Tag Archive for: principles of influence

A Life Well Lived: Kathleen Schwartz

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Today’s post is not about any of the principles of influence, rather it’s about the influence one person can have on so many. Yesterday Jane, Abigail and I visited a good friend, Kathleen Schwartz, after she’d been admitted to a hospice care facility. Barring a miracle she will not be with us much longer, so as you can imagine we’re all filled with sadness.

During our time there I told her husband Mark we’re all better people because of knowing Kathleen. We met her when she was Abigail’s middle school gym teacher and volleyball coach. She was tough, once calling a time out during a volleyball match to make the girls do finger tip pushups because of a mental mistake. She’d warned the girls she would do that and she was true to her word. As parents we loved seeing that kind of disciple instilled in the girls.

Click here to view the video if you’re reading this in an email.

Despite being hard on the girls they knew one thing above all – Kathleen loved them. There was correction for mistakes, but it was always balanced with hugs and lots of affirmation.
She was also the girls’ teacher for a life skills class. As 8th graders getting ready to leave the relative shelter of Polaris Christian Academy’s school environment, Kathleen prepared them for many of the changes they would encounter as teens in public high school. One bit of advice we laughed at and will never forget is when she told the girls, “If you hear a zipper, run!”
During my high school years Todd Alles, my football coach, instilled things in me that still impact my decision making nearly every day. When coach Alles told us, “You’ll learn a lot about life playing this game,” it rang hollow to most of us who played for him. However, as is the case with most people who grow up, we look back now and marvel at his wisdom. Kathleen was Abigail’s Todd Alles because what Kathleen taught Abigail will stay with her the rest of her life and Abigail will be a better person because of those life lessons.
Everything was fine in early December when Kathleen and Mark stopped by for Abigail’s 16th birthday party. Not feeling well towards the end of the month she was diagnosed in early January with a very rare form of cancer. Now in early March we all wonder why God seems to be calling her home so quickly. However, as Christians we adhere to the Apostle Paul’s words, “God works all things together for good for those who love Him and are called according to His purpose.” Difficult times are ahead for Kathleen’s family, her students, and for her friends but we cling to Paul’s promise. Good things will come from this and great things have already come from her life.
The influence of her life stemmed from her love of God and desire to live as His son lived. Love isn’t a principle of influence but it’s the most powerful force of change in the universe. When we unconditionally give ourselves to others it changes them. Our world would be a much better place if we all looked for ways to love more and thought of ourselves less.
Jane and I will never forget seeing Kathleen comfort Abigail, hugging her and telling her everything would be alright. That’s love when someone dying is still giving! 

This was not the post you may have expected but I hope it influences you to go out today and look for ways to genuinely love someone. Doing so will help spread Kathleen’s influence far beyond what she ever would have imagined and that would be a fitting tribute to a live well lived. God bless!

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Brian, CMCT 
influencepeople 
Helping You Learn to Hear “Yes”.

Even Superheroes Rely on the Powers of Persuasion

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As I was watching Spiderman 2 with my daughter on a lazy Sunday afternoon something leaped out at me. No, it wasn’t Peter Parker from the top of a tall building; it was Spiderman’s need for the power of persuasion when his superhero powers couldn’t do the trick.

As the movie concludes, Spiderman battles Dr. Otto Octavius who had become the evil Dr. Octopus. Spiderman momentarily bests the evil doctor and pulls off his mask to reveal his true identity. Dr. Octavius recognizes Peter Parker, a former student. The following exchange ensues as Peter tries to convince the doctor to shut down the octopus-like machine he’s created.
Spiderman: You once spoke to me about intelligence; that it was a gift to be used for the good of mankind.
Dr. Octavius:  Privilege.
Spiderman:  These things have turned you into something you’re not.
Dr. Octavius:  It was my dream.
Spiderman:  Sometimes we have to give up the thing we want the most.
Dr. Octavius:  You’re right.
 At that point the doctor having regained his old notion of right and wrong proceeds to help Spiderman defeat the tentacle monster.
Despite his “spidey” super powers our superhero decided the better course of action was to tap into a different super power; the power of the principle of consistency. This principle of influence tells us people feel the psychological need to be consistent in word and deed. This need arises from the fact that most people feel bad about themselves when they say one thing and then go back on their word. This principle is so powerful that sometimes we even find ourselves doing things we don’t really want to do just because we said we would.
An example of this might be the appliance salesman noticing you looking at a particular refrigerator model. Knowing full well there’s plenty in stock he might say, “I think we just sold the last one earlier today.” This taps into scarcity and makes you want it all the more. Then he taps into consistency, “I could go in the back and take a look if you like. If we have one left do you want it?” Feeling the tug that it might be the last one then giving your word that you do want it might lead you to make a purchase you might not have otherwise. After all, it will be hard to back out when he returns and tells you, “Great news, I was wrong. We do have one left. Let’s go get the paperwork started.”
Fortunately Spiderman didn’t rely on stretching the truth like the salesman might have. During that final exchange between Peter Parker and his former professor, Peter simply reminded Dr. Octavius he told students his goal was to use artificial intelligence for the good of mankind. The doctor acknowledged it was indeed a privilege and this was the turning point where foe became friend and the two worked together to defeat the evil machine.
Tapping into the power of consistency is available to us more often than you think. We can do so by asking questions or learning about the other person in advance of the conversation where you need to be persuasive.
So here’s my persuasion advice: next time you want to persuade someone do your homework first. Can you find out something about the other person’s values and beliefs? Can you learn their stated position on things or uncover some of their prior actions? If you can and you figure out how to align your request with them, the odds of them saying “Yes” to you will go up rather dramatically. You might not be in a battle for the supremacy of good versus evil or trying to save a city from a mad man but nonetheless, I’m sure your request is important to you.

