People Power: How to influence anyone anywhere

Hello and welcome to this introductory video on how to Influence Anyone, Anywhere.  The number one factor in being successful in any context is on your ability to influence and persuade others and, at the same time, maintain focus and confidence.

These videos and pdf downloads are rich resources from which you can learn, rehearse and practise a variety of strategies and tactics for you to become more influential. 

In particular, the content of this program will help you better influence, persuade and negotiate with others.  Also, it will ensure that you meet more of your objectives with ease and flow.

I will be talking to you about developing a ‘win-win’ attitude where all parties fully meet their needs and expectations.

In this program we refer to many topics and take you through the following subjects:

• A structure for influence – the influencing cycle
• Preparing to influence others
• Managing objections and selling benefits
• Explore and apply the concept of ‘Brand You’
• Rapport Building
• How to acquire strong and positive self Confidence
• Developing a strong personal belief system
• Secrets of Body Language
• Assessing Personality Types
•  Influencing with different Personality types

We also include published articles and pdf downloads for each video.  This extensive program has a running time of 3 hours and 15 minutes.

This video focuses on the concept of you the influencer as a ‘Brand’ – just as much as McDonalds, Coca-Cola, Disney or Ford are all famous Brands.  The video asks you to assess ‘you’ and consider your personal strengths, and also those things which may inhibit your ability to successfully influence others.

The video concentrates upon the conscious and unconscious way you communicate and the impression you create with others.  After all, you only have one chance to great a great first impression.  Another key message is to maintain your ‘boundaries’ and, most of all, your ‘authenticity’. 

We encourage you to undertake a personal audit, to ask others about the impression you create to work on building an authentic influencer – an even better you.

Note, there are several published articles included with the pdf download in this section.

In this video we concentrate upon the role of self-confidence and self-esteem, and methods and strategies for building that confidence.  It is worth noting that ‘self-confidence’ by itself is not enough – you also need to develop the motivation to want to demonstrate that confidence. 

As you work your way through the programme, you will notice we place a lot of emphasis on defining outcomes and objectives.

We discuss the importance of removing ‘limiting’ beliefs and building strong positive personal belief systems.

We also refer to some of the techniques for building personal self-confidence and a positive belief system using EFT or Tapping, posture, the use of physiology and breathing, eye contact and developing a holistic approach to become a more effective influencer.  This is important ground work for the next video.  

This video continues the journey to acquiring self-confidence outlined in the previous video and draws on the importance of self-confidence in public speaking either in business, presenting to investors, or in social or personal situations and relationships.

We talk about the importance of overcoming ‘social anxiety’ and the importance of rehearsing repeatedly to ensure your big event or attempt to influence has the ‘pay-off’ you desire.  You have to master performance anxiety.

It is vital to understand that mastery in interpersonal influence only comes about by planning, preparing, assessing objectives and outcomes and rehearsing until it is ‘second nature’ for you.  Only by doing this will you be comfortable.  You have to:

1. Prepare in advance
2. Use your body language and physiology to best effect – understanding the role and congruence of words, tonality and body language
3. Apply Anchoring
4. Use and employ the ‘Circle of Excellence’ technique

Here we deal with structuring activities so that we develop an ‘influencing cycle’.  You have to have a structure in place, but also display the necessary flexibility to be able to move about and adjust your message to those whom you are attempting to persuade and influence.

Critical to this is:

• Knowing your outcome
• Developing flexible strategies and tactics
• Developing a ‘win-win’ mindset
• Prepare – one hour of planning saves all that chaos and confusion
• Know the importance of Rapport and how to develop it
• Agree what you want to happen
• Agree a positive way forward

To do this you have to:

• Test for understanding
• Sell benefits and manage objections

This Video is broken down into two sections.  This video focuses upon Rapport Building.  Relationship building is based on having the capacity to build rapport in social and business settings.   For successful influence to be achieved you have to deepen the relationship and this is based upon research in ‘selling and influencing customers’. 

We refer to important research that supports the belief that we should always persist and build the chemistry with others.   To make the most of building the right ‘chemistry’ you have to be observant and that starts with knowing ‘self’.  We referred to some of this work in video 2 with the ‘Brand You’ concept, but here we go deeper.

This continues the theme of video 6 on Rapport Building and deepening relationships.

To go deeper means to understand more about self and others.  To know more about the people we want to influence, we have to use our listening skills and open ended questions.  We also need to understand the communication style of others and here we explore the Visual, Auditory, Kinesthetic and Digital channels.

We explore how this is used by professional film people and media influencers and briefly explore eye accessing cues.   The eyes are the window to the soul and often tell us a lot about how others are processing information.  This is a useful primer for our additional work which we will explore in Video 7a and 7b on Body language.

