He told me he really liked an email I’d sent him and that he’d be writing about it in a future book. I had no idea he’d actually written about it until a lovely lady who works for a bank in Iowa contacted me out of the blue citing an article he’d written. I then discovered that it had appeared in many different publications, including:

• The Idaho Business Review — How to make your emails deliver the click
• Midlands Biz, Columbia, South Carolina — Set the hook, get the email
• Crain’s Detroit Business — Set the hook, get the click, capture the e-mail address, and bank the money

Since I don’t consider myself to be a copywriter, it gave me an ego boost. But more importantly, the article makes some very good points about what made Jeffrey “click” on the link in email. So I asked Jeffrey if I could share his article with you, and he kindly agreed. Here’s what he wrote:

I got an unsolicited email this morning that gave me no choice but to read it. My interest had to do with the subject line, the headline, the design of the content, and the copy.

The subject line was: Jeffrey, How to go from market penetration to domination. Ok, I clicked to open:

Then the headline: What one thing determines your success in business, more than any other single factor? Ok, I read it. The very tastefully designed letter said:

Hello Jeffrey,

This is Robert Clay.

If you were asked what one thing determines your success in business more than any other single factor, what would you answer?

Perhaps you’d say it was down to the quality of your product or service, or your people, or trust, or competitive prices, or availability, or profitability, or the number of customers who return to do business with you again.

These are the responses I get all the time. While they’re all good answers, the biggest factor that determines your success in the marketplace is one that is hardly ever written or spoken about … and in ten years not one person, out of the thousands I’ve asked, has been able to tell me what it is.

Perhaps you’ve heard me speaking on the subject in the past, or read about it in my book. The point is, once you know that one factor that makes a world of difference, you can take a few simple steps to move your business from market penetration to market domination.

Just look at Google who now have 85% of the global search engine market; and Apple, now the world’s most valuable technology company, who dominate the market for music players, smartphones, computers priced over £600, and now tablet computers too.

When times are tough you REALLY need to work smart. You need to do what Google, Apple and others have done. You need to know that one factor that can change everything for you.

That factor is explained in my book on Page 10. And you’re welcome to download a copy with my compliments, with absolutely no obligation. Just click here, enter your name and email address, click the confirm link on the email you receive and you’ll be taken to a page where you can download the book immediately.

If you enjoy the book, let me know. If what you learn leads to the transformation of your business, as it has for some, then be sure to let me know!

Click here to get your copy of my book, with my compliments.

Warmest Wishes,

Robert Clay
Marketing Wizdom Ltd

Ok, I clicked, subscribed and downloaded the free book, and immediately went to page 10 to find the answer… Eh, not so fast. That’s not what this lesson is about. The point of this article is for you to see what Robert Clay’s writing was about, what got me to “click,” and most important: how can you use these same elements in your communications – both as email cold calls, and email follow-ups.

The object of an email is NOT to get it opened and read. The object of an email is to get RESPONSE. Positive response.

Here are the “buttons” Robert Clay pushed to make me “click here” to get the free report and the answer to his headline question:

• He asked me provocative questions.
• He made me curious.
• The letter had value-driven engagement.
• The message had perceived value to me as a reader.
• The letter had a free “hook” offer that promised “value-first.”
• The letter had NO offer or obligation to buy anything.
• Clay offered new information.
• Clay offered success information.
• The letter offered something about or for ME!
• The letter had the lure of an “answer” about something I want.
• The letter met a now-need that I have (timing of the message). I want to know this, or have this, NOW.

The reason I’m sharing this information is not to prove a point, or even to provide an “AHA.” I’m giving you this information and challenging you to take a close look at the way you send emails, and the way they are responded to (or not).

Now that you have seen what makes me click, why not study what makes your customers and prospective customers click. What’s their button? What answers are they looking for? Where’s your value?

Or are you just “checking in” or “touching base,” making a feeble (and obvious) attempt at trolling for dollars.

In today’s world you have no choice but to be seen, known, and perceived as a person of value if you want to differentiate yourself, make the sale, and build the relationship.

Every sales oriented email you send should answer the question, “Where’s the value?”

If you want the answer to the question of what one thing determines your success in business, more than any other single factor? Go to www.gitomer.com and enter the word CLAY in the GitBit box.

Jeffrey Gitomer is the author of The New York Times best sellers The Sales Bible, The Little Red Book of Selling, The Little Black Book of Connections, and The Little Gold Book of YES! Attitude. All of his books have been number one best sellers on Amazon.com, including Customer Satisfaction is Worthless, Customer Loyalty is Priceless, The Patterson Principles of Selling, The Little Red Book of Sales Answers, The Little Green Book of Getting Your Way, The Little Platinum Book of Cha-Ching!, and The Little Teal Book of Trust. Jeffrey’s books have sold millions of copies worldwide.

President of Charlotte, North Carolina based Buy Gitomer, he gives seminars, runs annual sales meetings, and conducts Internet training programs on selling and customer service at www.trainone.com. He can be reached at (+1) 704-333-1112 or e-mail to salesman@gitomer.com.

What have you learned from the email and Jeffrey’s challenge to the way you write emails to achieve a response? Please share your thoughts below.

Brought to you by Robert Clay - Visit Website

Robert Clay is an entrepreneur and marketer who has been growing businesses since age 19. He has studied and mastered more than 200 of the world’s most successful marketing strategies, building-up an unprecedented 1.8 million page knowledgebase. For a decade he conducted an experiment which transformed the thinking of hundreds of entrepreneurs, and has now launched an extraordinary new program that helps aspiring market leaders to create breakthrough marketing results.

If you’ve enjoyed this post and want to be notified when other new articles come up, just click here. To get your free copy of Robert's well regarded book “Learn how to grow your business … in just two hours: An introduction to low risk/high-return marketing strategies that will help you transform your business”, click here. If you would like to share any of your personal experiences, observations or the results you’ve achieved using these or similar tips, please leave your comments and/or thoughts below. We always love to hear from you:

Think about it. Every single day, your customers, prospects, and employees are inundated with information from e-mail, voicemails, spam, and memos. So how do you get your important messages across to them in a way that doesn’t get lost in all of that noise? The answer is podcasts.

So what is a podcast?

Podcasts are the new way of distributing audio content. A podcast is an audio or video recording that someone can subscribe to, receive, download, listen to, or watch using a their computer, iPod, M3 player, iPhone, iPad or smartphone. Your customers and prospects can therefore listen to or watch this information whenever and wherever they wish—in their cars, during lunch, in the evening, at the office, at the gym, while jogging, at the beach, up a mountain, by a lake or even on their day off.

A podcast resembles a TV programme or radio show, but is much easier to create and distribute. And it costs nothing to do so. Podcasting requires you to create an audio file, then make it known and available, as described below.

Why podcasting might be a good idea

If you’ve never considered podcasting, let me give you some more reasons why you should. For one thing, tens of millions of people around the world already subscribe to podcasts on virtually any topic you can imagine, and that number is growing exponentially. Even 9 year old schoolkids in the UK are now taught podcasting … which means that it will soon be ubiquitous.

Today’s college students get recordings (podcasts) of their professors’ lectures to play back later. Some company CEOs send out monthly messages to their workers via a podcast. Thanks to groups of dedicated podcasters, you can also take self-guided tours of several museums and landmark buildings by downloading an audio tour before you leave home. The potential uses for podcasts are only limited by your imagination.

Most people think of podcasts as audio files, if indeed they even know what podcasts are. But that is no longer necessarily the case. Podcasts today are a vehicle for many types of media that individuals can use as a means of delivering standalone content, or easily integrated into social media.

It’s easy to add music, digital photographs, company logos, animations, videos or anything else it takes to get your message across.

Thousands of hours of audio in your pocket

The ability to download, organise and carry thousands of hours of songs, audio recordings, podcasts and other programs on a device you can slip into your pocket is amazing. And with the convergence of technology, Apple’s iPhone and iPad also have iPods built-in. Most smartphones also offer broadly comparable capabilities.

Audio is particularly appealing to people on the go, and it has certain advantages over text-based tools and even video. It’s unlikely that you’re going to read something or view video while you’re exercising, but audio is the perfect companion.

Why do you suppose so many car manufacturers are rushing to make their cars iPod-compatible? Because so many people who drive—especially those who spend a lot of time in their cars—like to listen to music, news, sport, politics, weather, and other forms of audio information.

Historically, this was the exclusive domain of radio, an industry that was built upon finding ways to entertain, inform, and then sell stuff to a captive audience of drivers during the highly lucrative drive-time hours. But that was then.