Brian, CMCT
influencepeople 
Helping You Learn to Hear “Yes”.

3 Persuasion Tips to Boost Email Response Rates

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A few weeks ago I wrote an article giving readers 700,000 great reasons to use yellow sticky notes as I shared how using the psychology of persuasion helped my company recover from a $700,000 mistake quickly. It’s a great story of putting theory into practice to help the bottom line.

The response to the article was overwhelming so I decided to do a follow up because of a question. Whenever I share the sticky note story at speaking engagements inevitably someone will ask, “I rarely mail things anymore so how can I get a better response rate when I send some type of
email blast?”
To address this, let me start with a blunder I made many years ago. I’d done some training where I shared Dale Carnegie tips with several hundred associates. A few months after the training I followed up with an email to everyone which read:

If you have any success stories based on the Dale Carnegie training please let me know and I might include them in an upcoming edition of our newsletter.

More than a week went by and I had no responses – not one!
So I rethought the approach and the first thing I did was send another email but this time it was personalized, as one email went to each person and included their name. I didn’t write hundreds of emails, I used Microsoft Word and did an email merge with my training database so it was quick and easy.
The second thing I did differently; rather than make a statement I asked a question:

Have you had any success based on the Dale Carnegie training? Is so, please let me know and I might include it in an upcoming edition of our newsletter.

Within a week I had 125 replies! While most people said they didn’t have anything to share what caught my attention was the fact that they still responded. Personalizing the email and asking a question compelled people to answer and I did get more than two dozen good stories for the newsletter.
Why did this approach work so well?
The principle of reciprocity tells us people feel obligated to respond when someone does something for them. In the sticky note study people responded to the survey request more because in the back of the mind attaching a sticky note with a hand written message shows extra effort on the part of the sender because it’s personalized. It’s the same way with an email; writing someone’s name personalizes it and shows extra effort which leads to a better response rate.
Personalizing your email also helps overcome is something known as “diffusion of responsibility.” This theory tells us quite often people don’t respond in situations, sometimes even emergencies, when groups are involved because everyone assumes someone else will respond but in the end no one does
anything. With my email listing so many people for everyone to see (they were all employees so there were no privacy issues involved), I’m sure most people assumed someone else would share a story so they didn’t need to.
The other significant difference with the second email was my question. As noted above, people feel compelled to answer questions. Think about when you walk through the shopping mall and someone from a kiosk engages you with a question about trying their product. At a minimum most people respond with “no thanks,” because we’re conditioned to do so which is an application of the principle of reciprocity noted above. Social norms dictate a response because not acknowledging the person asking a question makes you appear rude, as if you’re
ignoring them.
A third tip I’ll share that can help is to include your photo on your email. Studies show the more familiar your face is, even if someone doesn’t know you, the more compliant people are when you make a request. Every time I interact with new employees, vendors, or consultants I include my photo on my initial email communications because I know it helps when I need them to do something.
To recap: 1) adding a name, 2) asking a question and 3) including a photo will translate into a significantly higher response rate than the standard email blasts you might be sending today.
Lest you think my story was a fluke or the excellent response was simply because I sent a second email I’ll share one more success story. Each year my company contracts with an outside vendor to survey our agency force to see how we’re doing in key business areas. Several years ago, after learning about the psychology of persuasion and how it can help, we tried a different approach to see if we could boost our survey response rate. Rather than just have the
vendor contact agencies directly, we sent an email a few days ahead of the survey to alert agents what was coming. The email came from the VP of sales, was personalized to each agency owner and contained a question specifically asking them if they would take the survey. Hundreds of agents replied to the VP’s email and we saw the survey response jump by more than 50%, going from 900 agents completing the survey to more than 1,400!Of all the insurance companies that participate in that particular survey, every year we now have the highest response rate. Coincidence? No, it’s the strategic use of the psychology of persuasion. Small changes can lead to big differences with very little time, effort or cost when you understand how people think and behave. Are you still sending emails to multiple people the standard way? If so, rethink your approach like we did and you’ll see better results because the science of
influence tells us so.

