Technique: People will believe you and act accordingly if what you say creates a vivid image that stimulates their emotions and awakens their inner activist. Asking someone to adopt a particular course of action or stance on the issue is one thing. Creating an image that persuades and moves them to action is quite another. For example, suppose you want to convince families to conserve energy using such things as weather stripping, insulation and double-paned windows, etc. They might think that such actions wouldn't help much and the cost in terms of money and effort simply do not make it worth their while. Now you create for them an image, "Did you know that if you took all the cracks and holes found in the average home and squeezed them all together, you would have a hole the size of a basketball. imagine all of your heat (or air conditioning) just flying out that hole. Do you think it would be worth it to plug that hole?" and so on. Now they get the picture. You could continue, perhaps, by explaining that their energy bill would be cut in half and that they could finally buy that new stereo with the money saved after only two months of the improved energy efficient modifications.