If you’re a business owner, you no doubt understand the importance of influence.
It’s a major key in sharing with people how you can help them.
But there's a difference between influencing to manipulate people to get what you want, and ethical influence.
What is Ethical Influence?
1. Ethical Influence is about helping people get what they want.
It’s a meaningful conversation that is enjoyable by both parties.
It’s a caring process of supporting someone to make a decision that is going to get them a better life.
Once you really believe that, you will have the boldness to use ethical influence to help people to get what they want.
It’s a win-win for you and your potential client.
A lot of business owners I meet don’t enjoy the process of influence when it comes to selling their services or programs.
They are often scared of rejecting or sabotaging the relationship with the person.
They often avoid having sales conversations or asking for what they’re worth because they don’t want to come across as one of those pushy people, who uses cheesy tactics to try and get people to buy.
Then, their business suffers. Pushiness and cheesy tactics are not using ethical influence.
2. Ethical Influence is about discovery and match-making
It’s all about really connecting with people.
It’s about getting to know them through genuine discovery questions and seeing whether you’re a match for them.
It takes so much pressure off!
You can just relax and have meaningful conversations with people.
IF you’re a match, THEN (and only then) you can show them how you can help them.
This does 3 main things:
1. Reduces any anxiety of you trying to come up with ways to ‘convince’ people to buy, or wonder how to say all the right things
2. Reduces people feeling like you’re being pushy, annoying or only after their money
3. Reduces you being rejected over and over, because you only make offers to people who are interested.
3. Ethical influence helps protect your reputation
Ethical influence is about protecting your reputation - which ultimately comes through helping and sharing, giving and caring.
Compare this to what we see in many spheres of life.
Pushy sales techniques are everywhere.
I recently bought a new car from a dealer. Having learned ethical selling skills, I was curious to see how I would be sold.
The guy was friendly and had a good sense of humour, but a few things caused him to live up to the reputation that some car salespeople have.
One of the first things he said to me was “How much can you put down right now to secure the sale?”
I understand that urgency can be a key factor in decision-making, but this was said very prematurely.
I hadn’t even had a test drive or discussed what I wanted!
The second thing that felt a bit 'yechhh' about was when he walked off to make a phone call to his boss in private about the price.
He said to me “I’ll do some aggressive negotiating on your behalf”.
I’m thinking... ‘Yeah right... Why would you do that? Give yourself less commission??’ It just seemed so inauthentic!
When we were negotiating on the price, I asked if I paid cash that day, could he throw in something for free?
He said he could give me some samples of his network marketing beauty range. Hmmm... As if these aren’t a lead magnet to sell his products. Hardly valuable.
These approaches, in my opinion, aren’t using ethical influence.
Ethical influence to me is not focusing on money in the conversation, but how you can help that person.
It’s more of a long-term approach. It might not get you instant results every time, but gives you a good reputation, which in my opinion is one of the most important business assets that you have.
Once I stopped focusing on myself and my fears and invested into this skill, I realised that I could I make a difference to more people’s lives and help more people to make their dreams come true.
My results soared, along with my confidence and I was able to help many more people to.
I see so many business owners struggling to sign up clients or sell their programs because of fear and because they don't have the right structure or skills to sell authentically.
Which is why I created a sales template that doesn't feel at ALL like you're selling because it is a natural, enjoyable conversation.
For a limited time, I'm offering a FREE 45-minute 1-1 session, where I’ll help you attract your ideal clients and know exactly how to make your offers to them.
My client Aimee Campos, Director at Latin Dance Australia recently applied the template that we tailored to her business, and her conversion rate went from 50% to 92% in just 3 weeks!
Click here to book your free 'get more clients' session:
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