If you’re viewing this by email and want to listen to the audio version click here. If you want to leave a comment click here.
Brian, CMCT
influencepeople 
Helping You
Learn to Hear “Yes”.

Why We Put Up with Hazing

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Hazing is defined as the act of forcing someone to perform strenuous, humiliating, or dangerous tasks. It’s especially prevalent with new or potential recruits in the military, college fraternities, and various other clubs. Hazing is typically part of the right of initiation; passages people must endure before becoming a full-fledged members of some groups.

Who can forget National Lampoon’s Animal House and the classic scene where Faber college freshmen pledges to the Delta Tau Chi fraternity were repeatedly spanked with a wooden paddle, each time responding with, “Thank you sir, may I have another!” The portrayal of what the Delta Tau pledges had to go through in the movie was seemingly innocent, albeit humiliating, college fun. Unfortunately life isn’t always like the movies. Last fall Robert Champion, a 26 year-old Florida AM University student, “died within an hour of a hazing incident” according to an autopsy.
Champion was the band drum major and allegedly was repeatedly hit by other band members in a hazing incident. Roland S. Martin addressed this dangerous practice in a CNN article he called “Only students can truly end hazing.”
One question that needs to be asked is why Robert Champion would choose to go through such hazing? Why do fraternity pledges endure “Hell Week”? Why to military recruits and others voluntarily put themselves in harm’s way just to join a group? I think two principles of influence address a good bit of the psychology behind the decisions of people who want to become members of certain groups.
Consensus, also known as social proof, is the principle of influence that alerts us to the reality that people look to the behavior of others when deciding what the right course of action is. We are influenced by what many other people are doing or by the behaviors of people we view as being similar to us. Imagine for a moment you’re a part of a dozen people who are trying to get into some club. When you see those ordinary people who appear to be just like you willingly submitting to some form of hazing it would be extremely hard to be the first, or only person to stand up and say no. Mom and dad would have called what you’re experiencing in that moment “peer pressure.” It’s not unlike teens and smoking. They all know it’s bad for them – in addition to being expensive – and yet many do it because their friends are all doing it.
To make matters more difficult, researchers find that consensus is even stronger when people are not sure what the right course of action is. Never having pledged a fraternity or joined the military you can see why pledges and recruits find it that much tougher to say no.
The next principle at play is scarcity. This principle addresses the psychological reality that people tend to want things more when they think they’re less available or harder to get. Groucho Marx was famous for saying, “I wouldn’t want to belong to any club that would have me as a member.” In other words, if any club openly accepted Groucho then maybe that club wasn’t such a great club after all. The harder it is to get in the more people value membership. That’s a big reason some clubs, fraternities and other organizations make it difficult to join.
However, hazing is only one way to make joining a club difficult and thus gaining the benefits of scarcity. Getting into Harvard or Yale is tough because of the grades required. In order to qualify for the Boston Marathon runners need to run certain times to earn the right to run the race. The Marines are famous for saying they’re “The Few, The Proud, The Marines,” implying not everyone can join. In each case, apart from the need for hazing it’s still very, very difficult to be a part of those groups.
Roland Martin is right, only students can end the hazing and that admonition extends to anyone else in positions of power in exclusive or semi-exclusive groups. Exclusivity can be built in through other means and as pledges and recruits see others going through the new, non-hazing, initiation rites they’ll probably fall in line and see them as acceptable and normal. In time, as class after class goes through the new passages perhaps hazing as we know it today, and the tragedies that sometimes result, will become a thing of the past.If you’re viewing this by email and want to listen to the audio version click here. If you want to leave a comment click here.

Brian, CMCT
influencepeople 
Helping You Learn to Hear “Yes”.

The Influential Steve Jobs

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I
recently read Steve Jobs by Walter Isaacson. It was an interesting book about one of the most influential people of the last 100 years. When I say Jobs was influential I don’t mean in the sense of necessarily using the science of influence. I say Jobs was influential because the products he developed are used by so many people around the world and have set the standard for many communication devices today. Indeed, the iPhone and iPad are the standards when it come to phones and tablet technology.