Car manufacturers today know that iPods and iPhones have become such ubiquitous and indispensable devices that people want to integrate them with their in-car hi-fi systems. And now you and your business can be there too, and in all of the other places people take their iPods and smartphones, provided you know why, when, and how to make podcasting part of your business strategy.

Creating and sharing audio

If you’re in any way daunted by the prospect of recording and editing audio, don’t be. Creating and sharing audio is a doddle. There’s even a good chance that all the tools you need are already built in to your computer or iPhone. In any event it doesn’t take long to get up to speed with audio recording, editing and sharing. And once you’ve created your audio content it’s easy to host it on your blog, or use any of a number of sites that are dedicated to hosting podcasts.

It’s also quick and easy to upload your podcasts to iTunes. Since 85% of all podcasts globally originate on iTunes, being featured there potentially exposes you to millions of prospective customers or advocates. And a percentage of them will be searching for exactly what you offer, however exotic your line of business.

OK, that’s the theory. What about the practice?

In the top 10 on iTunes at my first attempt

Encouraged by Ian Scott, who interviewed me for one of his podcasts a few months ago, click here, I recently had my first attempt at putting together two podcasts and submitting them to iTunes, the world’s largest distribution channel for such recordings.

I merely recorded the content of a couple of blogs I’d already written because I needed to work out a step by step process to pass on to participants in my Eureka program so that they could gain hands-on familiarity with the process, as part of a much wider social media strategy. This was one of fifteen familiarisation exercises, each one using a different social media tool.

I had no particular expectations of success. It was just an experiment that took an evening from start to finish. But to my utter amazement the two podcasts reached the top 10 best selling marketing and management titles on iTunes exactly three weeks after submission, and were also featured in the top 3 new and noteworthy podcasts. This was completely unexpected, and I probably wouldn’t even have even known had Ian Scott not alerted me. Click here to hear the podcasts.

Based on what I learned from the exercise, I wrote up around 3-pages of notes on podcasting and incorporated them into the Social Media Roadmap manual I was creating for participants in my invitation-only Eureka program. That manual is one first of four such publications I’ve been developing on social media and online marketing, and much of this article has been extracted from it. Click here to view the curriculum for the first three years of the Eureka program and where social media fits into the picture.

Creating a podcast step by step

Step 1: Download iTunes. If you don’t already have iTunes on your computer, go to www.Apple.com, and download it for your Mac or Windows PC.

Step 2: Try iTunes. Try it, even if you don’t plan on buying and downloading music. See how the interface works.

Step 3: Prepare a podcast. Creating your own podcasts is easy, so don’t be daunted if you’ve never created one. Think about WIIFM (What’s In It for Me?), from your customers’ and prospects’ point of view. What can you tell them in 10 minutes or less that is important to them?

Gather information. Write an opening explaining who you are, what your subject matter is, and what you will be talking about.

Write a script for your content based on your area of professional expertise or other subject matter of interest to you. Or prepare a few bullet points so that you can just talk spontaneously on the subject, without sounding too rehearsed or rigid. And if you don’t want to plan out your podcast—then it’s fine to just wing it!

Write your close or sign-off, reminding your audience who you are; what your subject matter is, and where they can find out more.

Step 4: Download your sound editing software. Plenty of inexpensive or free sound editing software is available to record your podcast. A lot of podcasters use Audacity. It provides easy-to-use, high-quality tools. You can download it from the internet and it’s free! If you have a Mac, GarageBand is probably the best choice as it has an entire podcast studio built in and can handle every aspect of Podcasting for you with ease.

Get your head around the software. Read the instructions and/or go through the tutorials so that you know how to use it.

Step 5: Record your podcast. Once you know what you want to say, it’s time to record it. Use your computer’s built-in microphone or connect an external microphone for better quality. I used an decent external microphone for mine because I found the built-in one was picking up sounds from the computer. Open Audacity or Garageband, hit the record button and let your thoughts flow!

N.B. Most people only have about a 7-minute attention span for audio. Taking any more time than that will likely lose your listeners’ interest.

Step 6: Edit your podcast. Sound editing sounds scary, but it is really easier than you think. It’s as easy as copying, cutting, pasting, and deleting. In most cases, you will at least want to eliminate gaps in your recording and paste together your intro, your recording and your sign-off. I used Garageband which also made it easy to blend a bit of music into the start and close of the piece.

Step 7: Save your podcast to disk. Be sure to save your podcasts in a usable file format. Most people want your content in an MP3 format that is compatible with their digital music players. Be conscious of file size too. Most music tracks runs at about 3-5 MB each, so try to keep your finished files in the single-digit MB range.

Step 8: Upoad your podcast to your blog. Add your podcast to your media library on your WordPress blog. Create a “Podcasts” (or equivalent) post category. Create a new post for each podcast. Add a title and describe your podcast in the post. Somewhere in the post add a link to your podcast file. Select the “podcasts” category and add tags as appropriate. Click Publish, and your podcast will be published as a post in the “podcasts” category.

Step 9: Download and configure Podcast Channels plugin. If you’ll be hosting your podcasts on your WordPress blog, add a Podcast specific plugin. I tried Podcast Channels and Blubrry, and settled on the latter. Configure the settings to work with your “Podcasts” category.

N.B. You don’t HAVE to host your podcasts on your blog. You can also use services like Podbean to host, syndicate, and distribute your podcasts for free.

Step 10: Create an RSS feed for your podcasts. By RSS feeding your podcasts, you are making them available to literally millions of potential listeners. Go to your blog’s home page. Go to the “Podcasts” category and go to the RSS feed for that category and copy the podcast feed URL.

Step 11: Upload your podcast to iTunes. Tens of millions of people search iTunes every day looking for content that might be similar to yours. Be sure to follow their guidelines to ensure your podcast’s success. And keep in mind that if your podcast falls under the “educational” category, you should upload it to iTunes’ “iUniversity.”

To submit your podcast to iTunes, click here. Paste your podcast feed URL into the relevant box. Click continue. Check that the details on the next page are correct and hey presto, once your content has been accepted, your podcasts will be available to millions of people worldwide.

What next?

I enjoyed my first attempt at podcasting, am still amazed at the results, and will now regularly be publishing podcasts. It is so easy, and so many people like it, that it would be a shame not to. How about joining me in that adventure? It’s easier than you think.

What’s your experience with podcasting? Has this article been useful? Please leave your comments and thoughts below?

Brought to you by Robert Clay - Visit Website

Robert Clay is an entrepreneur and marketer who has been growing businesses since age 19. He has studied and mastered more than 200 of the world’s most successful marketing strategies, building-up an unprecedented 1.8 million page knowledgebase. For a decade he conducted an experiment which transformed the thinking of hundreds of entrepreneurs, and has now launched an extraordinary new program that helps aspiring market leaders to create breakthrough marketing results.

If you’ve enjoyed this post and want to be notified when other new articles come up, just click here. To get your free copy of Robert's well regarded book “Learn how to grow your business … in just two hours: An introduction to low risk/high-return marketing strategies that will help you transform your business”, click here. If you would like to share any of your personal experiences, observations or the results you’ve achieved using these or similar tips, please leave your comments and/or thoughts below. We always love to hear from you:

Instead I want to tell you about an amazing and inspiring person who has touched my life and left an indelible impression. Her name was Beryl Miller. She was someone we can all learn from. She was my PA in my first two businesses, and a few days ago, sadly, she lost an 18 month battle with cancer.

Beryl was a remarkable person. Although she can’t be with us any more, I hope her example will inspire you.

Where it all started

At age 19 and 23 I set up my first two businesses, with no capital, based in Sussex. Both businesses took off and before long they were operating nationally. When we outgrew our premises on the south coast we decided to move to a more central location.

We settled on the Oxford area, took on brand new premises and moved in. We needed someone to organise the office. Beryl came into my life when she joined us as a temp.

She liked the look of us and what we did. And we liked the look of her and the way she did things. So the arrangement became permanent and she became my PA.

My strongest skills are my ability to look ahead and see possibilities; develop innovative solutions; inspire people; and open doors to new business. Beryl was an excellent organiser, even if nobody understood how her filing system worked; she excelled at building long term relationships; and she had a great sense of humour. The combination of qualities we could muster between us meant that working with Beryl was a match made in heaven.

I could just get on with what I did best. And Beryl could just get on with what she did best. We never crossed over or trod on one another’s toes. And there was never any need to supervise her. We both thoroughly enjoyed the journey, and of course developed enormous mutual respect.

Beryl could always be relied on to get the job done. And she was a pleasure to work with because she never judged anyone; she never complained about anything or anyone; she never criticised anyone; and she was always positive, selfless and proactive. If something had to be done, she would see that it was done without fail. And we never had a disagreement or argument.

