Practical tips. Prompts to get you thinking. The odd rant.

  In his best-selling book, ‘Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion’, Professor Robert Cialdini sets out six ways to influence others: Liking Reciprocity Social proof Commitment and consistency Scarcity Authority Based on participants’ questions in my workshops on topics such as presentations, communication or – surprise – influencing and persuading*, the last of the six can… Read more

In Zoomly’s ‘How to negotiate’ workshop (co-created with ‘How to pay less for more’ author Marc Lockley), after participants have practised negotiating with each other, we debrief and ask for insights gained. One of the big ‘aha’ moments people report is the power of asking the right questions – and the perils of asking the… Read more

  Right at the start of Zoomly’s ‘How to influence and persuade’ workshop, we discuss the importance of influencing for mutual benefit. If that’s your goal, chances are you won’t sink to using manipulation, which is a concern people naturally have about this topic. The simple way to decide if someone’s influencing or manipulating is… Read more

  This question frequently comes up in workshops about influencing, persuading and negotiating: “Surely a compromise IS a win:win – right?” Erm, not really – although at first glance, it may appear to be. However, the difference is important, whether you’re negotiating B2B with multiple stakeholders, agreeing terms on your new job contract or deciding… Read more

When I ask workshop participants to assess their negotiation process, they often realise that a) they may not have one and b) they’ve been neglecting the first essential step: preparation. Author of How to pay less for more and my co-creator of Zoomly’s ‘How to negotiate’ workshop Marc Lockley says that preparation accounts for up… Read more

The most effective sales tools we have are our ears. Yes, those lovely, funny shaped flappy things on each side of our head. When you’re in a selling situation, do you do more talking than listening? We often think of salespeople being ‘smooth talkers’ – yet being full of the blarney isn’t a great selling… Read more

To clarify, this post isn’t about how to manipulate people and somehow put one over on them. That’s neither respectful nor likely to build trust in the long-term. In Zoomly’s ‘How to influence and persuade’ workshop the point is made from the start. There are multiple everyday situations when we simply want to be heard,… Read more

  When you’re working and collaborating with clients, suppliers, colleagues, team members, what questions do you hear? What questions do you ask? Most of us don’t give it too much thought – it’s just a conversation, right? Well, yes and no. Yes, I hope you have two-way conversations with these people. No, asking the right… Read more

Very often when people think of working on their communication skills, they’ll say they need to boost their speaking / presentation / influencing skills. Fair enough – those are indeed applications of communication skills – yet I have a sneaking suspicion that the focus is on transmitting more than receiving. I think the most under-rated… Read more

For some time now I’ve been doing a fair bit of work around collaboration – at least that’s generally the starting point. Yet when we dig deeper into what’s really going on ‘collaboration’ may be what someone says they want, but isn’t really what they’re after. The harsh reality is they actually want someone else… Read more