GETTING PEOPLE TO DO THINGS
You have been exercising the power skill of asking for things with the intention of getting what you asked for. This is a power skill on the masculine/yang side of the continuum—actively and directly asking for something. You were also practicing the principle of intention and seeing how your intention makes a difference in the results you create.
You will experiment with having influence in particular ways—and have the opportunity to overcome your resistance and mistaken beliefs about having influence.
Through doing this, you inevitably came up against mistaken beliefs and limiting thoughts about asking for things—It’s weak to ask for help....It’s best to be independent and not need anything...People will think I’m needy/selfish/self-centered/greedy...People will take advantage of me if they know what I really want...It’s better to give than receive...Nobody will give anything to me anyway, so why ask...I don’t deserve it...As you think about and analyze these mistaken beliefs, you begin to reveal and become aware of the elements of your matrix that limit you. You can then begin to strategically liberate and begin to rematrix. Capture these discoveries in your notes to help you rematrix toward an even more powerful you!
In the rest of the quarter, you learn specific power tools each week to increase your ability to express your personal power and manifest your positive influence in the world. However, this week, you experiment with having influence in particular ways—and have the opportunity to overcome your resistance and mistaken beliefs about having influence.
This week, you expand beyond asking for things. Your assignment is to get people to do things—you are to persuade or influence others to take action, do something differently, take positive steps, or make changes.
Remember, power means the ability to do work or have influence. To manifest your power and have influence means you are influencing others to change their behavior, change their point of view, see things differently, see greater possibilities for themselves, and do something differently—to have others act, think, and be in new or shifted ways. To the extent that you can manifest yourself in a way that gets people to act, change, do things, exchange resources—time, money, attention—for something else or something greater, you have influence. And to do that means that you sell.
In every aspect of our lives, having influence over others’ behavior or actions is critical—whether we are a parent training our children to have manners or a teacher selling students on the importance of learning, or whether we are inspiring employees to meet their goals, influencing sales people to sell their quotas, selling ideas to our boss, empowering a loved one to stop bad habits, persuading a neighbor to join in the block initiative, getting coworkers to contribute to the party fund, trying to get a friend to pay attention to what we are saying...
One of the biggest barriers we have to exercising our power is our resistance to selling. Yet, we all are selling all the time. The dictionary definition of the word “sell” is “to persuade somebody of something, to make an idea or proposal acceptable to someone, to persuade somebody of your worth.”
Dan Pink, in his book To Sell is Human, reports that a study of 7,000 people revealed that they spent an average of 40% of their work time selling—trying to convince others to exchange resources, whether time, money or other resources, for other resources. And (on a more negative note) this doesn’t include selling yourself short or working to diminish your boss’ expectations (or your spouse’s or your date’s or...) so you don’t have to perform and they don’t expect much of you. This 40% of work time doesn’t include the selling that occurs in their personal lives where they are trying to convince their children to clean their rooms, or persuade their parents to look into assisted living, or trying to get family members to do their chores, or getting fellow students to carry their weight on a group project, or getting the neighbor to turn down the loud music late at night... Yet, most people aren’t trained in sales, have negative judgments about selling, and would even tell you selling is repugnant—yet almost half of their time is spent selling!
Build Your Network and Your Life Team
We never want people to do things that are not in their best interest, yet we all need people to do things. Teachers need students to engage, leaders need followers to follow, parents need children to act in certain ways, etc. We can see all of life as selling others into doing things.
One of the most important areas of life in which you need to sell is in creating and building your life team.
Your life team provides resources, encouragement, challenge, coaching, and support—and, if you are really dedicated, you will constantly be upgrading your team.
This doesn’t mean getting rid of people (although sometimes you may decide to do that) but rather deepening relationships and adding new team members to help you adapt more successfully to the various challenges of your life—and expand your influence and leadership.
