Public relations professionals frequently need to persuade others – a colleague, lawyer, vendor or client – to take action. The skills critical to being persuasive are an important and underestimated set of competences for us that we ignore at our own peril. Jonathan Fitzgarrald, managing partner of Equinox Strategy Partners, presented a highly relevant webinar on January 24, 2017, on the topic of “Attorney Persuasion – Powerful Techniques for Getting Your Way More Often,” at the Legal Marketing Association’s Public Relations Shared Interest Group (PR SIG). Jonathan noted that any PR person could be better at his or her job if he or she has the communications skills to move people to action. This is not a matter of manipulation but rather a matter of speaking the other person’s language (empathy), understanding the other person’s communication style, and then speaking to them in that manner. The key to doing this…