As many of us are all too painfully aware, we have had to adjust to "new normals" in all arenas of life; a noisy and unpredictable universe has accelerated the need for better Influence.  Of course, technology is transforming our very lives, but, even if we’re all connected, we’re losing our personal touch. Our interpersonal skills are becoming rusty. Indeed, studies by the World Economic Forum and Harvard Business Review say that Influence and Social Skills will be among the top required capabilities by the year 2023 and beyond.

Several years ago I got word that a large tech company was going to send a "Request for Proposals" out to several vendors for a large consulting and training contract. My advantages - I had already worked with several divisions of the company. I understood the culture - its habits, strengths, and weaknesses and "lingo". My work had gotten consistently good ratings from the groups I had worked with. My disadvantages -Would the decision-makers worry that my "lean and mean" operation could not deliver on a huge contract? Who were the decision-makers, and how would they decide? What were their decision-criteria?

Aside from my usual training/consulting business at that time,I also had a business in what was called "premiums or "custom publishing". You have likely gotten a mailing from a magazine, offering you a subscription with a free gift - a gadget, a diary, or a book of tips or ideas. I’d come up with an idea for one of the magazines in the Time-Life group. First, they would test it by send out a mailing offering my idea as well as two other ideas to a test audience. Whichever of the 3 ideas got more responses was the winner, and that idea was then "rolled out" for a much larger project, sometimes to a million or more potential customers. Usually, they got about 5,000 affirmative responses. What this meant, to a small vendor like me, was that I’d have to create the actual 5,000 booklets (at enormous cost, usually a loss) to fulfill the first 5,000 customers.

Several years ago, one of our Affiliates in the San Francisco Bay Area who said she had a "lead" for me from a large defense contracting company, which said they needed some training in "presentation skills". (let’s call her "C") Before going to the meeting, I learned that the division which had called was a group of elite physicists, who had not had a lot of work to do since U.S. involvement in wars had slowed down. (this was before 9/11,before our wars in Afghanistan and Iraq)

  Several years ago, I gave a speech to about 300 businesswomen, "How to Manage your Time for Success. After the talk, I handed out a simple handout of tips and exercises. Afterward, two women came up to me and asked if they could "use" my handout packet. They were the Circulation Managers for Working Woman magazine (readership about one million) They wanted to use the booklet as a "premium" - a free gift for new subscribers. I was delighted but said that since this was my copyrighted material I couldn’t allow them to reproduce the booklets; instead, I would sell them the booklets they wanted. After some negotiating, they ordered 100,000 copies of a 12-page booklet, which I wrote, designed and had printed. Click here to see the full list of Influence "hacks" 

Dear Reader, Give me 7 minutes of your time, and I’ll give you The essence of my bestselling book, "Seven Secrets of Influence" and the international one-day seminar Program, "Secrets of Influence™" My goal here is to give you, in just a few minutes and a few dollars, a basic understanding of the important Influence theory and skills that Fortune 100 executives pay thousands of dollars for. I’ve given you the self-assessment questionnaire "Influence Styles Inventory" at the very beginning, plus a printed (or digital) way for you to learn your own Influence Score. That, and the description of the Influence Styles, should take about 7-10 minutes. (Then, for deeper understanding, you can read the rest of the short book to enhance your awareness and skills) Here, in condensed form, for busy people like yourself, a rich and deep view of these important ideas necessary for anyone to be successful in the 21st Century! Wishing you much Success and Influence!