It’s easiest to influence people who KNOW you and OWE you

Do you see your important contacts often enough?

Or are there some you haven’t called for far too long?

If this sounds familiar, there are a few problems with this, of course. One being that, when we don’t talk to people enough, they don’t know us enough. And, when this happens, it’s much harder to influence them.

In fact, it is always easiest to influence people who KNOW you and OWE you. In other words, they need to speak with you often enough for their liking. And, when they do, it has to bring them value.

So, how to achieve both?

1. Knowing you

A simple way to ensure you speak to your important contacts more: KITE them. Where KITE stands for Keep In Touch Every. There’ll be some you should Keep In Touch with Every week; every other week, every month; and so on.

Once you know who the ‘weeklies’ are, group all their names in a recurring weekly diary entry, reminding you to call them. Put your monthlies in recurring monthly entries; and so on.

And, as for what to say when you contact them…

2. Owing you

People like to reciprocate (you know this to be true – ever received a Christmas Card and not felt a strangely obsessive compulsion to send one back immediately? Thought not).

So, when you give to people first, there’s a good chance they’ll want to give back – great for both of you.

This means, when you’re KITE-ing your contacts, always bring unexpected value to them. For example:

• Introduce them to someone useful
• Invite them to an event that will help them
• Teach them something they didn’t know they didn’t know, which will make a big difference to them
• Offer to help them
• Suggest you come out to see them
• Remember what they talked about with you last time you spoke, and ask how things are going for them with it
• And so on

It all sounds so obvious, doesn’t it? All I’m saying is to (1) speak to people more, and (2) help them when you do.

But, with our increasingly-busy lives, it’s easy to get out of the routine of doing this. Recurring KITE diary entries help ensure you fit things round them, not the other way round.

Action point

Review your main contacts, and identify how often you should be speaking to each of them. Group all the weeklies in recurring weekly diary entries, monthlies in recurring monthlies, and so on. And then make sure they get something out of every interaction with you.

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Written by NativeEnglish

Native English Spain is dedicated to make learning English simple, fun and affordable for Spanish people.