I found an interesting paradox as I was reading the book, because I enjoyed the book but found myself disliking Jobs the more I got into it. At times I caught myself thinking, “I love my iPhone but can’t stand him.” I almost felt guilty that I enjoy so much what he invented because of the path he took to get there and how he negatively impacted so many people along the way.
There were certain descriptions used of Jobs throughout the book that I found to be nonsensical, particularly his “reality distortion field.” The author and many people he quotes talk about Jobs’ vision – be it for a new product, deadline or something he simply believed – as if he had some magical power to distort reality. He was certainly a visionary and he had a strong will coupled with a bully-like approached that helped get things done. For those reading this who played sports, think of your meanest, toughest coach and multiply that person many times over and you begin to get the picture of the approach Jobs used with people. Nonetheless, if you enjoy Apple products or just biographies of people who shaped history then I encourage you to pick up Steve Jobs because it’s a fascinating look at the man who’s had so much impact on the world we live in.
The following paragraph caught my attention and is the basis for this post because it relates to the science of influence and sales:

“When it came time to announce the price of the new machine, Jobs did what he would often do in product demonstrations: reel off the features, describe them as being ‘worth thousands and thousands of dollars,’ and get the audience to imagine how expensive it really should be. Then he announced what he hoped would seem like a low price.”

Whether or not Jobs understood he was using the science of influence, he was, by tapping into the compare and contrast phenomenon. This is used all the time in sales because the price of a product can neither be high or low unless it’s compared to something else. That something is quite often another price. For example, when I first started running I went to a department store and got a pair of running shoes for about $40. They were much better than anything else I’d ever worn so I was happy until I realized I needed a better shoe after logging lots of miles. Imagine my sticker shock when I saw good running shoes at a real running store sold for $65 – $115! Fortunately for me there were some good salespeople who could clearly explain what I was getting for my money.
Sometimes the comparison point isn’t another price; rather it’s describing everything someone will get. A good description makes them realize they’re getting quite a bit and can soften the blow price might deliver. We see this all the time on infomercials when we hear, “But wait, there’s more!” That’s where the infomercial host goes on to describe all the extra ginsu knives we get for the same low price we were considering buying a single knife for.
Another example comes from my area of expertise, insurance. In your auto insurance policy there’s a coverage called “liability” which protects you in the event that you cause bodily harm to another person or damage their property in an auto accident. The most common amount of coverage people carry to protect themselves is $100,000. The bad news is that really doesn’t go very far in today’s litigious society when some cars are worth nearly that much and even a short
hospital stay can easily exceed that amount.
Having more than 25 years in the insurance industry I’d never recommend selling someone less than $300,000 in liability coverage. Of course the natural objection from a customer would be paying three times more for all of the extra coverage. But the good news is it doesn’t cost three times more! A good salesperson would use a similar approach to Steve Jobs and might say, “If you’re like most people you’re expecting to pay three times more for three times more coverage. While that’s a reasonable assumption I have some great news, it will only cost $X more, not even close to three times as much.”
The value of this approach is that it lets a customer see there’s clearly a need for the extra coverage (they hear about lawsuits in the media almost daily), and their satisfaction level will go up when they realize they’re getting triple the coverage for a fraction of what they expected to pay.
No matter whether you’re a salesperson, involved in marketing, work with advertising or just trying to convince your spouse to spend some money on something you want, look for legitimate comparisons that will make your request look like the best, most reasonable choice. You may not have as much success as Jobs did with Apple but science tells us the odds of you hearing “Yes” will go up rather dramatically.
Brian, CMCT
influencepeople 
Helping You Learn to Hear “Yes”.

Influencers from Around the World – You’re the Manager – What Would You Do?

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Hoh Kim has been contributing to Influence PEOPLE for more than two years. One of only two Cialdini Method Certified Trainers (CMCT) in Asia, Hoh also has a masters in PR/intercultural communication from Marquette University. His website is The Lab h and he also writes a blog called Cool Communications. You can make contact with Hoh on LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter. 

Brian, CMCT 
influencepeople 
Helping You Learn to Hear “Yes”.

You’re
the Manager – What Would You Do?

