Maximize Your Influence

Paul Smith (Author) - Lead with a story and Sell with a story  Leadwithastory.com  Storytelling has come of age in the business world. Today, many of the most successful companies use storytelling as a leadership tool. At Nike, all senior executives are designated "corporate storytellers." 3M banned bullet points years ago and replaced them with a process of writing "strategic narratives." Procter & Gamble hired Hollywood directors to teach its executives storytelling techniques. Some forward-thinking business schools have even added storytelling courses to their management curriculum.  The reason for this is simple: Stories have the ability to engage an audience the way logic and bullet points alone never could. Whether you are trying to communicate a vision, sell an idea, or inspire commitment, storytelling is a powerful business tool that can mean the difference between mediocre results and phenomenal success.  Whether in a speech or a memo, communicated to one person or a thousand, storytelling is an essential skill for success.     Paul Smith  Paul Smith is one of the world’s leading experts on organizational storytelling. He’s a keynote speaker, storytelling coach, and author of the books Sell with a Story, Parenting with a Story, and the bestseller Lead with a Story already in its 8th printing and available in 6 language around the world. Paul is also a former consultant at Accenture and former executive and 20-year veteran of The Procter and Gamble Company.

 Six stats on the importance of trust in influencer marketing  “Only 22% of brands are trusted.” (Havas Media)  That’s a frightening metric for any marketer. Without establishing trust between your brand and your audience, it’s nearly impossible to market your product or service. So marketers are faced with the difficult question of how to create and maintain trust with their audience.  “61% of women said they won’t engage with an influencer’s sponsored content if it doesn’t feel genuine.” (Bloglovin)  Trust and authenticity are critical for engagement in any influencer campaign. Without trust, the content that you’re hoping will build engagement won’t feel genuine and won’t resonate with your desired audience.  Low trust equals low engagement, and a pattern of this can erode an influencer’s audience over time. While this report references women specifically, these principles are applicable across the influencer marketing sphere.  “43% of millennials rank authenticity over content when consuming news.” (Forbes)  According to a survey of 1,300 millennials carried out by Forbes, young people prioritise trusting a company or news site before they will look at any content it produces. As Dan Schawbel of Forbes wrote, “Millennials connect best with people over logos.”  If trust isn’t established, millennials may not even interact with your content. An influencer can get a lot of attention, but the only attention that matters for your brand is authentic, genuine interaction that builds trust between you and the audience.  “60% of YouTube subscribers say they would follow advice on what to buy from their favourite YouTube creator over a traditional celebrity.” (TheYouTube Generation Study)  Celebrity spokespeople have long been considered a surefire way to build positive associations for your brand among your target audience. H&R Block wants to establish trust with their audience, so they recruit Jon Hamm to be their spokesman.  But savvy brands are turning to influencers on YouTube and other channels who have built audiences related to a shared set of interests. These placements are more authentic, and drive more brand-relevant recommendations than the generalized appeal of celebrity spots.  “83% of consumers trust recommendations from their peers over advertising.” (Nielsen)  Consumers take recommendations from their peers much more favorably than the ‘recommendations’ they see in ads. They trust the opinions of their friends because they know they’re both unbiased and providing recommendations that are personalized to the individual. Influencers fit this bill nicely.  The best influencers turn down deals that don’t have a natural fit in their feed and approach branded deals without bias. Either they already love a product and are happy to endorse it, or they agree to test the product and give an honest review or endorsement.  If you find the right influencers whose personas fit your brand values, targeted to your area of interest, the recommendations they share are more personalized for their audiences.  “54% of consumers believe the smaller the community, the bigger the influence.” (Technorati)  Although influencer marketing can help you reach a larger audience, ultimately, that audience doesn’t matter if it’s not the right audience. It is more valuable to show your brand to 30K likely buyers than it is to show it off to 200K totally uninterested viewers.  Finding influencers whose content and style perfectly match your brand, no matter their follower level, is a much smarter strategy than just getting as many eyes as possible. Influencers with smaller followings may have a more relevant, engaged and trusting audience because they haven’t “blown up” yet. Check the comment sections on a Kardashian-branded post and you’ll see what I mean.  To build trust with your audience, you don’t need to reinvent the wheel. But you do need to foster trust between your brand and the influencer — trusting them to make content that will capture your brand values while also engaging their followers in the best way.  You can take advantage of existing marketing principles to build a playbook to engage your audience. Make use of peer recommendations from authentic influencers to drive engagement with your brand.  Brian Zuercher is CEO & Founder of SEEN, and a contributor to Search Engine Watch.

