The Power To Influence - Part Three

Posted on 25 May 2007

So now you know how to pace and lead as well as mirror and match lets look at some other aspects that separate the good from the great communicators and influencers.

One other thing that you can do when listening is to paraphrase back. This may only mean repeating one salient part of the sentence. So if somebody says, “I had a great vacation last year, the weather was fantastic, we loved Aruba and we did loads of scuba diving” you could reply by saying “really? Scuba diving?” This has two effects, firstly it shows you are paying attention because you cannot repeat what they said if you were miles away and secondly by using an upwards inflexion on the end of the sentence it invites the other person to expand on what they were saying as you made the statement into a question.

Questions are another integral part of a great influencers tool kit. Questions allow you to understand an alternative point of view so that you can align with it, something that is crucial when trying to persuade and influence. There are questions like the one above that invite the other person to keep talking and questions that are requests for relevant information to help you understand something. The more you look like you are genuinely trying to appreciate their point of view the more highly they will think of you and the more likely you are to be in a position to influence.

When asking questions always resist the temptation to either give the answer yourself or dive back in before the other person has finished speaking. Finishing other people’s sentences for them is never an endearing trait!

Never start a reply with the word but or however. By doing this you are negating the other persons opinion and imposing your own. Even a response like ‘good point, but’ is not acceptable so get that out of your system if you want to be a great influencer. It is almost always possible to use the word and instead of but. By doing that you are agreeing with them and then adding some extra value to what they have said and they are far more likely to agree with you.

When you have built up solid rapport, understand the other person opinion and know what it is you want to achieve (I presume you have started with the end in mind and actually know what you want to achieve)) then you can start to put your case.

Always start by re-capping what the other person just said. It is advisable to start off with something along the lines of ‘ Just let me run this by you so I am completely sure I understand what it is your saying’ This allows them to make any minor corrections and now you know there will be no cross purposes.

Delivering your own point of view should now be a snap. Keep you voice level constant, do not beat about the bush and be honest. There are ways that you can use language to get your point of view across more forcefully such as sleight of mouth, advanced language patterns, embedded commands and future pacing but I really have not got time to go into all those.

Another useful NLP tool that I haven’t covered off is anchoring. Anchoring can be very powerful if used correctly and you can read a description in my January newsletter by clicking here

If you are interested in learning more than check out Creating Irresistible Influence with NLP” which is a truly excellent introduction to the field.

Does all this mean you will never lose an argument again and everybody will love you? Probably not, but it will make it more likely that people have a favorable impression of you and be prepared to hear what you have to say.

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