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Begin to Build Your Influence

Welcome audience members and welcome internet to Build Your Influence, Build Your Business. So, my first question, right out the gate is this is going to be a dialogue, so get ready, I'm gonna ask you a lot of questions. So the first question is what comes to mind when you think of the word influence? (laughter) Yes. I think of leadership and a power that can be used for good or bad. Oh, I love that. Any particular leaders come to mind? You know, I think of actually a couple, like my sister, actually, who has influenced me to become healthier and actually sort of change my whole career path. Ooh, I love that. She has been the most recent influencer in my life. I love that. Awesome. Great. Chris? You've thought of a few? Yeah, I think of, like, movements, Like when you get people behind a movement and there's something larger, right, you're influencing and then they as a group have an influence of their own. Ooh, I love that. So we have exactly two different perspectiv...

es on it. One is one person influencing one person and then one person influencing the masses. Perfect. Yes. I'm thinking of confidence. Kay. As influence as something that helps a person to get over the uncomfortable, stressful situation. Right, because a confident person is usually the person that is influential rather than the meek or shy type, right? Mmhm. Awesome. Fantastic. Any other thoughts on what comes to mind with the word influence? I would just echo the power to change. Mm. Change yourself, change others, both? Both. Yeah. Having influence is the power to change. I love that word, power. Because when you understand the world of influence, you actually gain more control, you gain power in situations and so a lot of the tips and techniques that we're going to talk about in the workshop is going to give you more power in networking situations, in sales, in negotiations, even if you're up on the platform speaking to a group of people, you feel that inner power because you know how to leverage these tools. Fantastic. So all of your responses are very positive when it comes to influence. For those out there in the internet world, some words that might come to mind is like coercion or manipulation or images might be of a James Bond character stroking the white cat trying to think of all the evil things they can do with their power. So we are obviously going to be talking about the positive side of influence and as he mentioned before, as I'm known for bringing the dark arts of influence into the light and we'll talk about how there are way too many people in the world who have this skill and technique of influence but are using it for malicious purposes and I want to empower the people who are doing good in the world, in their businesses, in their community, and give them those tools and techniques 'cause it's really not fair for the bad people to have these and so we're going to spread the movement of positive influence. Thank you for that word, Chris. Alright. So, most people only see a portion of the influential chessboard so I am going to go under the assumption that you already have some influential skills. I have no doubt whatsoever that with certain people or in certain situations, you are really skilled with your words and your presence. But it's in those situations where, perhaps, you don't feel as confident, you don't feel as skilled, where that influence might wane a little bit and so most people don't see the full chessboard that they have in front of themselves and all the strategies and the moves and the things that they can do in a wide variety of situations. Even worse, some people may only be able to use an influential pawn, they only have one piece on that chessboard and I want to give you an army of pieces on that influential chessboard and be able to see all the different strategies that you can take with different people and different situations and different goals, which we'll talk about in just a little bit. So for the next three days, I am going to broaden your scope on what it means to be influential and how to increase that influential power that you have within yourself already. And so I'll talk a little bit more about how I fell into this world of influence and persuasion and why I just love it and am fascinated by it so much but first I want to talk to you a little bit about my own Obi-Wan's, my Yoda's and my Mr. Miyagi's in the world of influence. I started reading books on influence and persuasion just because I found it to be fascinating. I started out as an actress back in the day, I don't know if you can tell. (laughter) But I learned, after I decided not to pursue my acting career and I went into the world of public relations in the nonprofit world, that I was really skilled at my presentations to try to get people to, you know, help us out and take part of our services and within the first six weeks of me being on the job, I landed the largest deal that they had seen in over five years. For something that, to me, seemed kind of easy it was a big deal and I was like, oh, okay, well, what is going on here, why is it that something that seems easy from what I learned in the world of theater isn't translating for other people because they didn't learn these things in business school or marketing classes, things along those lines. And so once I left my acting career, I decided to help people in their presentation skills and so in presentations and on stage, you have a lot that's