Proxemics: The Science of Space               The anthropologist Edward T. Hall created the science of proxemics, which studies how people use, react to, configure, and occupy the space around them. We all want our own space, and we feel uncomfortable when people violate our personal territory. While it may sound overly obvious, research shows that many persuaders get too familiar, too fast. Disrespect for your audience’s personal space—especially when you are first meeting them—will definitely not build rapport. Many persuaders don’t even know that they are violating their audience’s space. They may think, for example, that by reaching out and touching their audience members on the arm, they will be seen as warm and extending. Such as gesture may really be a turnoff, though. What does it feel like? Imagine that you go to a movie theatre and there are 150 seats but only ten people watching the movie. Social custom calls for everyone to spread out. Let’s say you take your seat and the nearest person is twenty feet away. How would you feel if a stranger came and sat down right next to you in this theatre of empty seats? That would be a violation of your personal space.                     Understanding proxemics requires an understanding of territory and the role of dominance. The bigger office, the armrest on the airplane, the larger chair, sitting at the head of the conference table, getting into someone’s face—all these things have hidden meanings. It could be unwanted touching or jumping into a conversation that damages likeability and rapport. Be observant. How is your use of space perceived by your audience? Always err on the side of giving extra space, instead of too little.              Does the science of proxemics really matter? The distance you keep or don’t keep when persuading someone communicates a message. Great persuaders understand rapport and interpersonal communication, and they respect personal space. You will find that the amount of space between a person and a persuader affects the way they are able to interact with each other and what message their interaction sends. When we sit at a table or across from a desk, we each draw invisible lines of our perceived personal space. When these invisible territorial lines are violated, tension is created. We all have regions or areas where we permit others to enter or prevent others from entering. Great persuaders recognize when an invitation to enter their audience’s private zone is being extended.             Your audience’s intimate area is not to be violated by you, the persuader. In North America, that area extends from your audience’s face out to about twenty-four inches. Most social interaction takes place between four and twelve feet of distance. This personal space preference not only varies by individual but also by culture. For example, in the Middle East or Latin America, it is reduced by almost 50 percent.37 In Germany, on the other hand, the space is larger. It is comedic to watch two people from two different cultures trying to communicate. One is violating the other’s personal space, while the other is backing up in an attempt to regain his personal space. The two are in some sort of dance to maintain and regain comfortable communication space. Article:http://captology.stanford.edu/wp-content/uploads/2015/02/RSA-The-new-rules-of-persuasion.pdf

The Law of Obligation and Marketing We often see this method at work when companies give out complimentary calendars, business pens, T-shirts, or mugs.  This specialty advertising is an $18.5 billion dollar industry.  It not only creates obligation, but keeps your name in front of your future customer.  The studies show that 52% of people given a promotional product said they were more likely to do business with the person that gave them the item.     The same principle applies when you go to the grocery store and see those alluring sample tables. It is hard to take a free sample and then walk away without at least pretending to be interested in the product. Some individuals, as a means of appeasing their indebtedness, have learned to take the sample and walk off without making eye contact. The studies show that 70% will try the sample when asked and 37% of those will buy the product.   Although some have taken so many samples, they no longer feel an obligation to buy or even pretend they're interested in the products anymore. Still, the technique works, so well that it has been expanded to furniture and audio/video stores, which offer free pizza, hot dogs, and soft drinks to get you into the store and create instant obligation. Pre-giving is effective because it makes us feel like we have to return the favor. Greenburg said this feeling of discomfort is created because the favor threatens our independence.   The more indebted we feel, the more motivated we are to eliminate the debt. An interesting report from the Disabled American Veterans Organization revealed that their usual 18 percent donation response rate nearly doubled when the mailing included a small, free gift. A men’s clothing store offers free pressing for suits bought in their store. This creates a sense of obligation among their customers, who when they next decide to buy another suit are more likely to buy it from the store that offered the freebie.  Offering a free inspection or free estimate also will create obligation.  Remember this does not guarantee they will do business with you.  They will be more willing to listen and puts you higher on the list. An interesting side effect to obligation is what is does to the giver.  Those that help you or give you something feel more positive and have higher self-esteem.   The other bonus is that the giver also feels more committed to the recipient. Which means always let them reciprocate back to you. Link to article: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/0022103171900254

