INFLUENCE AND PERSUADE: WHAT SKILLS CAN YOU HARNESS?
[slide 1]
Jeff:Hello, everybody! Please get ready: we’ll begin the webinar in one minute.
Jeff:As promised we’ll begin today's webinarin 30 seconds. Please get ready.
[slide 2]
Jeff:Welcome, everyone, to today’s webinar, “Influence and Persuade: What Skills Can You Harness?” And as you can see, this is a one-hour program. I’m very excited about what we’re going to cover, but first, let me go over one or two administrative items.
[slide 3]
Jeff:First, a very simple disclaimer: the views and opinions expressed on today’s program are those of Phil Vassallo, the author and expert commentator. They are not necessarily the views and opinions of ADP or SmartPros.
[slide 4]
Jeff:In addition, I want to thank ADPfor sponsoring this series of webinars as well as a program of lunch-and-learn sessions. And in that context, I’d like to introduce Jamie rmbecause they've sponsored and helped us with shaping these webinars and we've gotten a great response to it and I want to welcome to our program Jamie Seegmiller, who is ADP’s marketing manager for the Accountant Channel. Thanks for joining us today, Jamie.
Jamie:Thank you so much, Jeff. And good afternoon to everyone - or good morning, depending on where you are joining us from today. On behalf of ADP and our Accountant Channel, I want to thank each of you for joining us on this webinar. ADP truly values your business,and we are proud to partner with SmartPros, in bringing you continuing educationprograms, such as this one. This session is meant to provide you with valuable tips to help you leverage the important “soft skills” of influence and persuasion. Before we begin, I’d just like to mention the amazing Accountant Channel program we have at ADP, which includes a dedicated accountant-only hotline as well as a preferred discount on our services for you and your clients. To learn more, you can always contact your ADP representative or email us at: .
Jeff:Thanks, Jamie. We truly appreciate your hard work as well as ADP’s sponsorship.
[slide 5]
Jeff:Our expert commentator today is Dr. Philip Vassallo, who is a well-known author of books and articles as well as a blog. Phil also serves as a trainer, writer, editor and faculty member. And one of his qualifications for today’s program is that he is also a professional persuader. Thanks for joining us today, Phil.
Phil:It’s a pleasure to be here. I’m looking forward to the program.
[slide 6]
Jeff:One final administrative item: how do you receive continuing professional development credit for participating in today’s webinar? This program qualifies for one CPD credit, and there are two ways that you can validate your attendance today. I will interrupt Phil Vassallo’s presentation four times today and – each time - I will provide you with an attendance validation keyword. If you are logged into your own computer, all you have to do is select the “prompt” on the screen when it appears. The second way is for those participants who are watching in a group or are not logged in to your own computer. You will need to write down the four attendance validation keywords, so that you can enter them after the event. I’ll remind you at the end of the program, but you’ll enter those four validation keywords within twenty-four hours at:
adpcanada.smartpros.com. That same link - adpcanada.smartpros.com – is where you can also go to download a complete copy of today’s presentation or to ask questions of today’s expert commentator.
[slide 7]
Jeff:It’s customary to begin any presentation with a definition of what the key words or phrases means. But in this case, let me begin by asking Dr. Phil Vassallo: don’t most people already have a good idea of what “influence” and “persuade” mean?
Phil:Absolutely, but just to give you an idea of what I mean by “influence” - at least for the purpose of this program - I'm going to look at the word “influence” in its use as a noun. Yes, I know that influence can also be an action: “I influence you.” But I'm going to look at it, for the purpose of this webinar,as having an influence. In other words, the capacity – and that’s the keyword here - the capacityto have an effect on the character, development or behavior of someone or something, or to have an effect on the effect itself. And that will be the first part of our webinar.
The second part will be on that second word in the name of this webinar: “persuade.” And I will look at “persuade” as an action: to cause things to happen or to cause someone to do something though reasoning or argument. Of course, in many cases, persuasion is making a sustained effort to cause someone to believe something.
[slide 8]
Jeff:As you suggested, we’ll begin with “influence.” And I know there’s an entire library of books devoted to the subject of influence. Why is this such a popular topic?
