3 Clever Strategies That All Entrepreneurs Should Utilize to Influence People

We grew up being told that being liked or getting a promotion, or a sale is based on who is the most qualified. But that's not always the case; being nice is not always rewarded in social situations, and the hardest worker does not often get the promotion or the sale.

So today, I want to give you three ways to influence how people feel about you. It has nothing to do with your qualifications or words, and it is 100% in your control.

The First Way: Creating Physical Warmth

So, the first thing is how to game something called the Stereotype Content Model. It sounds fancy, but it's very easy. They researched about warmth — the idea of someone being warm and that we usually think is generated by being friendly or smiling or making us laugh.

But one very clever social psychologist had the idea — what if that warmth is actually used because it's similar to physical warmth?

So, he did a study that went like this — you come up as the participant, and you see me holding a clipboard, a pen, and a cup of coffee. I asked you to hold that coffee while asking a couple of questions; we're riding an escalator towards where you think the study starts, and I said, "What's your name? What's your date of birth..." all sorts of information like that and I'm filling out a sheet? Meanwhile, half of the participants hold iced coffee, and half of the participants hold hot coffee.

Then they all go, and they read a description of various people. They rate them in terms of who they think is friendly or warm or cold or distant and who they would like, and who they would dislike. It turns out that the people holding the hot coffee are more likely to think that the people they're reading about are friendly and warm.

Someone they'd like to know even though everyone involved is reading the same descriptions. So, what does that mean for you?

It means if you can create physical warmth in people, especially when you're just meeting them, they will like you more, which is crazy because there's a ton of ways to do this — you can give someone a coffee, you can control the temperature in your office...

If you're going on a date and your date is cold, you may want to give them your jacket not just in the name of chivalry but in the name of making sure that they don't then dislike you because they're physically cold.

If you are having a big business meeting, make sure that the temperature is comfortable or even a little warm because that sales prospect will suddenly like you more.

Second Way: Thought Manipulation

The second thing that you can do to influence how somebody feels about you is by manipulating their thought. To be precise, you manipulate what some think about right before they think about you or your ask. This comes from Robert Cialdini's book Pre-suasion, and I think it's fascinating because it applies to dating, friendship, business...

There are so many ways this can benefit you. The study they did was they had an attractive guy go up to women in front of a florist, a flower shop, a bakery, and a shoe store and had him used the exact same words to ask for a girl's phone number.

Super simple — he just said his name, that they were attractive, that he had to go but, "Could I get your phone number?" When he was standing in front of a flower shop, he was twice as likely to get the phone number.

Think about what that could mean for you in terms of sales or dates or friendship; it's crazy. Why did this happen?

It's because flowers primed the women to think about romance in a way that shoe stores and bakeries don't. So obviously, if you're going to ask someone out and there happens to be a flower shop nearby, that's great for you, but how else can this apply?

Go to a restaurant with flowers? Wear flowers? Flowers everywhere? I'm being facetious, but you have to think about what your environment is priming for this other person that might influence how they feel about you. And I see this especially when people have meetings in coffee shops; they go to Starbucks.

But Starbucks doesn't code for success. So, if someone's pitching you something and you're in a Starbucks, they're not doing themselves any favors. If they go to a lovely steak house or a Country Club, all of a sudden, you're thinking about money and success, and you're seeing all this stuff, and you're much more likely to say yes to whatever their proposal is.

The Third Way: Thinking About the Image You Project.

Now the third way that you can manipulate somebody into thinking something about you is by thinking about the image you project.

There's an incredible study that was done in France that highlights this amazingly. They had a guy walk up and again, ask women out because it's just an easy binary way to see how someone feels about you. Half the time, he had a gym bag, and half the time, he had a guitar case, and he was three times more likely to get the phone number when he had the guitar case.

That's crazy. Three hundred percent increase in getting dates or business is wild, and it's just by what you project — specifically what you're wearing and what's in your hands. So how does this impact your life? Again, I guess you could just walk around with a guitar case, but I wouldn't recommend it unless you play guitar.

But let's say that you're going into a business meeting; it could be for a pitch, or it could just be in your office, but you want your bosses to respect you and listen to you. Don't go in with a binder that looks like a sixth-grader's English binder.

Get a nice black pen, get a nice leather binder, and make yourself put together; suddenly, you look like somebody whose ideas should be taken seriously. I saw this myself at a conference with my buddy, who did this brilliantly.

Everybody was wearing jeans and t-shirts or sweatpants because it's just a conference where you're allegedly there to learn from speakers, but he was there to hire. He rocked up in a beautifully tailored suit, and it doesn't matter if this was a name-brand suit or a cheap suit — I have no idea — but he stood out in the crowd.

And immediately, if he's talking to you about working for his business, you assume his business is successful because of how good he looks.

So that's three ways you can manipulate how people feel about you that have nothing to do with your qualifications, resume, or even the words you say.