Influencing skills

 

If you are in any kind of leadership or change agent role you need to be able to influence people. This two day course gives you powerful insights into human behaviour – insights which enable you to influence with integrity.

Presence

  • What it is and isn't – why you need presence but not charisma
  • How to enhance your presence
  • Wisdom, curiosity, generosity and purpose
  • The importance of framing encounters

Trust and rapport

  • Body language and rapport
  • Perceptual positions
  • The four components of trust

Expertise

  • Why your perceived expertise makes you influential
  • How to demonstrate your expertise without arrogance
  • You do have authority after all – the Milgram and Zimbardo experiments

Herd instinct

  • Why people are influenced by the behaviour of others
  • The power of comparisons – it's all relative
  • How to choose the right comparisions to make your case

Avoiding loss

  • Why people are more motivated by avoiding loss than by the prospect of gain
  • How to motivate with scarcity
  • Why limited choice is better than lots of choice
  • Choice architecture and the power of the nudge

Five influencing styles

  • Pros and cons of different influencing styles
  • Common mistakes with influencing
  • How to spot the best approach in any given situation

Powerful communication

  • Structuring persuasive communication – the PDA method
  • Twenty techniques for powerful communication
  • How to make a strong rational argument
  • The hero's journey and the power of storytelling
  • Explicit and implicit language and which to use when

Selling skills

  • Push selling and the power of state management
  • Pull selling and the SPIN technique
  • Spurious arguments and how to deal with them
  • Persistence and closing
  • How cues can help you close the deal

The power of belief

  • Why beliefs drive behaviour
  • Using explanatory styles to understand people's beliefs
  • How to work within existing beliefs to change behaviour
  • How to change beliefs – three top techniques

Negotiation

  • Twelve top negotiation techniques
  • Twenty negotiation dirty tricks and how to deal with them

Problems solving, decision making and creativity

  • Four approaches to problems solving
  • The four stages of creativity
  • Twelve creative techniques

Coaching and facilitation

  • Why coaching works
  • SOCA, removing obstacles, action learning and other techniques
  • How to lead a great coaching session