If you extend your influence still further, it is useful to think about your personal and professional networks. Your capacity to influence is directly proportional to the extent and potency of your network. Network science shows that the person who is at the hub of a network and is connected to the most hubs not only has the most power (reach and influence) but is also the happiest. The more you build your network, the more you build power, resources, influence, and happiness.
This week is the week to expand your network and your life team. Set up dates for coffee, meals, get-togethers. Have meaningful conversations with them—find out what they care about, what matters to them, what their concerns are. Serve them by sharing with them, creating a vision of possibilities, and introducing them to other people you think they might like to meet or who could benefit them in some way.
Have transformative conversations that lead others to move, to do something in their best interest, to take a powerful step in living a spectacular life!
Practice becoming what Malcolm Gladwell calls Connectors, Mavens, and Salespeople. Connectors are defined as “people who know lots of people, people with a special gift of bringing the world together.” Mavens are “information specialists, people we rely upon to connect us with new information.” Salespeople are “people with the skills to persuade us when we are unconvinced of what we are hearing.”
Also use Dan Pink’s new ABC’s of selling: Attunement, Buoyancy, and Clarity. Attunement means that you understand the perspective of the buyer. With attunement, you bring your actions and outlook into harmony with others. Buoyancy is the combination of “a gritty spirit and a sunny outlook.” Buoyancy allows you to stay afloat amid an ocean of rejection. Clarity is knowing what you’re offering and what the buyer wants—and especially what they don’t want. Clarity means asking the right questions to discover what others truly yearn for and enrolling them into a bigger vision for their lives.
As you exercise your muscle on influencing and selling, you will discover many mistaken beliefs, limiting behaviors, and feelings that come up for you. You’ll start to realize how important it is to build your network and influence others to fulfill your purpose, mission, and vision. Be sure to capture these awarenesses and update your notes to document your learns in the moment.
This week, spread your influence. As you use your power to influence others, you are leading. Next quarter in Purposeful Living and Leadership, explore your influence by asking, “to what end am I leading?” But it’s not too early to have a positive influence on others! Influence people to do things to improve their lives. Use this opportunity to build your network.
Risk and play to win, rather than trying to avoid loss. Playing to win is having a bigger network of support, building your life team, and having allies on your journey—as opposed to playing to not lose by not taking risks and not inviting people to join you in transforming yourself and the world.
So now, experiment and have fun as you get people to do things—to take action, shift perspectives, make growthful moves... Enroll others into a bigger vision for themselves. Build your network and your life team. Practice attunement, buoyancy, and clarity as you interact to influence. Be a Connector, Maven, and/or Saleperson. Influence the people in your life to make moves to live their dreams. Discover the power of getting people to do things!
Get People To Do Things– Build Your Net Worth by Building Your Network
Main Assignment
You have just completed asking for things. Now we move on to getting people to do things that will serve them as well as you—and to learn, grow, and be part of your life team.
For starters, think of the challenges and goals you are facing in your life. What do you see as the toughest challenges? What do you see as your biggest goal? Your vision? What obstacles stand in the way of prevailing? How much can having a more powerful network help you to succeed?
Now think of the kinds of people you would like to support you, how you would like the people around you to be, and how you could build a more empowering network. How could you enroll people around you to step up, join you on a growth journey, or take positive steps toward a greater vision for themselves? How could you lead people to engage in yet another level of their development and join you in the mutual journey of bringing out your best? Think of all the ways you can engage fully and influence people to take steps and move toward their higher potential.
How much will your desires be driven by increasing your network—and net-worth— and enhancing the value of those in your network so they can be even more potent partners in the journey toward human potential?
Consider inviting them to high value experiences to increase the net-worth of your network. Are you investing in having go-for-it, high-value people close to you in your network? If you are up for this game, good. If not, pick a game you want to play this week. Be sure the game benefits you in learning and growing, as well as the world at large. Keep in mind that every interaction is defining your network.
