The Power to Persuade

Tip Top Tips to increase your persuasion skills in today’s turbulent times

March 17, 2021 6:15PM Speaker: Derek Arden

Event description

How do you persuade those around you to believe in you, and your idea? How can understanding the way you influence others help you build rapport with them? Why should you become better at using your body language, manners, and tonality to your advantage?

The skill to persuade might sound vague, abstract, or distant, but in a startup you have opportunities to apply this skill every day. A lot of what you do, whether you are a founder or employee, involves building relationships with others or convincing them to trust you, or to believe in your idea.

Event summary

The Six Traits of Influence

  1. Does the person like you or not? – how can you be more likeable to the person

  2. Reciprocity - by giving things to people unconditionally for nothing, they unconsciously 'owe' you

  3. Authority – have an air of professionalism, gives more authority

  4. Exclusivity – by making a resource seem to be in limited quantities, it entices people to buy

  5. Social proof – by having references, it increases the trust someone has in you

  6. Commitment – by making someone feel they are committed it makes it makes them more pressured to accept

Key take-aways from event

  • Mirror body language and tonality of voice of the person you are talking to (to make them feel more comfortable)
  • Positive outlook can lead to positive outcomes, regardless of ‘truth’.
  • The first offer is never the last
  • Always end a presentation on time

Speaker details

Derek Arden is the UK's No.1 negotiation and Influencing expert, and has been working as an international negotiator for over 25 years. In his work, Derek advises clients on negotiation tactics and strategy, and aids them in increasing their revenue and boosting their confidence. In his book ‘Win-Win”, published in 2015, Derek talks about ‘How to get a winning result from persuasive negotiations'.

Derek attended the Harvard Business School where he studied psychology and human interaction/behaviour. He has been featured on media channels such as BBC Radio 2, the Financial Times, and Daily Mail and was invited to speak at London and European Business Schools. Currently, he works in his own Negotiating and Training Agency and has become a global speaker, hosting exclusive masterclasses for tens of thousands of people.