Influence PEOPLE: Powerful Everyday Opportunities to Persuade that are Lasting and Ethical

By Brian Ahearn

Would understanding how people typically think and behave beforeyou engage in a difficult conversation, tough negotiation, or make a simple request be helpful? Of course. Brian Ahearn’s new book, Influence PEOPLE,explores the science behind the influence process—what drives people to take the actions you w

• Language: English
• Publisher: Influence PEOPLE, LLC
• Release date: Aug 9, 2019
• ISBN: 9781733178518

Brian Ahearn

"You hit it out of the park! The last time I've seen such high marks was when we had Colin Powell as our keynote a few years ago!" - Jim Hackbarth, President & CEO, Assurex Global Brian Ahearn is the Chief Influence Officer at Influence PEOPLE. A dynamic international keynote speaker, trainer, coach and consultant, Brian specializes in applying the science of influence and persuasion in everyday situations. He is one of only 20 individuals in the world who currently holds the Cialdini Method Certified Trainer® designation. This specialization in the psychology of persuasion was earned directly from Robert B. Cialdini, Ph.D. - the most cited living social psychologist in the world on the science of ethical persuasion. Brian is one of only a handful of people certified to lead the Moment Maker Workshop, which is based on Robert Cialdini's New York Times bestselling book Pre-suasion. Brian's passion is to help you achieve greater professional success and enjoy more personal happiness. He does this by teaching you how to ethically move others to action using the science of persuasion. Always looking to perfect his presentation skills, Brian regularly does improv comedy and some occasional acting. This enables him to have fast-paced, lively and engaging presentations. When Brian isn't busy influencing he enjoys physical activity and travel. In his younger days he was a competitive powerlifter and bodybuilder. When he decided to put the weights down, he took up long-distance running, twice qualifying for and competing in the historic Boston Marathon. An avid martial artist, he is a 2nd degree black belt in Taekwondo. A Scotch lover, to celebrate their 30th anniversary he and his wife Jane spent three weeks in Scotland and Ireland. Brian and Jane have one daughter, Abigail, who is studying to be an American Sign Language (ASL) interpreter

Book preview

Professional Success and Personal Happiness

Much of your professional success and personal happiness depends on getting others to say Yes to you. Do you believe that? I’ve certainly found that to be the case in life. My business career started in the insurance industry immediately after college and I quickly learned my value to my employer was contingent on my ability to make good business decisions. But, no matter how good I thought my decisions were, I always had to convince someone else what I was proposing was the right course of action – a customer, my manager, the field associates I trained, someone in the home office and more! Bottom line, I needed to persuade others my ideas would help grow the business profitably.

After marrying Jane and starting a family, I began to see persuasion was helpful on a personal level because I saw how it could lead to more peace and happiness in our home. Wouldn’t it be nice to know how to communicate with your kids – especially teenagers – with less friction while dramatically increasing the odds of hearing Yes? Avoiding the pushback that so often comes with adolescence can make for a more peaceful, happy home.

If you agree getting to Yes will help your professional success and personal happiness, then this book is for you because you’ll learn the mental shortcuts people use to make quick decisions. This is especially important in the information and marketing-overloaded society we find ourselves in. In this book you’ll learn how people think and behave. More importantly, you’ll find concrete examples to help you apply the psychology of persuasion – ethically – to everyday situations. By the end of this book my goal is to have you think: I see how I could use this at work and at home.

Let’s start by telling you what this information isn’t – a magic wand. No one can guarantee everyone will do what you want all the time. Even behavior experts like Robert Cialdini and Dan Ariely can’t make that claim. However, their work and the work of countless other social psychologists and behavioral economists clearly shows you can move significantly more people to do what you want if you apply the science of influence ethically and correctly.

One more disclaimer – I’m not a social psychologist nor behavioral economist although I was personally trained by Robert Cialdini, the most cited living social psychologist in the world today on the subject of influence and persuasion. While not an academic, I have something every bit as important: real world application. I’m proud Dr. Cialdini wrote this about me:

When Brian Ahearn speaks, people listen. That is so because he knows his material thoroughly, and he knows how to present it superbly. The upshot is that the genuine insights he provides are not just immediately understandable, they are also immediately actionable and profitable.

I shared a couple of disclaimers and now I’ll make a claim – if you take the time to learn about the psychology of persuasion and diligently apply the scientifically proven principles you will be more successful in your career and you will enjoy more happiness in your personal life. I know this because science says more people will say Yes to you.

Why Influence is all about PEOPLE

Influence isn’t just about leading followers. While leaders need to influence individuals who report directly to them, quite often they have to persuade their bosses, peers and people outside their organizations to buy into their ideas. And just because you’re not in a formal leadership position you still need to influence people.