within your control. You're controlling what people see, you're controlling what they hear, a lot of times when you're speaking, you're not getting feedback from the audience, you just get to yammer away and there's not interaction, you get to control what people are holding in their hands and learning and what's going on in the room, you have a crew of people helping you out, so it's kind of, I wouldn't say there's a level of easierness, yes I made up that word, to being influential on the platform because there is so much that you can handle and manage. With that said, though, I was more curious and interested in people who are skilled in conversations where so much is outside of your control. You don't know what the other person's going to say, you don't know the dynamic or the emotion they're going to walk in with, you don't know what's going on, you don't control the coffee shop where you're meeting and all the noises that's happening and I knew that there were people out there who were skilled at that. I knew that there were rock stars of influence and I wanted to meet those people and so I actively sought out and have since personally interviewed and worked with masterful influencers and those people include CIA field agents, they include hostage negotiators, trial attorneys with amazing win records, as well as con artists. (laughter) as well as pick up artists, and a whole host of other amazing people, people in military intelligence and undercover DEA agents, people who, we're talking about life and death situations, where it can go really well or really badly based on what you say. Wow. I wanted to know what they knew and that is the basis of our three day workshop today, is bringing that more, the dark arts, the clandestine world of influence, into the light for people who are in leadership positions, building their businesses and motivating others to positive action. So, let's talk about that. Who can use influence? What exactly are we talking about when we think of influence and what type of situations come to mind and I'd love to hear from the internet world as well. I'll just throw a few out. Obviously, sales is one of the first things that comes to mind when we think about influence. We talked, we heard a little bit about leadership before and leadership can be one person leading one person or it could be one person leading many people. What other type of situations come to mind where you think where you can be influential or a situation that you, specifically, would like to be more influential? Yes. Uh, coaches. So, I'm training to be a health coach. Kay, great. And I feel like my influential skills are at a minimum so I'm really looking forward to getting that chessboard and getting all the strategies, to learn that while I'm learning the health side and the coaching side. Can I ask you what makes you think that your influential skills are minimal, as you put it? Well, I think I have a high level of agreeableness. Okay. And so I tend to, mm... When you had mentioned meek and, I think, maybe, timid, I can, I feel myself going into those areas, sometimes, when I'm uncomfortable. So you feel like you're clients can come bulldoze you in situations? Well, potentially. So, I'm very new to all of this and so I think, actually, because I'm new, I need to up that confidence and up the, sort of up my skillfulness of showing off what I know and influencing people. Because I really do believe in what I'm doing and I really will be able to help people, but it's harnessing that to be vocal and share it, I think I would just sort of be quiet about it. I love that because that is going to speak to so many people who are watching this course because there are many entrepreneurs and solopreneurs where they don't have a sales team of people who are selling them, so it's on you to present your worth, which can be difficult. I mean, it sounds like your bragging or you don't wanna sound egotistical but at the same time you don't want to be meek and timid about it because you need to explain your value so we'll definitely give you that skill set to feel more confident, find ways to successfully, kind of subtly, explain your worth and explain your value without all the self-talk that kind of gets in the way. Exactly, I love that. Perfect, perfect. Wonderful. Yes, Chris. I was gonna say, I think that what you said earlier about having influence in specific situations and feeling comfortable there really resonated so one-to-one, I feel very comfortable. And we start to get bigger than that, right, and so the word, when you talked about influence, where you want to use it, like, building communities, right, where it's a very different interaction, that I find interesting and also an area of weakness, an area that I would like to pursue so, you know, you talk about, you know, influence we use, you know, as a one-to-one leader or as a leader among many, but then also from within that crowd can you be influential as a part of that crowd and a part of that community bringing them up? I love that. So you're being a leader who is influencing and building leaders as well. And trying to understand that dynamic. Yes. Yes. That's one I don't feel that I understand very well right now. One thing that might be really helpful to you is when we talk about cold profiling people and how your core message, and this is going to be true throughout the entire course, your core message is going to stay the same. So your core message, imagine it being like a birthday gift that you're giving