Influencer Series: How to Persuade Others

Hey, my friends, it's Brendan. And welcome to another special episode in this new series for influencers. It's a sort of behind the scenes look into my career as an author, speaker, coach, seminar leader, online trainer, social media, thought leader, what we just call now the influencer industry. It's how I run my influencer career and I like to share some tactical things with you here in this episode that I know you'll love. Now, this audio is actually pulled from our Influencer business program. If you haven't heard what that is, that's where I go live every single month and I teach you. How do you build a personal brand? How do you get a bigger audience following you? How do you make money from that? How do you build community and impact? How do you launch podcasts and coaches courses and do email marketing and everything you see us doing? If you love that kind of thing, then man, I would love for you to join us at the Influencer 2019 event in San Diego. It's October 10th through 12th again in San Diego, California. And that's where you're going to come to learn from some of the best influencers in the world about how do you start and how do you really grow? How did we start from scratch and grow our brand and monetize content and reach more people and build a community of followers around the world and scale an actual business doing it? Just go to influencer tickets.com again, that's influencertickets.com to join us in San Diego October 10th through 12th where I say join us because it's a real community of people teaching you exactly how we started from scratch. It's people like Rachel Hollis, who, you know, has had two back to back number one New York Times bestsellers. One of the most successful, successful authors in the world today, Dean Graziosi, who he and Tony Robbins just did a $30 million online launch. Lewis Howes podcast extraordinary at the school of greatness. Trent Shelton, one of the absolute best viral video makers in the world and inspiration to so much of our youth. Tom Bilyeu, who built a billion dollar brand and now runs the Impact Theory show, which I love so much and so many more real influencers teaching you. How did we do it? I mean, listen, there's no question, if you listen to me, you've been impacted, I hope, by what I do. And I'm just here to say, why can't you do that? You know, why can't you have a similar career? It's not like I'm some magician or have some Magical abilities. I had to learn to identify what topic and passions I wanted to follow. Just like we'll teach you. I had to learn how to build a personal brand and audience, just like will teach you. And I had to learn ultimately, how do you actually earn an income and earn revenue from it, Building a business, doing it that you love to run. If you're in that game, my friend, go to influencertickets.com, join us October 10th through 12th in San Diego. I'm sure by the time you're hearing this, our tickets, there's probably only maybe a couple hundred left, I'm guessing. So please make sure you go check it out. Influencertickets.com it will give you all the dates, details and limitations because you gotta get there. If you're totally new to the industry, it's okay. This is especially where you want to come so you can meet new people in the industry, but also see how the best of the best do it and just follow our plans. Uh, you guys know, I'm always saying, you know, coming from Montana, we always say the time to have the map is before you enter the woods. So if you're really into building a personal brand and a major audience, even if you're just starting, this is when you need to learn. Don't go. Try to figure it out yourself. Follow the strategies that work. We're teaching them at Influencer 2019 October 10th through 12th in San Diego. Again, go to influencertickets.com without further ado, please enjoy this training that I did live for our influencer community. Please realize that I might reference something visual that maybe you can't see, but we've edited it in such a way that you can definitely follow these strategies, understand and and learn a lot of the behind the scenes of how the influencer space works, what you can be doing in marketing, and how to grow a real business doing it. With that, my friends, no further ado. Let's jump into this episode.

