12 Principles of Influence in Sales

In your career as a sales professional, you know that you want to influence people and events - but do you feel that you can successfully accomplish this goal?  Here are 12 specific principles of influence that the best sales people consistently use.

1. ATTENTION - Top sellers capture the attention of busy prospects. They are memorable in prospecting and in sales conversation. They break through the noise. They highlight their differentiation. You can't influence someone if they're focused on something else.

2. CURIOSITY - Once you have someone's attention, the easiest thing to do is to lose it. Your goal is to pique and hold the prospect's curiosity.  Curiosity is a powerful concept. People know what they have, but they want to know what they are missing.

3. DESIRE - Desire is the gap between where someone is and where he wants to be. The more you can stoke someone's desire to change his reality, the more you'll be able to influence him.  When buyers start to see what's in it for them, they start to become emotionally involved in wanting whatever it is.

4. ENVY - Desire is powerful. Envy is desire with a turbo boost.  If your prospect wants something they don't have, their desire will drive them.  If they want something that other people have, their unhappiness will eat away at them until they get it.

5. EMOTIONAL JOURNEY - People forget what you tell them, but they remember how they feel.  Top sales people, leaders, and professionals take prospects on an emotional journey, often through stories that evoke emotional responses.  This emotional journey helps prospects to feel the pain where they are, and feel what the happiness and fulfillment will be like in their better future.

6. BELIEF - You'll have maximum ability to influence people when prospects believe that things could be better, should be better, and can actually get better if they buy from you. The more convinced they are that your solution will succeed, the more willing they will be to move forward.

7. JUSTIFICATION - People buy with their hearts and justify with their heads. Even if you are able to capture the hearts of your buyers (through the emotional journey you take them on), if you cant make the ROI case for working with you, you won't make the sale.

8. TRUST - The principle of trust works closely with the principle of belief.  Belief is faith that something will work, trust is faith in you.  Trust is the foundation of the sale. No trust, no sale.

9. STEPPING STONES - Once people get on a path, they're much more likely to stay on that path. People are driven to be consistent. So if you get them to try or buy something from you once, even if it is small, they are much more likely to buy again.

10. DESIRE FOR INCLUSION - People don't want to be left out. They want to feel included. If the best companies are purchasing a certain technology, they want to be in on it.

11. LIKEABILITY - People buy from people they like. They interact with people they like. Likeability creates and enhances opportunity for conversations at all stages. And, as we know, conversations are at the heart of sales success.

12. COMMITMENT - Rainmakers are great at getting buyers to agree to next steps. Written and public commitments are stronger than verbal and private commitments. The best sellers ask for commitment at the right time, get signatures, and get buyers to communicate commitments publicly.