Phil:Well, obviously, because we want things in life. And we have to get other people to either give us their blessing or to say: “You can get half of what you're asking for.” In other words, we just don't have complete control. And this is something that we realize at a very young age. I recall many times, when my daughters were little girls, they would know to go to their mother and request her: “Can you get dad to do something for me?” In other words, they realizedthat, if they asked me, I'd probably say “no.” So, even at a very young age, we know how to influence others to act in our behalf. And of course you're looking at some landmark books on this slide. And incidentally, some of the ones on the bottom row - the ones by Sheryl Sandberg and Arianna Huffington, as well as “The Art of Woo” – are very recent books. But I do want to give you some key points from some of these very, very famous books.
The one by Dale Carnegie on the upper left informed me tremendously, especially something that he lectured us: “The best way to win an argument it's not to have one.” I learned a lot from that book about getting other people to believe that an idea was theirs in the first place. That's also a very, very important principle that we take with us from these writings on influence and persuasion. In the Napoleon Hill book - “Think and Grow Rich” - he talks about the very powerful autosuggestion that you can and should believe that you already have in your possession, the very thing you want. In other words, just believing in it makes you act in your march toward getting that thing that you want. So, that was a very important takeaway from the Napoleon Hill book, “Think and Grow Rich.”
The only other book I’ll mention from this collection, at least for now,is “Influence: The Psychology Of Persuasion,” by Robert Cialdini. He discusses different laws of influence and persuasion,like the Law of Reciprocity: “If I do for you, maybe you'll do for me.” Or the Law of Commitment and Consistency: “Once I get you to agree to something, you will follow through on it” Or the Law of Social Proof,which is basically:“Look, everybody else does it this way. Why don't you do it this way?” And the Law of Authority: “Look, we have to do it this way, because management says we have to do it this way.”
And these are all very, very powerful laws that guide us. But the book that you see on the upper right corner, “The Art of Woo”, is the one that’s going to inform a lot of what I talk to you about today. Because it's not as simple as just pointing to one law and then saying: “You know, I am going to convince you in no time at all.”
[slide 9]
Jeff:That’s very interesting, Phil. And it looks like I have a lot of reading to catch up with. But I’ve got to ask you: isn’t influence also something that you see in terms of online articles?
Phil:Sure. In fact, I pulled these three articles from the internet and I read them and they were practical. But come on, just look at those titles: “24Scientific Ways to Influence People Without Saying A Word.” We know that this is not science we’re talking about. Influence is art; it’s not science. And how about “10 Psychology Tricks You Can Use to Influence People”? Once you know I'm pulling tricks on you, aren’t you going to feel I have no credibility whatsoever? So, I don't know if I'm going to put a lot of credence in these articles. And finally, “The Best Way to Influence Others.”Well, I don't know the best way to influence you, Jeff, but I certainly know some of the best ways to influence myself. So, we are all individuals. And it's really important not to put too much credence into these slick titles and these guarantees because influence is a lot more than that.
[slide 10]
Jeff:You’ve told me what influence is NOT. Now, Phil, why don’t you tell us what influence actually is?
Phil: Well, influence needs many sources, as well as many means – means of expression and means of connecting with people. Of course, influence takes time. And while influence comes from within us, it also comes from the things that we experience, from outside of us, and from outside forces over which we have no control. Influence comes in small doses and it comes from very, very small things that we do. And finally, it’s important also to remember that influence goes both ways. So, I’d like to take each of these,one at a time, starting with influence needs many sources.
[slide 11]
Phil:Now, when I talk about sources, I'm thinking about - even in our childhood – four sources: people; places;things and events. These are the four sources that I find have had the greatest influence on my life – the people I’ve met, the places I’ve been to, the things that I possess or the things that I see other people possess,andthe diverse events in my life.
As an example – and, again, this is going to be purely subjective – a person who's had the greatest influence on me - not to mention the very famous people, because we all have our own very famous people. But I think the greatest sources of influence are the ones with whom we have interacted personally. One guy who comes to mind was a gentleman 50 years my senior named Morris Laminski. He was a “go-fer” at the office. He was a retired man and he would just get coffee for the boss or he would clean the conference room table when the meetings were over. And he once came up to me and said: “You know, people should use their education to lift people up, not put people down. And our boss uses his education to put people down.”
And I was feeling the same way, although I had never articulated it that succinctly. And I’ll never forget Morris for that. The least educated person in the organization probably said the most profound thing to me. And I have used that as my credo - I'm going to use it to pass it along to people. And that is my whole philosophy in life to use my education to help people, not to harm them.
