Influencing Tips to Help You Get What You Want
After all, if you want to get anything done, you need people to help you do it. Without being able to influence anyone what could you achieve? Very little. These influencing tips will help you to get people to do more of what you want.
Influencing Tips 1-10
- 1. Don’t look at your phone, no matter what, when you are speaking with someone.
- 2. Read Dale Carnegie’s ‘How to Win Friends and Influence People’ because it has sold 30 million copies.
- 3. The most powerful influencing word is ‘because’ because research has proven its power, so use it more.
- 4. Of all the influencing tools, push and pull is the most effective, and if you don’t know if it, find out and then use it lots.
- 5. Relationships can be like magnets, by chasing them you will repel them, so wait for them to come to you.
- 6. If you are writing an email, a report, or a presentation, each line of copy needs to earn its place and encourage the reader to want to read the next line.
- 7. Replace your normal slides with just images that are high resolution and powerful images that tell a wonderful story.
- 8. If I ask you to tell stories at work you’ll tell me you can’t but if I ask you to tell me about a time when you had an accident, you’ll tell a great story.
- 9. The American Shark Society could not convince people to donate money to sharks until they asked, ‘Which kill more people each year? Sharks or Deers’, and then people donated more when they found out the answer.
- 10. When British Airways announced that their unique Concorde aircraft would be stopped the plane was full, so what can you make more scarce?
Influencing Tips 11-20
- 11. Seth Godin wrote on his blog that it is the unusual and disruptive that catches our attention and that a small bell ringing in the day might not capture our attention, yet at night it would, so how can you disrupt people’s attention?
- 12. When you are with someone make them your whole world.
- 13. The first sentence of your email is the most important – make it count.
- 14. Use the greeting of your email to build your relationship; rather than ‘hope your well’ to ‘I am taking my kids to University this weekend’.
- 15. Headlines of a Powerpoint can help tell your story, from ‘A graph showing 21-35 year olds’, to ‘The Most Influential Age Group!’.
- 16. People almost don’t mind the decision, they just want to be heard, so encourage them to speak.
- 17. Find out what’s in it for them.
- 18. Richard Branson said that you can do much worse than just starting with a big smile and a warm handshake.
- 19. Be open to the ‘art of the possible’ when speaking with people about something you don’t initially like.
- 20. The amazing this is people don’t post or use Linkedin, and then they get made redundant and wonder why no-one is engaging to help them.
Influencing Tips 21-30
- 21. Pay it forward by offering to help with no immediate gain for you.
- 22. Find common ground before you negotiate, even if it is small, like – you both hate Mondays.
- 23. Know the trust model; Be on time, be an expert in your field, be more than just an employee, and don’t talk about yourself too much.
- 24. Active listening can be seen by how quickly you reply; if it is immediate you are not doing so.
- 25. Genuine compliments work or genuine positive feedback works.
- 26. Don’t be the person that is always ‘busy’ because they’ll stop asking you.
- 27. The TV programme ‘New Amsterdam’ lead the way for helping others within a simple phrase – ‘How can I help?’.
- 28. Assess how you look on zoom because if you are not picture framed, and lit well, you have reduced your influence significantly before you start.
- 29. Watch Amy Cuddy’s Ted Talk on body language because 62 million views cannot be wrong.
- 30. Use the ‘If you…, then I…’ negotiating tool to make effective proposals that influencing your opponent.
Influencing Tips 31-36
- 31. If someone is pulling at their ear when you speak, stop, because they don’t like what you are saying, so better to ask a question.
- 32. Pausing after a sentence will influence how much it is heard.
- 33. Reading your slides, remember that the audience can read 7 times faster than you can speak, so don’t read your slides.
- 34. Fewer points are more effective than many as we tend to continue sharing the benefits when the first one was the best, so remember espresso influencing – a short sharp hit, rather than latte influencing.
- 35. The ‘6 Laws of Persuasion‘ is a fascinating video with over 12.5 million views.
- 36. Start by asking what they want and build from there.
Take a few of these influencing tips and try them out. Get used to using them, and then come back for more. Better to use a few well, than many badly.
For even more useful content on influencing, check out our ultimate guide on Influencing Skills.
Happy influencing!
