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5 Ways For Being More Persuasive At Work – How to Convince Colleagues · Enhance.training

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  SPEAKER_00: Being more persuasive at work gives you a ton of personal benefits, plus can make you a lot better at your job.
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  SPEAKER_00: Being more persuasive means you get a lot more done at work, have a lot more people helping you achieve your goals, and spend a lot less time organizing others and persuading them to do what you want.
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  SPEAKER_00: Anyone can become more persuasive using five specific actions without needing to be a smooth-talking extrovert or a born salesman.
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  SPEAKER_00: I'm neither, yet became very effective as a manager and leader at work by persuading a massive range of people to help me achieve goals that I had been set.
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  SPEAKER_00: The four actions for being more persuasive at work that consistently and successfully get great results are firstly understand the other person's position.
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  SPEAKER_00: Secondly, show empathy and demonstrate you understand them.
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  SPEAKER_00: Third, create a solution for what the other person wants and needs.
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  SPEAKER_00: And fourth, building the trust shortcut.
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  SPEAKER_00: Improving how you use any of these vital actions will make you more persuasive.
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  SPEAKER_00: Remember, people want to help themselves, not really you.
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  SPEAKER_00: At work, being more persuasive is often about getting the other person to take action that will benefit them as well as benefit you.
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  SPEAKER_00: This is easier than you think, and you'll increase your persuasiveness quickly by using each action.
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  SPEAKER_00: My name is Jess Coles, and if you're new here, Enhanced.training shares people management expertise, resources and courses teaching you how to build higher performing teams.
• 1:29
  SPEAKER_00: We have lots of free resources and webinars available to add more depth to your knowledge or save you a ton of time.
• 1:35
  SPEAKER_00: So do visit us at enhanced.training to make use of these.
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  SPEAKER_00: The first action for being more persuasive at work is to understand the other person's position.
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  SPEAKER_00: Persuasion starts with knowing and understanding the person you want to persuade.
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  SPEAKER_00: The more you know, the more persuasive you can be as a result.
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  SPEAKER_00: To learn about them, get them talking.
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  SPEAKER_00: Ask them questions about what they're working on and their day job.
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  SPEAKER_00: Or it could be the projects they're working on, or it could be their opinions and viewpoints about work issues relevant to them.
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  SPEAKER_00: Or fourth, it could be about their ambitions, goals, and what they love about their job.
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  SPEAKER_00: Listen carefully to what they tell you.
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  SPEAKER_00: Seeking to understand them first makes it ten times more likely that they will be willing to understand you in return.
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  SPEAKER_00: You cannot skip this step nor do it half-heartedly and still be consistently persuasive at work.
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  SPEAKER_00: Persuading without knowing your audience just doesn't work.
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  SPEAKER_00: Some of the questions I suggest you get answers to include, firstly, what is taking up a lot of the other person's time right now?
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  SPEAKER_00: Secondly, what goals are they focused on reaching?
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  SPEAKER_00: Third, what roadblocks, problems or obstacles do they have to navigate to reach their goals?
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  SPEAKER_00: Fourth, what resources would help them towards their goals that I could organize or influence?
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  SPEAKER_00: Fifth, in what way does achieving what I want help them?
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  SPEAKER_00: Sixth, what do they fear or have concerns over right now?
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  SPEAKER_00: And seventh, what can I offer them to get what I want?
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  SPEAKER_00: When you understand the other person's point of view and position, you are in a great place to adapt and position what you want as a way of helping the other person as well as you.
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  SPEAKER_00: The second action for being more persuasive at work is to show empathy and demonstrate you understand them.
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  SPEAKER_00: Demonstrating that you understand the other person and have put yourself in their shoes and thought about their challenges, feelings, fears, and desires will make them a lot more receptive to you and what you might want.
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  SPEAKER_00: Create a good connection with the other person.
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  SPEAKER_00: This step alone will make you a lot more persuasive at work.
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  SPEAKER_00: Three of the best ways to demonstrate your understanding of the other person's position include firstly summarise what they have told you, focusing on the key points and their likely emotions because of their situation.
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  SPEAKER_00: Secondly, share a quick story about a time when you were in their shoes and what you thought and felt at the time.
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  SPEAKER_00: And thirdly, talk about how you resolve some of their key issues when you were in their position.
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  SPEAKER_00: This demonstrates your understanding of their problems and offers to help them to solve their problems.
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  SPEAKER_00: An example of summarising might be I sympathise with you being asked to update a reporting pack that very few people are really going to look at.
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  SPEAKER_00: I've had to do similar in the past and I felt it was a big waste of my time, plus it really increased the pressure on me to hit my other deadlines.
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  SPEAKER_00: It made me feel quite angry.
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  SPEAKER_00: The steps I took that worked really well for me at the time were and then go on to explain them.
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  SPEAKER_00: Make the time to think about and demonstrate you understand their position.