There was a natural coordination in the way we did things. It was like finding the perfect dance partner, where try as one might, one seemingly couldn’t put a foot wrong.

Being able to focus 100% of your energies and abilities on doing something you’re good at has a remarkable impact on what you can get done. With our combined efforts we took the market by storm. Both businesses became major players in the UK market, then started to expand globally.

Becoming a global market leader

For some years one of the largest companies in Scandinavia had been suggesting that one of their business units and mine would be a good fit. They also stated that they would prefer to work with us than against us; and they reckoned that at some stage we would need the capital they could bring to the table in order to continue our growth. They were right, so eventually I accepted an offer from them and sold them both businesses.

The business that bought mine was a division of Astra Pharmaceutical (now Astra Zeneca), but soon afterwards it became a subsidiary of an oil company, also owned by the parent company.

It was a condition of the deal that I carried on working for the combined business, and my role was to develop new business with car, truck, bus and aircraft manufacturers, a task at which nobody had previously succeeded.

It took six months to land the first contract. And over the next three and a half years we picked up every contract we went after. Not one competitor got a single contract. Once again, Beryl supported me in that role. And once again we cleaned up.

The fact that many of those companies remained clients of the company for the next two decades without any written contracts speaks volumes for Beryl’s relationship building skills. We had a great double act.

Without Beryl’s support I would never have been able to achieve those results. She was outstanding at maintaining and building the relationships that I established, which left me free to develop new technical innovations and pursue further relationships.

While supporting me in my role, which involved a lot of international travel, Beryl also acted as PA to the Norwegian who had taken over my old role as Managing Director of the now combined UK company. She was magnificent in both roles. The combined business went on to become Number one in it’s field in the world, and we both played a significant part in that.

Buying the business back

I eventually left the company to pursue other interests, which was the start of what later became Marketing Wizdom. The Norwegian MD left soon afterwards, joining forces with the MD of our American company to set up the American Pizza Company, assisted by Beryl’s son. That business became Dominos Pizza soon afterwards when that company launched in the UK, and another legend was born.

Beryl then became the PA to the new Managing Director, and when he eventually left she herself was appointed as Managing Director. This was entirely fitting, as she had done so much to build up the company and keep it running like clockwork. Her journey from temp to MD is an inspiring one that I’ve told many times. Its shows what’s possible if you approach things the right way. But her story doesn’t end there.

She went on to be appointed to the board of the global parent company, part of a group with £6 Billion annual revenues, an entirely fitting recognition of her amazing contribution to the company, not just in the UK, but internationally, where her competence and qualites touched many other people too.

The Swedish owners of the business eventually sold it on to a Swiss company who also supplied the automotive industry. Beryl later negotiated a management buyout of the UK subsidiary and ended up owning the original UK business that I’d started years before. And Beryl being Beryl, she kept it going magnificently.

Her husband, previously an RAF Air Commodore, and later a Business School Professor, soon joined her in the business. They ran it together until she decided it was time to retire. They then sold part of the business to someone who for some time had been, and still is, one of my clients. And right to the end she still employed several of the same staff that we had started with years before.

Retirement and world travel

When Beryl retired she devoted herself to her family, having great fun with her son, daughter and their seven children. Meantime we always kept in touch and it was one of my great pleasures to meet up with Beryl from time to time and catch up on the latest news.

In recent years Beryl also became very involved in Zonta International, an organisation founded in 1919 to advance the status of women, particularly women in business. Beryl’s competence was soon recognised and it wasn’t long before she took on a pan-european role which required her to travel all over the world. One minute she’d be in Moscow and the next in Chicago. I always enjoyed hearing about her travels, and sharing in the pleasure she derived from this association.

I never tired of telling people about my former PA who started as a temp and went on to own the company.

The secrets of Beryl’s success

So what were the secrets of Beryl’s success? In my view they were her strong work ethic; never judging anyone; never complaining; never criticising; always being positive, selfless and proactive; and an ability to nurture and build trust with contacts like few others I’ve ever met. That’s a formidable—and rare—combination of qualities. And she certainly deserved all the success she achieved.

Sad news

In March this year I received the very sad news from her daughter, by now a long-time friend, that Beryl had been diagnosed with terminal cancer, and was beyond treatment. She had been ill and declining for more than a year, but until then nobody had managed to diagnose the cause.

I made arrangements to see her at the earliest opportunity. It was a very emotional reunion. We were both thrilled to see one another. And true to character she didn’t utter a word of complaint. She was positive as always, and only wanted to talk about me and what I had been up to. As I said, an amazing lady.

I wasn’t there to speak about myself, so we DID get to speak frankly about her situation, and I’m so glad we did. She was in surprisingly good form considering her devastating affliction, and even came out to see me off. I’m glad I took a photo by which to remember the occasion. All in all it was a wonderful afternoon.

Hearing that she was deteriorating, I was very keen to see her again a few weeks ago, but she was rushed into hospital just as I was about to visit. I arranged to see her there a few days later, but had to postpone again as she was being sent home that day.

Sadly that visit was never to be. She deteriorated overnight and passed away the following day. I’m glad that her husband, son, daughter and sister were all there for her in her last hours and minutes. I’m also so glad that her husband managed to pamper her and look after her every need for her last six months. His military planning skills ensured that she was able to take all the right medications at the right time. And he even learned to cook. By all accounts those six months were filled with fun, laughter and visits to lovely locations, as she and her husband grew closer than ever before in the knowledge that their time together was limited.

When Beryl passed away, it was of course devastating for her family, as it was for me and all who had been touched by her. It will take time for everyone to get over their loss. It was a great honour to deliver an address at her funeral last week, which was the least I could do to give her a good send off. She was an amazing and inspiring person.

Looking back, I’m thrilled that I was able to play a major role in Beryl’s life, starting her off on the major career of her life. I am grateful too that she played a major role in my life. If it hadn’t been for her I couldn’t have achieved what I did at the time. We created a partnership the like of which few will ever experience.

Those whose life she touched can be truly grateful, and none more than me. If you’re ever lucky enough to know or work with someone like Beryl just once in your lifetime you can consider yourself truly fortunate. What she achieved will always inspire me. And I hope it inspires you too. But more than that, I hope for you that you have the privilege of finding or working with someone like Beryl at least once in your life.

I’ve spent years looking for another Beryl, without success. But amazingly that person may have found me when I wasn’t looking, as with so many of the best things in life, just as Beryl did. If so I’m a lucky person indeed. But that’s another story.

Here’s to Beryl Miller, a great lady who will live on in my memory forever.

Brought to you by Robert Clay - Visit Website

Robert Clay is an entrepreneur and marketer who has been growing businesses since age 19. He has studied and mastered more than 200 of the world’s most successful marketing strategies, building-up an unprecedented 1.8 million page knowledgebase. For a decade he conducted an experiment which transformed the thinking of hundreds of entrepreneurs, and has now launched an extraordinary new program that helps aspiring market leaders to create breakthrough marketing results.

If you’ve enjoyed this post and want to be notified when other new articles come up, just click here. To get your free copy of Robert's well regarded book “Learn how to grow your business … in just two hours: An introduction to low risk/high-return marketing strategies that will help you transform your business”, click here. If you would like to share any of your personal experiences, observations or the results you’ve achieved using these or similar tips, please leave your comments and/or thoughts below. We always love to hear from you:

The ability to influence and persuade others is a critical skill if you’re in business. Dr Robert Cialdini, who wrote this article with Steve Martin for the December 2006 edition of the always excellent Training Journal, has spent over 35 years researching the science behind how people are persuaded; written books about them; and is regarded as one of the world’s top authorities on the subject.

This article explains how the influence process works. It is reproduced here with the publisher of Training Journal’s kind permission.

N.B. Although this article was written specifically to help training professionals, its content can be adapted for any business, and it should be read in that way.

Robert Cialdini Ph.D & Steve Martin explain how L&D professionals can persuade key decision-makers of the importance of training

One of the primary roles of learning and development professionals is to research, develop, deliver and evaluate various forms of skills and knowledge training programmes in the organisations for which they work. While these roles can often be challenging, what can often be even more challenging is persuading stakeholders and decision-makers of the value of training and development. This is equally true of internal training professionals as it is of external providers.

If the ability to influence and persuade others is such a critical business skill for training and development professionals, what do we know about how the influence process works? All of us will almost certainly know people who have that apparently inborn ability to influence others. Those lucky few, who appear able to very skilfully and elegantly engage others, sway the opinions of those that are undecided and persuade their colleagues and co-workers to see their point of view. What can be frustrating about these born persuaders, though, is that they are often unable to explain how they have come to possess such an important and essential business skill. They may consider their ability to influence and persuade others to be a skill they have been born with, while we stand back in admiration and witness them practising their art, often frustrated at the fact that they can get others to say yes to their requests when we can’t, even when sometimes we are asking for the same thing!

