Influence a summary

A précis by Vanessa Lanham-Day

Robert Cialdini’s Influence – The Psychology of Persuasion

Introduction Click! Whirr! What makes your customers take action - automatically?

In Robert Cialdini's 'Influence - the psychology of persuasion' he takes us on a journey that shows just how many of our behaviours are subject to automatic programming. What he describes as a ' Click-Whirr' response. Whether you like it or not, you don't always have a choice in how you react - even when you don't want to react in a certain way, you still feel that you have to.

The book uncovers 'six weapons of influence'. As an experimental social psychologist his job is to prove or disprove reasons for our behaviours. He lists a fantastic catalogue of stories that really leave you wondering if you have any control over what you do at all!

As a marketer in your business, you'd do well to understand what's going on in your customers' and prospects' minds - and how you can make it more certain that they will take the actions that you want them to take. I'm sure we've always wondered why some people find it so much easier to sell their products and services - and why we, or others struggle. Over the next few blogs I'll be going through his six weapons and looking at the evidence that he shares on …

1. Reciprocation 2. Commitment and consistency 3. Social proof 4. Liking 5. Authority 6. and scarcity

But let's start out by understanding better the automated 'click-whirr' response.

You get what you pay for …

In one example, he spoke of a friend who has an Indian jewellery shop in Arizona. Despite her best efforts, her 'turquoise' range was not selling. Going away for a few days, she left a note to her staff to sell them at half price. One her return she discovered that the range had sold out - only the staff had misread her note, thinking she wanted them to DOUBLE the cost. Click-whirr! You get what you pay for. Expensive equals good.

Can I just push in here … ?

Queuing for a copier machine in a library, he set up an experiment where individuals went to the front and asked if they could push in …

Scenario 1... When they asked "Excuse me, I have five pages - may I use the copier?" - only 60% of people allowed them to push in. So a fair percentage were happy to say 'no!'.

Scenario 2... When they asked "Excuse me, I have five pages - may I use the copier because I'm in a rush?" - 94% of people allowed them to push in. In other words, when a 'reason' was given, pretty much every one said 'yes!'.

Scenario 3 ... However, when they asked, "Excuse me, I have five pages - may I use the copier because I'm have to make some copies?" - 93% of people still allowed them to push in.


No valid 'reason' is being given in this final example - the words after 'because' add no more information than the words before 'because'. In this case, it seems that the Click-Whirr response is triggered purely by the presence of 'because'. We simply don't have a choice.

Reciprocation

Give and you will receive - the importance of ‘reciprocation’ Cialdini’s superb book gives us some useful insights as to why we humans behave the way we do, particularly regards our automatic responses – the Click-Whirr! response.

There are six key weapons of influence which any serious marketer would do well to understand. And the opening weapon is ‘Reciprocation’; our need to give back – our sense of indebtedness to someone who has done something for us or given us something. It is VERY powerful.

Here I explain some of the evidence surrounding reciprocation and give you some useful strategies that you can deploy in your marketing using this technique super-powerfully.

So how does reciprocation work?

If someone invites us to dinner, the ‘rule’ says we must invite them to ours. If we receive a Christmas card – we should send one to them. If someone does us a favour, we feel obliged to do something in return. We implicitly understand the sanctions that apply if we violate it – how we might be labelled if we don’t fulfil on our obligations. Our parents and teachers taught us well.

Describing a simple experiment, Cialdini shows this at work …

• Individuals were asked to help critique some works of art. There were two of them in the room, the individual and the researcher’s assistant – Joe - posing as a fellow ‘critic’

• After a while, Joe left the room for a few moments – in half the cases he returned empty handed, and in the other half he brought an unsolicited bottle of Coke for them both – a gift

• At the end of the session, Joe explained that he was selling raffle tickets and would get a prize if he sold the most - twice as many tickets were sold to the people he given a bottle of Coke to

• The value of the tickets was 2.5 times the value of the Coke – so his average return was 500%, suggesting the sense of indebtedness was overwhelming compared to the actual ‘gift’

• They were later asked if the liked or disliked Joe – the ‘dislikers’ bought just as many tickets as the ‘likers’ – the sense of obligation to reciprocate was equally powerful even where someone didn’t like the person

Commercially this tactic has been used for years – do you recall the free daffodil giveaway with washing powder back in the sixties? We had a LOT of daffodils at home and so did most of my friends. The Krishnas who would give away a free flower in advance of any donation … it was simply a gift; people were irritated by the gesture, but donated even so.


