Influence Technique - Essay Example

The Art of Persuasion Influencing other people is not an easy task because they have their own faculties of thinking. Rejection is possible as people provide different reasons or excuses as a reaction to an idea or concept. Also, people come from different backgrounds and have their own perspectives. Thus, seeing some leader or speaker being able to persuade a big group is admirable. However, not only leaders nor managers need persuasive skills. Ordinary individuals would greatly benefit from learning how to influence other people.

In fact, there’s a saying that ‘You don’t get what you deserve, you get what you negotiated for”. I had my chance to apply the persuasion technique once when I worked part-time as a life planner. A life planner ( commonly known as an insurance salesman) is not an easy job. The rewards are great but a person must be equipped with good persuasive skills to become successful in this field. During the training, we were equipped with all the information we needed to educate potential clients; however, the real experience presents a lot of surprises for a rookie.

Before graduating from the training, we must pass a role-playing with a very critical customer. This means I must be able to handle all the rejections carefully and convert them into neutral statements. The main point of the test is to sell the concept of life insurance and sell our services to the person. The person I was trying to influence is a married man who comes from a middle-class family. He is knows the value of life insurance but does not know much about our company. The strategy employed.

The strategy I used was reciprocity for a number of reasons. First, it is our first time to meet so there is no interpersonal relationship yet. Rather, both parties were using mutual trust on the assumption that we’re both professionals. Also, I have something to offer that can provide long term benefits for the person. The potential client’s need can be met by my company’s services provided, I can persuade him why our services are far more superior than competitors. We both believe that we need something from one another.

I need him as a client while he also needs the services of a good company. We both have something to offer to one another. Having decided that reciprocity strategy works best for this situation, I proceeded in establishing rapport with the client by sharing stories about myself. This eased both of us as we began to have a relaxed atmosphere. I was given as much as time I want to explain all the services that my company offered. Indeed, there were questions such as pricing concerns, but I was able to handle that by emphasizing the advantage of our company such as good customer relationship and reliability that money can’t buy.

The customer agreed after most of his questions were answered so the deal was closed. Assessment of the strategy. The strategy is very effective since it helped me establish a warm relationship with the client I met for the first time. There were also instances wherein I used reasoning to accommodate the client’s question but only after I have established trust and confidence. The strategy is effective because it helps the presenter to feel first the situation before using reasoning tactics.

Too many reasoning can put off someone you met for the first time. Relationship building should be done first before presenting the benefits of the services in this case. Nevertheless, a presenter can still use some tactics from reasoning strategy depending on the listener’s attitude. In my case, I trusted my intuition and emotional intelligence to gauge the other person’s attitude. In conclusion, individuals must learn how to employ the correct strategy to persuade other people. Also, preparation is essential as well as practice because some real-life situations never allow second chances.

If one is prepared and knows the rights strategy, success would surely follow.