In the Sales and Marketing world, we are judged by few other things more than our ability to influence others. We not only have to influence customers, often we have to influence our organizations to respond to the needs of those darn customers. There are more books written about influencing than anything else in sales. In recent times, Influence Marketing has popped up as a new buzzword. I think part of this “new” trend is because we can now measure more with big data and, as a result, have far more reaching marketing “influence”.
The one truth that I believe is that Influence Marketing, if we would like to use this term, will become more prevalent. As our measurements get better and better, we will use it more and more and customers may become less and less trustworthy. We already have a tendency to back-off from the more polished advertisements and brochures tuning them out except for the now famous super-bowl ads. Even those we view only as entertainment.
I view influence as more of sales skill versus a marketing tool. With that said, influencing is more than communication. It is a method that requires the ability to understand the situation and the organization/person and adjust your behavior accordingly while still having the desired outcome in mind. It is a learned skill and one, I believe to be the most important skill for a salesperson to acquire.
I have discussed in the blog posts, Increase your Innovation Capacity: Manage your Sphere of Influence, and Mapping Expectations of Customer Behavior the importance in using marketing strategies based on your ability to influence.
In one of those little book treasures that I have acquired over the years, Exercising Influence: A Guide For Making Things Happen at Work, at Home, and in Your Community the author discusses three basic ways that you influence people or organizations. You can do nothing and just see what happens. Your can be Expressive, which most of us spend the majority of the time with. Or, you are reflective where we should spend most of our time. Actually, there is not one best way. The best way is understanding when to use which one. All of will have a preference and be better at certain ones, but we should spend our time recognizing the needs that our customer requires at any given.