The problem with viewing influence as a skill with which we are born is that it makes it difficult for those who have it to explain and pass down their skills to others. Artists generally are better at doing than explaining. But if we consider influence as a science, something else happens: something much more empowering and efficient.

For more than 35 years now, my social scientist colleagues and I have been researching the science behind how people are persuaded. In fact, there is now some five decades-worth of recorded scientific study into social influence and persuasion, and the results are clear: there is a science behind how we are persuaded. There are universal laws that guide how we are influenced, and these scientific laws can be learned in much the same way we can learn other scientific principles. No longer do we have to trust to hope that the approach we take will be effective. No more do we have to adopt a trial and error approach when we want to convince another. By understanding the scientific principles of influence which appeal to just a handful of deep-rooted human needs, we can be assured that our requests, our proposals, our presentations and training can be significantly more persuasive and influential.

Modern Life and Information Overload

In order to better understand how learning and development professionals can become more effective influencers, it is important to firstly consider a phenomenon that pervades every corner of our society – we call it information overload. We live in a world today where we are quite literally inundated with information, facts and data. Often this information is presented to us as an attempt to change our behaviour, to influence and persuade us in some way. Whether it is advertisements for new motor cars, emails, brochures from a conference organiser informing us of an HR seminar we should attend or colleagues seeking our support on projects, every one of us is increasingly overwhelmed with information and requests for our attention.

When faced with this plethora of information how do we decide what to do with it?

Wouldn’t it be marvellous if we were like computers, able to absorb all the relevant information we receive, rationally process it and arrive at informed decisions about the best course of action? However, people are anything but computers. They are people who, every day of their lives, are inundated with an ever-increasing amount of information and data.

It is currently estimated that the average UK citizen is exposed to up to 1,700 advertising messages every day, and that number is increasing.

One might expect that, faced with access to this sea of information, we make more rational and better-informed decisions. But the surprising fact is that we often do not. Ironically, there is simply too much information for us to deal with and, therefore, in order to deal with this information overload, we use decision shortcuts or rules of thumb to help us to make choices.

This phenomenon affects us in learning and development. It is simply not enough just to have the best training workshop or proposal anymore. It is the proposals that are presented in the most persuasive way that will often win the day. In the same way that consumers will often use decision shortcuts to make decisions, those of us looking to have influence within our organisations can utilise these same shortcuts to make our communications more persuasive and influential. Understanding these shortcuts and using them in an effective and ethical way can provide tools to create more compelling messages and more effective attempts at persuasion, and can build mutually-rewarding and long-lasting relationships with colleagues and customers. There is another advantage, too: understanding these shortcuts will make us more individually persuasive, with potential benefits in both our professional and personal lives.

In this article, we seek to present these decision shortcuts – the six universal principles of influence – by explaining each of them and then, in turn, providing some insights into how L&D professionals can use them in a responsible and ethical way to become more influential while building mutually-rewarding, long-term relationships with those with whom they interact.

There is now some five decades-worth of recorded scientific study into social influence and persuasion, and the results are clear: there is a science behind how we are persuaded

Principle 1 – Reciprocity: The good old give and take

Application for L&D professionals
Give to other first what you want to receive back

The principle of reciprocity says: ‘We are obliged to give back to others the forms of behaviour that we have received from them.’ It is a principle that pervades all societies and cultures. We intuitively know how this works in our personal lives: if a friend invites us to their house for dinner or remembers our birthday with a card, we are obliged to return the favour. We know only too well that we should say yes to those we owe but what we may not know, and what social scientific research has found, is that reciprocation also works effectively outside of our everyday contacts and networks. This means that we can use this principle of persuasion to develop networks and access to decision makers and sponsors who we need to influence.

Scientific research goes on to tell us that the gifts we give are more likely to be effective when they are viewed as meaningful, tailored to an individual and unexpected. Ultimately, though, gift-giving is one of the cruder applications of this principle of persuasion. A more sophisticated approach which would confer genuine advantages to L&D professionals, who are attempting to improve relationships and co-operative working in the office, would be to display the behaviours they desire in others first. The same holds true for sharing information and resources: if you lend a hand to a colleague or manager of another team when they need help, you will significantly increase your chances of getting support from them when you need it. Research shows that your odds of future support improve even further if, after your colleague or client has thanked you for your help, you say something like: ‘I’m glad to help you as I know you’re the sort of person who would help me if I ever need support.’

Principle 2 – Scarcity: We want more of what we can have less of

Application for L&D professionals
Highlight unique features of your proposals and point out what others stand to lose

Judging by the results of many years of research, few would disagree with the principle of scarcity, which suggests that people typically associate greater value with things that are rare, dwindling in availability, or difficult to acquire. Notwithstanding the scientific research, there are many everyday examples that also support this claim. In recent years, many parents have gone to great lengths to purchase the most popular Christmas toy that happens to be out of stock in all the stores. In the UK, the petrol shortage in the summer of 2000 resulted in some extraordinary behaviour as people scrambled to acquire limited fuel and, in October 2003, the notion of losing something caused many thousands of people to stop their cars and block a major motorway just to see the final take-off of the Concorde, a sight, we would point out, that had been a familiar one every single day for the last 30 years or so. What makes the Concorde such an apt example of the power of this principle is the fact that, immediately after British Airways announced in February 2003 that it would be stopping Concorde flights, the sale of seats when through the roof. Ironic, then, that the reason that BA cited for stopping the flights was that it was no longer economically viable with reports that, on certain flights, there were more cabin crew than paying customers.

So powerful is the concept of loss that researchers from the University of California found that householders were 350 per cent more likely to carry out energy efficient measures in their home when they were told how much money they would continue to lose if they didn’t, rather than how much money they would gain if they did.

The same phenomenon can be used by training professionals to make their proposals and presentations more persuasive. According to a study in the Journal of Organizational Behaviour and Human Decision Processes, potential losses figure far more heavily in managers’ decision-making than gains. L&D professionals who respectfully and honestly point out what managers or clients stand to lose if they fail to consider their proposals, or the unique attributes that they could miss out on, will find themselves benefiting from a very powerful way of presenting information.

It is currently estimated that the average UK citizen is exposed to up to 1,700 advertising messages every day, and that number is increasing

Principle 3 – Authority: People defer to experts

Application for L&D professionals
Present your expertise; don’t assume that it is self-evident

Few of us fail to recognise the power of expert endorsement. After all, it is a neat and efficient way to decide on the right course of action. Why, in our overloaded lives, should we go to the trouble of finding out all the information ourselves when there are experts who have already done it for us and on whose wisdom and knowledge we can rely? When we are ill, we seek the advice of our doctor; when deciding what toothpaste to purchase, we may pick a brand that has been recommended by the British Dental Association. Training professionals can increase their authority by seeking accreditation to a recognised professional body or institute. Since it makes good sense to defer to authorities, it also makes sense for L&D professionals to establish their expertise when communicating with groups, whether these groups are decision makers or participants in workshops.

So what makes someone an authority? Research shows that the most persuasive authority is a credible one, and credible authorities possess both expertise and trust-worthiness. One way that L&D professionals can be seen as having expertise is to have that expertise introduced by someone else, especially someone who is also seen as an authority in their own right.

But how often do we fail to get around to arranging this or, worse still, introduce ourselves and our expertise? We would be well advised to avoid this trap and to seek the power of an introduction. Even when we are unable to secure a personal introduction, sending a letter or email in advance of a meeting or workshop, which includes information about your expertise, training, qualifications and experience, is a very powerful and persuasive thing to do and infinitely more effective that doing it yourself at the start of a session, when you are more likely to come across as big-headed or full of yourself.

Surprisingly, L&D professionals will often assume that others recognise and appreciate their experience when, in fact, the opposite is the case. One suggestion would be to develop a two-line biography of yourself, setting out your key achievements, experience and qualifications, to give to someone prior to being introduced to a group. We think you will be pleasantly surprised when you see the reaction of your audience.

Principle 4 – Consistency: We align ourselves to previously puhlic-declared commitments

Application for L&D professionals
Make commitments actionable, public and voluntary

Have you ever in your professional life come across individuals who appear to support you or give the impression that they are willing to commit to your ideas or proposals, only at a later date to back down or retreat from what you thought was a genuine commitment?

