Persuasion and Influence Training
Influence Without Authority™
Based on Aristotle. Effective Today.
SNI’s Persuasion and Influence Training Program, Influence Without Authority, is designed to help participants influence others and their decisions. In many cases, people try to get things done without understanding the other individuals involved in the process, their motivations and needs, and how they make decisions.
Examples include:
- Pharmaceutical sales reps trying to convince a doctor to prescribe their product
- Managers attempting to persuade their finance department to increase a budget
- Financial advisors motivating clients to make a specific investment
- Government agencies jockeying to secure political support for an initiative
- Marketers trying to write more compelling content
Influence Without Authority™ is based on SNI’s book, Persuade, which provides an updated approach to an ancient philosopher’s process. Aristotle taught in 350 B.C. that there are three elements to influence: Ethos (credibility), Pathos (emotion), and Logos (logic). Using this framework, participants are taught how these three components affect decision-making and how combining it with a fourth step, facilitates action, and provides a powerful process to effectively persuade others.
The principles outlined in Persuade are simple, easy to implement, and ultimately game-changing. After having worked with the authors, I have seen firsthand what an impact they had on our organization. This book will make you better at persuasion and provide the catalyst for real change that sticks. You will thoroughly enjoy reading this book and be glad you did!
—Julie Kadnar, Divisional President, Great American Insurance Group, Property & Inland Marine
The ultimate success in creating and maintaining business relationships requires implementing a systematic framework to achieve one’s influencing and persuasion objectives. This framework has four key parts:
Build Credibility
Within this training, participants are first given methods of building credibility faster. If you lack credibility, there is very little you can do to convince the other side. Credibility needs to be built and this can take a long time but our training teaches participants how they can speed up the process and build credibility faster.
Engage Emotions
Next, participants learn the emotions that drive the other side’s interests and impact decisions. People make decisions emotionally and then justify them rationally. That is why it is so important to understand how to harness emotions, your own and others, in the process of influence and persuasion. Participants will be armed with the knowledge and tools to engage emotions to help them influence decisions and people more effectively.
Demonstrate Logic
Once credibility has been established and emotions have been engaged, logical arguments can be used. Most people gravitate toward using logic to persuade others – while it is important, it often fails if not used in conjunction with the aforementioned aspects.
Facilitate Action
Finally, facilitating action is the natural culmination of the three previous steps. After all, agreement without action is just a conversation. Participants will learn how to move from conversation to commitment, getting the “yes” and closing the deal.
Influence training participants will learn
Several specific tactics that help build credibility and trust quickly
Ways to engage emotions depending on the situation and person
When and how to present arguments in a manner most likely to succeed
How to match their strategies to various personality styles
“SNI’s Influencing program was original and effective and far exceeding our expectations as they ran live virtual sessions for our North America and EMEA Teams. Their sessions were interactive, entertaining and highly informative with concrete action items that everyone immediately applied to. They filled the need beyond expectation and were, as usual, easy to work with!”
Alex Tremblot, VP Group Commercial Excellence, Air Liquide
A unique module that can be added to our training is the DiSC Personality Assessment. DiSC is a tool that helps people understand their own personalities as well as the personalities of the people they are trying to influence. Additionally, it allows for organizations/teams to use a common language when discussing behavioral traits and differences. Whether a participant falls under Dominance – results driven and confident; Influence – lays emphasis on relationships; Steadiness – driven by cooperation, sincerity, and dependability; or Consciousness –focus on quality, accuracy, expertise, and competency; there are pros and cons to each style and increasing self awareness and the understanding of other’s styles is a critical factor in effectively influencing behavior.
