Sometimes you’re speaking about a hotly-debated topic, something that not everyone in the room agrees with you about.

Here’s a tip for those situations: Before you talk about the hot issue, get the audience to agree with you on something else.

Two professors, one from Toronto and one from Hong Kong, did a study. They showed participants an unrelated political video (like a speech by Barack Obama or John McCain), and then they showed them a video of a Toyota ad.

They found that Democrats were more likely to be persuaded by the Toyota ad after watching the Obama speech, and Republicans were more likely to be persuaded after the McCain speech.

“Agreeable” is a mood. Put your audience in the mood to agree, and they are more likely to keep agreeing with you.