In this Blog Post
This post looks at influencing effectively. To help us to understand how you can influence effectively, we first need to know what influencing is.
Influencing is a skill set whereby we use our behaviour or approach to change the thought process of someone else. For example, you may have a new idea that you want others to buy into and accept. You need to bring those people around to your way of thinking. Or, you want someone to change their behaviour towards you or give you something that you need.
In fact, we influence all of the time without even knowing it. We demonstrate body language constantly. People read this body language and perceive what we are thinking and how we are feeling. The fact that they choose how to deal with us means that we have influenced them. We can influence positively or negatively in these situations.
The term influencer is used a lot in today's world - for example in the context of a social media influencer. This is someone famous or who has a large social media following who will be paid by a company to say they use their product. The fact that people know them and follow them will likely mean many of the people will be influenced to buy that product because the influencer uses it too. This is known as social proof.
The tips below relate to bringing someone around to your way of thinking and provide some guidance on what we can do to influence others successfully:
We cover the above tips in much more detail along with other approaches, tips and ideas for influencing effectively in our Negotiation and Influencing Skills training course.