InfluenceOlogy

Day two at Influencing From the Front just wrapped up and the room was electric,..

We went deep into business storytelling...the art, the science and most importantly, the application...the real stuff.

People sharing their stories, finding their angle, figuring out how to use what they already have to attract more clients and make a bigger impact.

Fired up for presentation day today.

Influencing From The Front day 1 was so fun! We want from 8:30 am to 8:00 pm and their energy was so high! Can't wait for today!!!

Much love to my brother from another mother, Dr Dean Peters, for getting me ready to unleash during our 3 day Influencing From The Front event! Love seeing you and your family brother! The power is ON! I am ready to serve!

Every professional I've ever worked with, whether they were a CEO, a chiropractor, a financial advisor, or a coach, had the same problem when they first came to me. They were good at what they do, but they didn't know how to transfer that expertise into a talk that moves people to act. The 7 P's is what I built to solve that, and I've been refining it since 2009.

Here's what each P is designed to solve for you:

Presenter: You walk in knowing exactly who you are as a communicator and why your message matters, instead of carrying imposter syndrome or fear of closing into the room.

People: You learn to investigate your audience, not assume, so every talk is built around what they actually need to hear.

Presentation: You get the architecture: opening, pre-frame, body, pre-close, close, so you stop winging it and start building talks your audience can feel.

Persuasion: You learn to tell your story and your clients' stories in a way that shifts beliefs and makes your offer feel like the natural next step.

Preparation: You learn how to practice like a professional, not just more, so you walk in with the kind of certainty your audience feels the moment you open your mouth.

Performance: You learn to use your body, voice, eye contact, and pauses so the room feels you before they even process what you're saying.

Promotion: You get a system to put yourself in front of the right rooms consistently, so speaking becomes a real driver of your business.

One framework, seven areas, over 50 industries served since 2009. Don't speak to inform, speak to transform!

Most sales and communication training gets it halfway right.

Knowing your material does build confidence. When you understand what you're saying and why it matters, that certainty shows up in your delivery. So yes…the script has a role.

But if script knowledge is the only thing you're developing, you're missing the bigger lever.

Research on the confidence bias shows that audiences make decisions based on how certain a messenger appears, not how accurate or well-prepared they actually are.

Psychologists studying source credibility found that dynamism, the perceived conviction behind the delivery, consistently outweighs content quality in persuasion outcomes.

Which means two salespeople can say the exact same words and produce completely different results. One owns the room, the other loses it…why?

The main difference is how much they believe what they're saying, and whether that belief is visible.

Obviously, the script/message is important, train it, but if you stop there, you've built knowledge without presence, and presence is what actually moves people.

After 24 years in the influence, sales and public speaking and training business, I can tell you exactly why most training produces mediocre results.

People come in for a weekend, they learn the skills, they practice the techniques, they leave feeling genuinely capable. And then six weeks later they are back to the old patterns, doing exactly what they were doing before they walked in the room.

The skills they learned were real, but the story inside never changed.

That is the difference between training that produces a temporary performance and training that produces a permanent shift, "transformational training."

You can get someone to execute a technique for a weekend. What you cannot get them to do is sustain that technique past the point where their internal story about who they are starts pushing back. And it always pushes back, because the story is more powerful than any skill you can teach in two days.

The clients I have watched make genuine lasting change are the ones who left with a different understanding of who they are and who they are becoming as a communicator. Not just what they can do, but who they are.

That shift in identity, I like to call "identity expansion," it is what holds the new behavior in place long after the training room is gone and the accountability is gone and the energy of the event has faded.

Obviously, skills and behavioral capability matter, but without the story changing underneath them, they are temporary.

Change the story first and the skills finally have somewhere permanent to land.

There are two modes every speaker operates in.

Internal is when you're living in your own head. What's my next point? How did that land?
What's coming next? You're present on stage but absent from the room.

External is when the information flows through you. You're reading the room, you're adapting, you're there with people, not just in front of them.

The best speakers aren't the ones who never go internal. They do. We all do.

The best speakers are the ones who spend more time external, and they know how to get back there fast when they drift.

The more external, the bigger the impact!

I love questions from the audience. Every presentation has a context though. Sometimes you're doing a Q&A with all the time in the world. But sometimes you have a hard stop and you have to finish on time.

And there's always that one person. First question, second question, third question...they keep going.....They're not really curious...what they want is the attention and control of the room. If you're not careful, they get it...

Here's what I do. When I sense that's what's happening, I use this script and everybody walks away feeling good about it. The person gets their questions answered, the rest of the audience doesn't feel discouraged from asking their own, and you stay in control of your presentation.

"𝘐 𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘭𝘭𝘺 𝘭𝘰𝘷𝘦 𝘩𝘰𝘸 𝘤𝘶𝘳𝘪𝘰𝘶𝘴 𝘺𝘰𝘶 𝘢𝘳𝘦. 𝘐'𝘮 𝘴𝘶𝘱𝘦𝘳 𝘤𝘶𝘳𝘪𝘰𝘶𝘴 𝘵𝘰𝘰. 𝘑𝘶𝘴𝘵 𝘴𝘰 𝘸𝘦 𝘤𝘢𝘯 𝘧𝘪𝘯𝘪𝘴𝘩 𝘰𝘯 𝘴𝘤𝘩𝘦𝘥𝘶𝘭𝘦 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘣𝘦𝘤𝘢𝘶𝘴𝘦 𝘐 𝘬𝘯𝘰𝘸 𝘐'𝘮 𝘨𝘰𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘵𝘰 𝘣𝘦 𝘤𝘰𝘷𝘦𝘳𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘴𝘰𝘮𝘦 𝘰𝘧 𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘴𝘦 𝘲𝘶𝘦𝘴𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯𝘴 𝘢𝘯𝘺𝘸𝘢𝘺, 𝘥𝘰 𝘺𝘰𝘶 𝘮𝘪𝘯𝘥 𝘸𝘳𝘪𝘵𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘮 𝘥𝘰𝘸𝘯? 𝘈𝘧𝘵𝘦𝘳 𝘸𝘦'𝘳𝘦 𝘥𝘰𝘯𝘦, 𝘤𝘰𝘮𝘦 𝘵𝘢𝘭𝘬 𝘵𝘰 𝘮𝘦 𝘰𝘯𝘦-𝘰𝘯-𝘰𝘯𝘦 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘐 𝘸𝘪𝘭𝘭 𝘢𝘯𝘴𝘸𝘦𝘳 𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘮."