I think one of the biggest problem new players have making Influence is they are running double xp which takes away influence loot drops , low levels you don't get much but the higher in levels you go it gets better. When starting out in this game you need all the influence you can get until you have at least one level 40 or higher toon that can make influence easy.
Now you can go to the AE and join a farm to make a ton of influence also, you don't have to level up this way, just turn off xp and delete any xp buff you have then you will get influence drops and salvage/ recipe drops to sell on AH or vendor trash them