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Anubhav Raina shares a post from a series on influencing that is designed to improve both influence-driven communications and strategy.

NOTE: this is part of a longer series of influencing:

1. Intro

CIF — Core Influence Framework

2. Building Trust
3. Convincing people

Appendices

1. Using effective questioning
2. Expanding the size of the pie
3. Negotiation: sweetening the deal
4. Using biases to your advantage
5. Negotiation: When to walk away

If you have a good idea about your counterparty’s personal narrative & a good sense of how you could expand the pie for yourself, it’s time to work through the actual proposal at hand.

A proposal will always consist of an “ask” (what the counterparty’s is being asked to do) and a “reward” (what the counterparty will receive in return).

It’s shocking how many conversations result in a stalemate because of the flawed assumption that all parties understand & agree on the reward & ask.

More often than not, there is no clearly articulated reward and/or ask. This is because people are so caught up in their own emotional needs that they focus only on their ask. Not the reward being promised — which is just as important in a deal.

If there is no reward being promised at all — do you expect the deal to work out?

The good news is that getting over this hurdle is simple. Take a piece of paper and articulate what the reward and ask is from the perspective of your counterpart.

But there are two rules to follow for rewards:

Access the full guide, Better Influence Series, on Med