Imagine you are the HR manager of a pharmaceutical company. Last week, your company held a two-day off-site workshop, inviting all 221 employees. You had several busy months leading up to the workshop due to being charged with organizing the event; i.e., selecting the venue, accommodations and food, inviting guest speakers and setting the agenda. Now, it’s over and the HR director, your boss, asked you to email a survey to the employees asking for their feedback. This is important because the survey results will be considered for your upcoming performance review. Your boss said something very important, “As this is internal survey, the response rate should be over 60%. With your encouragement, people will respond.”
So you developed a survey with a dozen questions and sent it Tuesday to all 221 employees. The deadline to wrap up the results is next Tuesday at 10 a.m. Friday morning you checked the online survey system to find out how many employees responded. On the first day, Tuesday morning, as soon as the survey was sent 25 employees responded. Not a bad start. By Tuesday afternoon an additional 14 employees responded.
Wednesday morning only five employees responded and from Wednesday through Friday morning, no one else responded! Only 20% have responded and you have to have an additional 40% to meet your boss’s expectation. You have many things to handle and you know you can have only one follow up email to encourage more participation. How could you write the email?
I have observed similar cases at companies and schools where
employee participation is encouraged via email and then followed up the same way. It is easy to find people who sent emails that read like this, “Last week I emailed employees asking you to participate in a survey and only 20% responded. Would you participate so that we can improve our workshop next year?”
What would Dr. Cialdini do in this case? One of the principles of influence at work is social proof (a.k.a. consensus); people follow the majority. But, Dr. Cialdini warns to be careful with negative social proof. Normally, it’s better not to use social proof in negative situations. Think about it for a moment. People follow the majority and your complaint stating “only 20% have responded” lets people who didn’t respond to the survey know that they are in the majority, not the minority. Employees will not be persuaded to respond when most other coworkers are not responding.
So what should you do? Pick some positive responses – fast, concrete, and constructive ones – and use them in your follow-up email. To test this I did a small experiment a few years back when I facilitated in a customized Principles of Persuasion workshop for a small group of top performing employees in a Korean company. Before the workshop I sent an email survey to learn their interests and concerns about the workshop. As soon as the survey was sent, 23% of the participants responded. Not bad. On the second day there was no response. Third day? None. On the fourth day I realized I had to do something so I wrote another email. The new email said, “As soon as the survey went out, there were people who responded to the survey by providing a very detailed and constructive feedback. I appreciate that. If you have not had a chance to participate yet, please do so by clicking on the link. It is a very short survey!” Of course, I didn’t say, “only 23% responded…” What happened? For the next two days, the response rate tripled, going from 23% to 69%. Not bad at all!

So what’s the point? When using social proof to persuade be careful how you use it because you might unknowingly hurt yourself when you think you’re doing the right thing.

Hoh, CMCT

Influencers from Around the World – My Favourite Principles of Influence Used by Online Marketers

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This month our Influencers from Around the World guest post comes all the way from Ireland courtesy of Sean Patrick. Sean owns his own sales training company, Sean Patrick Training, and writes a blog, Professional Persuader. We met through Facebook several years ago because of Dr. Cialdini and we’ve maintained regular contact ever since. I know you’ll enjoy what Sean has to say this week.



