In this new article you’ll learn how to influence others.

Learning to influence others is a skill that anyone can learn. You do not have to be a certain personality type, or super-confident to be a great influencer and negotiator.

This article provides key insights on how to develop these skills in a short space of time that will enable you to persuade others to your way of thinking, whilst winning new clients and customers on the way, motivate others to take action through positive reinforcement, make friends quickly and easily, gaining popularity.

Also, to use 10 tools that you can use to convince others of your argument and build stronger relationships and make more meaningful interactions with everyone you encounter.

How To Influence Others:

Be Nice

Being nice invokes a positive response from others.

This can be in the form of being supportive, empathetic, tolerant, generous and infectiously happy.

Rather than judging someone, take a minute out to understand where they are coming from, what their values are and what makes them tick.

Having a better understanding of them will create better interactions going forward as you can present information to them in a way that they will be able to digest more easily.

Refrain from criticising, complaining or condemning them or anyone else as this creates a negative image of you, which may result in them ignoring what you have to say.

You may be tempted to ask someone else to change, but in the long-term it will be more beneficial for you to change your behaviour.

Work out what makes people tick and what their values are

Most people have basic needs such as good health, food, sleep, sufficient money to lead a good quality of life, sexual needs, the health and well-being of their children and the need to feel important.

The latter need is the one that most often can be the hardest to fulfil (assuming all other needs have been met).

This need drives people to seek success, drive expensive cars, dress fashionably, be seen at certain events and places and so on.

Once you can work out what will satisfy a person’s need to feel important, you can persuade others by using this knowledge to make them feel important.

Refrain from saying or taking any action that could chip away at someone’s sense of importance. For example, providing somebody who works for you with criticism can demoralise them.

Instead focus on what they are doing well. This positive reinforcement makes them open to listening to any feedback on how to improve on their weaknesses.

Also remember that people can see through incorrect or false praise, which comes across as insincere or dishonest. Be positive, honest and sincere when providing positive feedback.

SEE ALSO: How To Win a Debate: 23 Best Tactics For Winning a Debate

Help others achieve their goals

Helping others get to where they want to get to will definitely earn you brownie points. It will also help you better understand them and understand what drives and motivates them.

Six Principles to Get People to Like You

When it comes to influence, building new relationships and creating positive interactions is crucial (1).

These 6 principles will specifically create strong relationships that will make it easier to influence the other party:

1. Be genuinely interested in others. Create a sense of loyalty and sincerity by being genuine.

2. Smile when you first meet someone. Smile with sincerity.

People pick up on insincerity and a disingenuous smile. An earnest, warm smile will draw people to you and create a strong first impression as well as an invitation to come and talk to you.

3. Remember a person’s name as well as something important about them. Note down their business, family or other interests so that when you meet them again you can recall this information and use it to kick-start a conversation with them.

Remembering these details about a person gives them a sense of importance and that you are genuinely interested in them.

4. Be a great listener. Get people to talk about themselves.

It makes people feel that you are genuinely interested in them and care. Look the person in the eye, giving them 100% of your exclusive attention.

Listening is an important personal skill. By listening to an angry person you can help them release their emotion and feel better.

Interestingly enough people tend to find the person who was listening to them the most interesting, despite this person never having said a word!

5. Work out what the other person is passionate about. Focus your energy and conversation on this. People love to talk about the things that bring them joy.

Theodore Roosevelt was a great advocate of this. He was very knowledgeable about a variety of information so that he could participate in a conversation about virtually any subject.

6. Let someone know that you appreciate them. Appreciation is all about making someone feel valued and important. This is an innate human need.

When someone feels appreciated, it boosts his or her self-esteem and feelings of self-importance. Be wary of false flattery or praise – people can see through this and this defeats the purpose of showing someone real, genuine appreciation.

How to Influence Anyone

There are 10 ways to convince others to your way of thinking:

1. If you want to win an argument, avoid it. Disagreements tend to switch people’s defence mechanisms on.

It also makes the person who has lost the agreement feel negative. Even if you win or lose the argument one person walks away feeling deflated and that is a ‘loss’ in itself.

2. Show respect. When someone is making a point, do not just dismiss it. If you dismiss it, you make them feel disrespected and unimportant.

The consequences are that they are less likely to be open to your ideas or trust you.

3. Admitting when you are wrong can be an attractive trait. If the other person felt that you were wrong but did not raise it, by you openly admitting your mistakes, it gives you both a chance to agree on this.

Funnily enough this gives you credibility.

They are now more likely to quickly forgive, be open to what you have to say and supportive of your opinions.

In contrast if you do not admit that you are wrong, you are less likely to build any credibility with them and accordingly it may be more challenging to persuade them to your line of thinking.

4. Even if you feel negative, start the conversation in a positive fashion so that they are open to what you have to say. Then discuss any negative feelings or thoughts that you may have directly with them.

5. Start by discussing a subject that you both agree on. If you start with discussing something you agree on or that you already have the same opinions about then you are already on the same side making it easier to get them to agree to your new proposal or idea.

6. Let your clients talk when they are complaining and hear them out. By listening to them carefully, you can better understand what exactly their issue is, where they are coming from and then suggest an appropriate solution.

Encourage your clients to openly discuss and express their ideas.

7. Encourage ownership. Get the other person to take ownership of an idea or proposal. This way they will be more invested in the idea and likely to follow through on it.

8. Put yourself in the other person’s shoes. See things from the other person’s perspective. It will help you better understand how best to motivate or persuade them, especially if you know what’s important to them and what approach they are using to tackle a problem.

9. Empathise/sympathise with the other person. This can be a powerful way to get someone to open up to you and your ideas.

For example, you can say “I understand how difficult this is for you. I would feel the same if I were in your shoes.” That feeling of being understood helps the other person open up to you and trust you.

10. Inspire others and encourage them to talk about their aspirations and goals. People are driven by their sense of purpose and goals; and they will be motivated to hear what you have to say and whether your goals are aligned to theirs.

SEE ALSO: Awesome 13 Daily Habits To Improve Life And Energize Your Day

Act like a leader

When you are managing employees or a staff member, motivating them to perform is a large part of leadership. Here are some clever strategies to motivate others to perform:

1. When discussing a performance issue with someone, do not forget to sincerely praise them for the things that they have done well and show them appreciation.

They are more likely to be open to what you have to say on improving their performance.

2. If someone has made a major mistake – make them aware of the mistake, however do so in an indirect manner so that they do not feel ashamed.

3. Discuss your own mistakes too (2), it makes you humble and it is more likely that the other person will be open to hear what you have to say about their own mistakes.

4. Rather than asking someone to directly do something, see if they come up with the same task by explaining the issue to them and see what solutions/suggestions they come up with.

They are more likely to take ownership of their own suggestion.

5. Do not embarrass or shame someone directly; this is counterintuitive and will push them away, achieving little from both your perspectives.

6. Even if an employee or staff member is only improving slightly, praise them. You will be surprised as to how much this will motivate them to continue to improve and perform.

7. Raise the other person’s profile, to the point that they need to live up to it and work harder.

8. Always encourage and appreciate others – it positively motivates them.

9. Also let others know that you appreciate them trying out your solutions.

I want to thank you for taking the time to read my article about how to influence others. I sincerely hope its contents have been a good help to you.