It appears that no one can offer a flexible list of international gurus on sales and influence. So we decided to collaborate online and make one together.

				Together with people across the globe we just launched the first step in an exciting project - building a shared online list of recommended sales literature. This list of literature may have several purposes, for instance: Continually picking up on good books, articles, blogs and the like by allowing anyone to share freely As a side effect, map out the authors and gurus that may be worth listening to Organize and structure everything into three categories in line with 3E Use the body of knowledge to start online collaboration

Once the literature list has become a substantial source of useful information we will use it to set up online events with these gurus. It will allow us to meet and interact with them based on supply and demand.

If you'd like to join this project or merely tag along, please feel free to do so. For updates on the project apply for membership in the LinkedIn group for Elite Sales Professionals together with thousands of others.

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Over the years clients sometimes have built dysfunctional procurement routines to protect themselves from dysfunctional sales people and sales systems. In fact, "sometimes" is a euphemism. In my experience, almost every organization has to varying degrees a dysfunctional procurement culture. These flaws arise mostly from sales people who do not honestly protect client interests in the pursuit of short term business. What can you do today to reverse this trend?

There are loads of books written touching this subject. In Let's Get Real or Let's Not Play, Mahan Kalsa and Randy Illig beautifully elaborate on the matter. Maybe, in my opinion, they do so better than anyone else up to this point. For this reason, quite frankly, this book is simply a must read!

						You can do many things to combat dysfunctional selling. When you do so, you'll promote the development of healthy and open procurement models. One basic habit inevitably reinforces ways to how you better can protect client interests. It is this: Seek out senior sales people and executives and ask them what they would have done differently had they started their careers today. The advice you'll get, you'll see, almost always will point you in the direction of how to --better protect client interests--. My favourite question has always been this: "What would you have done differently..." It's kind of like a life jacket. Learn from the mistakes of others. Maybe it won't keep you from falling into the water, but it certainly will help you stay afloat. It makes sense. Try it. Today!

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If you ever had the ambition of becoming an expert in sales or any area of persuasive communication you will need to help your team or organization address the most basic questions.

...and most of all, you need to ask these questions yourself.

The questions you need to ask yourself as well as instill in others are WHY, WHAT, WHO and HOW - and in that order. They in turn, give us the structure of the entire subject of sales or selling activity. No more do you need to look for a complete overview of what selling is all about.

This is the short version of successful selling. People who easily gain followers are all alike in this respect.

Successful selling always has three basic ingredients: Generate energy (internal) Share energy (collaborative) Receive energy (external) ...and in that order. In short, success is a growing conviction "first inside, then between us and ultimately coming from the outside".

A lot of sales people misunderstand "energy" and have a mental image of pure enthusiasm and an overly excited person. This is a poor stereotype. There are many ways to communicate and share "energy", but the energy is a must. It cannot be faked, especially not in the long run. Individual energy is the power behind every successful effort. When you separate successful from less successful this energy is the core difference.

It all starts with the first step; if (1) inner conviction fails, then (2) shared conviction and (3) discovered conviction fail accordingly. Now you know it. If you fail, this is why, but make these your primary focus and you've come a long way in replacing failure with success.

Albert Mehrabian's well-known research (1971) gave an indication of the relative importance of verbal, vocal and visual messages. What other factors are at play when seeking to influence the final outcome of an important decision?

Verbal, vocal and visual messages are all part of the Optimal Dialog. This dialog represents the peak and crowning frontline of communication.   However, underneath this top layer we find two equally important areas of influence. These two layers precede the Optimal Dialog in order. How?

Red

The bottom layer in red represents the Operational Dialog. It deals with strategy and position. For instance, a clear purpose and strong position affects your attitude and perception of the world around you.

Blue

In turn, position gives relationships meaning and power, which is the second and blue layer. The Opinional Dialog is where feelings can be shared without risk and restrictions.

Green

Likewise, only when position and relationships are in place will the technicalities of the top layer - the Optimal Dialog - really have the desired effect.

To get results

Most sales training aims at the top level of the influence pyramid. In other words, people receive their training without even a basic understanding of the power behind the two preceding layers. Our training and research seems to support a) the importance of paying equal attention to each layer and b) that traditional training only works when done in this order.

Influence is mastering communication on all three levels. That's why most sales training frequently has little effect on performance and results.

I can tell you what your problem is...

Whatever challenge you face, it begins and ends with your degree of influence. When you fail it is because you are not quite as influential as you need to be. On the other hand, when you succeed it is because you exercised influence to such a degree that things fell into place. There's really nothing more to be said. Influence is what it's all about!