How You Can Tell If You’re Really Connecting               I’ve talked about common rapport-building obstacles and how you can know for sure that you’re not connecting. But how do you know that you are connecting, especially when your audience is not going to tell you? One of the most obvious signs of a good connection is that the initial defensiveness and skepticism begin to dissipate. The mood relaxes and your audience begins to relax. They begin to voluntarily offer personal thoughts and feelings without you having to pull it out of them. Openness increases, and resistance decreases. There is more eye contact and more open body language. It could best be summed up by saying things start to “feel right.” The exchange is natural, sincere, positive, and upbeat. You could compare it to how you feel when talking to a good friend.                       One of the myths about having rapport with people is that you have to agree with each other on every point. Rapport and agreement are not the same. When you have good rapport you will no doubt agree on many things, but this is incidental and not essential. Your ability to connect with people cannot be conditional. To be a powerful persuader, your persuasiveness cannot have any contingencies. You must be persuasive no matter who comes to your table, and that means accepting people as they are and still respecting them, listening to them, and caring about them. Some may think I go too far in saying agreement is incidental. Is it possible to have rapport with someone with whom you agree on nothing? Think of your friends and family. You can probably think of someone you like and connect with very well even though you don’t agree on financial, political, or religious matters.

Energy of Influence       Another way to enhance your ability to motivate yourself and others is to make sure all things are balanced in your life. Great persuaders lead a balanced life and keep everything in perspective. I call this delicate balance “life alignment.” Make sure there is balance in every aspect of your life. Imbalance can undermine motivation and cause inaction and unhappiness. Many times, we quit early because of imbalance, even when we don’t realize an imbalance exists. It may be only one area of our life that is out of whack, but it can still have a direct effect on other areas of our life. Just as in a mutual fund, where one bad stock can pull down the fund’s overall value, one bad area in your life can also have a disproportionate negative effect.              Ask yourself these questions: Would I invest in my own mutual fund of myself? Would I suggest that my family or friends invest in me? These are hard questions to ask, but the answers to them are necessary as you get your life on track. Take a look at the stocks in which you have invested in your own life. What stock is pulling the rest of your portfolio down? Are you a growing mutual fund or is your mutual fund losing money? Is your fund stagnant? If you won’t invest in your personal mutual fund (yourself), who will?              When we look at life, we have to realize that it is not lived in segments, but rather, it is part of a greater whole. Every aspect of your life will either help or hurt the rest of your life. Our aim is to get all aspects working together to create a high-performing fund. Realize, however, that you can invest too much in one aspect of your life. When you do, you can get unbalanced just like a tire on a car. Even too much of a good thing can lead to disaster.              As you invest in yourself, you must make sure you are diversifying in the following six areas: We often spend too much of our time spinning our wheels and investing in stock that has no value or that is diminishing the value of our mutual fund. We get so busy buying the stock society recommends that we forget to examine whether this stock is helping or hurting us. There may also be times when you need to sell a stock (change a habit or belief) because it is not performing. We always need to make sure that we are a growth fund and that we are continually investing the right things in ourselves. If we neglect any one of the life-alignment areas, our overall happiness and success will diminish. link to article:  http://psychcentral.com/news/2016/05/02/evidence-found-for-visual-stereotyping/102596.html

The Law of Obligation, also known as pre-giving or reciprocity, states that when others do something for us, we feel a strong need, or urge, to return the favor. Returning the favor rids us of the obligation created by the first good deed. The adage "one good turn deserves another" is a part of social conditioning in every culture. And, even beyond that, the maxim serves as an ethical code that does not necessarily need to be taught, but nevertheless is understood. For example, when someone smiles or gives us a compliment, we feel a great need to return the smile or compliment. Even when these gestures are unsolicited, we feel a sense of urgency to repay the person who has created the mental or psychological debt. In some cases, our need to subconsciously repay this debt is so overwhelming that we end up dramatically exceeding the original favor. The reciprocity trigger created by the car salesman's water is a classic example of this principle. Most of us keep a mental scorecard of these favors.   The drive to alleviate feelings of obligation is so powerful that it can make us bend toward people we don't even know. Accepting gifts or favors without attempting to return them is universally viewed as selfish, greedy, and heartless. It is often strictly due to this internal and external pressure that people conform to the rule of reciprocity. One university professor chose names at random from a telephone directory, and then sent these complete strangers his Christmas cards. Holiday cards addressed to him came pouring back, all from people who did not know him and, for that matter, who had never even heard of him.  I had a student raise his hand at a seminar and said, I know him and he is still getting Christmas cards from strangers over 20 years later.  Can you believe people have sent out Christmas cards all these years to someone they didn’t even know?     Article:  http://psych.colorado.edu/~vanboven/teaching/p7536_heurbias/p7536_readings/kruger_dunning.pdf