somebody. So if I have a wonderful birthday gift for you and I put it, I put the same gift in two different bags. One is a brown paper bag and then the other is a Tiffany's box and I say pick whichever one you want. Which one are you going for? I'm going for that Tiffany's box, baby, even though it's the same thing inside, I don't know that. It's how you're presenting it to me that makes me want it more and so without knowing how to wrap your message, then it can look like a brown paper bag to somebody else even though you know what's in there is that beautiful diamond earring or whatever it is that you're wanting to give them. Diamond earring? Earrings. Usually best if they come in pairs. What else do we hear in the online world? Well, we have a lot of people in the chatroom who are sharing. Iamgroot says "I want to be able to mobilize an army, "a following, a group, a network." 318Media says that "for my clients, "as well as the people that I interview for my podcast," so they're trying to influence them. JesseL says they wanna "utilize influence "to out-influence the competition." Raphael says "to modify thoughts on people "but never to completely replace them." Johnny wants to influence himself. So we have lots of people chiming in here, let's see. LM says, "to help give people the tools they need to have a successful, productive life and to help them use those actual tools." Look at all the positive - Lots of positivity here. Lots of positivity. And also, Raphael says, "influence. "I believe everybody is the center of their own universe, "acquiring knowledge from others is a basic thing, "be able to influence others at the same time." so thank you so much for sharing all of your comments, keep those coming in, you're gonna be a big part of the rest of this course, so, eager to hear everything from the chat room. Love it, love it, and I love how we're talking about online space as well as real world interactions. Yeah. A lot of the things that we'll be focusing on in the course is going to be that real world person-to-person interaction because, again, that's where, I think, that there's a lot of mystery around that. There's more moving pieces and that's why I wanted to do a full, three day course on this is because there are so many different dynamics and levels that we need to cover because we, as human beings, are beautiful creatures but honey, we are also complicated creatures. So peeling back a lot of those layers just needs that time and that workshop. Yes. My view on this is kind of complicated like he just said. As my mom says, I can sell ice to an Eskimo. Because of the way I grew up, I'm really comfortable one-on-one and I'm also very comfortable in front of a group of people. Awesome. But I tend to be a storyteller and I also have a very generous heart so lots of times I end up giving things away rather than closing the deal, so what I'm hoping is that you'll imbue me with these tools that the storytelling can become, actually, really an effective way of ending up with two people being delighted at the end product. Perfect, perfect, absolutely. Yes, and so we will talk about, when we talk about influential intentions, we'll get very specific with yours because you, it seems like you have great skill set, it's just, we're not sure of the target that we're trying to hit and without that target, then you're just shooting arrows into thin air and seeing where they land so, great, great point. Okay, so what we've already touched on with what you guys have said here in the studio audience as well as online is, I think, everybody kind of gets this already, that the road to success is not traveled alone. In our wonderful world of the online space, there are so many ways that you can make money online and create things online and you could be a hermit in your home and never leave for weeks and still get money in the bank and that's great and wonderful but at some point, there is a roof to that, there is only so far that you can cross because at some point you need to get somebody to help you, get a team member, get somebody to work for you and if you're not skilled at being a leader or influential, then your turnover rate is going to be crazy and that's wasted time, which is wasted money so being able to get your teams to do what you need them to do as well as coaches out there, obviously there's so much one-on-one interaction in that type of setting so you need, you need people, we are not an island, people need people as Streisand said. So that's the fundamental premise of what we're talking about over the three days. Plus, the higher you climb, the more important communication becomes. Study after study after study has shown this. That communication skills is rated highest for CEO's and the C-suite and VP's of job necessities, job skill necessities, so even right now, if you're creating something and it's on the ground floor, then you might be able to get the ball rolling but if you need that ball to keep rolling and keep getting bigger and bigger than you need those people around you and to keep those people around you, you need to keep them engaged and that's all going to be with how you communicate your message and your presence. So let me give you a rundown of what these three days are going to be about. The basic structure is observe, connect, influence, and the reason why observe is first, or down at the bottom is because observation is the foundation of influence. Observation is the foundation of influence. Not how you're yapping your mouth, that's the