How to Become a Real World Influencer - with Ed Mylett

Facts Tell. Stories Sell! The vast majority of my wealth would NOT EXIST if I did not have the ability to influence people. INFLUENCE is the #1 Skill all leaders need to master if they want to find success. NO MATTER WHAT your industry is, whether you are a parent learning to persuade your children, a business person persuading a lead to buy, a pastor persuading your congregation, a coach persuading your team, an artist persuading your fans, a teacher persuading your students, YOU NAME IT, the art of persuasion is vital to your success. In this episode, I'm going to teach you the exact steps you need to take to optimize your ability to persuade others to take regular massive action. If you think you are already a great leader and influencer, I guarantee you are NOT as good as you think you are! This episode will explain WHY and what you need to do to become that great leader you envision. If you are struggling with leadership, in any area of your life, mastering these skills of influence will allow you to level-up! Learn these key tips to becoming an effective influencer and implement them into your daily routine for #MAXOUT Results! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Ed Mylett?

  I hear so many small business owners say the exact same thing. They just never have enough time in the day. Well, I measure time differently. I've compressed, condensed, heck, I've bent time. My first day is 6:00 a.m. to noon. My second day starts at noon and goes till 6:00 p.m. And my third day, 6:00 p.m. to midnight. I now get 21 days a week. Stack that up over a month, over a year, over five years, and my life's completely different than it would have been otherwise. And if you want to win as an entrepreneur, you have to compress your time too. And you definitely can't afford to waste it. Waiting weeks on a big bank for capital? Your best bet's to work with my friends at Cardiff. They know how to compress time for entrepreneurs. They get your business approved in minutes and funded the very same day. They're America's favorite small business lender, and for good reason.

• 0:45Ed Mylett?

  Over 20 years in business, over $12 billion deployed to small business across America. Stop letting bank delays slow down your momentum. Head to cardiff.co/ed. That's cardiff.co/ed. Cardiff.co. Real growth, fast funding. Cardiff. Borrow better.

• 1:01Speaker 01

  Mr. President, my company, for me, of the explosion on our rig.

• 1:05Speaker 02

  On October 2nd.

• 1:06Speaker 01

  Causing massive water displacement and triggering a tsunami. They all heap the blame on me.

• 1:11Speaker 02

  Tom Cruise is. Digger got us into this mess. And Digger's gonna dig us up. From the director of Birdman and the Revenant.

• 1:18Speaker 01

  What would happen if I stopped drilling? You stop, you freeze to death, that's what.

• 1:22Speaker 02

  With great power comes great deniability.

• 1:25Speaker 01

  I'm not the first nanny.

• 1:27Speaker 02

  Digger. See the trailer online. Only in theaters October 2nd. Rated R. Under 17. Not a minute without parent.

• 1:36Speaker 03

  This is the Ed Mileage Show.

• 1:44Ed Mylett?

  One of the questions I get asked the most often is about, what skill do I think is the most important as an entrepreneur? That's a really difficult question. But if I could go back and you could only give me one skill to begin with, and I had to build from all of it, I can tell you for sure what it would be for me. And that would be the ability to influence. So it's the ability to persuade people. Without that skill set, the vast majority of my wealth does not exist. If you can't persuade people, if you can't influence people... To make decisions that are in their own best interest, but that also grow your business, your brand, your company, your net worth. You can't ever become successful. One thing that everybody I know that's a leader and everything they do can do is persuade people. Now, I watch people do that in all different types of ways. Some do it through intimidation, some do it through force,

• 2:29Ed Mylett?

  some do it through humor, some do it through persuasive strategies, transfer of energy, you name it. But all leaders can persuade. All successful people can get people to make decisions in their own best interest that also get them to participate with their company. It's the number one skill that I see most people not spending the most time on is their ability to communicate, their ability to persuade people. And because they're constantly trying to go to a different course, or they think that somehow if their product is good enough, or they get the right sales pitch, that somehow they're gonna win. But the fact of the matter is, you've got to become a better persuader. I'm constantly personally working on that skill and refining it. My ability to persuade from the stage, through the camera here, to make, to get you to make the decisions that are in your own best interest, to persuade you that I can help you.

• 3:14Ed Mylett?