Smells: The Aroma of Persuasion We all know what the smell of movie popcorn does to us. Smell is directly linked to our emotions.  Our sense of smell is so powerful that it can quickly trigger associations with memories and emotions. Our olfactory system is a primitive sense that is wired directly to the center of our brain. By four to six weeks, infants can tell the difference between their own mother's scent and that of a stranger.  Almost everyone has experienced situations in which a smell evoked a nostalgic (or not so nostalgic) memory. Think of the smells that take you back to your childhood. For some it is the smell of fresh baked bread, or freshly cut grass, or of the neighborhood swimming pool. You can go back twenty years in a matter of seconds with the sense of smell. Smells require little mental effort to be experienced and the subconscious reaction happens with little conscious attention.   There have been numerous studies conducted on the impact scent and fragrances have on association. A study conducted among undergraduate students found that female students wearing perfume were rated as more attractive by male students.  Scents were even found to improve scores on job evaluations. Of course, offensive odors can also be used (and have been used) to evoke a negative response. This technique was once used while campaign committees were rating and appraising political slogans. Not surprisingly offensive odors caused the ratings for the slogans to go down.  The smell of citrus Windex helped people to be more generous with their money and time towards the habitat of humanity.  Cleaning aromas also help more people be honest and fair and their dealings with others. Article Link  http://healthland.time.com/2013/12/16/my-nose-made-me-buy-it-how-retailers-use-smell-and-other-tricks-to-get-you-to-spend-spend-spend/

Summary: Talking Too Much    Being an extrovert, having the gift of gab, or being able to make small talk with anyone you meet can definitely be used to your advantage, but watch yourself. How can you persuade if you are always talking? It will be very annoying to your audience if they sense that you like hearing yourself talk more than listening to their concerns. Remember, it's about them, not you. Great persuaders listen more than they talk. In fact, great persuaders use their listening and questioning skills to get their audience to persuade themselves.    Often when someone comes to you, she already knows what she wants. She already has something in mind. She just needs to talk through it with someone. Which approach do you think will have better, longer-term results: you persuading your audience, or you helping them persuade themselves? It's much better if your audience feels as if they have made the decision themselves, without perceived external influences. When you do have to talk, be succinct and to the point. A good rule of thumb is not to talk more than 30 percent of the time.    Now, with these general guidelines in place, it is worth pointing out that you must always be prepared to adapt and adjust to the personality type of your audience. For some people, talking 30 percent of the time will still be too much. Discussing only what is relevant to the matter at hand and keeping chit-chat to a minimum is best for these no-nonsense types. Your attempts at being their buddy will likely annoy and maybe even offend them. Some people feel that being overly warm and personable is not appropriate when you have just met someone for the very first time. Polite and professional, yes, but warm and fuzzy, no. The bottom line is, don't get too friendly too fast. Link to article: http://foodpsychology.cornell.edu/discoveries/curse-chinese-buffet

Today I interviewed Dr. Stephanie Burroughs.  She is the author of Dating Your Business Prospect.  She looks at networking in a whole new light.  She calls it 360 networking.  She explains how to use social media and expanding you social media with face to face and belly to belly networking.  She will answer the following questions on the Maximize Your Influence Podcast   How to you prepare for this encounter with an important prospect? How do you approach them without looking like a fool? What does the perfect follow-up look like?   Stephanie Burroughs Bio Dr. Stephanie D. Burroughs, President of StephanieSpeaking LLC began her minority business advocacy in 1980, while working in the construction industry providing contract compliance monitoring for M/W/DBE programs. She later increased her competencies by providing program development, project management and diversity certification auditing services.    StephanieSpeaking LLC provides speaking, workshop facilitation and business navigation services for minority, women, veteran, and small business owners. The company helps business owners overcome fear, confusion and stagnation by providing clear instruction and easily integrated strategies on how to successfully navigate and compete for government and public contracts. Dr. Burroughs is known for her inspirational, holistic and common sense approach resulting in many clients and audience members experiencing thought-life transformation; thereby changing their outlook and approach to their business and life endeavors.   Dr. Stephanie D. Burroughs is a graduate of Rutgers University and currently resides in New Jersey.