Here's a quick and dirty bullet list of what I know on this subject

From comments:

• People remember and value rationality more when you make it immediately provide useful benefits in their life

• People don't like being told what to do, but they do like being helped

From experience:

• Inferential distance makes a really big difference in speed of comprehension, and speed of agreement, but I don't know if it results in more followthrough

• Its easier to convince people who like you

• People do not automatically pick up on your thought process as you go through it, being rational often looks like being insightful

Corroborated by both:

• Being nice and encouraging to people who are helping you makes it more likely for them to help in the future

• It helps to give people specific advice about what to do/how to apply something, at least at first

• There's a difference between getting someone to agree with something, and getting them to follow through on that belief

• People need to want to learn something, being positive and upbeat in your presentation is more effective than downbeat, scary, or guilt-tripping