I’m back in LA after training an eager crowd of entrepreneurs and business leaders at my London Boot Camp. What an amazing time! There was so much energy in that room you could almost feel the walls pulsating.
My next stop is Australia. In fact, as soon as I finish this blog post, I’m jumping on a plane to Melbourne, where I’ll be spending the next two weeks doing a combination of seminars, workshops, and private consulting. And while there will certainly be a fair number of salespeople at these events, there will be even more entrepreneurs and business owners.
So why do I continually attract these “non-salespeople” when I’ve got a solid reputation and track record as a five-figure-a-day sales trainer? It’s because entrepreneurs and business leaders get it! They understand that the most valuable asset they have is themselves. And they rely on me to teach them how to sell themselves.
That’s what persuasion is all about!
Before you can sell anything – a product, a service, an idea, a vision – you’ve got to persuade others that you’re worth listening to. Worth following. But it isn’t just salespeople, entrepreneurs and business leaders who can benefit from better persuasive skills.
Numerous studies by the Carnegie Foundation have revealed that even in such technical occupations as engineering, only about 15 percent of a person’s financial success is attributable to technical knowledge. That left 85% to the only other source the studies uncovered: personality and the ability to lead people.
That’s what persuasion is all about!
If you’re not selling yourself to others, every day of your life, then you’re setting yourself up to lose.
Don’t believe it?
Then why is the world littered with countless unemployed Ph.Ds when there are countless millionaires who hold nothing more than a high school diploma? Maybe people skills – the ability to persuade others – has more currency than book skills.
If you had better persuasive skills, you no doubt could get a raise or even a better job. Or a whole new career. But with the right ethical persuasion skills you can do even better.
The ability to persuade is about turning ideas into businesses, maybe ones that can hire a few unemployed Ph.Ds. Or turning ideas into projects that bring food and other necessities to the disadvantaged. Or convincing teenagers that gang life and drugs is no life at all.
Whatever you want, for yourself or for others, you can have. First learn how to ethically persuade.
To your success in life,
Jordan
