A business education in Transactional Competence?
We are biological, linguistic and transactional beings. To survive (and best, thrive) in our current social constructs we must know how to transact to satisfy each of our Conditions of Life (unavoidable situations like the need for money or good health, etc). You are always transacting to seek the compliance of others (and they you) to satisfy these conditions. Your specialized ability, expertise and knowledge of this fact determines your capacity to thrive.
We teach a Transaction Cycle which demonstrates a unique marriage of both subjective and objective philosophical thinking, speaking and practices. The Transaction Cycle demonstrates the moves and phases of any transaction and considers the Transactional Behavior appropriate for success. Participants come face to face with a biological tendency towards the behavior they have always relied on to gain compliance and the opportunity to exploit that natural behavior.
Taking into account their unique aims, knowledge, specialization, and Transactional Behavior; participants use an integrated and objective series of steps for thinking accurately about how to make highly-valued business offers that satisfy multiple Conditions of Life. This fundamental model is then embodied as a platform for building any successful transaction, it’s recurrence and expansion.
You could think of this as a practical and systematic roadmap to build a simple transaction (buying a burger) or a complex transaction (building a burger franchise). These steps reveal how to think accurately about how to satisfy your most important career, work and financial goals.
What are the Program Results?
For all Fundamentals of Transaction Programs ending in 2012, the average increase in personal income during the six months of participation was 53%*.
In addition to tracking income increases, participants target and track a health and another money measure (debt reduction, savings, etc). For 2012, the average results were 56% of target for health and 72% of target for money.
The average increase in personal income for each top performing participant in each program for 2012 was 208%. The top income increase in 2012 was 402%.
We don’t promise these results or that someone will increase their income; their business offer may be faulty or ill-conceived – or they may not apply the education as instructed. The “average increase in personal income” is an average that includes those who performed better or worse than the average.
Our education focuses on results in work, career, money and health as a foundation for satisfying these and other loftier aims.
All goals are tracked confidentially represented by percentage increases over time.
*This increase is calculated against anticipated income; a figure which a participant determines by looking at the income anticipated during the programs’ six-month time period. “Anticipated Income” is not based on what participants hope, dream or aspire to produce; rather, this figure is based on what participants already expect to make, based on historical data and already contracted raises and increases. This allows us to track the impact of the program on their income.
To demonstrate a possible return on the program tuition investment; at 53% average increase in income, $100,000 becomes $153,000. With tuition at $5,175, the return on the program tuition investment is calculated as 924%.
What is the difference between the three primary programs you offer?
The Priority in Practice Program is for people who seek to develop the habits and practices required to move as ambitious adults. Work is a human condition; an unavoidable Condition of Life that is misunderstood and often incorrectly assumed to be one’s only access to earning or making Money and having a Career. The program focuses on “work & action”.
The Fundamentals of Transaction Program is for ambitious adults who seek to build thriving businesses and highly-valued business offers. It focuses on your transactional competence.
Mechanics and Practice is an advanced program for those who complete the Fundamentals of Transaction and are invited to participate. It focuses on building a highly-valued, complex and recurrent business offer to produce a business offer that scales.
How do I get started?
Participation is by application only. Upon completing an application, each individual will be provided an interview to answer questions and determine whether participation is appropriate for both the individual and the existing Membership of Influence Ecology. Click this Program Application link to complete the online document.
You may contact Liz Smiley at liz@influenceecology.com or by phone at 424-224-4900 x 2 to find out more.
How do I find out more?
You may contact us to set up a personal one-on-one presentation by our Membership Development Team or you may attend one of our live Live Events. Most live events offer a formal invitation for application.
How are your programs delivered?
Our programs are delivered by seasoned leaders through a mix of online virtual classrooms, conference calls and live events. Our programs are a combination of focused study, deliberate practice, leader guidance and peer interaction.
Virtual Classroom Sessions allows free listening from anywhere in the world. Virtual classroom sessions include the presentation of program content, visual diagrams, video and other materials during the training session.
We currently use GoToTraining as our portal for Virtual Sessions. When first using this software, you may be required to download a Java Applet plugin when prompted. This process may take up to five minutes for first time users. Participants are required to have 24-hour access to any computer with internet access. Your computer will need to be capable of viewing Adobe Acrobat (PDF) and Flash files, reading and writing Microsoft Word and Excel files, an e-mail account that supports sending and receiving attached files. Participants are also required to purchase up to five business books.
The audio portion of the virtual classroom can be joined via telephone or your computers audio system. To use a computer audio system, you will need a computer that has working speakers and a microphone. View GoToTraining virtual classroom system requirements.
Conferences are live training events held in hotels or conference centers in many major cities.
Where are your programs delivered?
Our programs are delivered internationally by seasoned leaders through a mix of online virtual classrooms, conference calls and live events. Our virtual classrooms currently include participants from around the globe including Australia, Canada, Jamaica, Hong Kong, New Zealand, Singapore and the United States.
Our live events and conferences are available throughout the world. See our Events Schedule for opportunities in your area.
What are the origins of this program and it’s content?
The formal Study Papers used in this program were originally contemplated and began their construction in the mid-1980s by Co-founder Kirkland Tibbels and a group of young entrepreneurs who dedicated themselves to learning the Specialized Knowledge required to fulfill on their chief aims in business and in their personal lives. Through their commitment to study, and their involvement in many social and specialized business organizations, educational programs and combined work, they dedicated themselves to learning and accomplishing highly objective goals. Kirkland began to compile and organize the material for management and sales training programs used in varied business enterprises, educational programs and community organizations for over the past 30 years.