My Favourite Principles of Influence Used by Online Marketers
The following is a list of my all time favourite principles of influence used by online marketers and how I see them used; the good, the bad and the ugly.
1.     Authority
Marketers use this principle to create a sense or feeling of how the potential customer is in safe hands because they make the prospect feel as though they’ve found someone who has or can demonstrate ability, credibility and proof of concept by knowing the exact pain, dissatisfaction and problem that the prospect is currently feeling. It’s a demonstration of experience by telling a story of how the knowledge to overcome the problem or dissatisfaction came about, the journey of anguish and frustration followed by one “Eureka” moment that just blew the problem apart and facilitated a solution.
Solutions imply success and this is where testimonials come in handy. The marketer will supply oodles of proud and happy customer testimonials which make the prospect’s imagination itch with anticipation. Unfortunately all too often the testimonials are nothing more than cronies and affiliates who have an interest in the product’s success by earning commissions on each sale.
The real heavyweight to this principle is when the marketer offers a cast-iron guarantee or assurance as to the efficacy of the product that the prospect will only ever experience success. This deflects any come back to the marketer by implying that it’s the customer’s problem if they don’t experience the same results as all the other customers.
The last piece of the authority principle that the marketer needs to employ is by bringing in the heavy-weight celebrities, famous affiliates or mentioning some major event they sponsor.  The principle of authority when used credibly creates and confirms expertise, but when done in an egotistical manner it implies “Guru Status.” There is a world of difference between the two and self-appointed gurus are best avoided.
2.   Scarcity (Fake Urgency)
When done properly and all other conditions are met this is the one principle to send a would-be buyer over the edge. It makes them buy, especially when potential customers are spoon-fed the notion that what they are pondering is about to be taken away from them due to two things:
a. Limited stock or supply, or
b. Time limited price offer
Scarcity is often perceived as the one to watch out for because it’s been used over and again, but if all the other principles are used effectively then scarcity becomes the trigger that’s easily pulled. The easiest way this is done on the web is by stating right from the start that what is about to be sold is scarce either because of limited supply or because the guy in the stock room messed up and priced all the labels incorrectly, stupidly at a much lower price so therefore the marketer can’t afford to sell the product at the launch price for an extended period.
The reality is that scarcity is quite often fake and the sense of urgency is false; just a ploy. The majority of products sold on the web are information products so how can something produced digitally be of limited supply? The same rule applies with price simply because no one sells anything at a loss; unless it’s a liquidation sale where all stock is liquidated at low prices in order to pay the exorbitant fees of the liquidator. This why a time limited price offer can be extended and often is when the guy in the stockroom screws up again and finds a ton of stock that was hidden under a polythene cover.
In my opinion scarcity is really powerful when people travel and they see something that is scarce back home but is abundant in the region they are travelling through. But the conundrum is either to buy there and then or to go on the web and buy via direct mail when they get back home. Generally, the window of opportunity is narrow for both seller and buyer and most of the time the tourist will succumb and purchase on the spot.
3.   Reciprocity (Concession)
The principle of reciprocity has been killed to death by marketers on the web. The usual tricks follow the pattern of exchanging an email address in return for some pointless or semi-useful report, whitepaper or mp3 that contains only self promoting messages rather than ready-to-use-instantly-valuable information.
A new wave of reciprocity is to receive an invitation from a marketer to a live web-conference where you can learn X and Y and achieve Z for free. It’s like a 3 for 2 offer. This tactic achieves both receiving the identities and email addresses of prospects that sit at the beginning of the sales cycle and during the lead nurturing process the marketer can choose to offer more freebies of varying scales to the prospect with the aim of qualifying the prospect further. The principle of reciprocity states that I’m more compelled to do something for you because you gave me something first that was both personal and timely.
Prospects will begin to find the marketer as a source of authority through a repetitive experience of this principle.
4.   Contrast
Perceptual contrast is one of the sneakiest tricks that a marketer can play out in the online world. The same tricks that a mentalist employs are played out online all the time.
This principle plays stage to how a menu of prices can confuse and distract and leave the customer financially worse off. Just the like the 3 for 2’s you see in the shops a similar price structure ensures that the marketer is maximizing every dollar from every customer. But the pricing structure can be a lot more complicated if bonus materials and legacy products are offered at supposedly discounted prices.
Just like price, how problems are solved can be distorted very easily by using this principle. Questions a lot of people don’t ask themselves before buying include:
a. What will this product really do?
b. How much time do I need to invest in order to get a return?
c. How does the product really work?
More often than not the obvious gets blurred by the use of other principles melding together that creates dissonance in the prospects mind. This in turn creates a contrasting perception of where they are and where they’ll be in the future but at the same time seeing their potential future self in the present because they’ve convinced themselves to buy the marketers product and now feel a part of a tribe of successful like-minded people. They trust wholeheartedly the marketer to be their sole authority over their problem.
5.    Liking
I like you because you appear to be similar to me because of experience, status, color, race, sexuality, football team, or our stamp collection.  ; )
Liking is powerful because it brings about a sense of trust that is long lasting. We all want to be a part of the same crew, tribe, team and corporation or we like people who value our sense of freedom and independence and therefore feel camaraderie. This tactic is very popular with online marketers who launch membership sites that take in monthly fees or marketers who create pre-launch events that bring together the entire pool of prospects who suffer the same dissatisfactions and allow them to network, mingle and produce fellowships by way of interacting in web-chat facilities, forums and social media sites.  It also goes hand in hand with the social proof principle that facilitates the need to purchase even more because people who we came into friending are buying, and those who bought before had huge successes and you know what they were pretty cool people too and I like them!
Hopefully your eyes are open a little wider now and you can spot legitimate use of certain principles of influence vs. illegitimate use.
Cheers,
Sean

To read about Influential Negotiations on Sean’s site click here.

The Three Commitments of Leadership are Essential to be Influential

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This week we have a guest post from Jon Wortmann. I met Jon a couple of years ago after hearing him on a radio show. He mentioned he was on Twitter so I contacted him and we’ve communicated on a regular basis ever since.