Our principle of consistency suggests that people feel strong pressure to be consistent within their own words and actions. Making a commitment ties a person’s sense of self to a particular course of action. However, just gaining a commitment is often not enough. In order to cement a commitment and persuade the individual to act on it, there are three things that also need to be present. These are that the person owns the commitment, he has an action associated with the commitment and that he is willing to make that commitment jteMi.

Negotiating initial voluntary commitments and making them effortful and action-based as well as public is a powerful way to change and influence behaviours. In one study, people spent significantly less time in the shower following a work-out in the gym when they were first asked if they supported and would sign up to a ‘use water responsibly’ campaign. Training professionals can use similar strategies to encourage people to make commitments to practise new skills the and apply them to their job roles. Asking people to imagine how they will apply a new skill or piece of information and getting them to write such an action down and share it with a colleague can be a very effective change process.

Principle 5 – Social Proof: People follow the lead of many, similar others

Application for L&D professionals
Use peer power and testimonials wherever possible

Suppose that, this year, you decide to take an evening class, perhaps to learn a new language or skill that you have promised yourself. How do you choose the best way to achieve your goal? Do you join a local college or night school, take up an interactive internet course or perhaps investigate that audio language programme that you heard a friend at work talk about? Most likely, you’ll look outside of yourself and to others around you for at least part of the answer. The principle of social proof says that, when we are uncertain and we are attempting to make the right decisions, we will often look to the behaviour of others around us for direction about what choices to make. This is compounded when those around us are similar to us in terms of age, education, social standing and experience.

Social psychologists refer to what people commonly do in a given situation as a descriptive norm. Descriptive norms typically provide people with useful information about which courses of action to take if you hear your colleagues at work raving about a restaurant, chances are you might be influenced to try out the restaurant too. Looking to see what other people are doing is a quick and easy tool for making decisions in uncertain circumstances. Indeed, social proof has the greatest persuasive power when the ‘right’ choice in a given situation is somewhat ambiguous. For example, organisations trying to decide on a new training and development initiative could be persuaded to take the plunge if they are first offered information about the success achieved by other organisations of a similar size and in a similar industry.

Training professionals can become significantly more influential and persuasive, not by using their own powers of persuasion, but by using the testimonials and recommendations of others that are similar to their targets.

Principle 6 – Liking: People like those who like them

Application for L&D professionals
Look for and present genuine similarities and praise

Put simply, the principle of liking says that people prefer to say yes to, and comply with, the requests of those they like.

So what characteristics influence people’s liking for others? Social scientists point towards three specific elements of liking: similarity, praise and co-operation. We’ll take them in turn.

Firstly, people tend to like others who are similar to them. For example, a training specialist wishing to persuade people to adopt a new approach to a work assignment might point out certain areas of similarity that they share with their audience (like them, they used to use a similar approach but, upon investigation, they have found a new, more time-efficient method that they probably wouldn’t want to lose out on).

Secondly, people will tend to like, and therefore be more persuaded by, those who pay them compliments and give them praise. There is strong evidence to suggest that people are extremely receptive to the requests of others immediately after they have received a compliment. In fact, recent research points to the fact that people are more likely to respond positively to a request immediately after the person making the request has paid them a compliment.

Thirdly, we like people who co-operate with us towards mutual goals. Attempts to influence others that involve joint working or partnerships are often more successful than those that do not.

Conclusion: The power of persuasion

Application for L&D professionals
With power comes responsibility — always be honest and ethical

We have sought to provide not only interesting and scientifically- validated evidence of how L&D professionals can increase the chance of people being persuaded by their recommendations and presentations, but also some practical applications for the use of these principles (see figure 1 below).

There are some additional points we would like to make regarding the use of the principles we have described. Firstly, although these principles are conceptually distinct, you are likely to be most effective at fostering influence and persuasion when using several of these principles at once. For example, consider how one might influence a new manager in an organisation. Perhaps one could first point out how a number of other managers, who happen to be of a similar age and in similar circumstances, have benefited from working with you. One may then go on to compliment the manager and offer some new personalised information or data that helps him in his new role. By doing this, the L&D professional creates a powerful communication that, in this example, utilises three of the social influence principles we have presented, namely social proof, liking and reciprocity.

Research shows that the most persuasive authority is a credible one, and credible authorities possess both expertise and trustworthiness

Secondly, it should be clear that, although people use these mental shortcuts when making decisions, it doesn’t mean that people consciously use them. It is not the case, for example, that someone will say to himself: ‘Well, I’ve done this for so long now my sense of commitment dictates that I continue!’ Nonetheless, whether or not the operation of the principles of persuasion is consciously recognised, the existing evidence indicates that they will still be influential.

Thirdly, because information is sometimes highly relevant to their goals, people may consequently be motivated (although not always able) to process deeply the content of these messages. Indeed, the effectiveness of a message will depend upon a combination of the substance of the message and the way that message is delivered. Thus, the principles we have discussed are not an alternative to providing people with substantive information but more a vehicle for ensuring those important messages are communicated in a persuasive way.

And finally, and most importantly, we should realise that the reason people use these shortcuts is because. in most circumstances, they tend to steer them in the right direction. It is not the case that people are being stupid or making mistakes when they use these mental heuristics to guide their choices. They are often merely overwhelmed with information and know subconsciously that these shortcuts have served them well in the past. It is for this reason that we would only encourage the honest and ethical use of these powerful principles of persuasion. In modern business we are all, after all, looking to foster long term and prosperous working relationships.

Professor Robert Cialdini is Regents Professor of Psychology at Arizona State University and has been awarded the 2006 Peitho prize for his contributions to the world of social influence. Steve Martin is the Director of Influence At Work (UK) and a business colleague of Professor Claldini.

Figure 1: Influence — A Quick Guide for learning and development professionals

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Robert Clay is an entrepreneur and marketer who has been growing businesses since age 19. He has studied and mastered more than 200 of the world’s most successful marketing strategies, building-up an unprecedented 1.8 million page knowledgebase. For a decade he conducted an experiment which transformed the thinking of hundreds of entrepreneurs, and has now launched an extraordinary new program that helps aspiring market leaders to create breakthrough marketing results.

If you’ve enjoyed this post and want to be notified when other new articles come up, just click here. To get your free copy of Robert's well regarded book “Learn how to grow your business … in just two hours: An introduction to low risk/high-return marketing strategies that will help you transform your business”, click here. If you would like to share any of your personal experiences, observations or the results you’ve achieved using these or similar tips, please leave your comments and/or thoughts below. We always love to hear from you:

Barack Obama is undoubtedly one of the greatest influencers of modern times. His accomplishment in going from a relative unknown to the most talked about person on the planet in less than 18 months provides a lot of valuable lessons to anyone marketing a product, a service … or a person.

The excellent article that follows appeared in the May 2009 edition of Training Journal, and is reproduced here with the publisher’s kind permission:

Larry Reynolds reveals the seven critical skills that make the new US president so influential

If you want to get yourself elected as president of the United States, you’d better have some pretty well-honed influencing skills. In fact, the US presidential election process is probably one of the biggest tests of influencing skills in the modern world. Not only do you have to persuade people to give you loads of money to run a gruelling 18-month campaign to get selected as your party’s candidate, but you then have to start all over again to win the election for the actual presidency. And if you are starting as a relative unknown – as Barack Obama was when he first stood for the Democratic nomination – your influencing skills had better be exceptional. As anyone who’s listened to his major speeches will agree, in Obama’s case they are. But what exactly does he do to be so influential?

In this article I’ll examine seven critical skills that make Obama a great influencer. They are trust, presence, credibility, herd instinct, avoiding loss, building commitment and storytelling.

Trust

Influencing skill number one is trust. We are much more likely to be influenced by someone we trust. How did Obama build a reputation for trust when he had no track record with the people he was trying to influence? First, he conducted his campaign with ruthless integrity.

A common practice in US elections is to give cash to local community activists and preachers to encourage them to get the vote out on polling day. ‘Walking-about money’, as it is often called, is sometimes justified as covering legitimate expenses for, say, transport costs in poorer areas; in reality it can sometimes be little more than a thinly-disguised bribe.

Obama flatly refused to pay walking-about money – not because he couldn’t afford to (he ran the most successful fundraising campaign in US presidential history) but because he knew it was wrong.

Whenever he made a mistake on the campaign, he admitted it and apologised. An ill-judged comment mid-campaign about some Americans “getting bitter and clinging to guns and religion” caused uproar. He immediately apologised – both for the offence caused and also for the fact that this controversy was distracting people from the real campaign issues.