  To persuade my children. When I'm negotiating on buying a company, or buying a car, or buying a jet, it's my ability to persuade people to make the decision that's in their own best interest to participate with me. And so, if I was a quarterback in football, it's my ability to persuade the team to work the hardest, to run the best routes, to get open, to give it all they've got. Head coaches in football, school teachers, their ability to persuade and influence. Pastors, you name it, personal trainer. They've gotta persuade people to do the exercise, or that they're the expert. So it's our ability constantly to influence and persuade people that I think is the number one skill in life. And so if that's the case, what are some of the keys in doing that? So number one thing as a business leader that you should be evaluating is,

• 3:56Ed Mylett?

  are you constantly refining, constantly getting better, constantly making alterations, constantly being aware of how you can improve in all of these areas? The thing that happens when I say that to most people that are average, let me tell you what their response is. I already have that. I already got that down. I'm already persuasive. I already can do that. And even as I say that to people, I hear people all the time say, "Oh, I'm already good at that." Let me be very, very clear with you as a friend. If you were really good at that, you'd be more wealthy. You'd be happier, you'd have a bigger business. You'd have a better family life than you have. So it's your vast overestimation of your ability about that one skill set that is probably going to hold you back more than anything. As a friend, let me tell you, you're nowhere near as good as you think you are at that skill.

• 4:41Ed Mylett?

  And the fact that you think you're great at it may be your greatest detriment to moving forward in your life because you don't think there's this gap between where you should be and where you are that'll cause you to do the work to get there. And so I never overestimate my ability to persuade. I always think I can get better, I always think I can grow. And I know there are multiple areas and sectors in which we persuade people. So I might be really good speaking from the stage, but the question is, how am I in front of 30,000 people or 100 people? How about one-on-one? How about in my family? How about to a group of three? What about in a boardroom? What about the white collar people? What about the blue collar people? What about in my personal life, right? What about getting people just to make their best effort? What about putting money somewhere?

• 5:24Ed Mylett?

  And so there are thousands of areas in which we persuade people. Persuade people to like you, persuade people to laugh at your joke, right? So constantly, when you buy something, persuade them. When you sell something, persuade them. Persuade your children. So it's your overestimation and thinking you're great at that that constantly holds you back. You're nowhere near as good at that as you think you are. And the fact that you think it is already an indication you're not very good at it. So you might be great in one area but not great in the others. And so please, don't check the box and think you're outstanding at that. Because if someone who's spoken in front of millions of people on stages from 60,000 people to six people, who's made millions and hundreds of millions of dollars in business,

• 6:06Ed Mylett?

  traveled the world in multiple different businesses, in athletics, I've coached athletes, entertainers, politicians, business people one-on-one, and I coach in large groups. If I know I need to get better in those areas, I would submit to you that you probably do as well. Because I'm not as good as I could be or as good as I should be in almost every area of persuasion. Having said that, let's take the business context for a second. One thing I want to challenge you to be as a leader of your business. Whether it's just you're a leader of one, which is you as a salesperson, or a leader of 10 as a team, or a company of 25,000 employees is, you must become evangelical about your cause and your mission. The greatest business people have an evangelical property about them. They're evangelizing all the time.

• 6:47Ed Mylett?

  They're propagating the strengths, the benefits of their business, of their mission, of their cause. One of the great evangelists of all time is Steve Jobs. There's a great book written by a guy named Guy Kawasaki many years ago called Selling the Dream. And in that book, he talks about the way that Steve Jobs sold the dream of Apple. And he literally called him an evangelist for the cause. There's a great story in that book about Steve Jobs when he was recruiting. He knew he needed to have a CEO of his company. And he wanted to have the best. And at that time, there was a man named Scully, who was the head of Pepsi. And Jobs was this young kid in his twenties trying to recruit this executive who'd made millions of dollars. And he couldn't get him, and he couldn't get him, and he couldn't get him. And finally, he gets the voicemail back in those days, the answering machine, actually, of Scully.

• 7:30Ed Mylett?

