| How to Influence on Zoom Business partners, leaders, trusted advisors, sales people, collaborators, experts – every one of us needs influencing skills. We want people to buy into our ideas, take our advice, follow our lead, call us first and trust what we say. How do you build this relationship virtually? |
| A job title doesn’t make you a pack leader; that just gets you in the room. People have to have a good feeling about you if you they are going to follow your lead. When you influence someone you tap into the powerful unconscious, autopilot, emotional part of their brain. About one million neurons govern our conscious thoughts, but about ten million neurons govern the unconscious ones. Something or someone feels right to our unconscious brain first, then we collect intellectual justifications to back up that feeling. Successful influencers appeal to us at both levels:They know what they are talking about and have an appropriate level of expertise. We warm to them and trust them. Let’s assume you know what you are talking about. How do you make people warm to you and trust you when you aren’t face to face? Virtual influencing comes through confidence, clarity on your contribution, and dialling up your interpersonal skills. Here’s how: |
| Act at the top of your game What does an outstanding performer in your role look like, behave like and think like? That’s YOU from now on. 1. You can’t wing it anymore. Virtual meetings are much less forgiving: waffling doesn’t work so your messages have to be clearer. Take far more time to prepare. Write your points down, especially your opening pitch, and practice them out loud. Record yourself on your phone. Keep practising until you sound convincing and authoritative. Block out half an hour in your calendar before each meeting to give yourself space to do this properly. Do you ever do this, honestly? 2. Limit your meeting attendance. See above. Giving yourself time to get it right means that you have to cut back on less important meetings so that you can fully prepare for the significant ones. What are you being measured on? Your meeting schedule should reflect that. 3. Be fully present and listen. Either do meetings properly or don’t bother. Don’t multi-task during them. It will just drain you mentally plus you are giving a clear signal that you don’t want to be there. That destroys any trust. How can you have an organisational value that ‘people matter’ when you don’t really listen to them? 4. Give positive cues. Give non-verbal cues to the person speaking in meetings to show that you support them. I do lots of virtual sessions and it is enormously reassuring when people smile and nod. Take a quick video of yourself on your phone to see what you look like just staring at the screen then see how much friendlier you look when you smile and are animated: body language still matters. 5. Take yourself seriously. If you aren’t convinced of your own contribution no one else will be. What’s your purpose here? Behave like your pay grade. We are all navigating uncertainties at the moment – a client described leading in the pandemic as ‘moulding jelly’. If you are supposed to be the expert in the room people expect clear logic and recommendations. Say: ‘given everything we know at the moment, my advice is…’ Use a louder voice than usual. 6. Show up on camera. Dial in on time, look sharp. Don’t expect to have any influence if you don’t turn your camera on. A possible exception is if it affects your network connection, but at least put up a photo of yourself instead. ‘My room is too messy, I haven’t shaved, the dog’s on my lap’ – your charisma will override all these excuses and actually showing a bit of personality will make you more interesting. (That’s my justification for displaying bottles of gin in the background recently). Use a pre-loaded background if you prefer to keep your home-working space private. 7. Work tech like a pro. Look at the camera, not the screen, i.e. the light on the top of the screen, not the screen itself. If you talk to the camera it appears that you are looking straight in the other person’s eyes. Frame yourself properly. Position your laptop so your face is straight at it: one or two cookbooks do this job perfectly. Light needs to be in front of your screen, not behind, and natural light is best. If your window is in the wrong place buy a ring light, they aren’t expensive. 8. Get on the agenda and on the phone too. Talk to your business partners regularly so you get involved early on in any decisions, rather than being brought in too late when it’s harder and more expensive to unravel mistakes. Get them in the habit of calling you and sound pleased to hear from them. Set the talking precedent by picking up the phone to them too, instead of emailing. One caveat: you might need to set some boundaries about call times if they take it too far. 9. Show authority in the meeting. If you aren’t in control of a meeting you can still control a stray conversation: ‘can we take a step back here’, ‘what do we want to achieve’, or my favourite: ‘what do we want to leave the room with that we don’t have now?’ 10. Follow up. Send a pithy email straight afterwards with your recommendations and agreed action so you’ve got control. Allow time in your schedule to do this straight afterwards. 11. Build connections. Have quick catch ups or virtual coffees with your clients and contacts, even if they aren’t doing work with you right now. Be genuinely interested in what’s going on for them and share your market knowledge. Now is the time for over-servicing. 12. Be influential when you aren’t even in the room. Have such strong thought-processes and questioning techniques that people say ‘what would Dr Clare advise here’ without necessarily having to call you. I hope that helps you pack more punch; feel free to share it with your network. |