So what is influence and how do you get it, or rather, how do you exercise and increase it?

Of course, there's no simple answer to this paramount question. Yet, there is a lot be learned and when we understand some basic principles, influence may dramatically increase and help us accomplish great results. First, it's important to see how influence operates on three levels:

1. Personal
   • Personal influence (i.e. productive ability) results in private victories.
2. Interpersonal
   • Interpersonal influence (i.e. persuasive ability) results in public victories.
3. Intergenerational (or systematical)
   • Intergenerational influence (i.e. sensitive ability) results in historic and permanent victories (breaking with old patterns.)

										The ultimate kind of influence seems to be somehow evidenced by "an improvement in the subsequent generation(s)".   Consider for a moment people who have changed the course of history. Whereas not all of them left a name and fame for good, we may learn significant lessons from what they did. Two characteristics stand out:
Chores: Washing the car or affecting a clean mind?

1) We usually tend to quite easily class them as either heroes or traitors. 2) Not all heroes are recognized by the masses, but they each have a faithful following.

Lessons to be learned..? All influence represents the sowing of a seed and eventually the fruits are judged by those who witness them as either good or bad. Also, not all good influence is recognized by many, but they always affect a growing awareness by those who enjoy the fruits.

Note: If intergenerational influence, the highest form of influence, is anything remotely close to success - the real and lasting success of life - then success may not be what you initially think it is.

For this reason we provide our fast growing community with an understanding of the 3 Energies to:

• help you more successfully reach others with a message
  ...when selling, influencing, negotiating, mediating, counseling - in short, effective influence in every setting.

• avoid quick-fix techniques and manipulation
  Since it's possible and tempting to abuse (persuasive) power we help influential people to understand that true and lasting - long term - persuasion, indeed conviction, is dependent on applying correct principles.

• bring structure to all existing sales models and theories to get to action
  Thousands of books and hundreds of sales models can each increase performance, but with the big picture in place we visualize and clarify actionable principles. Theory is nothing! Action is everything! But power to execute does, however, come from healthy and sound theory.

• leverage excellence by liberating individual and collective talent
  The most frightening loss in sales people is the lack of personal talent and energy. What does it take to remove the barriers that keep individuals and teams from blossoming and bring out what they already have inside?

Conclusion

The highest form of influence is filled with purpose and consequently is the most rewarding and fulfilling kind of interaction. The most powerful influence always enters the scene when we work on the highest and third level:

Just like when children doing their chores are building a character more than doing whatever else they do, everything we do can have a higher, more rewarding purpose and lasting effect. Ask yourself: How can I influence others to achieve a more honorable objective? How can we influence influential people by not just selling to make a living, but mastering influence to make a life ...one person at a time?

Influence is energy. In turn, energy can be divided into three different kinds. The 3E blog is about The 3 Energies which explain the one thing that really matters - INFLUENCE.

In June this year we began organizing what is now known as a worldwide group of Elite Sales Professionals. Today we are more than 1.000 high performers and a powerful group of competent people. LinkedIn serves as the initial connection and meeting point, but it will soon be complimented by smart online solutions. These solutions will allow members three basic privileges:

• An evolutionary collaboration model for tipping-point results
• A network of quality people to visualize business opportunities
• An online framework to innovate new money generation activities

The current group definition reads: "High performing sales people with experience in strategy and positioning, network and relations as well as pure skills and customer centric concepts such as innovation and product development. Trustworthy and competent professionals able to create value balancing people with business and money."

Once we've reached critical mass and the beta versions of the online solutions are in place, the Expert Panel behind this group will introduce a second round of qualification. This is when we'll experience the long planned "explosion" of the quality network we're only witnessing the small beginnings of today. Let me assure you; the Expert Panel is not without ambition with this worldwide undertaking! (And yes, the Expert Panel is yet to be formally introduced.)

So I'm sometimes asked: "What are the benefits of 3E?"

(The 3 Energies Behind Sales Success)

In stead of giving the so-called full version, every so often I challenge them by declaring: "Once you've grasped the basic consept of 3E:

• you'll never read another book on communication or success the same way again.

• you'll never again be subject to receiving training without understanding the big picture. Now you'll be able to extract the essence and get seriously good results.

• as a manager you'll never lead again without knowing what needs to be addressed and how it should be done.

• as a coach or instructor you'll know better how to educate effectively and continually improve yourself as a coach from that point onwards."