In supermarkets we are invited to taste a cube of cheese, or sample a small glass of wine – and the evidence suggests we are massively more likely to buy these goods. Amway, the cleaning products giant, transformed their sales from the moment they introduced the ‘BUG’ - a collection of free samples for the recipient to use in their home for 2 or 3 days.

The power of the mutual concession

Cialdini describes being door stepped by a boy scout who invited him to buy tickets to the scout troop show the following Saturday evening. He found it easy to say ‘no’! However, the scout came back with an offer to buy his raffle tickets instead and Cialdini felt obliged to buy the tickets.

Analysing his behaviour, Cialdini determined that he had seen the scout’s ‘retreat’ as a concession, a gift – that he felt obliged to mirror in return. Click-Whirr!

In an interesting experiment that he devised, Cialdini wanted to see if the ‘mutual concession’ limited the size of the ‘smaller’ request.

• Initially, posing as Youth Counsellors, they asked college students if they’d be prepared to escort and host ‘juvenile delinquents’ at the zoo for the day – for free. Not surprisingly, they did not get a great take up – 83% refused. The task was too big and the reward too low to warrant the risk.

• In a variation, the students were asked to spend two hours per week with a juvenile delinquent for a minimum of two years, again for no pay. Everyone refused this request.

• However, they were then given the ‘zoo day’ request as an alternative – this time 50% of the sample agreed to take the youngsters out for the day. Three times as many as the first experiment.

• A mutual concession. Click-Whirr!

Interestingly, it’s thought that this technique was at work with the Watergate scandal. Gordon Liddy’s plan now seems so ridiculous that it’s hard to believe that anyone would have approved it. However, it seems that the plot was the least extreme of three plans – the first two had already been rejected and it could well be that the ‘most reasonable’ option went through under the rule of ‘mutual concession’.

And it’s exactly what you see with door-to-door sales people who, on failing to get the sale, ask for referrals instead. And it works.

So how do you use the rule of reciprocity in your marketing?

As a marketer in your business, the value of gifts and concession cannot be ignored.

Getting that meeting … we often speak about the power of getting the attention of key people you need to meet with. Anyone who needs just a few new customers to transform their business would be mad not to court those key people and make it hard for them NOT to have a meeting with you. You are going to be a lot harder to ignore if you send your brilliantly phrased letter attached to a giant box of cakes for the whole firm, or with a delivery driver tasked with valeting the boss’s car.


Lumpy mail … too many people ignore direct mail these days; yes, it’s costly compared to email, but it’s also more powerful because so few people are doing it. Add to it a gift – sweets, fun paper clips or a book, all connected with the theme of your letter - and you are much more likely to get the result you want.

A gift with every purchase … I enjoy making cupcakes; is it coincidence that I am more loyal to the supply company who, with every order, sends me a dinky bag of Haribo jelly sweets?

A concession on your sales pitch … if you want to sell BIG program A – and don’t! – make sure you have SMALLER program B in reserve as an immediate alternate. This works well in direct face to face sales, as well as online … make offer B on exit.

Just be friendly and play nicely … people are much more likely to do business with ‘friends’ – and the best way to make friends is to be friendly. Social media offers masses of opportunities to give unexpected help and advice to people. You never know where it will come back to you – either direct from the recipient, or from someone else that has observed the exchange.

Think it through and be clear what action you want someone to take. How can you deploy the power of reciprocity to your advantage?