Since politicians are generally not thought to be particularly trustworthy characters, Obama also enhanced trust by deliberately distancing himself from conventional politics. He made a point of saying that his campaign “was not hatched in the halls of Washington. It began in the backyards of Des Moines and the living rooms of Concord and the front porches of Charleston”. This reference, with its echoes of the closing words of Martin Luther King’s “I have a dream” speech, not only helped to disassociate him from politicians (untrustworthy) but associated him with Martin Luther King (trustworthy).

Presence

Influencing skill number two is presence. Partly this comes from physical attributes – Obama is tall and the taller candidate has won the US presidential election in a statistically significant 66 per cent of the time. He also often speaks in a slow, deep voice and people with slow, deep voices tend to get listened to in a way that those with fast, high pitched voices don’t.

But presence isn’t just about your physical attributes – it’s about your ability to be absolutely present in the moment. Throughout gruelling campaigns for the Democratic nomination and for the presidency itself, Obama never looked rushed or flustered. Whenever he talked to someone, he always gave them their full attention. Whether he was addressing a crowd of thousands, or chatting to a small group of supporters, he always took the time to make his audience feel that they really mattered.

Credibility

Influencing skill number three is credibility. We generally perceive someone to be credible because of their experience and expertise. Unlike many presidential candidates, Obama had had no real experience in government – less even than Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin, who at had least served as governor of Alaska.

How did Obama come across as credible despite this lack of experience? He used two main approaches. Firstly – unlike Palin – he was ruthlessly, obsessively and pedantically prepared for any question put to him during the campaign. Unlike his opponent John McCain, who seemed at one point unsure about just how many houses he owned, Obama mastered all the details.

More importantly, and more cleverly, Obama reframed the debate about his experience. What mattered, he said, was not experience but judgement. Throughout the long presidential campaign, Obama always had a trump card to play when it came to judgement: back in 2002 both Hillary Clinton and John McCain supported the war in Iraq; Obama didn’t, and his consistent opposition has greatly enhanced his credibility.

Herd instinct

Influencing skill number four is herd instinct. Like animals in a herd, we are highly influenced by others around us. Most people are influenced more strongly by their friends, family and peers than by a TV advertisement or a politician. Obama understood this brilliantly; although he was obviously highly skilful at influencing people directly, his campaign was even more brilliant at making it very easy for his supporters to persuade their family, friends and peers to become supporters too.

One way in which he did this was to harness new technology. To take just one example, if you were an Obama supporter, you could download a free piece of software to your iPhone that would give you latest campaign information to use when persuading your friends to vote for Obama. It would even suggest which of your friends you should call next, depending on which state was being contested next.

Obama really understood how to make herd instinct work for his campaign, in a way that John McCain and most business leaders don’t.

Avoiding loss

Influencing skill number five is where it starts to get really counter intuitive. Let’s say you want convince a group of colleagues at work to do something. Would it be more effective to say “do this and good things will happen”, or “don’t do this and bad things will happen”? Most people tend to go for the more ‘positive’ approach. They’re wrong. Three times out of four, the second approach – the avoiding loss tactic – will be more effective. That’s because most people are more motivated to hang on to things they might lose, than to gain things they haven’t yet got.

In a classic social psychology experiment conducted at the University of Victoria, in Canada, students were given a coffee mug. After a bit, they were asked if they’d swap it for a big bar of Swiss chocolate. Only 11 per cent agreed to relinquish the mug. In a parallel experiment, students were first given the chocolate and then asked to trade it in for the mug. This time only 10 per cent agreed to the swap.

Once we’ve got something, we’re highly motivated to hang on to it (which maybe explains all those clothes in your wardrobe you never wear but are reluctant to take down to the charity shop).

Since most people are more motivated by the prospect of loss than gain, it makes sense for politicians to use lots of negative campaigning during an election. It’s much more of a vote winner to say “vote for my opponent and things will be terrible” than “vote for me and things will be great”.

This presented a bit of a problem for Obama – getting away from traditional mudslinging politics was one of the things he wanted to do, both as a way of building trust by distancing himself from conventional politicians and also, I believe, because he just didn’t think it was the right thing to do. So here’s what he did. He lavished considerable personal praise on his opponent John McCain, while at the same time reinforcing the message that a vote for McCain was a vote for the policies of George Bush. Call it negative campaigning in a subtle way.

Building commitment

Influencing skill number six is to build commitment. If you succeed in getting someone to make a small commitment, it is much more likely that they will then make the bigger commitment. That’s why, at the end of a business meeting, it’s much more effective to get participants to sum up, in their own words, what they are going to do as a result of the meeting, rather than the meeting leader doing the summary for them. Making that small commitment – telling my peers what I am going to do – makes it much more likely that I will make the bigger commitment of actually doing it.

Obama’s campaign was unusual in many ways, and one of them was his focus on raising money from very small donations – $5 here, $10 there. Most career politicians don’t bother with small donations – why put in all that effort to raise a paltry sum when just one meeting with, say, a Russian oligarch can net you tens of thousands? But career politicians miss the power of building commitment.

When you persuade someone to make the relatively easy gesture of donating $5 to your campaign, you make it hugely more likely that they will actually vote for you on polling day. Making a small commitment causes a mental shift that makes bigger commitments more likely.

Story telling

Influencing skill number seven – and this is where Obama really excelled – is to tell stories. Throughout his campaign, he repeatedly told one big story – the story of the American dream: in America, anyone, from however humble a background, can go on to achieve great things through determination and hard work. He and his family exemplify this story.

Obama began his address to the 2004 Democratic convention – the event that made it possible for him to run for the presidency – by saying:

“Tonight is a particular honor for me because, let’s face it, my presence on this stage is pretty unlikely. My father was a foreign student, born and raised in a small village in Kenya. He grew up herding goats, went to school in a tin-roof shack. His father – my grandfather – was a cook, a domestic servant to the British.

“But my grandfather had larger dreams for his son. Through hard work and perseverance my father got a scholarship to study in a magical place, America, that shone as a beacon of freedom and opportunity to so many who had come before.”

Arguably, Obama was elected in part because he happened to be the right candidate at the right time. But he only communicated that he was the right candidate by telling the right story at the right time.

His genius as a teller of stories is not only in the stories he chooses to tell, but the way in which he tells them.

Consider this extract from later in that same speech:

“You know, a while back I met a young man named Shamus in a V.F.W. Hall in East Moline, Illinois. He was a good-looking kid – six two, six three, clear eyed, with an easy smile. He told me he’d joined the Marines and was heading to Iraq the following week. And as I listened to him explain why he’d enlisted, the absolute faith he had in our country and its leaders, his devotion to duty and service, I thought this young man was all that any of us might ever hope for in a child.

“But then I asked myself, ‘are we serving Shamus as well as he is serving us?’ I thought of the 900 men and women – sons and daughters, husbands and wives, friends and neighbors – who won’t be returning to their own hometowns. I thought of the families I’ve met who were struggling to get by without a loved one’s full income, or whose loved ones had returned with a limb missing or nerves shattered, but still lacked long-term health benefits because they were reservists.

“When we send our young men and women into harm’s way, we have a solemn obligation not to fudge the numbers or shade the truth about why they’re going, to care for their families while they’re gone, to tend to the soldiers upon their return, and to never ever go to war without enough troops to win the war, secure the peace, and earn the respect of the world.”

Let me draw your attention to a few things that make this story so powerful. He makes the link between a specific individual – Shamus – and the broader political point that sending people to war involves certain moral commitments.

He really engages the emotions – “loved ones with a limb missing or nerves shattered”.

He increases his credibility with the details in the story – the number of casualties, and the fact that, because Shamus is a reservist, he is not entitled to the benefits of a regular soldier.

Although there is enough detail to make the story come alive – Shamus is tall, good looking, with an easy smile – some detail is left very vague. This vagueness allows listeners to fill in the details and imagine Shamus is like them, or like their family members.

There’s a lot in these 250 words. If you want to see and hear Obama delivering them, you can do so on the excellent American Rhetoric website at www.americanrhetoric.com.

How much did Barack Obama consciously work at these seven influence skills, and how much did he just do instinctively? I don’t know – maybe he doesn’t either. But what I do know is that you can be more influential by applying them in your organisational context.

Larry Reynolds leads 21st Century Leader, a consultancy specialising in authentic leadership, influence and change. He can be contacted on +44 (0)1535 645519, at larry@21stcenturyleader.co.uk or via www.21stcenturyleader.co.uk.

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Robert Clay is an entrepreneur and marketer who has been growing businesses since age 19. He has studied and mastered more than 200 of the world’s most successful marketing strategies, building-up an unprecedented 1.8 million page knowledgebase. For a decade he conducted an experiment which transformed the thinking of hundreds of entrepreneurs, and has now launched an extraordinary new program that helps aspiring market leaders to create breakthrough marketing results.

