ we can, at the very outset, induce, the more likely we are to suceed in capturing the attention for our ultimate proosal.