Course Highlights
This virtual influencing skills course for business professionals will:
- Provide frameworks to differentiate influence from authority and expand one’s Circle of Control, Influence, and Concern.
- Introduce the Logical Levels model to align with others on shared values and perspectives.
- Offer language strategies for framing conversations, building rapport, and prompting action.
- Present the RESOLVE model as a structured approach for persuasive interactions.
- Teach techniques for balancing advocacy and inquiry to foster open dialogue.
- Share methods for managing resistance and addressing objections in challenging conversations.
- Explore best practices for using nonverbal communication to reinforce messages.
- Guide participants in creating a personalized influence strategy for sustained impact.
Course Overview
Influencing others, particularly without formal authority, requires a strategic blend of empathy, communication skill, and adaptability. “Harnessing the Power of Persuasion: Influencing With and Without Authority” gives participants the frameworks and practical tools to expand their reach, sharpen their communication, and navigate the conversations that matter most in professional settings.
Segment One builds the foundation. Participants examine the difference between influence and authority, map where their current influence operates and where they want it to reach, and develop the trust and credibility that make influence possible over time. The segment introduces the Circle of Control, Influence, and Concern framework for understanding where effort is well-placed and where it is wasted, the Logical Levels model for identifying shared values and finding alignment with different audiences, and the rapport-building practices that create the conditions for persuasion before a single request is made.
Segment Two develops the communication skills that carry influence into action. Participants learn how to frame conversations to guide discussion and motivate response, how to select language that opens dialogue rather than shutting it down, and how to balance stating a position with genuinely inviting other perspectives. The RESOLVE model provides a structured approach to persuasive interactions, and storytelling techniques give participants a tool for making their messages concrete and memorable. The segment closes with strategies for adapting communication across cultural and multi-stakeholder environments where one approach does not fit all.
Segment Three addresses the harder situations: pushback, objections, difficult counterparts, and the gap between what participants intend to communicate and how it lands. Participants work through how to recognize and respond to resistance, how to adjust approach based on who holds decision-making authority, and how nonverbal communication either reinforces or contradicts the verbal message. The segment closes with feedback loop practices and individual influence strategy development, giving each participant a concrete plan for continuing to build their effectiveness after the course ends.
The following outline highlights some of the course’s key learning points. For virtual delivery, the structure and timing are intentionally set to support discussion and application. We can adjust emphasis or drop select elements based on your business objectives. Upon request, we can preview the participant materials with you prior to the session.
Segment One: Foundation, Reach, and Connection
Segment One Objectives
At this segment’s conclusion, participants should be able to:
- Differentiate influence from authority and discuss the role of influence in business settings.
- Explain the Circle of Control, Circle of Influence, and Circle of Concern model.
- Expand their Circle of Influence in practical ways.
- Build trust and credibility in their professional relationships.
- Adapt their communication style to resonate with different audience types.
- Apply Logical Levels to identify shared values and find alignment.
Segment One Modules
Influence Without Authority: Understanding the Foundation
The segment opens by drawing a clear line between authority, the formal power to direct, and influence, the capacity to shape thinking and action without that structural leverage. Participants will examine where influence operates in their own professional environment, who they currently influence and how, and where their impact falls short of what the situation requires. The discussion surfaces a consistent insight: most of the decisions that matter most in organizations depend on influence rather than authority, which means that developing this skill is not optional for people who want to be effective. The group will also examine what distinguishes influence from manipulation and establish the operating principles that guide the rest of the course.
Circles of Control, Influence, and Concern: Expanding Your Reach
This module introduces a framework for understanding where a professional’s energy is well-spent and where it is not. The Circle of Control contains the things participants can act on directly. The Circle of Influence contains the things they cannot control but can affect through their relationships, communication, and choices. The Circle of Concern contains the things they care about but cannot currently change. The group will map their own circles honestly and examine the patterns that tend to keep people operating inside the Circle of Concern, expending effort on situations where they have no real leverage, rather than investing in expanding the Circle of Influence where the return on effort is highest. Participants will identify specific relationships and situations where a deliberate investment in influence would change what is currently possible.
Trust and Credibility: Building Solid Foundations
Influence without trust is short-lived. This module examines the specific behaviors and patterns that build credibility over time and the ones that quietly erode it. Participants will assess their own credibility in key professional relationships and identify where trust is strong, where it is thinner than the situation may require, and what specific practices would strengthen it. The discussion covers the difference between credibility that is earned through expertise, credibility that is earned through consistency, and credibility that is earned through demonstrated concern for the other party’s interests, and examines how each type supports influence in different ways.
Audience Profiles: Tailoring Your Approach
Not everyone is persuaded by the same approach, and this module gives participants a framework for recognizing what different audiences need before a conversation begins. Participants will examine how to read an audience’s orientation toward logic versus emotion, toward action versus reflection, toward the big picture versus the details, and use that reading to calibrate how information is presented, how much context is provided, and how the ask is framed. The group will apply the audience profiling framework to real situations from their own work and discuss what adjustments they typically make, which ones they skip, and what those skipped adjustments cost them.
