by Jeff Tippett
Let’s review how books helped shape my influence. Initially, as I transitioned from my corporate career to establishing my business in leadership coaching, I was offered an opportunity to contribute to an anthology. From that one chapter, I went on to write a series of leadership and entrepreneurial books addressing the market’s needs. Several of my books achieved bestselling status. My books allowed my audience to experience my coaching, shortening the time between the “getting to know me” and the “trusting cycle.” Not only did the books impact people but they also became the source to grow my coaching business. The books helped me expand my reach in several ways, like getting on podcasts, local tv shows, magazines, and becoming a contributor to several publications including Forbes. It’s time to put yourself on the literary Mt. Rushmore. If my clients and I could do it, so can you!
The last step is to develop a purposeful relationship with industry influencers. Start with giving, without expecting anything in return. When you lead with giving, you form a connection with the influencers. Once they see you as a giver, and not a taker, most influencers will support what you ask, especially if you ask with humility.
A cohesive, consistent message and brand, with a focused and targeted platform, will establish you as the authority that invites your audience in with welcoming gloves.
Divya Parekh
DivyaParekh.com
Ready for the next step? Let’s talk about a few other things you need to consider.
Questions for Reflection
What are your top three skills?
What is unique about you? (This could be education, personal story, background, spots no one else occupies.)
Who is your target audience? I encourage you to think very targeted. Drill down deep.
How do you find your target market?
How do you message your audience? And remain top of mind?
Before we wrap up, there are a few final considerations I think could be helpful to you as you become a master at persuasion.
1. There’s more than one path
While it would certainly simplify things if one path for persuading others was perfect for everyone, it doesn’t work that way. If that were true, there would be a single book that has all the answers we could buy and be done with this.
There’s not some magical approach to a quick success. We’re dealing with human beings, not robots. And though, generally speaking, a particular approach may work, you have to find your own way of approaching.
Think through your options. What’s the best way to craft the message? What’s the best way to position your message?
What’s the best call to action? And when determining the best path, I encourage you (once again) to focus on your audience. At this point, you should know your audience intimately. Making your decisions audience-centered will give you the best opportunity for success.
But even with the best and most informed decisions, don’t be surprised if not every step produces your desired results. Be willing to make course corrections, as necessary.
2. Persuasion doesn’t follow a linear path
The sales funnel is dead. People choose their own paths. They bounce around. They take steps with you, then back off. They go ghost. They then magically reappear, perhaps after seeing something new you’ve posted on social media or in an email.
3. These are generally accepted practices
My goal in these preceding chapters has been to show you what works—generally speaking. But, again, it’s not a one-size-fitsall proposition. If you can understand the theories presented here, you can then think through the potential variables and test to see what works best for you. Make it your own.
5. Know your audience
I’ve talked a lot in this book about connecting with your audience and about being focused on helping your audience win. It’s crucial for you to know your audience. You have to understand what they need, how they make decisions, what motivates them. Your approach will vary based on your audience. It’s essential that you come to know them.
6. Test
Test everything—your messaging, your delivery platforms, your positioning, your call to action. Yes, everything.
Before rolling out your messaging, test it. Try delivering it as if you’re explaining it to a child. As condescending as this may sound, I encourage you to examine whether your messaging is simple enough for a child to understand. The first step toward persuasion is to simplify your message. Make it easy on your audience.
Share your messaging with people you know well. Float it past them and gather responses before taking it to others. I think it’s especially helpful to share it with people who have no knowledge of the subject matter.
Finally, consider this: You now possess the superpower of persuasion. That’s right: You have a powerful toolbox that will increase your effectiveness, empower you to reach your goals, and help you positively impact your organization.
Just keep your focus on your audience. Solve problems for them. Show them you care. Bring success—and your audience will champion you as a superhero.
Ready for the next step? Let’s talk about why trust matters.
This is, perhaps, the most important chapter in this book. If you master every skill in every chapter, but others don’t trust you, you won’t persuade. Period.
Most people think of trust in terms of the things we do to earn it. And while, yes, I’ll focus there, as well, we need to start much deeper. The foundation for building trust is your motivations, what’s in your heart, the spirit in which you eventually do those things to earn it. A well-trained salesperson can easily fool others for a while, but in the end, I don’t think it’s sustainable.
I encourage you to pause and look within. I believe that others’ trust in you begins with who you are as a person and what your intentions are. And, ultimately, no amount of smooth talking can make up for the wrong intentions.
