Introduction:
the new reality

Do influence skills matter today?

How important is face-to-face influence in a world of email, text messaging and social media? Clearly influence has changed. But is it still as important as it used to be?

The way that business and sales are done today is without a doubt different from the way it has ever been before. Businesses and brands are embracing the digital age. They are using electronic communications and social media more than ever to promote and sell. We live in a world where decision makers are online and contactable 24 hours a day and seven days a week. Being 'out of the office' means nothing any more, as workers engage in a new era of trying to find balance between work and life.

So why then has the ability to influence a sale or an idea often become harder? Why has the timeline to get a contract signed stretched out for so many businesses? This is primarily due to three reasons:

1. The customer in business today is being protected by what I refer to as the electronic wall or, more simply, the e-wall. As its name suggests, this is a virtual wall of email and social media behind which your clients can now delay or procrastinate the decision process involved with a sale or a proposal. This, of course, leaves the business development experts unable to use their face-to-face influence skills in order to close the deal.
2. The person presenting the proposal also hides behind the e-wall. It is often easier to just send an email than force the issue to actually create an environment where face-to-face influence can take place. This leads to an extended game of e-pong, which I will explain in the first part of this book. Either way, timeframes for closing deals blow out and often the business is missed simply because there was no leverage created by actually meeting with the decision makers.
3. People are not as good at face-to-face influence skills as they used to be. The pattern of communication has become less about face to face, and it is now acceptable to do business via email. Don't get me wrong - we all need to embrace the digital age. It has provided our world with an unprecedented level of access to communication at the touch of a button. However, face-to-face influence skills have not become redundant. In fact, they are more important than ever if we are to learn how to break down the e-wall.

This book is about influencing people in the new reality. It is about embracing change, and at the same time developing outstanding genuine communication skills. It is about giving you those skills of influence.

The skills in this book do not deny anything that is happening in society today and they adhere to the trends of the new reality. I want to deliver a series of tools to help you come up with solutions to break down some of these new barriers. By starting with the acknowledgement that business methodology is different today, this book will help you tackle the reality. I won't preach a method that does not reflect how sales and influence are done in the real world environment. Your best chance of influencing a decision maker still lies in face-to-face communication.

Often audiences at my presentations are made up of salespeople. They want to increase their ability to influence others, and in the process increase their sales revenue. There are generally two types of salespeople. There are salespeople who love being a salesperson. Those people love prospecting, love the thrill of the chase, love presenting their unique selling proposition and love the buzz of closing the sale and collecting commission. If that is you - you are going to love this book. The fact is that I am going to share with you some tools of influence that flat out work. Your results are going up.

For the second type of salesperson who is interested in influence skills, you have picked up this book for some other reason. You may not see yourself as driven by money or driven by commission. Instead, maybe your role has changed at work in the current economic climate. Suddenly, you are being asked to sell to customers. Perhaps your company has undergone a culture change and they are really driving the bottom line. Perhaps you have had a job change and you are now finding yourself needing to sell something. Maybe this is something you have never really done before and you are looking for some great tips on how to get started. Once again, you will love this book.

This book is loaded with simple tools that will help you meet budget and start down a path of sales and influence that you are comfortable with. At the many sales conferences I speak at, there is always a clear connection between the growth of the business and the ability of the sales team to influence the clients.

Recently, I was presenting at a sales conference in Hawaii. I had finished my talk and I wandered into a sports bar to watch the NBA finals. I sat at the bar and started talking to the man next to me. The conversation started about LeBron James and the level of spice on the buffalo chicken wings we were eating when we began talking business. He was a national sales manager for a global skin care company. He turned to me and asked me a very direct question. 'Chris, you talk at all these conferences. What do you really talk about? Ultimately, what is it that you believe makes a great salesperson?'

My answer came quickly with congruence. 'That's easy,' I said. 'The key is certainty and simplicity. Great people of influence are certain about what they believe and they are able to present their message in a way that is simple for people to get their head around.'

He smiled. 'That is a great answer. You're right - that's it.'

The reality, however, is there are a great number of salespeople who are what I call PFNs (product-flogging nerds). You can watch the PFNs in action when their idea of selling is to flip through pages of their proposal. They flip from page to page explaining the graphs that demonstrate market share, company information and increased revenue. Actually, I call these salespeople the PTPFNs (page-turning product-flogging nerds).

Many salespeople put their hand up at this point and claim that they used to be one of those people. They tell me how they used to flip pages, but now they have launched into the 21st century and do their presentations on an electronic tablet such as the iPad. One of the first tablet presentations I ever observed with a salesperson flipping pages with their finger and thinking themselves clever completely disengaged the client. The salesperson was failing to look at and connect with their client. Ultimately, they were simply an IPPTPFN (iPad page-turning product-flogging nerd) and they failed to do the one thing that really makes a difference. They failed to influence that client.

Other people might have picked up this book to improve their leadership skills. Perhaps you find yourself having to manage people and bring them together for a common goal. Many people are thrust into roles at work and in life where they are suddenly expected to lead people. This is often a terrifying moment when people are stricken with self-doubt. That is totally normal and, congratulations, you are in the right place! This book will give you an understanding of people that will allow you to manage them more effectively and ultimately influence the people that you work with to achieve the best results.

At the leadership conferences that I speak at, there is always a clear connection between the leader's influence skills and the results of the team. As the saying goes, 'Great organisations grow from the top, and a fish rots from the head.'

You may, however, be an experienced leader who is simply looking for an edge. The tools in this book have helped CEOs and managing directors improve their ability to influence and control outcomes. It is critical that the leadership team is equipped with the tools to lead the team to success. If the leadership team is not willing to work on influencing skills, results go down and staff retention levels plummet. This book will give leaders the tools to identify what is driving each member of the team and provide ideas on how to drive results with each of those team members.

Perhaps for you it is none of those things. You might have picked up this book for reasons that have nothing to do with sales or leadership. You might have picked up this book because you are looking for a way to improve the quality of your life. You are simply aiming to gain clarity about what it is that you want to achieve and how to get started in the process of not only influencing others but also influencing yourself. This is a book that will take you on a very simple and effective journey and help you gain clarity about your goals, turn the anxiety that we all feel into action and influence people to improve your ability to get what you want!

I have had the privilege of giving more than 2300 presentations to audiences in the last 17 years as a professional speaker. I have presented throughout Australia, New Zealand, Asia, Europe and the United States. One of the exciting parts of my job is the variation in the companies that I have worked with. I have spoken at conferences throughout the finance industry, insurance, real estate, mortgage broking, pharmaceutical, software, wine, travel and many more.

Let me ask you a question. If you could improve your ability to influence people, would your business grow? Do you currently hide behind the e-wall?...