“That’s a great plan for you.” I hear this a lot. I share my experience and my passion for making an impact in the world. And many people say they think that what I’m doing is really awesome. But when I suggest that they could make a similar impact, some give me a deer-in-the-headlights look. or I hear, “Oh, I could never do that.” I probably need to get better at applying the fourth law of influence.
If you missed reading about the earlier laws of influence or would like a quick refresher, you can look at them here: first, second, and third.
The fourth law of influence states that people need to believe what you are suggesting will work.
Not many people will act on a suggestion from someone who appears to be bumbling their way through and has no clue. If I tell you to go stand in gorilla suit on the corner of Broadway and Main to find a girlfriend/boyfriend, you probably wouldn’t do it. You wouldn’t believe that it will work. But even if we aren’t bumbling through, and we’re not suggesting crazy things, we can still miss this fourth law of influence and fail to influence someone the way we’d like.
Competence
Belief that it will work can be conveyed a few different ways. The first is to have a certain level of competence. This can come through confidence. When we are self assured – when we know that it will work, this will come across. Others will feel this and many will believe in our confidence and believe that the change we are proposing will work.
Show Me
Another way is for people to “see it.” They may not understand the change or how it will work, but when we explain it clearly, then they can start to see it for themselves that it can work. Often a good way is to use analogies, or comparisons. For example, “Dawson Trotman was in the Navy. He mentored a couple other sailors, and after a while told them to find some other sailors to mentor. Over time, several thousands of sailors all across the world were impacted directly or indirectly by this one man. Do you think you could do something like that to make an impact?”
Social Proof
Finally, people will believe that it will work if they can see that it has worked for other people. This is sometimes called social proof. They can see that we’ve done this before with other people and we can do it with them. They may not know how it will work, but if they can see that it has worked before, they trust that it will work again. This also conveys a sense of competence to others.
What’s particularly interesting is that if I pay attention to this fourth law of influence – if I show confidence and competence, if I show you that it can work, and you see social proof, you probably would do something like stand in a gorilla suit on the corner of Broadway and Main to find that boyfriend/girlfriend if that’s what I told you to do.
