How we change what others think, feel, believe and do

Winning Is All About Influencing

Guest articles > Winning Is All About Influencing

by: Jonathan Farrington

Influencing is about understanding yourself and the effect or impact you have on others. Though, it can on occasion be one way, the primary relationship is two way, and it is about changing how others perceive you. Truly excellent influencing skills require a healthy combination of interpersonal, communication, presentation and assertiveness techniques. It is about adapting and modifying your personal style when you become aware of the affect you are having on other people, while still being true to yourself.

Behavior and attitude change are what’s important, not changing who you are or how you feel and think. You may try to exert your influence through coercion and manipulation. You might even succeed in getting things done, but that isn’t really influencing. That’s forcing people to do what you want, often against their will. You won’t have succeeded in winning support. Pushing, bullying, bludgeoning or haranguing DO NOT WORK! Like elephants, people will remember the experience. Indeed, if you force someone to do something you want without taking their point of view into consideration, then the impression that person is left with is how they will see you forever. You’re stuck with it, unless you deliberately change what you do in order to be seen differently. People are far more willing to come halfway (or more) if they feel acknowledged, understood and appreciated. They may even end up doing or agreeing to something they wouldn’t previously have done, because they feel good about making the choice.

What Makes An Effective Influencer?

Find alternative ways to influence others and demonstrate high levels of flexibility. This means that if the approach they are taking doesn’t get them their desired results they try a different approach. If this doesn’t work they try another approach. Ultimately, the person with the greatest flexibility will always have control over the situation.

• Listen attentively to what others say because this improves mutual understanding and conveys respect for the opinions of others. Giving good attention to people makes them more intelligent. Poor attention makes them stumble over their words and seem stupid.
• Uncover needs and wants because they appreciate that every individual is unique. They have their needs, their own set of problems and their own motives for doing what they do.
• Empathize continuously and are able to adopt different perceptual positions to connect with the feelings of others in different situations. Not only do effective influencers manage to put themselves in their customers’ shoes, they are also able to wear the shoes of individuals in their sales team.
• Have developed high levels of sensory awareness. This means that their senses are fine-tuned to pick-up on the smallest details include non-verbal signals that are sometimes different to what a person is saying.
• Create and maintain rapport throughout their communication that enables them to deepen relationships, build higher amounts of trust and minimize resistance.
• Eliminate weak statements from their language and are able to create multiple positive associations by avoiding negative words and using negations in a positive way. For example; “I’m not going to say that this strategy will be totally successful.” The unconscious mind has to think about the strategy being totally successful, irrespective if the word ‘not’ is contained within the statement.
• Base the success of their communication on the response it produces in others. If other people don’t respond in the way that the influencer was wanting, they accept responsibility and change their communication until they do achieve their desired outcome.

The “winners in life” know all about influencing!

Jonathan Farrington is Chairman of The JF Corporation and CEO of Top Sales Associates, based in London and Paris. He is also the creator and CEO of Top Sales World and the man behind the Annual Top Sales Awards. More about Jonathan: http://www.jonathanfarrington.com

Contributor: Jonathan Farrington

Published here on: 24-Jul-11

Classification: Leadership

Website: http://www.jonathanfarrington.com

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