These are just four examples I quickly mention. Of course the response is: "How come, then..? What is it that 3E does for me?"

...and here's the answer to what 3E does: At any given moment there are always three conversations running at the same time. It's kind of like a radio; in stead of only tuning in on one wavelength at a time, you'll now receive messages from three different channels simultaneously. Three frequencies at the same time could be confusing, but not if you had the ability to "listen" to the first channel, gently "observe" the second channel and let's say "taste or smell" the third channel.

We're suggesting that once you're able to see and perceive the three dialogs, you'll also be able to feel and observe the persuasive energy that's flowing from these three types of conversations. (It may sound strange to use the word "energy", but that's the best term we found for it.) Once you understand and recognize the dialogs and energies you'll be able to speak all three "languages". When you do, you'll immediately begin to influence - on three levels - what really matters in order to convince the people you desperately need to reach. What are these three levels?

1. What both parties perceive about your POSITION
2. Who you TRUST and who they TRUST
3. How WORDS and SUBLIMINAL MESSAGES run in sync with position and trust...

...to become truly persuasive.

Of course "these three in one" is a major subject or undertaking, but that's what this blog is all about, as well as the book itself, The 3 Energies Behind Sales Success. We've been at it for 8 years, now. Suffice it to say at this point, each of the three areas above represent "the end in mind". They are not something you just do, but rather the end result of doing everything the right way. THAT'S what 3E does!

			-- Rings of mutual commitment --						If we leave out "all else", what is selling about? If selling comes down to only one thing, what is it that remains as the single most important element?   Asking this question is a healthy exercise in that we become aware of what it is we're really trying to accomplish. A lot of different answers might come up; the essence of selling is... "problem solving, asking questions, satisfying needs, perseverance, process..." All these are good, but these and many more are still only secondary.

One way to make the paramount and ultimate focus stand out clearly could be by asking: What is the purpose of selling? Why are we doing what we do? The purpose of selling and the heart of the matter in one word is COMMITMENT. To be precise; reaching a mutually desired and binding commitment.

Thus, sales training should, if done well, ultimately only focus on how this objective can be achieved. Usually I'm quite flexible when it comes to discussing whatever there is to learn, but in this area I'm confident and fixed. Sales models, strategies, skills and all else - at the end of the day - are only tools and procedures to help build the commitment. (Notice I did not say "get the commitment". A commitment is an experience, a feeling, a determination and a risk that we share.)

That's why it's so important to understand that the most solid commitments are "mutual and emotional". The only path to such commitments is through shared feelings. Shared feelings are an exchange of energy. Here's yet another reason why the realization of how influence is energy is so crucial!

Intuition is the ability to act without reasoning AND harvest a successful, sometimes predictable, outcome. Intuition is knowing how to act without necessarily being able to explain why. Intuition can be the tiniest inkling, but at the same time a powerful urge, and when suppressed it will leave you feeling imbalanced and out of place. Intuition is natural talent and can almost have similar characteristics as that of a reflex. Intuition is the principle of personal power in that it belongs to you, being almost like a protective force as well as giving you an edge on your surroundings. Fight intuition and you'll lose. Nurture intuition and you'll grow, you'll learn and above all you'll be victorious.

Is intuition a mystery? Sure it is. But, however mystical it might be, it still remains a fact. There are a lot of things that are hard to explain, but we still know they are real. Intuition is real. You're asking: How do you know, Vidar? Well, I've "tasted" it. I've acted on it, and I've taught others to do so, and do you know what I've found..? Intuition never fails. It's like an inner compass that points out the way and energizes everything we do.

Why is intuition important?

I always emphasize intuition during training sessions. One important reason for this is because intuition frees up talent. Each one of us does things differently. Sales models often specify behavior too much. If a sales model is not focused around generic principles it tends to limit a persons freedom to employ talent - which all of us have in abundance. By focusing on principles, individuals can apply them whichever way they want.

But even in this, intuition is not completely defined. Intuition has the amazing capacity to instantly and without warning also help us discover new principles - while on the go. And beat this; intuition especially uncovers those specific principles YOU have a unique gift to wield in battle. Any one particular "style" may be almost impossible for one person to adopt, but might beautifully fit another, almost like the size of a shoe. This fit usually takes place when two conditions are first in place:

• When we learn what needs to be learned about basics
• When we make a special effort to succeed - we move through frustration and exert ourselves beyond our comfort zone

My advice: Learn from others, but apply that same learning your way! Your inner compass will tell you how.