Today we're here to talk about persuasion training. Lots of people struggle with this topic. They're trying to persuade an audience to believe in them or give them a standing ovation. They're trying to persuade an audience to buy their stuff. They're trying to persuade people to follow them or believe in their ideas, and yet they struggle. And time and time and time again, they can't get through to their spouse or their partners, the people they care about. Time and time again, they feel like their teenagers don't listen to them. Time and time again, they don't feel like their team is following through time and time again. They feel like they're putting out all these ideas, but they're never landing and happening. And the central sort of through line of all those problems is usually the person just lacks persuasion training. They don't know what to say to make an impact, but they honestly don't even how to think through a persuasion situation. So my job here today is to share with you insights that I've gained over the last 20 years in studying communication to help you understand how to persuade better. You know, many of these concepts I'll be sharing are things that I've seen in actual situations of persuasion or I've done. Whether it's me selling something online where, you know, we generate $4 million in six days, or it's me being in a room and watching one of my clients seal a hundred million dollar plus deal, or it's me having, when I first started in the industry, in the consulting industry, I got to see a billion dollar deal get signed. And I remember seeing the person and all the persuasion that went into that billion dollar deal. This all applies, but it also will for those of you who are just like, I'm trying to influence my teenager better. This will apply to you too. Persuasion is basically the science and the art of influencing somebody to do what you hope they will do. Now recognize lots of people will say, well, persuasion can feel. I don't like persuasion because think it's manipulation. Now persuasion is ultimately just one subcategory of influence in general, right? Persuasion is a subcategory of influence. But with persuasion, you're clear about what you want to happen, you're clear, you know you want them to buy, you know, you want them to clean the house, you know you want them to go to school, you know you want them to implement your initiative, you know that you want them to hit. Like when persuasion is, is at play, you have a stake in the outcome, you know what you want and to get there, you've got to have a conversation with others to make them raise their hand or say yes or follow what you're suggesting. And I don't pretend that's easy. That's why as we go into this, you see today as we talk about persuasion, I'm going to go into a pretty complex framework, help you think through all of this. Now, I'm not going to have the answers for everybody. I don't know what your situation is right now, but I want you to know what your persuasion situation is. So think about somebody you're trying to persuade to do something, think about something you need to persuade an audience to do. I'd love for you to have a case study of your own in your mind as we go through here, because here's what I promise. There is something behind one of these doors, Vanna White, that you have not yet thought about. There's something here that you've been missing, something here. You're like, that's why they won't listen to me. That's why they're not saying yes. That's why they're not buying. And so it's my job today to give you all of these different elements of the framework so that maybe you can identify something you've been missing or identify something that will be really helpful for you to think through in the future. I know that persuasion is not easy and lots of people are frustrated with it. And usually it's those who are new to the topic itself that start thinking it's manipulation. And manipulation is its original connotation was to skillfully handle or control something in social realm. That word kind of got the connotation of that became. Well, it's when you're doing something unscrupulously or unfairly, you're doing something, you know, you're manipulating the situation to only get what you want and not listening to what others want. Well, that's not what I'm talking about today. I really believe that all persuasion has an element of negotiation too. And you know, persuasion without negotiation equals manipulation. But when you're in conversation and you're negotiating terms or you're negotiating through the conversation of helping people think through things even to get what you want or to get what they want, there's still a lot of influence, strategies and tactics that make that possible. That's what we're going to be talking about here today. Number one, everything you should do should operate from this number one thing. And that is you need to have clear outcomes for what you want the other person to know, think, feel and do. What do you want the other person to know, think, feel and do? And I want you to always think through those categories. Never go into a persuasion kind of conversation without having done that. Even if it's as simple as, I just want my spouse to clean up the house. Okay, what should they know, think, feel and do? Because if you haven't thought through that, you're just bumbling in and being a child making a request. I want you to be an adult putting out a persuasion plan. I want you to be somebody who's more intentional with your communication than you've been because isn't it true that so many times in our relationships where it just falls apart is when we just bumbled in and made a stupid request? Isn't it true a lot of times you negatively react to a team member or your spouse it's because they made a dumb request that they didn't even think through? Isn't it true that so many times you get frustrated with people is because they weren't more thoughtful about your side of the story? Well, if that's true, then we need to get very clear on what is it. If I'm trying to persuade someone to do something, what I want them know, think, feel, and do, Even if I'm just trying to get them to follow me on Facebook or on Instagram, what should I be thinking about? How do they want? What should they know about me? What should they feel about me? What should they be thinking? What do I want them specifically to do? And why would they do all of those things? That's like step one and most people don't even do that. And then they don't do any of this and they're wondering why they can't get someone to do something they don't even do that. Common sense, not always common practice. And that's why so many potentially great people fail to reach their potential. We got to get you thinking in advance, more diligently, with greater discipline, with more consistency. That's going to help you reach that higher performance level persuasion to make you the best. I can't tell you how many people say, brennan, can you help me with my negotiation? I say, sure. I go and I go, what do you want them to know, think, feel and do? And they can't even answer the question. Like, I just want them to buy my stuff, dude. I go, well, we might need to be a little bit more thoughtful in that regard. Okay, clear outcomes of what you want them to know, think, feel, and do. But I want you to also have clear outcomes for you. After this persuasion conversation, what do you want to know, think, feel, and do? Let's say you're about to have a, you know, a real difficult sit down conversation with somebody that you love. And you've been waiting to have the conversation, but now it's time and you go to have that conversation and, you know, you're so concerned about them or hurting their feelings or saying the right thing that you never thought of, like, how do you want to feel after that conversation? You know, I recently talked to a friend. He went to lunch and had to communicate some very difficult things to a team member. And he was so thoughtful about what he wanted that team member to experience, but he never thought of, well, after lunch, how does he want to feel? What does he want to know about that team member? How does he want to feel about that team member? What does he want to do with for that team member afterwards? So often, if you're a giver, you constantly think about everything that you want the other person to do or feel or sense. Or if you're a salesperson, you think about what you want them to do, but you're not even thinking about their feelings or your feelings. We just need to be a little bit more strategic in complex persuasion situations. That's what we're mostly talking about today. But I'm sure you've sensed that in your own family life, in your own personal life. Too many folks are bumbling into requests at home without thinking about the other or themselves. They're only focused on the content of the request. I want you to do X. But if you're only focusing on I want you to do X, you're never going to be a strong persuasion master. You're never going to really hone that skill in where you can do the bigger deals, where you can do the bigger sales. Like, this seems so basic, but it takes a lot more thought than most people have been given.

