Maximize Your Influence

Do you work in an environment where you need to be motivated...but your boss just doesn't motivate you? This is increasingly the norm, unfortunately. A recent article by Harvard Business Review gives some helpful pointers if you find yourself in this type of environment. Check out the article here. Are you your competitor's best sales person? Let's rephrase. Have you ever worked really hard building your products value with a prospect, only to have them go with a cheaper option or a competitor? That's what we call "scratching the itch." When you motivate your prospect to change, they often try to scratch the easiest itch they can find. In other words, once you've identified the problem and created the pain, the prospect seeks to solve that pain in the easiest/cheapest way possible. Kurt and Steve discuss some of the main methods for getting around the itch. The first is obvious. What are the cheaper options that your prospect will be tempted to go with? Instead of covertly trying to sabotage these options, what is working best right now is to just drag the options all out into the light. It's okay to tell your prospect: "look, a lot of individuals I talk to end up trying to find a cheaper version. I'll tell you right now, it exists. If price is all you're concerned about, you should go that direction. Do you have other considerations besides price?" This gets a critical yes from your prospect and they proceed to tell you all the things besides price that matter to them. Now you can build value and take the sales cycle away from price. Battling your prospect on price is seldom a winning proposition. Tune into the episode for more tools to manage "the itch." And if you're ready to take things to the next level, visit us at www.universityofpersuasion.com. There you'll see some of Kurt and Steve's top training programs...some of which are totally free!

Are you one of those sports fans that feels like the officials are conspiring against your team? Everybody has been THAT sports fan at some point in their life. As it turns out you may not be that paranoid. A recent study shows that shorter NBA refs call more fouls than their taller counter parts. The question remains though: is this due to a bad case of vantage point or a bad case of "small man syndrome?" Check out the article here. It's a fact, though. We judge people based on height. The fact that this transcends into sports is no surprise. On episode 66 of Maximize Your Influence, Kurt and Steve discuss what all sales and business people deal with: rejection. Dealing with rejection involves two key concepts: 1) how we think about it and 2) how we deal with it. Having a healthy perspective on rejection and realizing that it happens to everybody, even the best, is where you should start. Beyond that, there are various habits that successful persuaders get into that allow them to quickly move past rejection and even harness it to create more sales. Check out episode 66 to learn more!

Persuasion is one of those skills that gives you a leg up on the competition. When it comes to sales, there is no award for second place. And advantage you can get goes a long way towards coming in first place! Make sure you regularly tune up your persuasion ane influence skills. These are skills that can atrophy over time if you don't use them. And when you need to use them...it's too late to learn! So why not use Maximize Your Influence to stay fresh! In Kurt's geeky article moment, we learn what motivates people to pursue their dream job. Because we all need money, most of us end up selling out our dream job. But if it's something you really want, you need to have a vivid mindset. Having a vivid, clear picture of your future will make you sink or swim. This equally applies in sales. If your prospects don't have a vivid and clear picture of what it'll be like to use your product, they'll say no. Continuing on, Kurt and Steve wrap up the series on the 4 R's of Resistance. The 4th "R" is "Representative." In other words...it's YOU. Sometimes people will resist doing business not because of the product, the price, or something else. It's just something about you. This has been discussed at length on the show. People do business with "better looking" people. This doesn't mean you have to be a model. But it is time to ask yourself some questions. Are you dressing fashionably (but not over the top)? Are you over weight? Are you still sporting the same haircut you thought looked super cool in 1982? Take a hard look at yourself. You want too look good...but not too slick. Beyond looking good, it comes down to rapport. Increasingly, however, prospects are getting a lot better at sniffing out the "bs" that sales people throw at them. The best way to connect is to initially prove your worth. Once you do this, your prospects will subconsiously give you permission to connect with them and "shoot the bull" as they say.

After discussing Kurt's upcoming visit to the Middle East, Kurt and Steve launch right into this week's article. According to a recent article from Science Daily, toddlers who exhibit low empathy are in for a tough life. The study says that there will be long term problems with aggression. The good news is, it's not too late to fix it. After the article, Kurt and Steve get into the Third R of Resistance, which is "resources." We're all taught in sales that we need to qualify our prospect. Mostly this centers around money, but there are other resources that need to be in place such as time, support, staff, etc. We know that most of the time when prospects tell us they don't have the resources, it's not true. They've just learned over the years that lying about resources is a quick way to make you (the evil salesperson) go away. When it comes right down to it, most of the things that we buy are not based on price. Value is the key, and value is a perception. What are your prospects comparing your product or service to? This allows you to benchmark value. You get to decide what they compare it to! Be careful to choose what other products and services your compare and contrast your product with. Do it right, and people will pay a lot more. Do it wrong, and they won't pay you anything!

