Maximize Your Influence

Great persuaders are great communicators. Well-known motivational speaker and best-selling author Jim Rohn said it best: "When I learned how to effectively persuade and communicate, my income went from six digits to seven digits." Your communication skills are critical for your success, yet this is another set of overlooked skills that are not effectively taught in school. Communication includes phone skills, face-to-face interactions, group presentations, and even email.

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Persuasion Blunder

What is the one skill most presenters don't have?… Are you sitting down? It is the ability to handle a heckler. Someone that says something mean, throws out a venomous comment or tries to show the group how they know more than you. Do you know this type of person? Every group has one. Join me for this week's podcast as we discuss How to Handle The Heckler, Clueless people and pointless disruptions.

Closing skills were the big thing twenty years ago. We were taught that closing skills were all you needed. If you did not persuade enough people, you had to learn more closing skills. Nowadays, sure, it's nice to have a few closing skills in your persuasion toolbox, but shouldn't you spend more time opening up your audience before you even think about closing a deal with them?

Join me for this week's podcast interview with Jeremy Miner. We explore NEPQ Selling. Discover why closing no longer works and how to lead your prospects down the path to persuasion and influence. Jeremy is the CEO of 7th Level a Global sales training firm. His clients include Google, Kia Motors, and Lyon Financial.

He has pioneered an internationally recognized sales training methodology that to date has helped more than 200,000 salespeople in over 40 countries achieve exceptional results. Click Here for Selling With NEPQ.

More than anything else, passion recruits the hearts and minds of your audience. Great persuaders radiate heartfelt passion. When the audience can sense your passion and genuine conviction for your cause or product, they will emotionally jump on board. We all love people who are excited and filled with believable zeal for their subject. Passion is critical to influencing others, yet less than half of all persuaders interviewed have a passion for their product or service.

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Do you want to increase your passion? Do you want more presence? Do you want more people to notice you? In this week's podcast, I focus on Persuasion, Passion, and Presence. Discover how to get your prospect to want to do, what you want them to do – and like doing it.

Great persuaders know and understand how to use different forms of power, but if you're like most people, you just cringed at the word "power." Is power something we're really allowed to talk about? Is it good or bad? Can we have power over our audience?

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There are many other positive forms of power that can be used during the persuasion process. You will be surprised how many different kinds of power exist and how you can add them to your toolbox of influence. Join me on this week's podcast titled How Personal Power Increases Your Influence. We will discuss the various forms of power and how to use this power during persuasion.

Do you suffer from the Wobegon Effect? What is it that you've been telling yourself and everyone else you do really well, when in fact you don't do it well at all—or at least you're not above average, as you've been trying to convince yourself and everyone else? Join me for this week's podcast on 10 Sales Mistakes Costing You Money. Find out what mistakes you are making (and don't even know it) and how to fix those mistakes.

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Let's discuss how the fear we all have can destroy your ability to persuade and influence. We all experience rejection in small doses every day. But what about when we persuade for a living? Rejection seems to take a higher toll. We avoid rejection like the plague, but it affects your income. Running away from the rejection solves nothing. Letting our fears overtake us and paralyze us also solves nothing.

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Do you have sales phobia? Do certain fears hold you back from achieving greatness? How much money have these fears cost you? Did you know you were only born with 2 fears? Did you know fear is easier to conquer than you think? Join me on this week's podcast as I address: "How To Conquer Your Sales Phobia."

Scarcity plays a large role in the persuasion process. Opportunities are always more valuable and exciting when they are scarce and less available. We want to be the ones to own the rare items or to get the last one on the shelf. The more the scarcity of an item increases, the more the item increases in value, and the greater the urge to own it.

Now the key with scarcity and urgency is in the application. There are key elements that have to be implemented to make sure scarcity works. Most people use scarcity the wrong way and it becomes high lactose or cheesy. Join me for this week's podcast The Most Abused, Overused, Still Need to Use Persuasion Technique

Commitment has a lot to do with perspective. When you consider your personal perspective, do you see the big picture, or are you swept up by the whims of the moment? You have to make sure your perspective is rock solid; otherwise, your commitments will be flimsy. We all know that when someone says, "I'll try," it will never happen. "I'll try" versus "I will" are two different attitudes.

With one, you are committing. With the other, you're leaving yourself room for a way out. Make sure the commitments you make in a moment of excitement have the sustaining motivation to take you to the next level. Great persuaders make their commitments stronger than their moods.

One of the key ways to make sure our commitment remains strong is to develop willpower and the ability to delay gratification.

How can you increase your commitment level? How do you keep those promises to yourself? Is there a goal that keeps nagging at you? Good news! There are solutions. Join me for this week's podcast as I interview Jason Hewlett. We are going to discuss three questions and reveal the solutions.

Join me for this week's Podcast on How To Apply Behavioral Design to Persuasion.

We will discuss the two simple psychological shifts that will increase your ability to influence. Discover how to get your prospect in the right "MindState" that will open the doors to persuasion.

I also interview Will Leach, who wrote : Marketing to Mindstates." He said:

If you're a salesperson, you can likely attest to the fact that selling is more difficult today than it's ever been. Landing that meeting with a prospect is nearly impossible because we're all dealing with endless distractions and overtaxed schedules. And when you do land that meeting, you must often overcome their psychological feelings of choice overload and aversion to making the wrong choice. To put it simply, we (and prospective buyers) are overwhelmed.

These twin forces — choice overload and loss aversion — can paralyze our prospects from making decisions, which can cause us to lose time and sales.

Check out Will's Book: "Marketing to Mindstates - the Practical Guide to Applying Behavioral Design to Research and Marketing" and his website: www.Triggerpointdesign.com

It is common sense to realize you have to keep your audience's attention in order to persuade them. If you lose them, you lose your chance for them to understand and accept your proposal. We know from our own personal experience that we tend to let our minds naturally drift when we are listening to other people.

Another helpful tip is the primacy and recency effect. You should strategize the sequence or order of your presentations. Sometimes you should go first in the persuasion process. Sometimes you should go last. Join me for this week's podcast as I explore The Primacy vs Recency vs Von Restorff Effect.