Okay, it's Brendan, and yeah, I'm going to serve you up a quick little promotion right here to make sure you.

Learn a little bit more with us.

If you're enjoying this, let's dive deep. And there's two ways that you can do that. One, obviously, I told you about at the beginning of this episode where you can join us at Influencer 2019, October 10th through 12th, in San Diego. Because if you love this kind of stuff, come learn how 10 other people do it just like I do it. But also, if for whatever reason, you can't make San Diego October 10th through 12th, then join our Influencer business program. That's where I go live, just like you've been hearing. And I teach every month how to build your personal brand, how to do better marketing and make it really, really specific so that there's tactical things you can do. And I teach, really the world's influencers. Every single month. I go live, I do Q and A, I give a new strategy, and I try to teach something that has earned at least six figures, and I try to teach that every single month. So make sure you join that Influencer business program if you can't join us live in San Diego. How do you do both? Well, just go to influencer magazine.com that's influencer magazine.com and choose your adventure. Do you want to come to the live event or would you like to join the Influencer business program? The online training component, you get to choose multiple levels. So just go to influencer magazine.com and choose your own adventure with us. Would you like to join us at the live event or would you like to join the online program? And hint, hint, hint, the online program does come with some tickets to the live event as well because it's an ongoing subscription and Influencer, the live event, is an annual event. So are you confused? Are you ready? Are you excited to start? Would you like to share your passions, your wisdom with the world and achieve financial freedom, lifestyle freedom, and most importantly, real impact? Y' all go to influencermagazine.com right now. All right, with that, let's jump right back into the episode.

Number two. I want you to think through what is the actual offer? Okay? Now, in persuasion, in sales, you know, you want to have that irresistible, unbelievable, crushing, amazing, super generous, great deal offer, right? If you're going to try to persuade someone to sell or do something, you want them, you want them to say, that's a great deal, or I would feel great doing that, investing in that, believing in that, buying from that. What is the offer that you are particularly selling? Okay, Is it a request? And if they do the request, you're going to give them these things. Is it a sale where if they buy it at this price, they get these things from you that are amazing, like, what's the actual offer? And I think this is important, too. If you're going to try and go and persuade your kid to be better at math, you really got to think through, what's the offer? You can't just go in there and go do your homework. That's just not going to be the best persuasion strategy. Like, what's the real offer? What is it? You are offering that kid to do math, right? And you can't just say, well, let them continue living on the earth. That is not where you should be thinking. You should be thinking, what am I going to give them? What are they going to get for their investment in doing math homework? What am I going to offer them? Then in the sales side, you have a real clear offer. I often tell, I know a lot of you guys are entrepreneurs, and I tell entrepreneurs all the time. I go, look, stop thinking about all this branding stuff. Stop Trying to build the website, stop trying to start social media. Number one most important thing that an entrepreneur has outside of their own passion and guts and hard work ethic and mission values to add value is the offer. No offer, no sales, no money, no message. So you have to first and foremost go, what is the offer that I have and why would they want it? So simple, right? What's the offer you have and why would they want it or want to do it? If you want your team to do something, they've been resistant. I'm telling you what you need to have an offer for, why they should do that. If you want somebody who is at home with you to do something and you've made that request 50 times and you're stuck in the situation, well, they just won't listen.

They'll never do what I ask.

But you keep asking. You need to change your persuasion strategy and sweeten the offer. Sometimes people do a lot of good stuff in the conversation. They're, you know, they're kind, they're patient, they're thoughtful, they ask those great rhetorical questions. I mean, they're just absolutely doing the Socratic method. They got it all down.

But their offer sucks.