Do you enjoy the Maximize Your Influence Podcast? Learn more at www.universityofpersuasion.com. You'll have access to all of our top persuasion and influence training! You'll get our 52 week persuasion mastery course, our persuasion university library, persuasion software (solves objections for you), and much much more! On this episode of Maximize Your Influence, Kurt and Steve discuss the second R of resources. One of the main reasons we encounter resistance from prospects, employees, family, etc is due to perceived risk. Whether it's time, money, respect, or some other resource, your prospect is not sure if what they are giving up to do business with you is truly worth it. There's too much risk. Sometimes they state this out loud...other time sthey feel it subconsciously. Either way, your goal as a persuader is to get your prospect to feel like they have absolutely nothing to lose by doing business with you. Part of this is through creating involvement (see our earler podcasts on the law of involvement). When your prospect feels like they are participating in the product or service they begin to feel that it WILL be worth it. Get them started down the right road and they will typically want to finish. This is typically done through some kind of free trial of your product or service. Sure, when you offer a free trial people will periodcially take advantage of you. However, implementing a free trial usually increases sales so much that any "free loaders" are totally worth it. Another way is to establish a bold guarantee. If you don't feel like you CAN guarantee your product or service, it's time to re-think things. What can you promise that will make prospects feel like they have a way "out" if the product doesn't work for them? Remember, guarnatees are like free trials. Most typically won't turn around and ask for their money back once they've purchased the product. Guarantees more than pay for themselves!

On this episode, Kurt and Steve interview the CEO of Entrepreneur on Fire, John Lee Dumas. John is one of the most successful "virtual" entrepreneurs out there. His podcast is by far one of the most popular business downloads on the internet. He is known for producing massive amounts of valuable content and giving it away for FREE. His audience is large and he has a very high level of trust with them. This allows him to sell hundreds of thousands of dollars of his products every month. And even better...he documents it all! His model of complete transparency allows him to cut right to the pain of what his prospects want and need. He then provides it and makes huge profits in the process. If you're an entrepreneur his show is a must! Learn more by visiting www.entrepreneuronfire.com.

Did you know that money can buy happiness? A recent study published in "Psychology Today" shows just that. Kurt and Steve discuss the ins and outs of this study and how money certainly can buy happiness...up to a point. Continuing off of recent episodes, Kurt and Steve cover how we can overcome objections before they ever occur in the first place. This concept is called "inoculation." The term comes from the medical field, where patients are given a weak form of a virus so that their body can develop an immunity to it. This same concept happens on the pscyhological level. If we can introduce a weak form of the objection to our prospects, they will be better prepared for when the real one comes along at a later date. For example, do most of your prospects end up looking for more bids from competitors? Or do they end up getting serious resistance from friends and family? Letting them know very subtly that this will happen beforehand helps them avoid the shock and disappointment that will later surface. They'll think "hey, you know what? He told me that the competitors would say this, or that my family would think that." This even applies when raising children. Unfortunatley we know that at some point kids will be exposed to and given the opportunity to take drugs. Pretending this won't happen just increases the chances that they will be influenced by a drug dealer and not by you as a parent. Letting them know in advance "hey Jr, at some point somebody is going to offer you drugs. If you say know they'll call you chiocken, they'll make fun of you, etc. But just say no no matter what and come talk to me about it. It's okay." You can't, nor should you, inoculate against everything. Just pick the two or three most common objections your prospects have and presolve them with stories, examples, statistics, and testimonials!

Stay tuned as we will soon be rolling out Influence University...your way to access absolutely everything that Kurt has ever produced on Persuasion, Influence, Negotiation, and Leadership! One of the greatest features of Influence University is Kurt's "Persuasion Software." There are 77 potential objections out there and this software allows you to click on whatever one you've received and immediately see the course of action you should take! On this episode, Kurt and Steve follow their discussion on objection psychology. Now that we know where objections come from, what do we do when they actually arrive? There are a few steps to consider. First, make sure you listen to the entire objection. You might know the answer. You might think the objection is stupid. But it's just as important for your prospect to completely verbalize the objection as it is for you to actually answer it. The point is that you can never adequately answer an objection until the prospect has completely verbalized it. Second, repeat the objection back to your prospect to make sure you understand. Pause. Think it over. A lot of times when prospects have completely verbalized an objection it takes care of itself. There are five more steps that Kurt and Steve discuss on this episode, so download it here or subscribe to Maximize Your Influence on Itunes or Stitcher Radio to hear the entire episode!

After a rant about Philly Cheesesteaks and Gourmet Grilled Cheese, Kurt and Steve continue to break down the psychology of objections. Undestanding what's happening to your prospect mentally will help you overcome objections faster and many times, avoid them all together. A study done by Knox and Inkster shows us that people tend to justify and feel more confident in their decisions AFTER they have made them. So if your prospects are not at least subconsciously making a decision to do business with you, they are looking for reasons to NOT do business with you This essentially comes down to small mental commitments and painting the picture. Anytime your prospect is confused or feels ambiguous about the future, they will throw out knee jerk reactions. This is why advertisements show pictures and videos of people using their product and smiling. They want to paint a picture of a bright future where people are using their product and are satisfied. How can you do this? How can you help your prospects see, touch, taste, feel, and overall experience your product? Take away that uncertainty and the decision gets made subconsciously now and it's easy sailing from there!