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- by George Ritacco
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Online Training on Autopilot Series...
Persuasion Through Influence. PART 1 of 4
Is there a difference between Influence and Persuasion? Yes
there is.
Influence is the process of changing someone’s behavior.
To persuade is to alter someone’s attitude or beliefs.
Are the two similar in nature? Sure. But they are not the same
and often times many people confuse the two.
While persuasion can be a tool to create influence, as an
employee - influence is far more important. Having less
customer complaints and higher sales can only come from a
positive change in the customer’s behavior.
Here’s something interesting - there is an old wives tale that
the ability to influence is a character attribute some possess
and others do not. It’s true for some people; the power to
influence comes naturally. However there is good news for
everyone else. There’s been research conducted over the past 30
years that indicates virtually anyone can apply the principles
of influence to change the outcome of any personal interaction.
This research is based upon extensive observation of leading
salespeople inside a wide variety of industries. By studying
individuals in sales situations, scientists have been able to
identify certain patterns of behavior and speech that increase
the likelihood of someone saying yes to a request.
How Understanding the Principles of Influence Can Lead to
Employee Loyalty.
According to Robert B. Cialdini PhD, there are 6 universal
principles of influence. Today, in this field, Dr. Cialdini is
the most-cited living Social Psychologist in the world.
Additionally, he has a reputation as the seminal expert in the
science of influence. Dr. Cialdini's bestseller, INFLUENCE, has
been published in 20 different languages and in 23 different
countries. It has been consistently ranked in the top one
percent on AMAZON.com.
The Principles of Influence.
First, reciprocation. People give back to you the kind of
treatment that they have received from you.
Second is scarcity. People will try to seize the opportunities
that you offer them that are rare or dwindling in
availability.
Third, authority. People will be most persuaded by you when
they see you as having knowledge and credibility on the
topic.
Fourth, commitment. People will feel a need to comply with your
request if it is consistent with what they have publicly
committed themselves to in your presence.
Fifth, liking. People prefer to say yes to your request to the
degree that they know and like you.
And finally is consensus. People will be likely to say yes to
your request if you give them evidence that people just like
them have been saying yes to it.
Now before we jump into each of them and explain how each one
can transform the way you currently train and communicate -
it’s important to understand that not everyone uses them
optimally. In his own research, Dr. Cialdini was able to detect
three kinds of influence practitioners. There are bunglers of
influence, there are smugglers of influence, and then there are
sleuths or detectives of influence.
Bunglers are the people who fumble away their chances to use
the principles in a beneficial way, either because they don’t
know what the principles are or because they don’t know how to
engage them properly. These people are always dropping the ball
when it comes to the influence process.
Smugglers, on the other hand, do know, quite well, what the
principles are and how they work. But they import these
principles into situations where they don’t naturally exist. An
example would be a salesperson who pretended to be an authority
on a particular computer system in order to get a customer to
buy it. Although the smuggler’s approach often works in the
short run, it’s deadly in the long run. Because only one person
(the smuggler wins). The customer, who gets fooled into buying
the wrong system, will be unhappy with it and will be unlikely
to ever return to that salesperson or dealer for future
business. As a trainer - the smuggler would be the trainer who
“passes the buck” of knowledge - never taking the time to
understand the true goal of what it is they are trying to
teach. Whether it is in understanding the company’s goals, or
keying in on how the information they are teaching will be used
in the workplace or at a customer’s office... the smuggler is
usually clueless to both.
Finally, there are the sleuths of influence, who are more
knowledgeable than bunglers, more ethical than smugglers, and
overall more successful than either. They approach each
influence opportunity as a detective, looking to uncover and
use only those principles that are truly part of the situation,
and that, therefore, will steer people correctly when to say
yes. So, for instance, if our computer salesperson genuinely
was an expert on a particular type of system that a customer
was interested in, it would be foolish not to share this
information with the customer right at the outset. The training
sleuth, on the other hand approaches each opportunity with a
cadet or trainee as a detective - looking to uncover hidden
motivations and hot buttons that are specific to the
individual. It is in understanding these items and relating to
them - where the true engagement process begins. To learn more
about the power of engagement and how it can instantly change
the performance and motivation of your employees, go to:
www.cruisecontroltraining.com
When people are engaged, they learn easier and remember much
clearer. And if the salesperson, in the above example had been
good enough as a detective to find out that one particular
system had a unique feature that no other system had, he or she
would be a bungler not to say so and make use of this scarcity
principle that was a natural part of that situation.
All in all - it’s not sufficient to know what the most powerful
principles of influence are. We have to train ourselves to
search every influence situation for the principles that reside
there naturally, and to use only those principles. That way,
both parties can benefit.
In Part 2 of this article, we’ll begin to dissect the first
three principles and what they mean to you as the educator,
motivator and cultivator of employees.
George Ritacco is the Director of Client Services for Global
Vision Technologies, Inc (GVT)., www.globalvisiontech.com a
premiere software developer specializing in powerful,
easy-to-use Internet systems for online training and
development, sales and marketing intelligence, pharmaceutical
sales ops, case management, and court reimbursement. GVT’s
primary goal is to provide our customers with tools for
improving productivity, profitability, employee morale and
turnover.
Source: http://www.ezinearticles.com
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