Here’s your latest issue of Influence Anyone—where you get a strategy each week to change minds, shape decisions, and drive actions from Howie and the Behavioring Company team.

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A few months ago, I was talking with a VP of sales about how to increase their team’s close rate. I brought up customer pain points and started to ask questions about their challenges, and he pushed back: "I don't think we should psycho-analyze our customers."

Wait. What? Isn’t that what sales is about? That’s when I was reminded of the way we are wired to communicate. We default to whatever style feels natural to us and hope it works on everyone else. The VP of sales is defaulting to his style, not what his customer needs. That's the whole issue this week.

(If you want the deep dive, keep scrolling 👇🏽)

Here's something that happens to every capable person eventually. You explain something clearly. You back it with proof. And the other person still doesn't “get it”.

Not your boss. Not your biggest customer. Not the teammate you need on board for the plan to work.

So you explain it again, slower this time, with more detail. Still nothing. You start wondering if you're bad at this.

You're not. You're just fluent in the wrong language.

I’ve been working with leaders for over 20 years and I keep seeing the same five patterns. Some people lead with direction. Some spew evidence. Some love to tell stories. Some are reflective and share their wisdom. Some can easily get anyone to tell them anything. Call them Commander, Scientist, Storyteller, Sage and Connector.

The five styles of influence.

Here's something worth remembering: most people communicate the way they want to be communicated, not the way the other person wants to receive it.

That's the whole problem in one sentence. You’re not effective because you are influencing the other party in a language they don't speak (at least don’t prefer to speak.)

The takeaway: next time someone doesn't buy into something you know is right, don't repeat yourself louder. Figure out what they actually need, then say it in that language/ style.

(3 minutes to uncover your natural style of influence)

As promised, influence in 60 seconds.

Think about a toddler. No money, no status, no credentials, no vocabulary even. And yet a three-year-old can get a grown adult to completely change their behavior. They cry, they smile, they point, they persist. That's influence, in its rawest form.

Influence isn't just a business skill. It's a survival skill. For most of human history, staying alive depended on our ability to move other people, to warn them, coordinate with them, build alliances with them. We didn't survive because we were the strongest species. We survived because we could work together, and working together required influencing each other.

And we are the descendents of the ones who were able to influence. So this is not about whether you influence or not, it’s about understanding how you naturally influence people.

As I was working with hundreds of leaders over the two decades, I’ve been keeping notes and noticed patterns in how they led, how they communicated, how they got people to do what they desired. Along with deeper research into leadership and personality archetypes and tendencies, I landed on five distinct styles.

The Commander leads with direction. When a room is stressed and everyone is talking over each other, the Commander says, "Here's what we're doing," and the room calms down. Human brains hate uncertainty more than they hate being told what to do. The blind spot: Commanders move so fast they sometimes leave people behind, and speed that creates clarity can just as easily create mistakes.

The Scientist leads with evidence. Before any direction is set, they ask what the data actually says. They create certainty through explanation instead of action, and people trust them because they're precise. The blind spot: humans rarely decide on logic alone. Emotion drives the decision, and being right is not the same as being persuasive.

The Storyteller leads with meaning. You probably can't recall a stat from last week, but you can retell a story you heard once. For most of human history, stories were how knowledge got passed down, mouth to mouth, before books or podcasts existed. Attention follows emotion, and stories are built entirely out of emotion. The blind spot: inspiration doesn't always turn into action. People can feel moved and still do nothing.

The Sage leads with perspective. You've been stuck on a problem for weeks, and one conversation with the right person suddenly makes it clear. Sages notice patterns and hidden dynamics other people miss entirely. The blind spot: they can stay in reflection long after the moment called for a decision.

The Connector leads with trust. You've met people like this. You walk into a room having a terrible day, and before you say a word, they notice and come find you. Connectors listen for tension and energy, not just words, and research consistently shows people change more easily when they feel understood. That’s also why you tend to pour your heart out to these folks. The blind spot: they can value harmony so much that they avoid the conflict a moment actually requires.

Every style has a superpower, and every style has a blind spot. None of them are wrong. They're just different pathways for the same goal, getting another human being to move.

As of today, 888 people have taken the assessment, and profiles run the spectrum. People who have one primary style, people who have two or three and people who span all five.

I have a deeper research survey for those interested and here’s what I’ve found: when the pressure is on, people default to what’s natural. Under stress, Commanders get more decisive. Scientists analyze harder. Storytellers reach for more meaning. Connectors focus even harder on people. Sages retreat further into reflection. The version of someone you meet in a crisis is usually their truest, most default self. (If you take part in the research, I’ll be sharing more in-depth results with you. The link is in your results page right after you’ve completed your assessment)

I coached someone in my cohort recently whose profile was Sage and Scientist. That combination craves depth and craves data in equal measure, which sounds useful until you realize it can also trap you. She kept gathering more research, reflecting more, refining more, and never actually got moving. What she needed wasn't more evidence. She needed to borrow a Commander's instinct: pick a direction, put something out into the world, and let the results generate the data she was craving in the first place. Once she moved, everything she'd been reflecting on for weeks finally had somewhere to go.

This is exactly where it gets practical for how you influence your customers and your team. A customer who wants direction won't be won over by more data. A direct report who needs to feel understood before they'll change won't respond to being told what to do, no matter how right you are. You already know this instinctively about people close to you. The shift is doing it on purpose, with everyone.

Three moves make this usable starting this week.

You don't need to become a different person. You need one move from a style that isn't naturally yours, on the days the moment calls for it.

The most influential people you know were never masters of one style. They were students of all five.

The most convincing people you've ever met probably didn't have the best argument. They just had the right language for you, specifically.

Once you see this, you can't stop noticing it. The boss who commands. The vendor who over-explains. The friend who tells you the same story three times instead of just texting you the plan.

If you want to better shape what someone else decides, get fluent in more than one language of influence.

Want to know your own influence profile before you try any of this on someone else? I built a free assessment. 16 questions, about three minutes. It shows you your natural style, your blind spot, and exactly where you're probably losing people right now without realizing it.

[Take the Influence Style Quiz →]

Alright, people of influence, I’ll see you next Sunday.

Change behavior, change lives 🤘🏽

Howie Chan

Creator of Influence Anyone

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P.S. The VP of sales has a strong Scientist tendency in his style of influence, while his customers are probably a mix of Commander and Storyteller, and that is why their team has stalled in their sales.