  And he says, "Listen, man, when you're tired of selling sugar water to kids over there at Pepsi, and you want to come change the world, frickin' call me back and we'll do it together." Boom, and he hangs up, right? He was evangelical about the cause. Sugar water and Pepsi changed the world at Apple, right? And Scully, who's making millions of dollars, he's CEO of one of the most powerful companies in the world, looks to his wife and she says, "I think he's right. We aren't changing the world." And it was that one cause-oriented evangelical phone call from Steve Jobs, and it exuded out of his pores. Every stage speech he gave, every one-on-one, every board meeting, when he'd meet with their software engineers, when he'd meet with the programmers, he was always evangelical internally and externally,

• 8:12Ed Mylett?

  and built a culture of one of the greatest movements of all time in the history of business. There's great lessons there about being evangelical. The greatest presidential or political leaders have an evangelical property about them. The greatest salespeople do. The greatest dads, the greatest pastors, they're evangelical, aren't they? So, you've got to become more of an evangelist for your cause and your mission. Number one. Number two. You have to sell a big enough dream to your team, to your company, to your clients, to the people around you, that the dreams of everybody associated with you can fit inside the one you're selling. It's gotta be big, it's gotta be bold, it's gotta be expanding. Number three, it's gotta be repetitious. You can't get tired of saying the same things over and over and over again.

• 8:55Ed Mylett?

  One of the deficiencies of leaders that are weak is they constantly think they have to say new things to old people. Creating new things to say to old people. The best leaders say old things to new people. They say the same things over and over again to more and more new people. New teammates, new employees, new recruits, new clients, new speeches, new groups, right? They say old things to new people. They're repeating over and over the vision and the cause of their business, of their movement. These are great communicators. The next thing, all great communicators understand whether it's words, physiology, the look you give somebody, or writing. Influence is energy. It's the transfer of energy.

• 9:37Ed Mylett?

  It's getting you to feel about my company, feel about my mission, feel about my product, feel about my cause, what I feel. They're conscious of transferring energy to people because that's what moves people, that's what gets them to act. It's not just the words, it's not just your face, it's not just how you're dressed, it's an energy transfer. There's a hook, by the way. You can't transfer to me that which you're not experiencing yourself. You have to physically be experiencing it in the moment. It can't just be the words you're reading from a sheet. You have to really believe it. One of the reasons a lot of salespeople struggle, or recruiters struggle, is they just don't believe enough. They don't spend enough time making the case like a lawyer, litigating to themselves about how powerful what they do is.

• 10:21Ed Mylett?

  And the more and more you really believe, if you're a true believer, you can evangelize your product, you can evangelize your message. So invest more time in your own belief, in your research, in your knowledge. Finding third-party articles, magazines, blogs, things that reinforce whatever it is you're doing that feeds your own belief, that way you can give it to me. You can't give it to me if you don't have it. And so they don't spend enough time. Spend more time feeding your own belief and be conscious of the transfer of energy to another person. There's a great study out right now that I was just reading about bees. And them deciding which flower to pollinate is based on the energy the flower puts off.

• 11:01Ed Mylett?

  They sense the energy from the flower and they move towards that one deciding to pollinate that one. Well, if you want more people to pollinate your business, pollinate your life. If you want to attract the right relationship, the right amount of money, the right clients, the right employees, the right recruits, the right vendors, the right support. You gotta be putting off that energy because people are gonna pollinate it somewhere. You want them pollinating with you, right? And that's an energy feeling they get from people. The bottom line is people gotta be, when they get around you, they gotta feel something special about you, special about where you're going, special about your cause, special about your mission, that something special's happening, something historic, something big, a big old dream.

• 11:43Ed Mylett?

  In fact, one big enough that my dream can fit inside the one these people are selling me, right? And so this is the key of moving people. The number one skill, go all the way back to the beginning. My number one skill, that if I could keep only one, would be this right here. The ability to persuade people in multiple areas of my life. How do I get better at it? Transfer energy, number one. Feed your belief, number two. Number three, make sure that it's repetitious over and over again. Say old things to new people, right? And you gotta be evangelical and sell a big old dream. The bottom line is, is that this is a process that never ends of growing us, of growing our ability to persuade people.

• 12:25Ed Mylett?

  One of the things about communicating as well is doing it with a lot of specificity. Great communicators, great influencers, great persuaders are very specific and very clear about what their message is. And so even communicating yourself and leading yourself. I grew up walking this beach right here, this exact beach. And I didn't live like this, but I told my family someday, told myself someday, I'm gonna live on this beach. I didn't know who these people were that owned all these beach houses. I didn't know exactly how you got one. But I began to repetitiously transfer that energy to myself about my dream over and over again, literally thousands, if not millions of times. And now someday it happened, now that day is here. And I live on this beach, is one of four homes that I own. And so that's how you communicate with yourself and others, that transfer of energy.

• 13:11Ed Mylett?