Dan Pink’s conclusions are relevant for us:
Those who move others aren’t manipulators but servants....If the person you’re selling to agrees to buy, will his or her life improve? When your interaction is over, will the world be a better place than when you began? It means doing something more for the other person than he expects or you initially intended, taking the extra steps that transform a mundane interaction into a memorable experience.
This week, “Sell” others on a greater vision for themselves, fulfilling their potential and doing what it takes to bring out their best. Each evening to note how you are expanding your—and others’—potential.
Activate your yearning, touch their yearning, involve both your head and your heart, and have transformative conversations that lead others to move, to do something in their best interest, and to take a powerful step in living a spectacular life!
Clarity means asking the right questions in order to discover what others truly yearn for and enrolling them into a bigger vision for their lives.
Very-Able Assignments
Track Your Mistaken Beliefs about Selling and Salespeople
Overcoming your mistaken beliefs about selling and salespeople will help you become more of a person of influence, thus expanding your personal power. But if you aren’t conscious of these beliefs, you won’t be able to shift them. So this week, catch your mistaken beliefs and stinking thinking about sales and selling. Track the core mistaken beliefs of your Matrix underlying these beliefs and thoughts.
Track Your Positive Associations about Selling and Salespeople
Think about times when someone sold you things that made a positive influence in your life—whether someone influenced you with life-changing ideas, sold you experiences or goods that you were glad to have bought, or changed your mind in a positive way, etc.
Track Your Influence on Getting Others to Do Things– Both Positive and Negative
Keep track of how you influence people in positive and negative ways this week: Did you sell someone on a better idea, influence them to take positive action, get someone to do something that was in their best interest and/or the interest of the company or family? Or, did you talk someone into doing something not so good, or perhaps you didn’t talk them out of a bad idea or a bad behavior. Did you lower others’ expectations of you, sell yourself short, or convince others that you aren’t worthy? Look at times when you are cajoling or wheedling or passive-aggressively manipulating to get someone to do something. Look at what you are “selling” this week—both positive and negative.
Get Others to Do Things in as Many Ways as Possible
Experiment with getting others to do things in as many ways as possible this week. Experiment with influence, persuasion, and sharing to get others to do things. Keep track of what you do and how it feels.
Build Your Network and Your Life Team
Engage fully this week! Build your network and your life team. Who do you want to add to your network? Your life team? With whom do you want to deepen your relationship? What about the team you’ve had already—who are the people with whom you want to develop more of a relationship? Set up times to meet with them and engage in meaningful conversations. Remember, the trail gets pretty cold after two weeks, so act on your contacts to deepen the relationship. Have meaningful conversations, get to know each other better, dream and vision together, support and be supported. Be a net giver—you receive so much more in return, and you build your network and your life team.
With attunement, you bring your actions and outlook into harmony with others. Buoyancy is the combination of “a gritty spirit and a sunny outlook.”
Selling Yourself on Your Empowering Vision with your Matrix Map and Purposeful Leadership Process
“Sell” yourself on your empowering vision and the importance of your growth work in becoming your best, most powerful self! Continue to build your awareness as you uncover mistaken beliefs and rules, and the new empowering beliefs you wish to be building. Make sure to share with your coach.
Also, keep capturing your mistaken beliefs as they arise, your muted feelings, your yearnings, your evolving vision...all the aspects of your rematrixing.
Use the New ABC’s of Selling and Get People to Come to an Event
As you engage in and track your WIIN dates and meaningful conversations, remember that engagement is at the heart of sales and influencing others. As you go for more this week, remember Daniel Pink’s ABC’s of selling—Attunement, Buoyancy, and Clarity. Get in harmony with the person you’re speaking with (attunement), approach the conversation with “a gritty spirit and a sunny outlook” (buoyancy), and listen for what your conversation partner truly yearns for and enroll them into a bigger vision for their life.
This week see how much you can ask for using the ABC’s of selling. Remember the 3 wins—a win for you, a win for the other person, and a win for the world!