Logical Levels of Influence: Moving Up and Down for Impact
This module introduces a model for understanding why some influence attempts land and others do not, even when the content is accurate and the request is reasonable. The Logical Levels framework reveals that persuasion is most effective when it operates at the level where the other person’s resistance actually originates. An argument that addresses behavior will not move someone whose resistance is rooted in identity or values. A conversation about tactics will not resolve a disagreement that is really about purpose. Participants will examine several stalled influence situations and identify at which level the misalignment is occurring and what a response at the right level would look like.
Rapport and Connection: Establishing Empathy
The segment closes by addressing the relational foundation that makes everything else in the course more effective. Participants will examine the specific practices that create genuine rapport, including how to listen in a way that the other person actually experiences as listening, how to acknowledge perspective without necessarily agreeing with it, and how to make the other person feel that the conversation is genuinely collaborative rather than persuasive. The group will practice a set of rapport-building techniques and discuss where their natural communication style tends to build connection easily and where it inadvertently creates distance.
Segment Two: Communication, Language, and Reach
Segment Two Objectives
At this segment’s conclusion, participants should be able to:
- Frame conversations using language that guides discussions and motivates action.
- Apply key words and phrases to build connections, encourage openness, and prompt decisions.
- Use the RESOLVE model to structure persuasive interactions.
- Balance advocacy and inquiry to create productive dialogue.
- Incorporate storytelling to make messages compelling and memorable.
- Adapt communication strategies to fit cross-cultural and multi-stakeholder environments.
Segment Two Modules
Framing the Conversation: Setting Up for Success
How a conversation is set up shapes how it unfolds. This module examines the language choices that create alignment before the substance of the discussion begins: how to establish shared purpose, how to invite collaboration rather than triggering defensiveness, and how to open a conversation in a way that gives the other party a role in the outcome rather than positioning them as the audience for a presentation. Participants will practice rewriting conversation openings that currently tend to create resistance and examine what structural shifts produce a different dynamic without changing the underlying ask.
Power Language: Words That Influence and Inspire
Language choices affect how messages land. This module examines specific categories of words and phrases that open dialogue, build connection, and prompt action, alongside the language patterns that close conversations down, signal pressure, or create distance without the speaker realizing it. Participants will work through a set of language substitutions that improve how requests and recommendations are received and examine how small shifts in phrasing change the emotional and motivational weight of a message. The group will also discuss how power language operates differently depending on the audience profile established in Segment One.
Advocacy-Inquiry Balance: Creating Effective Dialogue
This module addresses one of the most practical communication challenges in persuasion: how to hold a position clearly without shutting down the other person’s thinking. The Advocacy-Inquiry model gives participants a framework for balancing stating their own views with genuinely inviting other perspectives. Participants will examine the patterns that push conversations toward monologue, where one person advocates without listening, and the patterns that stall conversations in passive inquiry, where questions are used to delay rather than explore. The group will practice finding the productive tension between the two and discuss what a well-balanced persuasive conversation looks and sounds like.
RESOLVE Model: Structuring Persuasive Interactions
This module introduces the RESOLVE model as a structured approach to persuasive interactions, particularly those that involve some level of resistance, complexity, or emotional charge. Participants will work through the model step by step, examining what each stage is designed to accomplish and what typically happens when stages are skipped or rushed. The group will apply the model to a realistic influence scenario and practice using it as a guide for conversations that need to move from tension toward agreement without losing either the relationship or the substance of the ask.
Storytelling Techniques: Crafting Memorable Narratives
Data persuades some people. Stories persuade almost everyone. This module examines why storytelling is one of the most effective tools in an influencer’s repertoire and how to use it deliberately rather than decoratively. Participants will work through the structural elements of a persuasive narrative, examine real examples of how stories shift perspective where arguments do not, and practice building a story around a specific influence situation from their own work. The group will also discuss how to match the type of story to the audience and objective, since not every persuasive moment calls for the same narrative approach.
Adapting Across Cultures and Stakeholders: Ensuring Message Resonance
A message that works in one environment often fails in another, and this module addresses the adaptations required when the audience is culturally diverse, organizationally distributed, or made up of stakeholders with competing priorities and different relationships to the influencer. Participants will examine how assumptions about directness, relationship, time, and decision-making authority affect how a message should be structured and delivered, and work through a set of scenarios that require adjusting approach without changing the underlying objective. The discussion also covers how to manage influence situations that involve multiple stakeholders simultaneously, where alignment with one party can create complications with another.
Segment Three: Resistance, Refinement, and Strategy
Segment Three Objectives
At this segment’s conclusion, participants should be able to:
- Recognize and respond to common resistance in persuasive interactions.
- Address objections and navigate challenges in difficult conversations.
- Adjust persuasion tactics based on the authority level of the audience.
- Use nonverbal communication to reinforce verbal messages.
- Implement feedback loops to improve persuasive strategies.
- Develop a personalized influence strategy.