And if the offer sucks, you're dead in the water. So get that offer, make it really clear. Why would they want that? If you don't know that you are not even in the game of persuasion. Third big one, why you? Here's what I like to tell salespeople. Often if someone's going to buy from you, the reality is they could buy from somebody else too, right? Whatever you're offering, usually other people are offering it. I mean, in some ways, we are all commodities in the modern world, okay? Everyone's got other choices beyond you in your marriage. Other people have choices beyond you at work, they could go work for somebody else. Other people have choices for you in the marketplace. They could buy something on Amazon versus your website. So the question we have to know before we even enter this conversation is, why you? And here's what I like to have you think about is when you think about why you, you have to think about who else isn't true. If I want somebody to buy something of mine, I have to go, well, why would they buy mine? And if I'm going to answer that intelligently, I have to think about, well, who else has it? In other words, why wouldn't they go with somebody else? Have you answered that? Why wouldn't they go with somebody else? In any persuasion situation, you're asking the kid to do their Math homework. Why wouldn't they just play a video game instead of doing math? They want to go out and play with their friends. Why? Who else is their friends? Why should they listen to you versus listen to their friends? If you don't know why people should listen to you, buy from you, invest in you specifically vis a vis who else? You're not even in the game yet. You haven't even started thinking about this. There's no thought, there's no preparation, there's no strategy. Without these things, there is zero strategy. Okay? It's just bumbling by and being of good luck. Now if you're like a person who says, well Brendan, I haven't done these things and my life is going pretty good, I'm like, oh, you're just getting weaponized now. Then your life's about to become extraordinary when you start doing this stuff more. I literally meditate on all of these things before I ever begin a conversation. There's no way I would ever think of a serious persuasion situation without thinking through all of this first.

Yes, my friends, I hope you enjoyed this special episode. Sort of a behind the scenes look into my Influencer career. If you enjoy this and you would like to learn more, just get yourself over to influencer magazine.com go ahead and select whether you'd like to come to the live event or to the online training called Influencer Business program. Both options are there on the page@influencer magazine.com for those wondering what's up. You know, we've been working behind the scenes all year on launching Influencer magazine. It'll be launching late winter with an unbelievable episode. It's gonna be a digital magazine and we're really excited about it because honestly some of the biggest influencers in the world have just been freaking out once we announced this because our industry really hasn't had a voice and it really hasn't had best practices and honestly it hasn't had a lot of leadership. And for those of you who know my career over the last decade as I used to teach Experts Academy, you know, we had literally millions of people who learned online marketing from me. And as the world's transferred into this time of social media, but also a time in which so many people are on social media and and so called influencers, they don't know best practices, they don't know the values of the industry, they don't know how to really build a business that scales. They're just after likes or following or narcissistic stuff instead of really making a difference. So I'm bringing that type of value ethic into the new Influencer career by leading the magazine, leading the annual conference, and leading the major online training all into the Influencer brand. And I'd love for you to take part of that, but also get to experience the growth of this industry. You know, it's a billion dollar industry where I mean, every single day, listen, people have the opportunity to follow you, to buy from you, to share your message. And so my question is, why aren't you there more heavily? You know, why don't you share your wisdom, your life experience, or even just your passions? Whether you're sharing your stuff or you're curating an experience or a community, there is a way for you to earn income at this, build a real business and a audience worldwide doing it. You just need the step by step instruction. So go to influencer magazine.com and either join us at the live annual conference again October 10th through 12th in San Diego, or join us in the online training program called Influencer Business Program. We call it that because if you're going to wade in this territory, you should have the ambition to build a real business that allows you to have your lifestyle freedom, that allows you to make your difference that you enjoy, that makes you the money that you need and really impacts people. That's the Influencer Business program, which you can again access via going to influencer magazine.com. all right, we'll continue this series. I hope you enjoy this episode. If you do, make sure you share it with four or five friends who are also trying to build their audience or make a difference in the world or who might be interested in these types of learnings that you just listened to. I appreciate you all. I'm so excited to bring you more, more and more insight into sort of behind the scenes of how my industry and my career has worked. I will continue here on these podcasts to share a lot of personal development. This series is just running while we're promoting Influencer 2019, so I hope you'll enjoy it and you'll share these episodes. Make sure you take a screenshot, share it with your friends, give them the link, but also share it and tag me so that I know that you're listening to these episodes and you're getting value from them. Share with me what you liked, what you really learned from, so that we can not only recognize and reward you, but but that we can also invite you in. All right, go to influencer magazine.com until next time. My friends go out there every single day. Remember, you can live fully, you can love openly, and you can make a difference by sharing your voice with the world right now.