I’ll share with you now a technique that works extremely well for me in the area of influencing others. It doesn’t even require a verbal effort on your part, just the courage to experiment.

This is something I’ve been doing since I visited high school (from time to time). It turns out, that the way I look at people tends to get them to feel self conscious. And for the purpose of influencing someone / anyone, that shift of attention is almost a guaranteed convincing factor.

Some of the people I know, luckily – not close friends or people who I care about their opinion, claim that it is an aggressive characteristic. They even claim I should avoid people’s eyes when I speak to them! Well, I’m not that suggestible yet.

For a long time, though, I did just that. I avoided looking at people’s eyes directly because I would get uncomfortable myself seeing them becoming anxious – or at least, that was my illusion of seeing them twitching and trembling.

From my sales trainings, though, I learned that people are naturally indecisive. Since they don’t know themselves what’s good for them, at most times, they get anxious and self conscious about it. A salesman’s (or woman) job is to introduce a solution to resolve this incongruity for them. Whether or not the solution is appropriate, it depends on the salesman’s integrity and ethics.

It turns out, that for this reason and some others, I get my way at most times. Yes, it’s unfair, I know. I should let others get their way too… hey, who am I kidding? No way!

People respond mostly to subcosncious messages, i.e. physical signals. We’re still animals, you know, and animals who don’t share a common language speak through their bodies. A peacock will spread his feathers wide and stand as tall as possible to intimidate a possible predator or a territory intruder… but the peacock will do the same, plus a cute dance, to attract a female peacock.

Small predators and intruders can be intimidated and assume the peacock is a strong animal they shouldn’t mess around with. Of course, a tiger won’t be so eager to give up on a meal and will take the risk, but a wolf might back off.

When it comes to humans, we’re as habitual as it can get. We assume someone has a higher authority than us just because of their uniforms. If doctors and genitors would dress the same way, the genitors will get a higher status in our minds, and the doctors – a much lower one.

One of the most immediate and influential factors in human-to-human communication is the use of the eyes, and especially the eye contact and the expression that is being observed through the eyes.

Here’s what I do, try it and see how it works out for you…

The Unfair Advantage

When I am decisive; meaning, when I know what I want – have a clear well formed outcome in my mind; and while I am with the person that should be convinced into something… I get myself curious.

It’s quite easy to get curious. All you have to do is tell yourself, “what is this person hiding?”, “what is going on in his mind?”. And by all means, NEVER EVER try to translate their body language or eye movements while you want to influence them. It is not useful to be logical and analytic.

While you’re pondering on being curious, try to find the answer in their eyes. Don’t be looking for eye movements! I can’t stress this enough. This is a mental and non-verbal experimenting.

You’re looking for non-verbal answers, because whatever it is – it does not matter and has no use for you. The only thing you’re after is to get that curious state of mind and look directly in their eyes.

People get excited and nervous when someone is interested in them intensely. They might get even anxious, but this is not your problem – if a person cannot handle well their sudden awareness of themselves, it is not your position to distract them from their own selves.

The curiosity in your mind is to prevent a situation when you’re intimidating (peacock state) them. This way, your eyes will shine a bit, they would be focused, your facial muscles relaxed and even the words you use would be more suggestible to the listener.

Of course, this is only the way I do it. So experiment around, try with combination of other physical signals, like touching their hand lightly when you want them to really focus on the words, and so on.

Influence is a huge field, and we can have 3,000 more pages just with influence and persuasion materials. But this one technique is the one I’m using the most and I’m getting the most out of it.

Enjoy it!