At the outset, most of your audience will either be neutral or slightly disinclined to trust you. But you now have what you need to begin earning their trust. If you took my “Industry
Expert” chapter seriously, answered the questions, and have started building out your personal brand, you have a leg up in this process. You’re working from a solid foundation for building trust.
In Chapter 6, “Helping Others Find Their Win (So You Win),” we briefly discussed intentions. Now, in this chapter, it’s important to hit this concept head-on. We have to check our motivations and determine what drives us. Is our primary focus on ourselves and what we want in life or do we place a priority and importance on others. Just this simple, yet often overlooked mindset, can make drastic changes in how people perceive us and ultimately our ability to persuade them.
Self-examination is good, and a conversation with those who know you could be even more beneficial. (But don’t start with your best friends. Because they love you, they may lack objectivity.)
Below are 10 tips to explore and then use for your discussion with others. And at the end of this chapter, I’ve put them in a concise list to ease the logistics of that discussion.
1. Be consistent
It takes multiple interactions for your audience to begin to get a feel for who you are. These could be F2F meetings, phone calls, or social media communication. And you’ll need precise consistency for people to begin to fully understand you, know your story, and begin to trust you. Often, even the slightest deviation can set you back.
Since I’ve brought up social media, let’s pause there a moment. Every interaction—whether posting, sharing, or commenting—gives your audience clues to your brand presence. And unless your social accounts are locked down tight (and even then, your audience can often still find you), every action matters. I would argue that every single post—no exceptions—has to support the brand you are creating. Any deviation can derail your quest to earn the trust of others.
2. Deliver as promised
We’ve probably all had someone
promise us a deliverable— whether a creative asset, meeting time, contract, phone call, email, etc.—and not, in fact, deliver. Failing to deliver as promised can harm your brand and the fragile trust you’re building with your audience.
We’re often so eager to please that we commit to things that, realistically, we know we can’t deliver. In the moment, that promise feels comforting. It’s nice to think you’re going to fulfill someone’s wants or needs. But while your audience may be happy in the moment that you said yes to their request— and that makes you feel good, as well—nobody’s going to feel good when expectations aren’t met. Overpromising will not only likely disappoint, it will set back your quest for trust.
It’s better then to under-promise and over-deliver. If your audience is asking for something, and you know you can’t deliver, manage expectations. Explain the rationale for why you can’t deliver. Even better, frame your response in a way that shows why your decision is best for them.
I recently had a speakers’ bureau reach out to me because they wanted to represent me. I responded that I was interested, and asked the next steps. Well, the decision and onboarding process was extremely laborious. And I knew that current demands on my time would not allow me to complete that process in the given timeframe.
Given that I do have interest in working with this bureau, I explained to them my current commitments. I told them I wanted to complete all the forms and provide what they needed in a thorough manner. Further, I told them I wanted to give them quality assets, and I couldn’t do that at the present moment.
I then told them when I could reasonably expect to get everything to them, and they accepted my timeline.
Now contrast that approach to overpromising. Had I done that, and not provided the requested information on time, we would have begun what could be a mutually financially beneficial arrangement on the wrong foot. And if this bureau can’t trust me with the initial process, certainly they won’t be able to trust me when it matters to their clients.
Under-promise. Over-deliver. Every time. It’s a winning formula.
3. Be open and authentic
I acknowledge that being open and authentic within the business community often raises eyebrows. Most of us have been trained to leave our personal self outside the door when we walk into the office. I disagree with that.
But let me add this disclaimer (one you’ve heard from me before): Know your audience. Know to what extent they’re willing to “get real with you”—where the boundaries lie.
To the extent that your audience is willing to be open and authentic, I encourage you to respond to the full extent to which you’re comfortable. This authenticity will allow your audience to trust you more profoundly. Besides, you don’t want them wondering what you might be hiding.
Of all the tips for developing earning the trust of others, perhaps authenticity has been the most challenging for me. I perfected relationships with a shield in hand keeping others at a safe distance; I was the master of keeping people from getting too close. And I was blind to the harm it was doing to my relationships.
When I was in middle school I formed a friendship with a new neighbor. We had both recently moved into a new neighborhood. We both were active in music and church life. And we had a lot of fun hanging out. In fact, he was probably my closest friend.
Like other kids our age, we rode bikes, watched TV, and had sleepovers. After all, childhoods are meant to be fun, carefree.
While the other aspects of hanging out and playing as young boys were totally normal, the second time I slept over negatively impacted my life. Forever.
Without recalling and discussing too many negative details, my friend’s father, a Southern Baptist pastor, sexually abused me. It happened several times, and I was blinded to its effects on my life.
For decades, I replayed this scenario in my head; I had only been able to speak it to a few people in my life. And sharing with those people was extremely painful.
And over time, after surfacing over and over, the pain of this childhood experience finally pushed me to get professional help. I needed to understand and find clarity. And in this clarity, I began to understand that, as a result of this unnecessary childhood event, I built a cage of protection around myself. I had tons of friends, and many that wanted to go deeper. Yet, I held them at arm’s length, in fear.
What I found was this trauma was still affecting me as an adult. I had to understand that there was nothing about my childhood experience that was holding me back today. I was holding myself back. And the more I held myself back, the more my perpetrator was winning over me.
And I held the power to break the pain and escape the cage that was holding me back. And this freedom came by stopping the mental power this person had over my life. There was nothing he was doing in the present to hold me back—only I had that power. And with a mindset shift, I could be free.
This wasn’t a “journey” to freedom. There was no place to go. Rather, it was a mental shift. And I was strong enough to make the shift.
Many of us have areas in our past that restrain us from forming open relationships with people around us. Perhaps, like my case, it’s a childhood trauma. Perhaps it’s our limited view of our self. Perhaps it’s labels that authorities in our life have stuck on us. Perhaps it’s parents that never believed in us. We all have our own limiting beliefs. And some are large enough to hold us back.
Are you comfortable being transparent with people around you? If not, what’s holding you back? I encourage you to speak it. Identify it. But if it’s holding you back, I suggest you find your own path to freedom.
There’s so much joy on the other side, and I extend a hand for you to join me.
4. Show confidence
Your audience will pick up on how you view yourself. If you lack confidence, they’ll know. And if you’re too confident, they’ll notice that, too. Neither will serve you well. It’s important that you establish your expertise. But you certainly don’t want to do it in a boastful way. The trick is to frame your past success in terms of why it matters now. What role does it have to play in meeting your audience’s objectives?
Your confidence can be contagious. It’ll help build a mutual natural trust. You know what you’re doing, and they’ll take note. And they’ll likely trust you. But you must also show an openness to continuing to learn.
As an expert in your field, if you can show your confidence along with a willingness to listen and grow, you’ll likely score big on the trust meter.
5. Be truthful
This sounds like a foregone conclusion, right? But, according to liespotting.com, human beings are lied to as many as 200 times a day.
In swearing-in ceremonies, you’ll likely hear this affirmation on something similar: “I promise to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.” Being truly honest with your audience requires more than speaking simple truths. It requires giving them complete information. That may mean telling them things they don’t want to hear. That’s the whole truth.
6. Make people feel safe
Creating a space that is safe seems to be a hot topic. We all have reasons not to trust others. Perhaps we’ve been burned in the past. Perhaps we’ve had business deals that have soured. Maybe the person we trusted lied to us.
I think the current national narrative around safe spaces is making people more open and aware about times when they didn’t feel safe, and how that can affect one’s life and the need to collectively create safe spaces. From sexual abuse by priests, business leaders, elected officials, and others, to a general feeling of anxiety, people too often just don’t feel safe.
You can—to some degree—change that for your audience. Making your audience feel safe will impact their view of you and, ultimately, their trust. It’s important to recognize boundaries, to know when it’s time to show some reserve. You must respect personal space, which varies from person to person. Again, this underscores the importance of coming t
o know your audience and of an openness and willingness to listen.
7. Say “no” sometimes
I admit this seems contradictory. We’ve talked about delivering, meeting your audience’s needs, and filling gaps. But saying “no” can add to your credibility and build trust.
We discussed, earlier, the importance of sometimes saying no, in order to avoid overcommitting. Here’s another reason to do so.
Imagine feeling chest pain, going to your primary care physician, and having your primary care physician offer to do openheart surgery on you. I’d be taken back. How about you?
While working with your audience, there may be things that are outside of your core competency—your area of expertise. Trying to do everything is a sure-fire formula for disaster.
You can’t be everything to everyone. It just won’t work.
So, when asked to do things that are not part of your area of expertise, offer to bring in another partner for that piece of the work. As long as you bring in a competent partner, you’ll likely not disappoint your audience or lose trust. In fact, the trust factor will likely go up.
