“Influence” seems to be quite a hot topic lately. We have received numerous requests from clients to provide information on the broad topic of “Influence without Authority”. While researching the material out there, I discovered that there are 5 logical and relatively easy steps. If you are intentional about it and follow these steps you may find that you have a lot more success in influencing decisions and selling ideas!
1.    Know your message. Be clear about what you want to say, and why you want to say it.
2.    Know your audience. What is their style? What is their relationship to you?
3.    Know what your audience wants. This factor is often overlooked- just because you have a strong argument, or you are right, doesn’t mean that your idea will automatically “sell”. Pay attention to “What’s in it for them?”
4.    Tailor your message for maximum impact. As a minimum, compose a compelling “elevator speech” about your idea or opinion. You may decide that you can be more compelling with a presentation, or a letter writing campaign, or a series of emails, or phone calls.
5.    Manuever your message. This is another often overlooked factor in being influential- know who you should tell about your idea, product, or desired decision in what order. Some people are influencers, some people may have a special relationship with the person you are trying to influence, someone may have more credibility than you in a certain area.
Take the time to incorporate these factors into an “Influence Plan”, and you may find yourself on the cover of Time Magazines’ 100 Most Influential People issue someday!

For further reading, here are some standout books on Influence:

1. Yes!: 50 Scientifically Proven Ways to Be Persuasive by Noah J. Goldstein, Steve J. Martin, and Robert B. Cialdini.

2. Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die (Hardcover)
by Chip Heath (Author), Dan Heath (Author)

3. The 48 Laws of Power (Paperback)
by Robert Greene (Author)

4. Exercising Influence: A Guide For Making Things Happen at Work, at Home, and in Your Community (Paperback)
by B. Kim Barnes (Author)

5. Getting Things Done When You Are Not in Charge (Paperback)
by Geoffrey M Bellman (Author)

6. The Back of the Napkin: Solving Problems and Selling Ideas with Pictures (Hardcover)
by Dan Roam (Author)

Enjoy.
Continue reading…

Life has been great these last few weeks in relation to sitting in on some fantastic presentations. I just got off a FREE webinar from Linkage (it crashed halfway through – gave me time to grab a quick sandwich) from Patrick Lencioni discussing how to Lead your teams in Challenging Times….a solid hour of Dysfunctional Team stuff. I also attended a half-day presentation through the Workforce Alliance @ Palm Beach County – which links businesses in need of qualified employees with individuals seeking employment opportunities. The featured speaker was Daniel H. Pink, author of ‘A Whole New Mind’, a book about how the forces of “Abundance, Asia and Automation” are putting a premium on “right brain” qualities and abilities that have often been overlooked and undervalued by employers in the search for talent. That was only $45 including a great breakfast! A couple of great deals to hear a few industry experts tell it in their own words.

Dan Pink covered some interesting points from his book that truly made me ‘think’ – right brain focused of course! (which he says will rule the future)

His discussion around Abundance, Asia and Automation affecting the workplace was interesting at the least. He conceptualizes this by looking at what people are doing to earn a living and ask themselves 3 questions:

1.    Can someone overseas do it cheaper?
2.    Can a computer do it faster?
3.    Is what I’m offering in demand in the age of abundance?

Survival depends on the correct answer to these simple questions. Yes, Yes and No and you are in a deep of hurt.

He touches on six senses that can help develop the whole new mind that he concedes this new era demands:

1.    Design – it is not longer sufficient to create something that is functional, it must be cool
2.    Story – one can’t just have the information anymore to argue a point, persuasion and communication can work to defend your view
3.    Symphony – going from a single focus to seeing the ‘big picture’
4.    Empathy – logic will be outdone by emotional intelligence
5.    Play – too much work makes Jack a dull boy
6.    Meaning – with the freedom from struggle, it is now easier to pursue what life really means

Overall, the message was that routine work is disappearing. It is going to be the ‘right brainers’ (the creative, innovative types) not the ‘left brainers’ (engineers, accountants) that will rule the world. What you need to do to be successful in the future is to ‘Give people something they don’t know they are missing’. Did you miss your iPod when you didn’t have it? I sure didn’t – he may be on to something.

Design in business has been a hot topic for a while now, and we have really been focusing a lot of energy around it. For all of you trainer-types interested in mental models, design or learning retention, check this out! The Periodic Table of Visualization Methods is a whole lot of web, training and geek goodness…..hover your cursor over each of the elements and be prepared to say WOW!

And for you REALLY GEEKY  (or smart) people out there, here is a PDF explaining the science behind it.

Cool, huh?

I just came back from a trip Down Under so my blogging was put on hold for a few weeks……you know..shrimp on the barbie, Kangaroos and Koalas and lots a Vegemite kept me very occupied.  But I returned to see our IT department has done a great job updating our Blog and switching over to a WordPress platform. We’ll have a lot of flexibility now and you will see more cool content, blogrolls and informative links. Please share with friends, family and colleagues!

I resently returned from a morning seminar with the Economic Cooperative which provides a collaborative forum for business leaders in the Central Florida area. They offer monthly events and this one focused on Cost Effective Sales and Marketing Tools. The speaker, Joe Forgét, president of Technetium Creative , a full-service advertising agency did a great job in the hour highlighting some smart techniques to improve sales and marketing.

Joe focused on areas around branding, unique selling proposition (USP), web site traffic and social networking. At OE, we hit on all of these areas but he gave me some great nuggets on how to do an even BETTER job.

Brand, Brand and more Brand…..the theme was consistency. What is your message? Who is your audience? The KEYS he mentioned was USP and a consistent elevator speech that EVERYONE is using…..must be similar or you aren’t being clear to your prospects or clients. It all makes sense…. we’ve heard it before but it is about actually doing it across the board on a regular basis.

We are constantly tinkering with our website, blogging (as you can read) and trying to drive more traffic to web pages.  We utilize Google Analytics, which is free and does a GREAT job measuring hits, meta tags, traffic location, roadmaps of how people are viewing pages and just tons of very useful functionality. I highly recommend getting on this to help manage your site.

Social networking has been a major focus of ours with pages up now on Facebook (Be a fan!) and LinkedIn. We lean more towards LinkedIn with its business focus vs. Facebook which tends to be more consumer based. It is all about making connections but the right connections. NOT just 150 friends or 225 connections, but targeting companies and contacts who may be potential collaborators.

I enjoyed this seminar….I met a member from ASTD there that I know and connected with her again. My advice….get out of your office (home or cubicle) and attend some of these low cost (this was free) and non-profit groups to help learn and build solid relationships……from there…the sales pipeline is open for business.