If you’ve enjoyed this post and want to be notified when other new articles come up, just click here. To get your free copy of Robert's well regarded book “Learn how to grow your business … in just two hours: An introduction to low risk/high-return marketing strategies that will help you transform your business”, click here. If you would like to share any of your personal experiences, observations or the results you’ve achieved using these or similar tips, please leave your comments and/or thoughts below. We always love to hear from you:

If you’re in business you need to understand the nature of the people born between the early 1980’s and the mid 1990’s, who now make up approximately 20 per cent of the workforce and are vital to our economic future.

The fascinating article on Generation Y that follows was written by Dr Charles Woodruffe of business psychology consultancy Human Assets Ltd. It appeared in the July 2009 edition of the always excellent Training Journal, and is reproduced here in full with the kind permission of the publisher.

The article explains so well the nature of Generation Y. It will not only be of interest if you work with or employ Generation Y people, but its insights are also interesting from a marketing perspective, when deciding how to target and reach this important part of the population. I hope you enjoy it and find it as useful as I did.

Generation Y — Charles Woodruffe asks why Y?

In the run-up to the recession, there was a plethora of articles and conferences claiming to unlock the perplexing nature of Generation Y.

They are the pipeline of new talent available for employers but their values, needs – indeed, demands – were seen as different to those of their forebears. Employers were trying hard to understand them in order to attract and retain them. They were presented with a stereotype of very demanding, ‘want it all now’ young people who were difficult to recruit but easy to lose. Generation Whine was rather cruelly applied as an alternative epithet.

The Generation Y stereotype has a logical basis in the way in which members of that generation were parented. In talking about Generation Y, we are talking about people brought up by active parents. Although, somewhat irritatingly, every writer seems to date the generation differently, Generation Y is broadly the group of people born in the early 1980s and runs through to those still in secondary school. Their parents are broadly from the group known as the Baby Boomers – those born between the end of World War Two and the mid 1960s.

The key feature of Generation Y’s upbringing is that their Baby Boomer parents have been heavily involved in it. We are talking about the huggy parents who ferry their children from event to event, do their homework for them, help them with their applications and, most importantly, have given them a high sense of self- worth

Nor has the active parenting ended. The Americans have conjured the marvellous term ‘helicopter parents’ to describe the ongoing vigilance of the parents of Generation Y. This vigilance extends to a willingness to take issue with HR managers who do not recruit their progeny!

So where has all this left the children? Supposedly, members of Generation Y are marked out by their self-belief. They have had a history of positive feedback, understanding and parents answering their every need. They have little track record of frustration and having to wait. They have tended to be able to obtain what they want when they want it – be it a lift to a party or the latest Game Boy/Xbox etc. And the members of Generation Y that you are seeking to recruit and train will, almost by definition, have had a history of academic success.

As if having doting parents was not enough, members of Generation Y came to the labour market – until last autumn – at a time of plenty.

But autumn 2008 might, of course, be where the story ends. In summer 2009, we need to take stock. Firstly, we were only ever talking about a caricature. Secondly, we need to decide whether the caricature still applies and matters.

The caricature

If you follow Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, with basic survival and security needs at the bottom and self-actualisation at the top, the parenting and background economy were said to have resulted in Generation Y being able to move directly to address higher-order needs. By the caricature, they are self-actualisers. In the workplace, they are painted as a high- maintenance generation, marked out by:

• High Ambition
• Sense of entitlement
• Outspoken – they show a high willingness to challenge managers and are undeterred by traditional hierarchy, giving off an air of over-confidence
• Inability to take criticism
• Wanting work-life balance and flexibility. One survey suggests that 85 per cent want to spend 30–70 per cent of their time working from home
• Wanting attentive management from supervisors and regular appreciative feedback. Generation Y is also said to:
• Struggle with processing failure and criticism
• Unable to internalise lessons
• Have difficulty with unclear guidelines or minimal management – yet not want to be told what to do
• Be ready to resign if their jobs are not fulfilling and fun, with decent holidays and the opportunity for career breaks and time off for charity work.

At the same time, Generation Y offers several positives, including:

• A complete at-oneness with IT – they have been brought up with it
• Team-working skills
• Self-belief to achieve
• A high level of drive. Seemingly in contradiction with the emphasis of Generation Y on work-life balance, people comment on their willingness to work after hours and at weekends to get a job done.

That was the caricature of Generation Y up to the recession – a time when Generation Y did not fear unemployment, having every belief in its ability to secure alternative employment. What is the status of the caricature now?

Firstly, like all caricatures, it would be foolish to apply it without thought or inspection to everyone born in the decade and a half from the early 1980s. Secondly, there is probably a germ of truth in it that it would be equally foolish for managers to deny.

On one hand, the caricature is an exaggeration and shorthand for a particular type of person. On the other hand, it recognises changes that have taken place in people’s expectations at work that have spread beyond people born in those specific years.

Dealing first with the characteristics of the Y generation, you should clearly not think that everyone born within their timeslot will embody all their characteristics – good or bad. Their stereotypical behaviour was generally an unrealistic and irritating way for people to approach employers (I recall hearing of a person in their mid twenties throwing a strop because their bonus was merely half a million pounds); nowadays it is just plain ludicrous.

Of course, there will be some who, recession or not, continue to live out the caricature to its extreme. It seems to me that you do not have to adapt to their shortcomings, which – taken to an extreme – might stop them being seen as talent in the first place. Instead, your selection systems need to pick out the ones who will adapt to work life in your organisation.

However, and returning to the germ of truth in the caricature, there has to be some mutual adaptation. You will choose members of Generation Y who were difficult to recruit but easy to lose seem the most productive people or the best investments. They will choose you if you have recognised that the centre of gravity of what you offer people has changed.

This change has also spread outside the confines of Generation Y, just as Facebook and iPods are not the monopoly of a particular generation. It is a change from which it will be hard to turn away, even in a recession, though, of course, people might well have retraced their steps down Maslow’s hierarchy. Everyone might be concerned with job security, but that does not mean they will be positively engaged if their other needs are ignored.

So how do you engage people who have become used to the new generation of employment? Essentially, you have to get alongside their needs and values and make sure you address their priorities (Woodruffe, 1999). For several years, I have used a needs triangle to try to summarise what people nowadays are looking for in work (see below). This is not perfect science but it does offer a way of ordering people’s needs.

The particular Generation Y spin to this is shown in green.

The entire triangle must be considered if organisations are to attract and retain talented people – if they are to be employers of choice. What is more, people must be treated as individuals. For example, some people want to sacrifice pay for more holidays in their package; for others, it is the other way round.

Taking the three components of the triangle in turn, there are several specific factors to consider for each of them.

1. The package

Generation Y – particularly males – are said to be quite focused on their salary. This has been put down to their student debt burden and the need for a good salary to join the property ladder. However, although the package is a vital component of being an employer of choice, few people flock to an otherwise bad employer purely because it pays well. Generally, the package is the least sure way of retaining people for it is the inducement that is most easily matched by another employer.

2. Employability

We do not go to work just to earn today’s money, but tomorrow’s also. People are concerned with an income stream rather than just immediate money. There are four major factors that affect employability:

• Being developed People nowadays demand development. They recognise that the future is uncertain and that even a committed employer cannot guarantee a job. They want to be ready with a passport to alternative employment. Organisations must give a high priority to people’s development in order to attract and retain them. Development must cover professional and managerial/ leadersip skills. The most powerful development comes from providing people with new experiences, particularly experiences that challenge them.
• Involvement with prestige projects Ambitious people, notably today’s Generation Y graduates, like visibility. They relish the opportunity to tackle prestigious projects, particularly those that will give them exposure to people with power within the organisation. Assuming their contribution is a positive one, such exposure enhances employability.
• Career advancement Drive and motivation is part of what makes people talented. Advancement feeds their goal of securing and maintaining an income stream. Part of being an employer of choice comes from letting good people get ahead quickly.
• Being part of a prestigious organisation There is an advantage to the employee in working for a prestigious organisation that is at the leading edge of its sector. It has a currency on the job market that will generate future income. The importance of this factor is clear from organisations’ thirst to be among the list of Top 100 employers (eg The Times Top 100 Graduate Employers).