Feelings about Selling and Salespeople
Tracking Your Influence
ABC’s of Selling
Buoyancy
The second trait of successful sellers is “buoyancy,” the combination of “a gritty spirit and a sunny outlook.” To survive repeated rejections, follow three practices. 1) Ask yourself questions beforehand (“Can I succeed?”) rather than pumping yourself up (“I am the best”); they encourage your brain to come up with answers, reasons, and intrinsic motivation. 2) Be mostly positive: it can make the buyer more positive and open to different possibilities (although a little negativity keeps you grounded). 3) Be optimistic: believe that rejections are temporary, contained, and due to external factors.
How to stay afloat amid that ocean of rejection is the second essential quality in moving others, which is what Pink means by “buoyancy.”
Declaring an unshakable belief in your inherent awesomeness inflates a sturdy raft that can keep you bobbing in an ocean of rejection. Mere affirmation feels good and that helps. But it doesn’t prompt you to summon the resources and strategies to actually accomplish the task. Ask yourself questions like Bob the Builder’s “Can we fix it?” (Can I …?)—then your brain wants to answer, “Yes we can!”
The effects of positivity during a sales encounter infect the buyer, making him less adversarial, more open to possibility, and perhaps willing to reach an agreement in which both parties benefit. Some negativity—what Fredrickson and Losada call “appropriate negativity”—is essential.
Levity is that unseen force that lifts you skyward, whereas gravity is the opposing force that pulls you earthward. Unchecked levity leaves you flighty, ungrounded, and unreal. Unchecked gravity leaves you collapsed in a heap of misery. Yet when properly combined, these two opposing forces leave you buoyant.
The salespeople with an optimistic explanatory style—who saw rejections as temporary rather than permanent, specific rather than universal, and external rather than personal—sold more insurance and survived in their jobs much longer. Optimism, it turns out, isn’t a hollow sentiment. It’s a catalyst that can stir persistence, steady us during challenges, and stoke the confidence that we can influence our surroundings.
Negativity and negative emotions are crucial for our survival. They prevent unproductive behaviors from cementing into habits. They deliver useful information on our efforts. They alert us to when we’re on the wrong path. Thinking through gloom-and-doom scenarios and mentally preparing for the very worst that can occur helps some people effectively manage their anxieties.
Clarity
The third trait of successful sellers is the ability to clarify what you’re actually offering, and why the buyer doesn’t want to buy. To the first point: don’t overwhelm buyers with options, emphasize the experiences they will gain (not just the material objects), pick labels and names carefully, list a small negative attribute after the positive ones, and (when selling yourself) focus on your potential rather than your past accomplishments. Then, give buyers a clear method of action to take.
The ability to move others hinges less on problem-solving than on problem-finding. The quality of the problem that is found is a forerunner of the quality of the solution that is attained.
The best salespeople for a candy business think of their jobs not so much as selling candy but as selling insights about the confectionery business.
The premium is now on “the ability to hypothesize,” to clarify what’s going to happen next. Become skilled at curating it—sorting through the massive troves of data and presenting to others the most relevant and clarifying pieces.
Become good at asking questions—uncovering possibilities, surfacing latent issues, and finding unexpected problems.
Clarity depends on contrast. We often understand something better when we see it in comparison with something else than when we see it in isolation.
Reducing consumers’ options from twenty-four choices to six resulted in a tenfold increase in sales. Framing people’s options in a way that restricts their choices can help them see those choices more clearly instead of overwhelming them.
People derive much greater satisfaction from purchasing experiences than they do from purchasing goods. Framing a sale in experiential terms is more likely to lead to satisfied customers and repeat business.
When individuals encounter weak negative information after already having received positive information, the weak negative information ironically highlights or increases the salience of the positive information. Being honest about the existence of a small blemish can enhance your offering’s true beauty.
In the new world of sales, being able to ask the right questions is more valuable than producing the right answers.