It’s an area which always seems to generate interest and often people are looking for that little extra edge or ingredient that’s going to make all the difference.

I’m sure most people are aware of the need to build rapport, gain trust and ask the right questions. Of course, there is also the much under-used skill of simply being a good listener.

All these are important to develop because they are fundamental to good communication but there’s another aspect to influencing which is less talked about but equally important.

Just recently I was talking to a friend who had attended a sales training. She told me how the trainer had said “it’s a war zone out there and every day you’re marching into battle. Be prepared to take aim, lock onto your target and constantly push forward. Once you’ve got a sniff of interest be like a terrier and never let go” (I wondered if the trainer was ex-military?).

Certainly, this is one approach. It seems to continue to be a commonly taught approach in sales training judging by the number of aggressive sales tactics employed by so many organisations. It was how I was taught when I went into sales and for a long time all I did was push, push, push. It works and it gets results but the problem is that it’s very draining.

Another very different approach is to stop pushing altogether. Instead, once you’ve set your intent you just let go. You stop trying to make things go in the way you want by attempting to control them and you trust in the outcome, whatever that may be.

The late Thomas Leonard, wrote a chapter called “unhook yourself from the future” in his excellent book “The Portable Coach”. How this idea works in an influencing situation is that you allow yourself to be as happy with a ‘no’ as you are with a ‘yes’. The focus is on a genuine collaboration with someone and helping them to move towards their outcome and not on just making a sale or getting someone round to your point of view.

The difference between these approaches, fundamentally, is fear or more importantly, the absence of it. The idea of always pushing is fuelled by the fear not getting what you want and because of this you try to control the outcome. The problem with this, as previously mentioned, is that it’s draining, tiring, and can have lots of disappointment attached to it. More importantly it makes you unattractive because people don’t want to be pushed. 

On the other hand when you ‘let go’ you begin to become more attractive. People will open up to you more and trust you because you are not trying to make them do what you want.

The remarkable thing is that with this approach things will start to go your way more often. The right people, opportunities, and resources appear just at the right time. Personally, I believe that they were there all along but because when we were so locked on to our targets we didn’t notice them or recognise them.

So, to conclude this piece, when you’re in an influencing situation be aware of your intent. Are you trying to control or are you willing to release that control and trust in what happens? Remember that in order to let things come in you must allow the space for them.

Obviously, having a plan is no guarantee of success but when approached in the right way a powerful plan can lead you to breakthrough results because it influences behaviour.

By answering just five simple, yet challenging questions about your business you can create a powerful plan to drive your business forward and dramatically improve your results. These are:

1. What are you building?
2. Why does your business exist?
3. What results will you measure?
4. How will you build your business?
5. What is the work to be done?

The first question relates to your business vision. What will your business look like in 12 months, three years, or five years into the future? If you don’t have a clear representation of what your business will look like when it’s ‘done’ you may end up with a completely different business!

The second question is about your mission. From your customer’s point of view, what do you provide? What is it that they want from you? When you can describe what you do in a short but powerful way it becomes an organising principle to people’s thinking. 

The third question is about the results you are aiming for, in order to make your business successful. What do you want more of over time and what do you want less of over time? These results must be measurable so you can plot, evaluate and adjust your progress. If you don’t track your results how can you possibly make properly informed decisions?

The fourth question is about the strategies you decide to follow. What are five to eight things your business must do extremely well, over time, to be successful? For instance, how will you market your business? Retain key employees? Use technology to increase profitability?

Finally, what business building projects must you successfully complete and implement over the next 12 months? Instead of having lots of projects on the go at once, and making slow progress, it’s better to focus on just one or two at a time and get them finished.

As you answer these questions and commit your plan to writing you’ll end up with a compelling plan to run and manage your business. By guiding your thinking and behaviour in this way doesn’t it seem so much better than simply ‘winging it’?

Among many fascinating insights I heard that day, Frank talked about time management, which is an issue that many business people seem to have challenges with. He said that people who lead have a unique interpretation of time management and enjoy achievement in all three lanes of life’s motorway.

The fast lane, the over-taking lane, is your occupation or business. The middle lane is your family, partner and friends. The inside lane, the slow lane, is you.

A common pattern is that people can spend far too much time in the fast lane, in the belief that this is where superior performance comes from. They are consumed with their work and spend little time in the other lanes because they feel they really need to be in the fast lane. For many, it is where they get their whole sense of identity.

But this strategy is flawed because a high price is often paid in terms of quality of life, health, relationships and productivity.

The real high achievers realise that all lanes are heading in the same direction and it is spending time in all three that produces the energy to accomplish more with less. The activities in middle and slow lanes are equally important as those in the fast lane and need to be planned as well.

Many business owners take far too little time off. Yet, more than most, business owners in a position to decide how much time they allocate to the various aspects of their lives, aren’t they?

Being at the beginning of the year you have a blank canvas and perfect opportunity presents itself for you to block out the right amount of time off in your schedule. Ask yourself “Am I taking the free time I really want this year?” If not, book it in and then plan your work around it. 

By taking more time off your work time becomes more, not less, productive because it’s about working smarter not harder. Your ultimate level of success will correlate to the time you take to rest, rejuvenate and enjoy a high quality personal life.