  I can tell you that in my own situation, I'm always trying to, how do I evolve it? How do I modify it? How do I feed my own belief more? How do I sell it bigger? How do I back it up with more facts? The best leaders sell a big old vision. They tell a great story. The best people I know are great storytellers. Remember this. Facts tell, stories sell. Most people make decisions emotionally from the story. They rationalize it logically with the facts. So make sure you're selling a big dream, a big story, and then you give people the facts. This is the way we begin to move people in our lives. This is the skill of entrepreneurs. This is the skill of building something big and building something small, and building something permanent too, is your ability to persuade. Focus on your energy.

• 13:56Ed Mylett?

  Focus on your belief level. And focus on refining your message. The last thing is this. Say it faster and say it quicker. Less is more. You don't have to tell them everything you know. Leave a little bit to the imagination. One thing that happens, the longer and longer we're in business, the longer and longer we're around, the more and more we learn, we feel compelled to tell someone everything we know about our product, everything we know about the business. And that's not how you energize people. You give them just enough and then shut up. My dad used to tell me when I was a kid, when I'd be asking for money to take my girlfriend to the movies, he'd say, "Hey, don't sell past the clothes." Right? He had already agreed and I'd keep selling them. I'd keep selling them. And sometimes I'd lose them with this extra BS I'd be giving them. So I want to challenge you.

• 14:41Ed Mylett?

  Don't sell past the clothes. So of all things in business, right? Time management, goal setting, vision, identity, all those things we're going to talk about on this channel are very important. But if you can't communicate, if you can't persuade, you are toast. The last thing I would say to you, how do I get better? There's lots of books, lots of tapes, but it's really for me, it's modeling. I learned to model certain people initially and then modify. Model and modify. So I would model people, not copy them, but I would model certain people's styles. One or two different people. And then I'd modify it to fit my own personality. Model and modify, right? Don't try to create everything on your own. And don't try to copy somebody else that's different than you. You gotta be you. So model and modify.

• 15:27Ed Mylett?

  The last thing I would tell you is, to the extent that you can transfer this skill to other people, will be to the extent that you can scale your business. So it's one thing to be able to persuade yourself and transfer energy. It's an entirely other thing to equip other people around you to do likewise. The best leaders are not just evangelical about their cause, can't just transfer energy. They have the ability to transfer that skill of transferring energy to other people. And then you begin to build your movement, whether that's one, or two, or 10, or 25,000, or millions and millions of people. Sometimes your clients can be your top evangelizers for you when they use your product. So it's your ability to transfer that skill, and you have to do that through repetition.

• 16:10Ed Mylett?

  The way to transfer the skill of energy to people is through repetition and role play. Repetition and role play. Far too many people just talk and teach their teams how to do things. They talk at them rather than work with them. The way you get me to do it is there's no substitute for experience. A hundred hours in the classroom is worth one hour in the field. A hundred hours of teaching is worth one hour of role play where we do it together. Getting them on the stage, getting them... When I started speaking, one of the great speakers, that he was an older guy, so this is gonna date him, but when I first started speaking, I got on the stage and I would open up for this one speaker. And when I'd come offstage, he was a really older guy, but he'd say, "What was it like to play onstage with Elvis?" Meaning he was the Elvis, right?

• 16:55Ed Mylett?

  But I got to know what it was like to be on the same stage with the Elvis of speaking at that time. And in business, too often, we just talk at people and don't let them get onstage with you, Elvis. There's not enough role play, there's not enough engagement. And so it's repetition over and over. Repetition is the mother of learning, repetition is the mother of skill. It's the mother of owning it, over and over and over and over again, until it becomes reflexive. Because when the words and the message and the energy becomes reflexive, then, when you're under pressure, when you're stressed, when you're down, when the client's objecting, you reflexively respond with your habit. But if you don't have that habit, that reflex, uh, uh, uh, you begin to respond and lose energy. And so the reason repetition matters is it allows your responses to be reflexive under

• 17:40Ed Mylett?

  pressure. And then the second thing is role play. There's no substitute for that experience of being onstage with Elvis. I say it, you say it. I say it, you say it. And it's not just the words, it's the feeling. It's the transfer of energy. The number one skill of entrepreneurs and leaders of entrepreneurs is the ability to persuade, and hope these were some of the tips that you should be conscious of, of becoming world-class at it. Knowing you'll never be world-class at it. Knowing we can always get better, we can always stretch, we can always grow and improve our skills in multiple areas. Hope this helps you. Max out.

• 18:15Speaker 03

  This is The Ed Mylett Show.