Influence is all about PEOPLE; those Powerful Everyday Opportunities to Persuade that are Lasting and Ethical. Understanding the principles of influence allows you to ethically leverage human psychology and increase your opportunity to hear that magic word everyone wants to hear when they make a request – Yes! Let’s unpack our acronym PEOPLE because it gives you a foundation for the rest of this book.

Powerful

Education is the most powerful weapon you can use to change the world.

Nelson Mandela, statesman, President of South Africa

What you’ll learn is powerful because it’s based on a vast body of research – more than 70 years – into the science of influence and human decision-making from social psychologists and behavioral economists. Some giants of the field include Solomon Asch, Robert Cialdini, Dan Ariely, Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky, to name just a few.

When I was a young, competitive bodybuilder I read all the latest books and magazines because I wanted to know what the top bodybuilders did to get such great results. Along with so many other Arnold Schwarzenegger wannabes in gyms throughout the world, I tried the killer workouts of the top competitors, usually disappointingly so. What us wannabes didn’t know was many of those bodybuilders were freaks of nature. They had the genetics to do almost anything and grow. Much like elite cyclists or marathon runners, the top bodybuilders could tolerate intense workouts most ordinary people couldn’t. In other words, their advice didn’t work for the average person and quite often was counterproductive!

That same thought sometimes applies to people’s best advice when it comes to influence. It’s interesting to know what worked for Steve Jobs, Jeff Bezos, Oprah Winfrey, Barack Obama, Ronald Reagan, and other famous people but that doesn’t mean it will work for you. In fact, people of their stature sometimes do things wrong and still get positive results! However, they too could be more persuasive by employing scientifically proven ways to communicate.

Dale Carnegie was neither a social psychologist nor behavioral economist but he deserves mention. He authored How to Win Friends and Influence People and it’s one of the best-selling books of all time – because Dale Carnegie’s material works! He studied very successful people and compiled their tips on how to win friends and influence people. Much of what he wrote ties directly to the concepts you’ll read about throughout this book. Dale Carnegie would have made a great social psychologist because he astutely observed human behavior and had a deep understanding about how people thought and behaved.

Everyday

"The remarkable thing is, we have a choice every day regarding the attitude we will embrace for the day.

Charles Swindoll, preacher

When was the last time a whole day went by where you had no interaction at all with another human being? Don’t forget to count phone, email, text and social media as people interactions.

I’m sure a few readers get away to nature, finding places so remote even cell phones don’t work, but those occasions are the exception in this day and age. The vast majority of people interact with other individuals every day. During these interactions it’s a sure bet many are trying to persuade others to change their thinking and behavior.

Have you thought about how much time you spend persuading others at work? If you’re like the 7,000 people Dan Pink mentioned in his book To Sell is Human, then about 40% of your day is spent in non-sales selling. In other words, more than three hours of your typical workday is spent trying to persuade people to do things!

Influence skills truly come in handy on a daily basis. One reason I enjoy teaching others about the science of influence is because whether they’re at work, home or any other place where they interact with people, understanding how humans think and make decisions is incredibly useful, every day.

Opportunities

Luck is where preparation meets opportunity.

Seneca, Roman philosopher

The good news is, the more you learn, the more your eyes will open to opportunities that have been there all along.

Consider the following question I often ask audiences – Last time you bought a car, did you notice your new car on the road more in the days immediately after your purchase?

The answer is always Yes! which is followed by this question – Were there really more of your new car on the road in the days after your purchase?

People chuckle because they know everyone else didn’t suddenly buy the same car they just bought. With that acknowledgement I inquire – Then what changed? Usually someone says, My perspective. That’s right, their perspective, or more accurately, their focus changed. As a result, they started noticing something that had been there all along. And so it is when you learn the ins and outs of persuasion.

When you get to the section of the book that describes the principles of influence you’ll probably think to yourself, I know that. The reason you’ll intuitively understand the principles is because they formally describe human behavior you’ve observed. You might recall times when you responded to certain principles or instances where you saw others respond to you because, knowingly or unknowingly, you used some principles of influence. Although you may intuitively understand them, ethically and strategically using them to persuade others can be challenging.

This bears repeating: The good news is, the more you learn, the more your eyes will open to opportunities that have been there all along.

Here’s an example, a time when my former company finally realized an opportunity we’d been missing. For years we’d been sending an email to prospective insurance agents. We incorporated one short paragraph into our marketing campaign. After trying the new email, our Senior VP of Sales excitedly told me he’d already heard back from eight agents – within an hour of emailing! Eight was a lot when he went on to say prior to that change he’d never heard back from any agents within an hour of sending our marketing email. That is, he saw a noticeable change in customer behavior based on one small but significant wording change, which was exactly what we wanted! We recognized an opportunity and we had the influence skills to make the most of