Are you a Pied Piper of Persuasion, or are you petering out behind a screen?
Take a look at Canva, a company who took on Adobe, the Titan Of Design, and is winning mindshare AND market share. This Australian company democratized design. The market rewarded them. They are now valued at $40B and led by a young visionary, Melanie Perkins.
She summarizes the power of visual persuasion this way, “It shouldn’t matter where you are in the world, or socioeconomic status, or your skills and experience, everyone should have the ability to design.”
Now, I’m not a paid influencer for Canva, but I stand behind their mission.
Melanie is one of the leaders who inspired me to provide some of my favorite tools. They are essential to help you win hearts and minds in the new hybrid world of work.
I recently invited Todd Cherches to The Mindful Marketer Life Stream to share his favorite persuasion strategies. He is a sought-after NYU professor, TEDx speaker, and a fellow member of the MarshallGoldsmith 100 Coaches community. He coined the term Visual Leadership and recently launched a highly-acclaimed book under the same name.
Watch the LinkedIn Live replay now.
Here are some key takeaways:
✔️ Every marketer must equip themselves with stronger storytelling skills and visual leadership techniques in the new hybrid world of work. The absence of body language and cues we get from face to face conversations demands a more finely-tuned skill set for effective communication. Listen to Todd Cherches on how to get others to “see” what you’re saying and inspire others to take action.
✔️ It sometimes helps not to speak the language. Cherches learned this by accident while he visited the China Folk Villages theme park. By using visuals, Todd was able to create a mental movie in the imagination of his Chinese counterparts. Together, they visualized how the theme park could be designed to optimize the visitor “wow factor.”
Watch the LinkedIn Live replay now.
✔️ Reframing is one of the most often overlooked persuasion skills. Only seeing things from your perspective can be very limiting. Find ways to see things from another person’s point of view. One of my favorite exercises incorporates Dr. Edward De Bono’s Six Thinking Hats. This forces my audiences and CMO peer group members to step into the moccasins of their counterparts: customers, CFO, board members, CEO and the VP of Sales, for example.
✔️ Leaders not only need to be good storytellers, but they also need to be good story listeners. Look internally at your biases, assumptions, prejudices and filters and listen to other people pull out their stories and hear what people are experiencing. If you just put out memos and policies without any thoughts about who they’re impacting or what your people want or need, it’s a recipe for failure.
✔️ Find and design surroundings that give you joy and inspiration. Do you work in an oasis of calm and creativity? Where can you think strategically practice self-reflection? Find that and see your visual leadership ideas come to life.
These five strategies will set the scene to toot your persuasion horn and earn your seat at the strategy table.