The program delivery and much of the environmental (ecology) and organizational principles taught in the programs are a result of the many years of practical experience gained and developed by Co-founder John Patterson. His history includes work in corporate curriculum design and the delivery of a highly specialized leadership and performance curriculum for a leading global training and development company. He has led programs, seminars and conferences for over 23 years to more than 40,000 people in corporate and educational environments.
The combination of their specialized knowledge and practical experience now offers a unique membership curriculum of programs that has evolved to be known as Influence Ecology.
This curriculum continues its evolution. With the purposeful collaboration of our most advanced members, we study and rely on a vast discipline of time-tested teachings while we seek to observe and reflect on modern discourses, assertions, theories, and findings. We study the development of our current marketplace, drawing from historical texts as well as those created and/or published more recently. As we study and rely on those proven principles, practices, and concepts that have been passed down over time, we also take into consideration the most current cultural and economic perspectives to date. We study and challenge many of the claims made in the current marketplace while carefully observing the interpretations and notions that inform our everyday thinking. We do this simply to better understand how to transact more effectively and continue to strive for the attainment of our greatest desires and chief aims in life. It is the intention of the founders and those participants and members who study with us, that our members enjoy the benefit of what has been developed and continues to evolve in this unique membership curriculum.
What does our name mean?
Our fundamental philosophy is the concept that human beings are inherently, and always, transacting to satisfy a variety of Conditions of Life. We teach the fundamentals of transaction and the science and practice of influence where it matters most – in an ‘social ecology’ of peers where ultimate success (or failure) is a matter of the company you keep.
You are not separate from your ecology. It shapes you and you shape it.
The name ‘influence ecology’ is an abstract concept for the environments constructed to satisfy our chief aims in life. Our unique curriculum and exclusive membership constitute ‘environments’ purposefully and strategically constructed to produce specialized ability, expertise and knowledge and compelling pathways, practices and structures to realize our individual aims and collective aspirations.
An ‘influence ecology’ is not an accident, it is something that is built. It is intentional and it is tended to.
An influence ecology is built with the specific intent to “step up your game”. If you aspire to something beyond your current reach, building an influence ecology is to build the social apparatus that produces compliance for the transactions you’re in with yourself and others. Your social environment won’t let you ‘off the hook’. You comply or you lose the opportunity to transact within that social environment.
An ‘influence ecology’ is the architected social apparatus of the individual transactional-self. It is a collective of ‘transactional-selves’ exploiting this apparatus in order to transact for a larger number of individual and collective Conditions of Life.
Can the tuition be paid in installments?
In most cases, however, part of our interview process is to determine if participation is something you could or should afford. We recommend you not participate if you cannot afford it. For those who seek to pay in installments, appropriate fees will be included. These options are negotiated during the interview process.
How long does it take to complete a Study Paper?
For our Fundamentals of Transaction Program, participants report that it can take 4-10 hours between sessions to complete a Study Paper, depending on your own capacities.
What kind of time does it take between sessions to participate in the Fundamentals of Transaction program?
There are 12 Sessions during six months. Our participants report that it can take 4-10 hours between sessions to complete a Study paper, depending on your own capacities. There are other ways you might participate which may include your own research or involvement in Study Groups. Your investment in your own education determines your success.
I heard you ‘kick people out’. Is this true?
Our member curriculum takes advantage of the hidden influence of social ecologies where ultimate success (or failure) is a matter of the company you keep. Our intent is to create a rigorous environment of study and a culture of ethics and accountability.
We tend to this environment by holding high standards for participation. Currently we decline 36% of those who apply for our programs and remove 22% of those who begin them. Most aspiring people understand themselves enough to seek membership in business and social environments where exceptional results are demanded of them. Membership in any worthwhile organization, is earned, and maintained through a recurrent demonstration of the ability to transact powerfully within it. Influence Ecology is no exception. Those who qualify and complete our programs enjoy the benefits of, and gain access to a international network of ethical and accountable partners.
Included in your participation contract submitted with your application, we have said that we may remove you from the program without refund. In fact, it is this very environment that makes our programs so highly valued and unique. As such, we remove people who do not comply with our contract for participation. This includes the timely submission of Study papers, being on scheduled calls and being respectful of others participation. In all cases, you will know in advance if your participation is in question.
How do I invite someone to participate?
Our participants first hear about our program through a private invitation by one of our current Members. If you would like to extend this invitation, you may contact us to set up a personal one-on-one presentation between your prospect and our Membership Development Team or you may attend one of our live events with them. Many events offer a formal invitation for application.
The attire for live events is Business Attire. What defines Business Attire?
We request Business Attire or Informal Business Attire at live events.
Business Attire – Traditional business dress. For men this would be a business suit with tie. For women, dresses or suits with either skirts or slacks. Appropriate footwear for men includes wing tips, loafers, or rubber sole shoes with socks. For women, heels, loafers, or rubber sole shoes with socks or hosiery.
Informal Business Attire – Slightly less formal than traditional business attire. For men this would be dress pants with a dress shirt or polo-type shirt worn with a jacket but no tie or a dress shirt worn with a tie but no jacket. For women, this is a skirt or dress slacks with a dressy blouse and/or sweater, or other type of top with a jacket. The intent of informal business attire is to ensure that personnel are dressed appropriately to meet with the public at a moment’s notice.
Please, no Business Casual.
Who do I contact if I have an issue with my attendance or Study Papers?
Please send an email to the appropriate address for your course. You can also call us at 424.224.4900.
Who do I contact if I have a technical or tuition/finance issue?
Please contact Darryl Anderle at darryl@influenceecology.com or at 424.224.4900.
Who do I contact if I would like to request an application or register for a program?
Please contact Liz Smiley at liz@influenceecology.com or at 424.224.4900.
