Respect or charm - What’s most convincing?

It depends! But in interesting ways.

If you want to persuade someone to do something, what should you aim for: to win their respect or to charm them?

In some cases, it’s straightforward. A teacher who has to persuade a class of 14-year-olds to absorb information for an hour needs their respect. Friendliness and likeability aren’t precluded, but unless they respect her authority (both in terms of her knowledge and her position in the social hierarchy) learning is unlikely to happen.

Conversely, for a waiter in pursuit of a handsome tip, charm is the order of the day. Pebble-smooth one-liners and well-judged flattery will be more effective than a steely assertion of skill and self-possession. (“I hated the guy, but goddam it, could he carry a plate.”)

In many contexts, though, especially professional, it isn’t all that obvious. Which would you aim for in a job interview or meeting new colleagues? What’s better as the basis for a business pitch? Which would you try for as a boss? Which would prefer in a manager?

Respect can burnish your credentials, but it can also make you seem distant and aloof. Charm can make you more likeable, but there’s a risk it might be perceived as insincerity.

It ain’t easy.

The charism/charm dichotomy.

I started thinking about this after reading Ian Leslie’s excellent piece on the difference between charisma and charm. It’s a great article and you should read the whole thing (after this one), but to summarise: Leslie divides various political leaders and public figures into two camps. Those who have charisma – larger than life, magnetic figures who derive their power from being ‘above’ their followers – and those who win influence with charm: the sympathetic, relatable, ‘one of us’ people you can imagine having a beer with.

Once you see it, you can’t stop yourself slicing up the world. Donald Trump is charismatic; Kamala Harris is charming. Lady Gaga is charismatic; Taylor Swift is charming. Quentin Tarantino is charismatic; Wes Anderson is charming. Cats are charismatic; dogs are charming. And so on.

You can also play the same game with brands. British Airways is charismatic whereas Ryanair is charming. It’s why shitty customer service hurts BA way more – it feels like a betrayal of something fundamental (‘To fly, to serve’). We’re more forgiving of Ryanair for a pisspoor experience because… that’s just what they’re like, the cheeky scamps.

You can probably think of more (San Pellegrino and Tango; HSBC and Monzo; Microsoft and Apple).

But here’s the interesting thing from an advertising perspective: for the majority of brands, it actually isn’t all that obvious which side of the line they fall. And that’s an opportunity.

Lean in.

When it comes to respect or charm, most brands fall into a nothingy middle. They probably sprinkle a little charm into their customer service, then aim for impressive when it comes to the brilliance of their products and services. But by half-assing two things, they’re missing the chance to whole-ass one thing.

By thinking about whether your brand wants to charm people or win respect, you can lean into a pre-existing perception and make the absolute most of it.

Slack is a great example of a brand that has fully leaned into charm. Their category is B2B collaboration software, but they act like a consumer brand with bright colours, friendly UX, and their determinedly colloquial Slackbot. Their company blog is called ‘Several People Are Typing’, which I love.

And this charm informs both who they target and how they target them. They’re the tool for creatives and hipsters and dreamers – people who are responsive to a bit of charm in their workday. When they wanted a case study, they didn’t bother with a Problem-Solution-Results one-pager. Instead, they made this with Sandwich Video Inc: a video that’s funny, relatable and, yes, charming.

Microsoft Teams couldn’t make that case study, even though the platforms are more alike than different. And that’s because Teams goes the other way: it has to aim for respect. Its USP is its Microsoft backend and all the security that implies. Highly data-conscious businesses like financial institutions aren’t looking for charm – they’re after bulletproof safety.

In this way, respect versus charm becomes a pretty useful heuristic for an entire business strategy, a way to understand who your best customers are and what they will find most persuasive.

Push away.

Of course, you could go the other way and use the respect/charm question to confound the expectation of how your brand should act.

If your brand relies heavily on person-to-person sales relationships, you might consider charm as an essential characteristic. But maybe that’s misguided. The thing about being on the receiving end of salesmanship is that it makes you put up your guard. Estate agents tend to be smooth talkers, highly adept at flattering properties and prospective buyers alike – which is why they have a reputation as bullshitters.

What if you optimised your sales-led organisation, not towards making sales but winning respect? Rory Sutherland has a good example of this (because of course he does): America’s Most Successful Car Salesman. Rather than trying to charm his way to a sale right now, the salesman makes sure he’s the first person his prospect calls the next time they want to buy a car. Honesty, reliability, and trust – respect, in other words – therefore become a better long-term strategy than easy charm.

And it can work the other way, where charm is the unexpected factor. I recently got into a hopeless muddle trying to do my tax return and turned, in writerly desperation, to a company called Tax Scouts. As the name suggests, they help financially and numerically challenged people like me sort out their taxes.

The world of tax is pretty dry and the penalties for making mistakes can be eyewatering, so you might expect a company in that space to aim for sobriety and prudence. But Tax Scouts don’t. Their copywriting and UX isn’t just clear and straightforward – it’s actively friendly:

“Mildly disappointing news: HMRC doesn’t seem to have (or at least share) employment information associated with your UTR number. We know it's bit inconvenient, but it’s not uncommon.”

What could have been a ‘computer says no’ moment of frustration turns into a reassuring, warm, and even funny interaction. (The word ‘mildly’ was a battle their copywriter won and it made me smile).

With the same platform, they could have made a perfectly functional system that did the job. By making the extra effort to inject charm into the process, they’ve made me tell people on the internet how good they are.

By bucking the expectation of your audience with a surprising attitude, you create a space where persuasion can happen.

And so, it depends.

Respect and charm can both be powerful forces of persuasion. Deciding what will work in what context – both for individuals and brands – really depends on two broader principles: authenticity and expectation.

If you have cultivated respect, will a pivot to charm damage your authority or be a delightful surprise?

If you’re known for your winning charm, will an appeal to authority lose friends and alienate people or be a refreshing switch to straight-talking?

Of course, the other thing is, it may not be a choice. Respect and charm aren’t a one-way thing: they’re as much about external perception as they are an internally generated behaviour.

But actually that makes asking the question even more valuable: ‘respect or charm?’ isn’t just a way to decide on a tactic for a given situation. It’s a means to understand how people see you and how you can meet or confound that expectation.

And that kind of understanding is as crucial to persuasion as it gets.

Next week – ‘The bomb under the table’: The persuasive power of urgency