Persuading and Influencing Training:

We are all influenced by our surroundings and the people around us on a daily basis, be that in the workplace or in our personal lives. By definition therefore, we also influence others directly or indirectly, whether we intend to or not.

Leaders require influencing skills to motivate and lead authentically. Single contributors require persuasion skills to get their ideas across and influence others to act on them.

The ability to understand others and how they prefer to be communicated with can make the world of difference when it comes to enhancing relationships and making ourselves understood. In truth, this is not something we can opt in or out of and yet how many of us have received training on this essential topic?

At Donovan Training Associates, we are passionate about supporting people with their persuading and influencing skills, helping them to make their lives easier both professionally and personally.

Persuading and Influencing Training Tailored Specifically for Your Needs

At Donovan Training Associates, we believe that optimised and effective training cannot be achieved with an off-the-shelf, one-size-fits-all solution. As a result, our persuading and influencing training is bespoke, tailored to the specific needs of your organisation and the individual delegates.

How Our Persuading and Influencing Training Works

Whether you are looking to turn an idea into reality, secure investment, push for a promotion or enhance your credibility within the workplace, we can offer a learning solution that is relevant to your needs.

The process begins with a no obligation consultation where we will identify your requirements and learn more about the types of scenarios where persuading and influencing will be pertinent to you. We will then prepare a bespoke proposal which we can amend as required to ensure we meet your specific needs.

Many of our clients ask us to facilitate onsite or at a local venue of their choosing but if you prefer to come off site, we can offer facilities in our Oxfordshire offices which are designed to host workshops in a professional and comfortable environment.

Why You or Your People May Need Persuading and Influencing Training

To learn how to influence others without relying on authority
To maximise creativity by opening others up to your ideas
To learn how to adapt your communication style to suit the needs of different stakeholders
To improve your productivity and efficiency
To lead and influence others without relying on coercion or policy
Personal and professional development

Persuading and Influencing Training Course Outline: An Example

All our training is tailored specifically to you and considers the needs of your organisation and the needs of your people. Where possible, we endeavour to provide examples and scenarios which are relevant to your business and therefore, which your people can relate to.

However, we understand that when comparing learning providers, it is helpful to have a better understanding of their approach and what a typical learning session might look like, and so we have put together the following as an example which we hope you will find useful.

Course Overview

Our persuading and influencing training is typically facilitated in a one-day workshop. Depending on the number of learners, your location, and demands of the business, training can either be provided:

In-person
Face-to-face via online real-people video training

We also provide customised pre-prepared learning materials, including videos and interactive resources. These are useful for learners to utilise as reminders or to learn in their spare time.

Learning Objectives:

By the end of the training, participants will:

Have clarity on the distinction between persuading, influencing, manipulation and coercion
Learn and reflect on the six key reasons behind why people say yes or no, according to credible research by Robert Cialdini
Have taken part in a listening skills activity which demonstrates both the importance and difficulty behind this key skill
Learn tried and tested questioning skills to perceive the view of the world from other parties
Learn how to adapt behaviour as opposed to personality when communicating with different types of people, referencing a key influencing model
Have the opportunity to put the learning into practice using relevant case studies or role plays

Course Structure:

This example is based on a one-day persuading and influencing workshop.

Clarifying the distinction between persuading, influencing, manipulation and coercion
The key traits of impactful influencers
Practical tips for applying influencing skills in practice, focusing on the use of language and the questions that we ask
The psychology of why we say yes or no and applying these principles to relevant real-life examples
Understanding our own responses to conflict situations and those of others
Adapting our behaviour rather than our personality to land key messages
Applying key learning points to practical application post workshop

Certification

If requested, we can offer certificates for our training.

Prerequisites

There are no prerequisites for this level of training course. It is suitable for anyone looking to improve their persuading and influencing skills, regardless of their current level of expertise. However, if you have a large number of delegates, you may prefer to create cohorts based on department or staff seniority level so that attendee’s feel more comfortable being open with discussing pain-points and challenges.

Resources:

After the workshop, we will send out resources that are specific to the needs of the audience. Typical examples include links to podcasts, TED talks, books etc.

When suitable, we also embed relevant TED talks into the workbooks that we provide which are all in an interactive PDF format.

To find out more about our bespoke persuading and influencing training, please call us on 01295 675506 for a free, no obligation consultation.

If you have any questions or would like an informal chat then please click below.

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Case Study:

“I personally found this to be the best training course I have attended so far in my time here - I found Anthony to be very engaging and his delivery of the course content was fantastic. Anthony really took time to understand our job roles and tailored the course content to fit this incredibly well - he clearly grasped the challenges we face and helped us to understand how we can adapt our approach when engaging with various teams across the Organisation.”

An extract from an anonymous post workshop feedback form written by a delegate who attended a persuading and influencing workshop in Sheffield, UK

We were invited to facilitate a one-day workshop on persuading and influencing for a client in the hospitality sector.

The context behind this workshop was that the attendees were project managers who were looking to influence others without having the authority from a hierarchical perspective to ask people to prioritise their work over conflicting deadlines.

We spent some time with the team beforehand to understand some of the specific challenges they faced, both from the perspective of the project team and the stakeholders they were looking to influence. This enabled us to create scenarios and content that were immediately relevant and relatable to the participants, maximising their engagement. This in turn made it a fun and rewarding facilitation experience for us, just how we like it.

Why Choose Donovan Training Associates?

We are MCIPD (Chartered Member of the Institute of Personnel and Development) Certified
All training is tailored to the specific needs of your organisation, ensuring you get the best ROI possible
We are passionate about making training enjoyable, rewarding and relatable so that your staff appreciate the investment you’ve made in them, and can see the benefit to them as an individual
Whilst we are based in Oxfordshire, we provide professional training to organisations both here in the UK, and overseas.