3. Job satisfaction

If people go out to work to generate the income for a style of life, they also want to be happy while doing so. Six components of job satisfaction can be separated:

• Achievement To be an employer of choice, you want your staff to be telling their friends about the tremendous achievements they have notched up, not how they are bored out of their brains and under-utilised. Generation Y puts great store by using its strengths.
• Respect and recognition People are less tolerant than in the past of status distinctions and barriers. They want to be trusted with information and to have their hard work noticed. Members of Generation Y are also said to be intolerant of status barriers: they expect to be able to email senior people and might well extend this to those at the top of their employing organisations. Raising managers’ skill levels is vital to being an employer of choice. Indeed, they need to lead rather than manage. Generation Y is also described as in particular need of regular feedback, having grown used to regular testing at school and university.
• Autonomy People enjoy a sense of autonomy and of being trusted to get on and deliver. They can be frustrated if they do not feel a sense of ownership over their projects or if they lack real responsibility. It was partly satisfying this sense of autonomy that made ‘dot coms’ so attractive.
• Balance between work and private life Generation Y is said to be particularly intolerant of a lack of integration between work and private life. It is not so much a sense of balance as a blurring of the two that matters. Members expect to come to work and be logged into Facebook or MSN at the same time as doing their work. At university, they are used to mixing work (study) and their private life and would see it as restrictive to have boundaries at work. They are the ‘permanently connected’ generation.
• Congruent values People want to work in an organisation with values that are congruent with their own. By definition, values are something on which we differ. However, at any period of time there is a dominant value system with which employers would be better off being congruent than discordant. For example, nowadays, organisations strive to parade their CSR credentials and this must be for their staff to witness as much as their customers. But it is vital that this is authentic: Generation Y is vigilant to a lack of integrity. Generation Y is also said to be particularly vigilant to identity and intolerant of working towards something that does not reflect its own sense of identity.
• A sense of fun in a good working environment Many people prefer to work in an informal and fun atmosphere. Organisations have sought to meet this in all sorts of ways, such as by having trendy office environments, ‘dress-down’ days and team-building events of various sorts. A lack of teamwork/cooperation was cited as a turnover driver by 19 per cent of leavers in a survey by TalentDrain.

Individual focus

Perhaps more important than any of the above needs is the requirement to treat people as individuals. In response, organisations are doing their best to customise what is provided to employees, ensuring as far as possible that each person’s particular needs are met.

But they’ll leave anyway

However, the image of Generation Y is that you can meet its members’ needs as much as you like but they’ll leave anyway to build their CVs. They do not have staying with their first employer as their game plan, so what is the point of bothering with them?

There are two responses to this. Firstly, will they all leave? The answer, surely, is of course not, especially in the current economic circumstances. If you can offer them the chance to build their employability, some will stay, some will go with the possibility of coming back and some will be lost forever.

Secondly, the ability to build employability is, in truth, probably greater for large organisations than others. Certainly, small firms would be naïve to think they can readily take on graduates who will stay to lead their organisation in the future. It is simply not in the Generation Y blueprint. Quite realistically, they will see that they need to move around and build their CVs. On the other hand, large multinationals can offer a series of employments akin to moving between organisations.

This is fortunate because opting out of employing Generation Y is only realistic for smaller organisations. Large volume recruiters like retailers, the civil service, law firms and accountants have to keep topping up their talent pipeline. Other organisations could consider leaving their recruitment of future leaders until people have matured into the ways of work. That is not to say that they should boycott Generation Y: it is just that the relationship is likely to be an affair rather than a marriage.

Conclusions

Generation Y makes up approximately 20 per cent of the workforce and is vital to our economic future. Some of them will behave in line with their caricature. In a recession, one hopes for their sake, many will not. However, it is also the case that what people expect from work has evolved and this evolution extends beyond Generation Y.

The task of employers is to separate the employable from the unemployable but also to adapt to the changing demands of each generation in just the same way that they adapt to the changing expectations of their customers.

Finally, a survey last year by the CIPD and Penna came out with findings that run counter to the Generation Y stereotype. It found that Generation Y members were less concerned about CSR than Baby Boomers and also “far less likely to rapidly change jobs than was thought” (Allen 2008). Maybe another Generation Y quality is the ability to pick up on, and adapt rapidly to, changing economic circumstances.

References

1. Allen, A. (2008, September 18). Redefining the rules of the generation game. People Management, 12-13
2. CIPD and Penna and (2008, September) Gen up: How the four generations work. CIPD website http://www.cipd.co.uk
3. Woodruffe, Charles (1999). Winning the talent war: A strategic approach to attracting, developing and retaining the best people. Chichester: John Wiley.

Charles Woodruffe has written another article on talent management, this time focusing on Generation Z – which he describes as “the silent generation” due to their preference for interacting with technology rather than other people, which you can read on the Training Journal website. Go to www.trainingjournal.com to read his predictions for this new generation, born since 2002 and due to enter the workforce in around ten to 15 years’ time.

Dr Charles Woodruffe is MD of business psychology consultancy Human Assets Ltd. He can be contacted on +44 (0)20 7434 2122 or via www.humanassets.co.uk

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Robert Clay is an entrepreneur and marketer who has been growing businesses since age 19. He has studied and mastered more than 200 of the world’s most successful marketing strategies, building-up an unprecedented 1.8 million page knowledgebase. For a decade he conducted an experiment which transformed the thinking of hundreds of entrepreneurs, and has now launched an extraordinary new program that helps aspiring market leaders to create breakthrough marketing results.

If you’ve enjoyed this post and want to be notified when other new articles come up, just click here. To get your free copy of Robert's well regarded book “Learn how to grow your business … in just two hours: An introduction to low risk/high-return marketing strategies that will help you transform your business”, click here. If you would like to share any of your personal experiences, observations or the results you’ve achieved using these or similar tips, please leave your comments and/or thoughts below. We always love to hear from you:

Pecha Kucha is a presentation method, developed in Japan, that is reputed to improve audience attention, writes Andrea Pickerin of Marketing Wizdom.

The post that follows is a piece I wrote for Edinburgh Training Centre’s monthly e-newsletter,  It was well received, so they’ve kindly given us permission to reproduce it here. Enjoy:

What the Pecha Kucha?

Is this just a fad or a universally fabulous method for addressing conferences that will stand the test of time? Can the concept be integrated into training techniques?

Have you heard of it? Have you used it? Is it like Marmite – do you love it or hate it? Please email to let us know your experience and views of this acclaimed end to “Death by PowerPoint”

What is it?

Pecha Kucha, usually pronounced pe-chak-cha or pet-shah coot-shah depending on who you talk to, is a method of presenting that ensures both content and length are kept short and to the point, hence the claim of ending the nightmare we’ve all experienced – death by PowerPoint.

Using this format, presenters are limited to 20 slides, each of which can be shown for no more than 20 seconds. This is strictly adhered to using a combination of slide-show and automated timer functions on your computer, and limiting the entire presentation to 6 minutes, 40 seconds!

Where has it come from?

It was created in 2003 by two architects living in Japan – Astrid Klein and Mark Dytham – to give young designers a venue to meet, network and show their work in public. Their intention was to find a way of improving audience attention (manna from heaven!), whilst increasing the total number of presentations that could take place in one event, and even encourage those more shy presenters to actually take part.

The term “Pecha Kucha” is Japanese for the din of conversation, like chit-chat and it has been described as forcing the presenter to talk from their heart, as people used to do before PowerPoint became a crutch.

The real world

Can this format turn the traditional PowerPoint presentation on its head and stimulate a more engaging, passionate and memorable experience for conference and training participants? We have struggled to find examples of use outside the creative industries and would love to hear from you if you’ve used it yourself or would like to trial it within your organisation.

Julia Middleton, chief executive of leadership development organization Common Purpose is quoted in Personnel Today as saying that the organisations that will come out of the recession first will be those who utilse creativity to best advantage, being first to bring good ideas to market, adapt to new circumstances and go from idea to reality most quickly.

Could Pecha Kucha play a part in this drive for more creativity in the workplace?

If you need a training venue in Edinburgh, we can certainly recommend Edinburgh Training Centre and have used their facilities many times. Located right at the centre of the old city, it is just a few steps away from the Royal Mile that Links Holyrood House and the Scottish Parliament to Edinburgh Castle.

Brought to you by Andrea Pickerin - Visit Website

Andrea Pickerin worked for several years in sales and management in the travel and tourism industries in the UK and USA. She then joined Churchill Insurance where she progressed into marketing before co-founding Marketing Wizdom. She has Institute of Direct Marketing qualifications and looks after the office. The mother of two small boys, she also provides marketing consultantancy to a select group of clients.

If you’ve enjoyed this post and want to be notified when other new articles come up, just click here. To get your free copy of Robert's well regarded book “Learn how to grow your business … in just two hours: An introduction to low risk/high-return marketing strategies that will help you transform your business”, click here. If you would like to share any of your personal experiences, observations or the results you’ve achieved using these or similar tips, please leave your comments and/or thoughts below. We always love to hear from you: