People are convinced from those whom they trust. You may have sound logical reasoning, evidences and witnesses but still people would not listen to you, if they listen they will not be convinced. Your arguments would not have the desired effect.
It is because people take shortcut. Nobody want to have the trouble of checking your evidences, evaluation of your reasoning, interrogation of your witnesses. People just see a superficial, overview kind of look that you have something to backup your claims. Other than that it all depends on whether or not people trust you. If they trust you, they still want to be sure that you have something to support what you are saying, but nobody is going to actually check those things.
This is why its very hard to convert a person to islam on basis of logical reasoning. People do not trust their own judgements to the level that they take decisions on basis of them. What people do trust is other people.
So, how can you gain trust?
The person have to know you for sometime. Trust is not built overnight, it takes time. How much time? It depends. In general, its about a year. Once you have gone through different kind of normal situations with a person and have spent time with that person in all seasons, you start trusting that person. In some special situations, trust may be built very fast, sometimes even in minutes. For example, if you are traveling with a person then a day is enough. In extreme situations, when life is threatened, or some major decision is being made, such as a critical investment, or marriage, or some other big thing, then a few minutes are enough.
What people see in you during this time is first of all your integrity. The integrity is in two regards: first is how honest you are, how much you stick to the right thing when a strong temptation is made, also how much control you have on your anger. In short, how much control you have on your emotions. In other words fairness, rightness, honesty. The second thing they search in you is generosity, forgiveness i.e. beyond fairness. Fairness is when you take what is yours and all of it. Generosity is when you leave something that is yours to others. Control on your anger when a junior (a kid, wife, sub-ordinate etc) made a mistake or said a silly thing. Not taking revenge when you can i.e. have both power and right.
The second thing they look in you is your skills. It includes both retaining of knowledge and application of knowledge. You have to be a master of the subject. People trust doctors in matter of life because they know that doctors have the desired skills. You have to have both integrity and skills. A university degree with some years of experience is enough.
The third and last thing they look in you is positiveness. You must have constructive mentality. You should be working for everybody's good. This is why people generally don't like people who want to take revenge, because revenge means destruction.
Thats it. Three things: integrity, skills and positive-attitude.
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