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  SPEAKER_00: This small step makes you a lot more persuasive because they will be much more receptive to you.
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  SPEAKER_00: The third action for being more persuasive at work is to create a solution for what the other person wants and needs.
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  SPEAKER_00: Being persuasive is about compromising and showing that you are compromising.
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  SPEAKER_00: When you are very persuasive, you can take small steps towards their position while getting them to take much larger steps towards your position.
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  SPEAKER_00: Good persuasion aims for a win-win situation.
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  SPEAKER_00: They feel they are getting something from the agreement as do you.
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  SPEAKER_00: The work you have put into understanding their position will help you create a proposal or a position that will move the other person towards their goals or reduce their fears or barriers.
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  SPEAKER_00: This gives them an incentive to say yes to doing what you ask or moving towards your position.
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  SPEAKER_00: Being persuasive is understanding what the other person wants and then flexing what you want to give the other person at least something of what they want.
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  SPEAKER_00: Great persuasion is identifying the areas that are important to them but not that important to you, and being flexible in these areas.
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  SPEAKER_00: You can then ask them to move towards you and what you want in the areas that are really important to you.
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  SPEAKER_00: Getting a yes is pointless unless the other person will follow through and deliver what they've agreed to do.
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  SPEAKER_00: Getting their commitment to the action you want from them is so much more valuable than a reluctant and resistant agreement.
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  SPEAKER_00: Remember, people will do what will help them directly or indirectly for immediate benefits or delayed benefits.
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  SPEAKER_00: Use their wants, desires and needs to persuade them to help you and in the process help themselves.
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  SPEAKER_00: If they don't get any benefit, persuading them is going to be incredibly hard and a yes may result in no action.
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  SPEAKER_00: Always aim for a win-win solution or position to be more persuasive at work.
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  SPEAKER_00: The fourth action for being more persuasive at work is to build the trust shortcut.
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  SPEAKER_00: Being trusted is huge for increasing your persuasiveness at work.
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  SPEAKER_00: We are much more open and receptive to being persuaded by people we trust.
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  SPEAKER_00: When we're asked to do something by a person we don't trust, we instantly have our guard up and don't easily say yes.
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  SPEAKER_00: When you are trusted, the other person assumes that you won't do anything to disadvantage them, or if what you're asking for would, you would tell them in advance about it.
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  SPEAKER_00: In practice, this means you spend a lot less time persuading them to take action that will help you.
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  SPEAKER_00: They will prioritize your requests over those from people they don't trust as much, and they will commit to doing what you have persuaded them to do a lot more easily and quickly.
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  SPEAKER_00: Working on being trustworthy and being perceived as trustable, in my view, gives you a ton of benefits at work and with clients.
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  SPEAKER_00: Being a lot more persuasive at work is one of those key benefits as well as saving a lot of time and getting a lot more help from across the business.
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  SPEAKER_00: All of these will make you a lot more effective in any role and in particular in management roles.
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  SPEAKER_00: Some of the actions to take to build trust from a persuasion perspective are firstly, when you commit to a decision, action, activity or project, you deliver what you've committed to consistently, week in, week out, i.e.
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  SPEAKER_00: don't let others down.
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  SPEAKER_00: Secondly, before you make decisions and take actions, think about the impact on those around you and those whom you rely on.
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  SPEAKER_00: And minimize the downsides to others as much as practical.
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  SPEAKER_00: Third, be good at your job, or at least above average, so others can rely on you doing your part for overall team success.
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  SPEAKER_00: Fourth, helping others when you are able to do so, to build up your goodwill towards you and favours owed.
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  SPEAKER_00: Both help you be more persuasive when you need others to help you.
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  SPEAKER_00: And fifth, build relationships on a personal level as well as a professional level.
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  SPEAKER_00: This creates greater connection and trust, both very valuable when persuading others.
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  SPEAKER_00: Be trustworthy through your actions and decisions, and you'll slash the time needed to persuade others to do what you want.
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  SPEAKER_00: Building trust is an extremely important persuasion shortcut that you should practice at work.
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  SPEAKER_00: So, in summary, being more persuasive at work comes from working to understand the person that you're trying to persuade.
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  SPEAKER_00: Then demonstrating that you've taken the time to understand them, what they want and need.
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  SPEAKER_00: Then take steps to give them at least some of what they want in the process of helping you or moving towards your position.
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  SPEAKER_00: Finally, you can save a huge amount of time and effort to persuading others at work by building the amount of trust other people have in you.
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  SPEAKER_00: This does take a bit of work, but you get a ton of benefits, one of which is the ability to be a lot more persuasive at work.
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  SPEAKER_00: If you have any questions on being more persuasive at work, please email me at support at enhance.training and I'll get back to you.
• 9:43
  SPEAKER_00: Thanks very much for listening, and I look forward to speaking to you again soon.