The Secret Language of Influence®

by Dan Seidman

GOT INFLUENCE? How well do your words and phrases motivate (or de-motivate) others? Language training is the most neglected area of any management, leadership or business development program. Recent research from the world of psychology can help us increase the potency of our conversations. This is useful for leading, managing, motivating and most critically, selling your ideas.

This is extracted from the book, The Secret Language of Influence. It is summarized in a tips booklet that covers the essential details you’re reading about here.

Psychologists and linguists define language as either well-formed or poorly-formed. In other words, we either get our meaning across or we do not.

Here are key elements you want to add to the verbal abilities of your sales professionals.

Discover how to distinguish whether you should influence using PAIN or GAIN. People are motivated to make choices based on avoiding problems are attaining goals.
Identify how you influence each of these two distinct personalities, the EXTERNAL or INTERNAL decision-maker. Do you offer evidence, testimonials or peer pressure? EXTERNAL people buy into these. In contrast, others make decisions based on their own beliefs and experiences. These are INTERNAL types and they will not be influenced by endorsements, awards or accomplishments of yourself or your company.
Here are a few key language patterns you can adopt or avoid. If mis-used, they can really hurt our communication skills;

MINIMIZERS; little words that erode the value of our conversation and therefore our product or service offering.

“I ONLY want to talk to your VP of sales about…”

WHY; a dangerous word – is an indictment of a person’s intelligence.

“We just went over a dozen reasons to work together, why would you delay making a commitment?”

PRESUPPOSITIONS; little words that tip our true feelings or beliefs.

“IF you become a client…”
is significantly different from
“WHEN you become a client…”

You can improve sales performance by raising awareness of words and phrases that can hurt your ability to communicate clearly with employees, peers, buyers and personal relationships. Learning to replace weak with potent language can enhance verbal skills and lead to better outcomes. In our sales lives that can mean making more money.