How to Influence...
How does this course help your business?
How to Influence is an engaging and interactive, drama-based learning course which supports your people with the skills to communicate with impact in a variety of context, enabling them to get their ideas across, sell products and concepts, and utilise different influencing styles to get better results.
As professional life becomes more pacy & complex, your people need to navigate an increasing variety of dynamic working relationships, multiple stakeholders and challenging personalities. This course, using our unique drama-based simulations that can be tailored to your business, helps your employees to effectively deploy skills & techniques to impact & influence effectively in a diverse mix of changing situations.
Watch our How to Influence Video
Why this course?
How to Influence is a practical, interactive course designed for professionals who communicate well—but could benefit from taking their impact to the next level.
Our How to Influence course supports employees of all levels to improve their communication skills to influence others effectively in a variety of situations to achieve better results. Learners will develop greater confidence to utilise different influencing styles, improving awareness of their own and others’ preferences and deploying a flexible approach to support successful working relationships and increased productivity.
Our unique drama-based scenarios can be contextualised to your business reality so that learners can relate to the interactions, creating engagement and lasting impact. Through these scenes, we’ll explore tools and skills and learners will practice how to recognise which techniques will work best in different situations. Whether it’s peer-to-peer interactions, influencing with clients or service users, or persuading others in presentation & pitch scenarios, our interactive simulations allow learners to practice their skills in a safe environment.
What does it cover?
How to influence: key techniques to support more impactful interactions.
Our How to influence course explores the theory of influencing, focusing on how to determine influencing levers and which are the best strategies to use depending on the situation and intended audience. We look in depth at how non-verbal and verbal communication skills and techniques impact influencing success, explore what to consider when preparing to influence, and think about how we can anticipate and handle objections.
Using drama-based learning, we’ll review which techniques work in different situations, and how we can play to our strengths when influencing for maximum impact.
How do we do it?
In this How to Influence course, we use a mixture of observational drama-based learning to bring influencing scenarios to life and provide a springboard for discussion and exploration of impact. Working with our actors, learners put the techniques learned into practice, first directing an influencing scenario using forum theatre, and then later working with actors on a 121 to hone their influencing skills and receive feedback for further development.
This course can also be delivered with a focus on presenting – ideal for learners who need to influence their audience in key pitches or meetings. The option with this focus is for learners to deliver their own presentations and receive feedback on their influence & impact in this medium, rather than a two-way influencing conversation.
Learning Outcomes.
Our How to Influence course equips learners with a wide range of skills enabling them to make effective choices when aiming to influence any given situation. We can tailor our unique drama-based simulations to suit both internal and external influencing scenarios.
By the end of the How to Influence session, learners will be able to …
• Identify situations both internally and externally that are dependent on influencing skills.
• Recognise key models and how to utilise them to develop an influencing approach.
• Explain how to use both non-verbal and verbal communication skills effectively when influencing.
• Identify how to improve personal effectiveness when in influential situations.
Why is this course important?
Being able to influence others is a key professional skill. Not only to support business success in the context of selling products and services, but also at an individual level for the communication of ideas and concepts and to support professional development.
When employees are more adept at influencing, they listen and interact better, improving working relationships, team dynamics and productivity.
Very engaging and energetic training session that was very well tailored to our specific roles and industry. Working with the actors really helped practice influencing conversations that we have every day
HOW DO WE DELIVER IT?
FACE TO FACE
IN THE TRAINING ROOM
LIVE ONLINE
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CLASSROOM
COMMONLY ASKED QUESTIONS
ABOUT How to Influence
What are How to Influence Skills, and why are they important in the workplace?
Influencing Skills refer to the ability to persuade, inspire, and guide others towards a desired outcome, whether in meetings, customer interactions, or team collaborations. Strong influencing skills enable employees to communicate ideas effectively, gain buy-in from stakeholders, and navigate workplace dynamics with confidence. This is essential for creating stronger working relationships, enhancing leadership capabilities, and driving business success.
How does this How to Influence Skills course help employees and managers?
Our How to Influence course helps employees and managers by giving them a variety of tools, techniques and skills they can use in different situations when they need to influence others. Having a selection of different strategies they can call upon supports improved confidence to assess and respond, reaching mutually positive conclusions for a win-win result.
What makes this How to Influence course different from other training programmes?
Unlike traditional influencing courses that focus solely on theory, this training takes a hands-on, experiential approach. Using professional actors and realistic scenarios, participants are given the opportunity to apply and refine their influencing techniques in a safe, supportive environment. This immersive and engaging format ensures that participants not only learn new strategies but also develop the confidence to use them effectively in their roles.
Who should take this Influencing Skills course?
This Influencing Skills course is suitable for employees at all levels, including managers, sales professionals, customer service teams, and those who regularly engage in persuasive conversations. Whether you’re looking to improve negotiation skills, strengthen stakeholder engagement, or enhance your ability to communicate with impact, this course provides the essential tools and techniques to become a more influential and effective professional.
Is this Influencing Skills course for all employees or just managers?
Yes, the How to Influence course is suitable for employees at all levels. While influencing is often associated with leadership roles, the ability to communicate persuasively, build trust, and inspire action is valuable across every role and department.
We can also tailor the How to Influence course to meet the specific needs of managers, team leaders, or individual departments—ensuring the scenarios and strategies explored are directly relevant to your organisation’s context. Whether you’re developing future leaders or supporting cross-functional collaboration, this course provides practical tools for anyone looking to strengthen their influencing skills.
What do you mean by ‘forum theatre’ and ‘working with the actors 1-to-1?
In the How to Influence course, we use two powerful drama-based learning techniques to bring influencing skills to life: forum theatre and 1-to-1 actor practice.
Forum theatre involves professional actors performing a realistic workplace scenario while learners observe and ‘direct’ the action. Participants can pause, rewind, and suggest changes to the characters’ behaviours and responses—allowing them to see in real time what works, what doesn’t, and why. It’s an interactive way to explore communication dynamics without pressure.
1-to-1 actor practice is not role-play. Learners don’t have to act or perform. Instead, they interact as themselves, while our actor takes on the role of the person being influenced. This creates a safe, supportive space to practise influencing techniques and receive tailored feedback that builds confidence and real-world readiness.
Both techniques are core to the How to Influence course and help embed learning in a way that’s practical, engaging, and memorable.
how good are WE?
THE ted Learning Guarantee!
We have been delivering highly impactful drama-based learning for over 13 years.
If for any reason you are not completely satisfied with the learning we provide in the room or virtually and the learner feedback reflects this, we will put it right.
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