This two part video a. and b. focuses upon the important role that Body Language plays in influencing others.  To be an effective communicator and master of persuasion, you should use all your channels of communication in synch and ‘in tune’ with each other.  We have to be congruent, otherwise others will spot that something is wrong.

In this video we explore the importance of ‘sensory acuity’ or observation.

We explore the concept that Body language is not an exact science and is ‘culturally bound’ by ethnicity, locality, customers and general culture.   We further explore the comparative role of words, tonality and body language in the influence arena.

We introduce the concept of eye contact, smiling, handshakes and posture and prepare you for video 7b, which explores some interesting research in facial gestures.

Continuing the theme of video 7a we explore the important work of Paul Ekman who claims that facial gestures are shared by all races and all primates - a reflection of our evolution and therefore have universal meaning.  Facial gestures are largely not culturally bound.  Facial gestures reflect emotions.

We explore further applications of eye contact and introduce a variety of body language signals and their likely meanings.  Here we explore

• Eye contact
• Steepling
• Hands on Hips
•  Foot Direction
• Use of Props to magnify or extend the body, and
• Hand gestures

This starts an important part of the video series and this is an introduction to reading different personality types.  Here we talk about our preferred personality model.  This model enables us to quickly read others people, and place them approximately on a four paned diagram that concentres upon how they communicate and express two major character traits – Power and emotion.

We introduce the concept of flexibility in reading others.  It is not always possible to accurately calibrate others – but this introduction is enough to give you the curiosity to learn the process.

This starts with a four step process

1. Assessing Self
2.  Assessing Others
3. Appraising or calibrating the type of personality with whom we are communicating
4. Delivering our message

Further, this video introduces the four major types, Regulator, Visionary, Analyst and Facilitator

This video explores some of the foundations of ‘personality typing’ and how we developed a short questionnaire to support us in training to understand ‘personality or influencing type’.

Here we explain the model in some depth, and give you the opportunity to assess where you fit in the model.  We explain the two scales which represent the extremes of ‘Power’ and ‘Emotion’ in how we choose to communicate to others.

Now you have the opportunity to complete the questionnaire which is a pdf download. 

This and the next three videos each concentrate on the personality types.  These videos are rather specific, and shorter than the previous videos.  This video explores the strengths and the limitations of being a Regulator.  You can explore the key characteristics in this video and by reading through the pdf download that accompanies the video.

• Regulators are typically:
• Bottom Line Driven
• Focused on Results
• Impatient
• Controlling
• Big Picture People
• Not natural team players

You can get further detail from the downloads.

You may want to reconsider your profile and see how your style may change due to changes in circumstances.  You may want to consider asking others to complete the questionnaire thinking of your personal management style.

This video explores the strengths and the limitations of being an Analyst.  You can explore the key characteristics in this video and by reading through the pdf download that accompanies the video.

Typically Analysts are:

• Detail conscious
• Objective and driven by data rather than subjectivity
• Focused on the cause effect relationships that make things happen
• Logically driven and not given to fits of emotion
• Patient and accurate
• Have difficulty relating to ‘what if’ scenarios and ‘intuitives’

You may want to reconsider your profile and see how your style may change due to changes in circumstances.  You may want to consider asking others to complete the questionnaire thinking of your personal management style.

This video explores the strengths and the limitations of being a Facilitator.  You can explore the key characteristics in this video and by reading through the pdf download that accompanies the video.

Typically Facilitators are:

• Team players
• Subjective and caring for team members
• Patient and participative
• Conflict avoiders
• Decisions are driven by consultation
• People ‘people’

You may want to reconsider your profile and see how your style may change due to changes in circumstances.  You may want to consider asking others to complete the questionnaire thinking of your personal management style.

This video explores the strengths and the limitations of being a Visionary.  You can explore the key characteristics in this video and by reading through the pdf download that accompanies the video.

Visionaries typically are:

• Big Picture
• Seeking unique solutions
• Career, ego driven and self-conscious
• Team leaders
• Creative
• Inattentive and uninterested in detail

You may want to reconsider your profile and see how your style may change due to changes in circumstances.  You may want to consider asking others to complete the questionnaire thinking of your personal management style.

The first part of this video summarises the four personality types of Regulator, Analyst, Facilitator and Visionary.  It outlines a method for presenting to these types by using a simple methodology based on assessing the core objections that each type would make to your proposal.

This video proposes the major objections of the four personality types and is useful in helping you prepare for dealing with them in difficult circumstances.

The second part of the Video summarises the content of this program and pays particular attention to:

• Giving choice in how you can respond to others
• Managing tension and stress
• Handling objections
• Use of Body language
• Method or Influencing Cycle
• Controlling interaction
• Strategies
• Self Confidence
• Life Skills
• Rapport