Jon is a non-profit leader, a leadership coach at Muse Arts, LLC, and an author. His first book was Mastering Communications at Work and now he’s followed that up with The Three Commitments of Leadership. He was trained at Harvard University and has consulted with and offered workshops for educational, non-profit, start-up, and Fortune 100 organizations.  I encourage you to reach out to
Jon on Twitter because he’ll reach back. You can get in touch with him at @jonwortmann.
Brian, CMCT
influencepeople 
Helping You Learn
to Hear “Yes”.
The Three Commitments of Leadership are Essential to be Influential
The punch line of The Three Commitments of Leadership is simple:  teammates love to work with leaders who pay attention to clarity,
stability, and rhythm.
The same is true of leaders who know how to connect deeply with others.  The principles of influence are really about what makes us want to work and live with the people around us.  Influence can be used to get people to say “Yes,” and when people like us, when we are consistent, and
when we reciprocate the kind of authentic interactions that help us want to spend more time with someone, it creates teammates who follow us from company to company and always want to be on our team.
Here’s how the principles of influence can make you the kind of leader whose team people beg to work on.
The first of the three commitments is clarity.  We all know the case study:  the leader doesn’t tell us exactly what he/she wants, and then gets angry when we don’t do what is expected.  For instance, you’re volunteering with a team on a Habitat for Humanity build.  The site supervisor wants the roof on the house by the end of the day.  But the supervisor doesn’t tell you.  He shows you how to put on a roof, and you have a great time with your fellow volunteers getting half the roof up.  At the end of the day, as you high-five and celebrate, the supervisor is a grumpy bear.  You ask him, “Why?”  He says he wanted the roof on the house.  You all leave not liking him because you could have worked faster if you
knew that mattered, and next year you choose to volunteer with a different charity.  The problem is clarity.  Leaders who are clear, who understand what their people need to completely own what they’re doing, are also the leaders we like and want to keep working with.
The second commitment is stability.  Stability comes from providing the resources we need
and building a culture of trust.  There is no more powerful tool than consistency to produce stability.  As the old McKinsey & Co. axiom goes: leaders do what they say they’re going to do.  When they do, by repeatedly giving people what they need to be successful, teammates know that they can count on the culture of an organization to meet their own obligations and goals.  For instance, when Ernest Shackleton tried to be the first to the South Pole, he brought every possible supply his team would need:  from wine and supplies to make cakes in the Antarctic winter to over a ton and half of bacon.  Because he consistently gave them what they needed over the year of preparation before the attempt at the pole, they set a new record even though everything went wrong and they almost lost their lives.  He was able to push them so hard because from his consistent provision of resources, they knew they could trust him.
The third commitment is rhythm.  The old model of hierarchical leadership will not
produce the best results in most cultures today.  Our globally connected and competing world, unified by social networks and powerful communication technology, means leaders have to be as generous to our teammates as they are to us. We can’t tell people what to do and expect it to get done.  When our teammates take risks, offer ideas, and invest, we have to
reciprocate.  The CEOs who people want to work for behave the same way with their boards and executive teams as they do with every other employee.  When a janitor sends an email with an idea for improving a product, the CEO reaches out and validates that janitor with the same enthusiasm he would one of his VPs.  When leaders get into a rhythm of reciprocating
communication, ideas, and validation with every member of their team, the team will model the behaviors and the culture will show its health by the results it produces.
People love to work with leaders who commit to relationships and an organizational structure that has clarity, stability, and rhythm.  Leaders can fulfill their commitments by being the kind of people others like, by being consistent, and by reciprocating the behaviors of their best teammates with every team member.  The leaders who make the three commitments and fulfill them with the principles of influence are the kind of leaders teammates want to connect with for life.
Jon

Rick Perry declares Social Security a Ponzi Scheme

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Not too long ago, during his first Republican Presidential debate, Texas Governor Rick Perry ruffled more than a few feathers when he referred to Social Security as a

“Ponzi scheme.” Because of the ensuing buzz I thought it would be good to
explore his statement and the potential impact on his run for president of the
United States.

In
the age of political correctness Perry certainly went out on a limb with his
Ponzi scheme reference. Later he said, “I think American citizens are just
tired of this political correctness and politicians who are tiptoeing around
important issues. They want a decisive leader. I’m comfortable that the
rhetoric I have used was both descriptive and spot on.”
This
post is not about a party, program or political positions; it’s about his
statement and the psychology it evokes.
Social
Security has been a part of the fabric of this country for more than 70 years
and as such, it’s become something people have come to expect. We can rightly
call it an entitlement program because after people pay into it their entire
working lives they expect the government to give them something in return.
We
hear all the time that Social Security is broken but very few people want to do
away with it. After all, if we did then millions of people would get nothing.
While they might feel like they get nothing when they pay other taxes, with
this particular tax they were told they would get something and mentally it’s
already theirs.
When
Social Security is compared to a Ponzi scheme – which is illegal – people begin
to wonder what a person like Rick Perry might do with the program. After all,
the government is supposed to stop illegal activity. The element of an ever
growing base of contributors needed to keep it going is what leads many people
to view the program as a Ponzi scheme. However, it’s very different than BernieMadoff’s Ponzi scheme. As I wrote earlier, this post isn’t about debating the
merits of Social Security because plenty of other blogs, news outlets and talk
radio shows are already doing that. My goal is simply to look at how Perry’s
statement might be taken by a large percentage of the population.
In
the realm of psychology there’s a principle of influence known as scarcity. This
principle tells us people value things more when they believe they’re rare or
diminishing. Put another way, we are more motivated to action by what we fear
we’ll lose as opposed to what we might gain.
How
does scarcity apply to Perry’s Ponzi scheme reference? I think most Americans
realize Social Security is not sustainable in its current form but they also don’t
want to pay more taxes to support it. On the flip side, very few if any people
will declare they’re doing well enough and are willing to forego what they’re
rightly entitled to.
As
I noted earlier, Ponzi schemes are illegal and if Americans think Governor
Perry will do away with Social Security then I think he’s doomed. He might
still win the Republican primary but he’s preaching to the choir there. I do
believe in the general election the Democrats will play on his statement and
get Americans to believe Rick Perry won’t reform the program; he’ll do away
with it entirely. That will be his undoing because those critical independents
and undecided voters usually swing elections. If they believe he might do away
with something they’re counting on then scarcity kicks in and they’ll be very likely
to vote against him.
I’m
not a politician and generally prefer to stay away from political subjects but
I felt this one was worth looking at from the perspective of influence. There’s
still a long time before the primaries and the general election so that’s
plenty of time for others to potentially make bigger blunders. However, should
Perry square off with President Obama in November 2012 pay particular attention
to how his opponents use this statement against him.
Brian,
CMCT
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Helping You Learn to Hear “Yes”.

