Influencing People: Part II

[ctivnan]

Business Skills: Influencing People
Part II

THE LANGUAGE OF INFLUENCE
by Bob Dignen

2. Strategies for influencing people

a. Stress the benefits
- The main benefit would be ...
- This would enable you to ...

b. Cultivate trust
- In my experience, ...
- This worked very well in my last project.

c. Be transparent
-I've divided my presentation into two sections.
- My motivation for saying this is ...

d. Use logical arguments
- The main reason behind my argument is ...
- The figures show that ...

e. Focus on the relationship
- I totally understand your feelings.
- You know me very well, so...

f. Be strong
- There is absolutely no other solution.
- It would be crazy not to do this now.

g. Look to the future
- My vision is...
- I'd like to tell you a little story.

h. Be confident
- I have absolutely no doubt that...
- I'm totally confident that...

i. Show optimism
- I'm very optimistic about this because...
- The best-case scenario is that we can...

Source: Business Spotlight, Nov-Dec, 2006