Influencing Clients To Win Their Long Term Support

Mark Goulston and John Ullmen's book Real Influence, which was published this year, has the subtitle 'Persuade Without Pushing and Gain Without Giving In' and its review by Soundview Executive Summaries captured its key premise as follows

Are you frustrated because you fail to get people to buy into your great ideas, can't close the deal on tough sales or constantly hit the wall when you try to influence people?

If so, you're not alone - we know that it's harder than ever to influence people, because the old rules of persuasion no longer work.Today we live in a post-selling and post-pushing world. As people grow more aware of manipulative tactics, their guard goes up. We call this outdated strategy disconnected influence. It's a shortsighted strategy that sometimes creates momentary "buy-in" but often at the expense of your relationships and reputation.

“When you practice disconnected influence, you're stuck in what we call your here. You can see your position, your facts and your intentions clearly. But to connect with the people you're trying to influence, you need to communicate from a perspective we call "their there". You need to see their position, their facts and their intentions clearly. To reach people and win their long-term support, you need to stop pushing. Instead, you need to influence them in ways that spark a genuine connection.”

Through FranklinCovey's work with client facing teams, we recognise the dysfunctional behaviours involved in 'pushing' and 'manipulating', and more importantly the sub-optimal responses this encourages in clients as their 'guard goes up'. We also recognise that one of the main challenges teams in this situation can have is not just to overcome their own habits, which may have been established over a number of years, but also the embedded beliefs clients hold about them having been subjected to these old-style behaviours for an extended period of time.

The alternative advice, to 'spark a genuine connection', makes good sense, and it is in translating this advice into reality for client facing teams that FranklinCovey has been focused on for over 10 years. We do this by recognising the importance of 'Intent' in the client relationship and then establishing an intent which both parties can feel good about. While for many this can provide a breakthrough moment, it is only the start of the work, as what follows must be a pattern of behaviour which is congruent with the intent established while mutually (and effectively) explore a clients needs.

For relationship managers who embrace and work hard to develop these capabilities, they can achieve transformational outcomes for both them and their clients. For those who do not, the best they can hope for is a client's "momentary buy-in" rather than their long term support.