One of my favorite Sunday School stories was of the poor woman who only had enough oil in her bottle to prepare one last meal for her and her son. As the story goes she was gathering wood for a fire to make their last meal and were visited by the prophet Elisha who requested she prepare a meal for him. She explained her circumstances and he commanded her to prepare the meal and also told her that her bottle of oil would not run dry until the famine was eased in the land.
This story reminds me a lot of how influence works. Times have been pretty tough the past few years in a lot of industries. We have become a part of the statistics in our household with the closing of plants, losing jobs and contracts evaporating. But much like the widow woman we have something left – and that something is influence. Influence is one of those tricky words in the English language that pulls an extra heavy load, it is a noun and a verb. Meaning it is and it does. And the interesting thing about it is that the more it’s exercised, the greater it gets. And the less it’s used, the more it diminishes. You can ‘Be all you can be’ but if you don’t ‘Do what you can do’ it’s pointless.
So how is influence used? It’s pretty simple. You help people. By demonstrating genuine interest and caring about other people, you find opportunities. I teach people how to prospect. One of their first assignments is to go meet with someone that they hold in high regard and interview them about their life, career, goals and challenges. The meeting should last less than an hour. And I have challenged each and every person in the class to come back to the next session with someone that they couldn’t help in some way. It hasn’t happened yet. And I have taught this class to hundreds of people over the past 14 years.
This meeting is not about what can do for me in exchange for me helping you. There is no ‘quid pro quo’. That is squandering your influence. Influence grows as it is shared without expectation of reward. What you will find happening is the more you open doors for others, the more doors open for you.
I challenge you to ‘flex your influence muscles’ over the next 30 days. Meet with people who you hold in high regard. Get to know them, ask them about their life. What’s happening in their career? And I would love to hear what you are able to do for them. Take the influence challenge!
You can get anything you want in the world if you help enough other people get what they want – Zig Ziglar.
Have a great day! Good selling!