4. Use persuasion with a question. Asking a question forces you and the client to engage each other, think and respond. If done correctly, clients will find their own reasons for agreeing with you. The classic example of a question that swayed millions of Americans came in a presidential debate in 1980 when Ronald Reagan stood next to Jimmy Carter and asked Americans, “Are you better off than you were four years ago?” In the fall of 1980, Americans faced double-digit inflation and interest rates, 8 percent unemployment and long gas lines. Though things weren’t great in 1976, they were a lot better. Mitt Romney tried the same line only once in a 2012 presidential debate and it flopped. He never used it again, Pink noted. Why? Though the economy was stuck in an anemic recovery with 7.5 percent unemployment and adding a meager 150,000 jobs a month while wages were stagnating in October 2012, the question made people look back to the fall of 2008, when 750,000 jobs were being lost every month, banks were folding as the financial system was collapsing and the stock market was in the middle of a 50 percent bear market. Bad times are all relative. Pink’s point was that when the facts are not clearly on your side, “get some new facts.”