Hi again. In this video, we're going to discuss influencing the people around you. I'll describe the four steps of influencing and some common influencing mistakes. There are a few techniques that project managers can use to influence the people they work with, both within a team and beyond it. But first, what do we mean by influencing? Influencing is the ability to alter another person's thinking or behaviors. We'll discuss the concept of influencing in the context of our Plant Pals project at Office Green. Let's say that your team would like to partner with a well-known chocolate manufacturer to create a bundle deal. With this deal, the client could choose to add on a high-quality chocolate bar with each plant they purchase. You decide to send an initial email to a partnership Manager at the chocolate manufacturer to gauge their interest in the idea, and ultimately influence them to work with you. So, how do you go about writing that email that effectively influences your audience to consider your idea? Well, it turns out there are four tried and true steps of effective influencing. Leadership expert, Dr. Jay A Conger identifies the steps to effective influencing as: establish credibility, frame for common ground, provide evidence and connect emotionally. Let's discuss each step. The first step to effective influencing is to establish credibility. During this step, you make the case for why your audience should listen to you. According to Dr. Conger, credibility comes from two sources, expertise, and relationships. You need to demonstrate to your audience that you're an expert on a given topic, whether that's through professional experience, extensive research, or something else, and you need to demonstrate relationship credibility by establishing that you're honest, trustworthy, and someone who they want to work with. To establish credibility, you might kick off your Office Green email by greeting the recipient by name, then writing something like, "I'm Elita, a lead project manager at Office Green. Your colleague, Alex, passed on your contact information. Alex and I worked together to launch new services at Office Green before she joined your organization." In these opening lines, you've established expertise, credibility by introducing your role at office green and by suddenly highlighting that you've launched new services in the past. To demonstrate relationship credibility, you've established that you and the recipient have a shared contact who has worked closely with you in the past and can vouch for your trustworthiness and emotional intelligence. The second step is to frame for common ground. In this step, you'll make the case for how your idea can benefit your audience. To determine this, you'll need a strong understanding of your audience and their values. In essence, what about your idea will appeal to them, and how will they stand to benefit from agreeing to your idea? In our Office Green email, you might establish that you've researched their organization extensively and believe that this new service might align with their current offerings. For example, you might write something like this, "We're launching a service to provide top clients with desk plants and we'd like to explore a bundle offering to pair high-quality chocolate with each plant order. I've admired your organizations push in recent years to work with other lifestyle and wellness brands and I think there may be a great opportunity for us to collaborate." In this portion of the email, you've established that you've done your research on the organization and that their previous partnerships indicate that working together might be a great fit. The next step is to provide evidence. In this step, you'll make your case through hard data and persuasive storytelling. Numbers aren't strong enough on their own. They need stories to live in them up. In our Office Green email, you might appeal to your recipient with a line like, "We recently surveyed clients to gauge interest in this kind of offering, and your brand came up again and again." In this example, you provided evidence through the results of client surveys which showed overwhelmingly positive brand recognition for our shared audience. The last step is to connect emotionally. In this step, you'll demonstrate to your audience that you're emotionally committed to your idea and you'll do your best to match their emotional state. In our Office Green email, you might demonstrate an emotional connection by tapping into their brand ethos. For example, you might write something like, "We've been following your profile on Instagram and love your posts on chocolate's connection to living a well and balanced lifestyle. Perhaps we can discuss combining forces to bring this message to an even wider audience," and then you end your note with a friendly closer, something like, "If you're interested, I'd love to connect and share what our partner program is all about." To recap, establishing credibility, framing for common ground, providing evidence and connecting emotionally, are four proven, effective steps you can apply when attempting to influence others. Dr. Conger also identified four common mistakes that people make when attempting to influence others. They'll often approach their audience too aggressively, and that tends to put people off ideas entirely. They might also resist compromise, which is crucial for any kind of mutual agreement. They'll focus too much on developing their argument for the idea and not enough time establishing credibility, framing for common ground, providing evidence and connecting emotionally, and they'll assume that they can work out an agreement through just one conversation. These mistakes can jeopardize your attempts to influence others and limit your ability to build relationships, so be mindful of these common mistakes when preparing to pitch another person on your big idea. Great job. Now you know the four steps of influencing, as well as some common mistakes that people make when attempting to influence others. Coming up, you'll learn more about personal and organizational sources of influencing power. Meet you in the next video.