In terms of places that I've been to, the place of my parents’ birth - the island of Malta - has been a huge source of influence for me. Any time I see anything in the media or a book in a library shelf about Malta, I'm going to pick it up, I'm going to gravitate towards it. If I knew that you were of Maltese descent, I would ask:“Oh really? From what town do your parents come?” Because it is a place of particular interest to me, especially because it's such a small place, population = 400,000. There are more Maltese people living outside of it than on the island.
In terms of things, let me give you a thing and an event together: the thing being art and the event being visiting a museum. I remember being in the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York one day when Iwas a young man in college. I had a definite idea what good art was. It had to Rembrandt. It had to be Van Gogh. It had to be DaVinci. And then I saw this one painting of the composer Philip Glass by his friend Chuck Close, the photo realist. The painting is simply called “Still.” And when I saw that painting by Chuck Close, I had an “amen” moment, like an “a-ha” moment, like I cannot believe what I'm seeing here. This is a painting, butI can't believe my eyes. And it completely changed the way I look at art and the way I look at life in many ways. It opened me up to many more forms of expression, not only in art but in music and cultures. And even as a result,it opened me up to many more doors that I was able to walk through and meet many people that I wouldn’t have met. That’s a perfect example. Who knows if I hadn’t seen that painting back then in 1970 if I would be doing what I’m doing now?
[slide 12]
Jeff:I said that I would interrupt you four times today, Phil, and this is the first: our first attendance validation keyword. If you would like to earn CPD credit for today’s program, please note that our first keyword is “connectors.” If you are logged in to your own computer, a “prompt” should have opened up on your screen. And all you have to do is select the word, “connectors.” Just click on it. But, if you're watching this program in a group or if you're not logged into your own computer, then please, I'm going to ask you to write down these four validation keywords down, so that you can go online later and enter them. So, since you’ll have some choices, do yourself a favor: start making a list right now, and begin it with: “number one, connectors.” And after the webinar is over, I’ll remind you of the link you can go to in order to enter these four words and get your CPD credit.
[slide 13]
Jeff:Phil, let’s return to your list of what “influence” actually is. And the second item is that influence needs many means. By that, are you saying “means of expression”?
Phil:Yes, but it also be the means you have to connect with people. For instance, on several occasions, when I worked for a company, I would go into a meeting to do a presentation. Now, I thought that the real influence was going to come through my perfect PowerPoint presentation. I walk in after slaving for days over this presentation. And the person who ran the meeting said: “We have taken that off the agenda.” Clearly, something happened before that meeting: perhaps, someone had a one-on-one with the boss, who didn't like the idea in the first place.
So, I want you to think of all of the things that come before that meeting: the one-on-ones that take place; the phone calls; the lunches that you have; even the text messages that you write from your smart phone and the emails that you write from your laptop. These are all means of expression and they culminate in giving you great influence over people.
[slide 14]
Jeff:Influence takes time. That makes sense, Phil. But I see a bookcover.
Phil:Well, this is another book that I strongly recommend: “The Talent Code,” by Daniel Coyle. He talks about expertise occurring after the 10,000th hour. Now, I want you to think about how many hours a year you work. I should not be saying this to accountants in the springtime, since I realize that you are working many, many hours. But I'm sure the more experienced ones would say:“It probably would take four or five years to become an expert.” All of that studying I did in school, it wasn't enough. I had to have experience with clients in dealing with the issues of accounting. As a result, expertise basically comes after a rough average of 10,000 hours. Well, if expertise takes that long, then how much time do we need to influence other people? It might not be 10,000 hours,because we’re simultaneously building our expertise and meeting people as we go along. But it is through all of these events and they accumulate. So, we have to acknowledge that influencewon't happen just because you attended this one webinar. But maybe, if you attend this webinar, and read a couple of the books, you’ll talk to people who will lead you to even other sources.
[slide 15]
Jeff:Tell me, Phil: does influence really come from inside?
Phil:What I'm referring to is your own being: the things that you experience. You might be a lover of the arts or a lover of sports. Bring people into those parts of your life. They often will go a long way toward getting people to understand you a little better.
A quick example of that is my daughter, who knows how much I love jazz. She’s a doctor and she was talking to the medical director of the hospital where she was working. And when that physician mentioned that his birthday was August 21st, my daughter responded: “Oh, Count Basie’s birthday.” Now, how did she know that? She happened to know that because her birthday was also August 21st and I always brought that up, since I’m a jazz fan. So, just by bringing up little things like that, knowing the point of your own influence, you will be able to move people a little bit better, you'll be able to connect with them better.