The Role of Influence in the Markets

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I’m willing to bet the majority of you reading this week’s post have seen the 1940s Christmas classic It’s a Wonderful Life which starred Jimmy Stewart as George Bailey. You know the story; George Bailey contemplates suicide on Christmas Eve because his building and loan business looks like it’s going to go under and he thinks the world would have been better off had he not been born. In the scene that leads to his despair there’s a run on his Building and Loan company and it nearly goes under. What’s clear in the movie was panic set in and more and more people wanted their money fearing they might not get it if they waited much longer. We saw something similar in recent weeks in the stock and bond markets in the United States so I thought it would be good to look at some of the psychology behind what happened. First there was the debt crisis. Americans and the world started getting very antsy as they watched the game of chicken played by President Obama and the democrats with House Speaker Boehner and the republicans. There was talk that an agreement might not be reached because the two sides have very different viewpoints on the role of government, the use of debt and how the economy best operates. The uncertainty lead to fear and as the old saying goes, “Perception is reality.” The fear is rooted in scarcity, the principle of influence that tells us people want something more when they believe it will be less available. When investors think the government will make moves that could hurt their investments they will take actions to minimize their potential loss and quite often that means they sell while they can. The result of the uncertainty; the market lost several hundred points that week even though a deal was ultimately reached. Unfortunately it went from bad to worse the following week! The market reacting to fears of a worldwide recession and not being too pleased the government compromise on the debt started another sell off. On Thursday, August 4, I recall looking at some news outlets during lunch and seeing the Dow Jones was down 350 points! By the end of the day it was down over 500 points which meant it had lost about 1000 points, or nearly 9% of its value, in just over a week. Not good for those of us saving for retirement and/or kid’s college! While the run might have been sparked by fear it was compounded as investors looked around, took note of what others were doing and followed suit. In other words, consensus, the principle of influence that tells us people look to others for their cues on how to act, was at work. This particular principle is magnified in times of uncertainty and we saw something similar to what George Bailey was facing with the run on his little Building and Loan business. By the end of the week, for the first time ever – including during the Great Depression – the United States bond credit rating was lowered from AAA to AA+ by Standard & Poor’s. This creates more uncertainty as investors are waiting to see how the other major credit rating bureaus will react. If they follow suit things could continue to snowball. However, if the other agencies express confidence in the U.S. government’s ability to meet its debt obligations and keep their AAA ratings things might even out some. The White House vigorously contends S&P’s measurement that led to the lower rating was an inaccurate representation of the debt and government spending. Unfortunately, given all that’s gone on government officials may not have much credibility (authority) in this “he said, she said” back and forth that’s taking place. Confidence is not something that can be measure like speed, strength or IQ. Confidence is a matter of perception and, as noted above, perception is quite often reality until something happens to change that reality. Consider this; no one thought a man could run a mile in less than four minutes. Many tried but all failed over the course of human existence. Even physicians began weighing in saying it was not humanly possible. However, all of that changed on May 6, 1954, when Roger Bannister finally broke the four minute barrier. Once he did it dozens of other runners did so in the ensuing months and years. In fact, just 46 days later, his new record was already history as John Landy set a new world record for the mile. Why all these sub four minute milers setting new records? Because all of a sudden people were confident it could be done. Their perception changed and so did reality. It may not be the government’s doing something that will restore confidence, it might be key investment houses, individual investors or some other outside organization but until it happens we’ll all be like the myriads of runners prior to May 1954, a group of people who don’t believe it can be done.P.S. The DJI fell more than 630 points as this post hit the internet! Brian, CMCT

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Helping You Learn to Hear “Yes”.