icing on the cake. It's what you observe and knowing what to observe about the people around you. So in our first session, I'm going to give you things to look for and things to listen for to build out your observational profile of your mark. Now what is a mark? (laughter) I lovingly refer to the people that you are wanting to influence as marks. This is just simply something that I got from my interviews with CIA agents and, yes, also the con artists refer to their people as marks. I simply like the term mark. Again, it's not negative in anyway, I like it because this is your focus, this is the mark that you are paying attention to, this is the mark in which all of your energy is going towards. So the mark is a beautiful, loving term of this person that you're trying to collaborate with, 'cause ultimately, influence is collaboration, which we'll talk about that later. Our second session is going to be on connection. So connection means both you connecting with the person that you're talking to with your fellow human being but also connecting the dots between what you observed and what you're trying to influence. So that's the connective tissue between the observe part to the influence and the influence part is at the top and, again, like I said, that's the icing on the cake and I'll give you a host full of techniques to really close the deal, to take things just, finally, over the edge because a lot of people may be good at the observation or the connection but they're just missing those few things that get somebody to finally write the check, right? Alright. So during our first session we're going to talk about linguistic clues, so this is what to listen for from your mark to help you connect with people and it will give you the basis of how to start wrapping your influential message as well as hacking your own body language because your presence is influential so how to create an influential presence with your body language as well as decoding their body language, the signals that they're sending you. And then third we'll talk about leveraging influential vibes and vibes are the five things that you want to look for of how, it's basically the hooks in which you're going to hook in your influential message. I love that part. It's a little philosophical, too, it's great. Alright, and then in our second session we're going to talk about connecting, so how to cold profile people in conversations and begin your influential tactics. Again, a lot of this is going to be covered in the field guide, which I'll talk about in just a little bit, and then building effective and lasting rapport with people for better business relationships and personal relationships and then motivating people by linking them to common desires and tendencies. This section I love because this actually comes from the world of elicitation which is in military intelligence and also corporate espionage so this is how people will get information that people don't want you to know, like, "so, what new product is Apple coming out with later," you know, how to get that information from people. We're going to use the same techniques in a different way, we're going to illicit those influential vibes, those hooks, so that we know how to wrap the message. I know, it's so cool, right? This is like a spy movie. It is! And then on our third session, we're going to talk about influence, so building your complete influential map so you know the stages of when you're gathering influential intelligence to when you are building that rapport to when you're closing the deal. And then next is powerful, persuasive phrases and then how to prime your mark for persuasion, so let them be more suggestible to your suggestions and then home run influential techniques and tactics. So, at the end of session one, we're going to talk about what you see so seeing, knowing your own communication preferences, strengths and weaknesses, seeing signs that you have missed in the past, and seeing moments of opportunity, so seeing when the right time is to bring in your influential message. And then on the second session we're going to talk about being, how to be and build more relationships. How to lead and be liked, that's the number one thing that I hear from my leadership clients is they have these team members, whether it's a sales team or their entire company, is that they need their people to move to action but they don't wanna look like a jerk doing it. So how can you lead and still be liked? And then control situations with your presence and your words and then in our third session we're going to talk about taking action, so know how to build your influential strategy, close more sales, and move people to the action, where you like. So my style, if you haven't been able to tell already, is I have so much fun up here. I have so much fun up here. It's going to be content-driven. One of the biggest complaints that I get from people in my courses and in my workshops is there's so much information, people are jotting down notes furiously. I am content-driven. Yes, there's going to be some of that inspirational, motivational information as well to help launch you, but it is content, baby, so get ready to be taking down notes and please be prepared to ask questions. Don't worry about interrupting me, that's totally fine. Your questions help me give you what you want as well as you are also the voice of the online community and, hey, online community, go ahead, keep putting in your questions, flag down Chris and he will speak up for you.