Segment Three Modules
Managing Resistance: Turning Pushback Into Opportunity
Resistance is not the end of an influence conversation. It is information. This module examines the most common forms of resistance participants encounter in professional settings, including skepticism, competing priorities, prior negative experience, and status quo preference, and develops a response framework for each. Participants will work through the distinction between resistance that reflects a real concern requiring genuine engagement and resistance that reflects uncertainty or discomfort that a different approach can resolve. The group will examine what happens when resistance is met with pressure versus curiosity and practice the moves that keep a difficult conversation open rather than forcing it to a premature conclusion.
Addressing Objections: Techniques for Challenging Conversations
This module focuses on the specific skill of handling objections without becoming defensive or abandoning position. Participants will work through a set of objection-response techniques that acknowledge the concern, demonstrate that it has been genuinely heard, and then redirect the conversation toward possibility rather than argument. The group will also examine how to distinguish between an objection that needs to be addressed on its own terms and one that is a proxy for a different underlying concern that has not yet been named. Practice scenarios drawn from common professional influence situations give participants the opportunity to apply the techniques before the session ends.
Tactics for Decision-Makers: Tailoring to Different Authority Levels
Influencing a peer requires a different approach than influencing a senior leader, and both require something different from influencing someone whose approval is needed but who is not the ultimate decision-maker. This module examines how authority level affects what an audience needs to hear, how they need to hear it, and what will move them from interest to action. Participants will work through a framework for adjusting approach based on where the audience sits in the decision-making structure and practice adapting a single influence scenario for three different authority levels: a peer, a direct supervisor, and a senior executive.
Nonverbal Cues: Reinforcing Your Message
Words carry intent. Nonverbal communication confirms it or contradicts it. This module examines the specific nonverbal signals that strengthen a persuasive message, including eye contact, posture, gesture, and vocal tone, and the ones that undermine credibility or create doubt even when the content is strong. Participants will examine how virtual environments affect nonverbal communication, where new challenges emerge around camera presence, background, and the management of attention across a screen, and develop practical adjustments for both in-person and virtual influence situations.
Feedback Loops: Learning and Adapting
Influence is a skill that improves with reflection, and this module gives participants a structured approach to learning from both successful and unsuccessful influence attempts. Participants will examine the questions worth asking after any significant influence conversation: what landed well, what created resistance, what they adjusted in the moment, and what they would change in a future attempt with the same person or a similar situation. The group will also discuss how to seek feedback from the people they are trying to influence without creating an awkward dynamic and how to use that feedback to calibrate their approach over time.
Creating Your Influence Strategy: A Roadmap for Success
The course closes with individual strategy development. Drawing on the frameworks, tools, and self-awareness built across all three segments, participants will create a personalized influence strategy that identifies the relationships they most need to strengthen, the situations where their current approach is falling short, the specific tools and techniques most relevant to their context, and the habits they will commit to building over the next 90 days. The group will share elements of their strategies and offer each other feedback, closing the program with a set of concrete commitments rather than general intentions.
Target Audience
This virtual training program is designed for groups that want to:
- Strengthen their ability to influence others, particularly in environments where they lack formal authority.
- Improve communication skills to build rapport, foster collaboration, and drive action.
- Navigate complex conversations with confidence and manage resistance effectively.
- Develop personalized strategies for creating lasting, positive influence in their professional relationships.
Frequently Asked Questions
Who should attend this course?
This course works well for professionals at any level who regularly need to gain buy-in, navigate resistance, or move people toward a decision without formal authority to compel compliance. It is particularly useful for project managers, program leads, internal consultants, account managers, team leads, and anyone whose effectiveness depends on their ability to persuade rather than direct.
How is this course different from a general negotiation or communication workshop?
This program focuses specifically on influence: the sustained work of shaping thinking, building credibility, and creating conditions for cooperation in professional environments. Negotiation skills and communication skills support the work, but the course is organized around influence as a distinct discipline with its own frameworks, language strategies, and situational demands. The program also gives more attention to the relational and long-term dimensions of influence than a typical negotiation or communication course does.
How are the three segments structured?
Each segment runs as a live virtual instructor-led session of approximately two hours. The three segments build on each other: Segment One establishes the foundation and expands thinking about where influence is possible, Segment Two develops the communication skills that carry influence into action, and Segment Three addresses resistance, refinement, and strategy. The segments can be scheduled on consecutive days or spaced to allow application between sessions.
Does the course address influencing upward, toward senior leaders?
Yes. The module on tailoring approach to decision-maker authority levels in Segment Three addresses influencing up, across, and laterally. The Audience Profiles module in Segment One also covers how to read and adapt to different authority orientations.
Can this course be customized for our organization?
Yes. Before the sessions begin, we gather information about the specific influence challenges your group faces most often, the organizational dynamics they are navigating, and the outcomes they are trying to produce. We adjust the scenarios, examples, and emphasis to reflect that context.
What frameworks will participants learn?
The course covers the Circle of Control, Influence, and Concern; the Logical Levels model; the Advocacy-Inquiry framework; the RESOLVE model; and a personalized influence strategy structure. Participants will apply each framework to realistic situations during the program rather than reviewing them as concepts.