Commitment and Consistency

The need to justify your decisions with your subsequent behaviour We’ve all done it, haven’t we... no sooner than we have bought into a program of some sort - joining the gym, going on a diet, some form of study - that we suddenly become much more of an advocate than we were just moments before. Our need to follow through, to justify ourselves with our consistent behaviour is very strong. We automatically play the ‘consistency tape’. Click-Whirr!

In an experiment on a US beach, a psychologist staged thefts to see if onlookers would risk personal harm to stop the crime;

• The researcher would sit approx. five foot from a subject on the beach • After a few minutes relaxing and listening to music on a portable radio, the researcher

would stroll away along the beach • A second researcher would then appear and grab the radio and run off with it. • Under ‘normal’ conditions, 4 out of 20 subjects challenged the thief

However, when the same experiment was tried another 20 times – with a slight twist, the results were drastically different.

• In this case, the researcher simply asked the subject if they would ‘watch my things’ • 19 of the 20 subjects intervened - and not half-heartedly! They turned almost vigilante by

running after the thief, remonstrating, snatching the radio back and even restraining the thief in one instance


From society’s point of view, people who are seen as inconsistent are thought to be weak, indecisive, unreliable and two-faced. Whereas consistency is valued as personally and intellectually strong, rational, stable and honest. All highly valued attributes.

And because it is so in our interests to be consistent, we tend to fall into the habit of being automatically consistent. It’s a short cut in modern life; we don’t have to sift through the mountains of information and evidence as we have already defined how we will respond, based on some earlier decision. It saves us from thinking too much – potentially, even, the ‘troublesome’ nature of having to think things through in the face of contrary evidence.

Car sales is great example of this. How many of us have been lured in by offers of a great deal by car sales staff, probably considering a car that would otherwise be beyond our budget? Later, when it turns out the offer was an ‘error’, we remain committed to the car and can easily justify the additional expenditure. We’ve already made the decision to buy – the thinking time is over.

How can you deploy this in your marketing …?

Small steps: Moving from A to Z is a big leap. Whereas moving from A to B is not. By making a small commitment, we are much more likely to take the next step and commit from B to C – consistency again. This is very powerful in business, where the primary purpose is to get your customer to commit to something – even a FREE purchase, as this is much more likely to lead to taking the next step.

Joining an online ‘health and well-being programme’ is much more likely to find that the buyer starts to act like someone interested in health and well-being, meaning they are much more likely to buy the next step in your series.

Building your community only enhances this sense of ‘belonging’ and the consistent desire to buy more to justify their original purchase. It’s a great example of why relationship building and follow-up communication is so essential and powerful.

Selling higher value items: In a retail context, if you can get someone to buy the more expensive item (eg. Cashmere versus wool suit), they are much more likely to buy other expensive items to go with it – even though, logically they have less money left with which to purchase them. Experiment after experiment verifies this. Consistency, consistency, consistency.

Like all marketing using the tools of persuasion, this stuff needs to be deployed responsibly and not cynically – you will do far better in any market if YOU are consistent, but it does make you stop and think.


Social Proof

‘Don’t just take my word for it’ … the power of Social Proof There are six key weapons of influence - and weapon three is ‘Social Proof; our need to conform to what other people think, say and do. The power of the testimonial, in other words.

Here I explain some of the evidence surrounding social proof and give you some one single mega-powerful strategy that you can deploy in your marketing.

We all hate canned laughter don’t we? But it continues to be used by producers – because it works! If other people think it’s funny – then it must be! Even when we KNOW it’s canned laughter.

Bar staff, buskers and charity collectors routinely put loose change in the collecting pot / tip jar, because they know we are much more likely to give if we can see that others have done so.

Social proof is the basis for cultish behaviour – if other people are doing it, it must be OK and reasonable. As Cialdini quotes … “Where all think alike, no-one thinks very much” – Walter Lippmann. Click-Whirr!

Interestingly the religious fervour for the ‘day the world will end’ provides interesting evidence of how social proof will continue to work, even when up against the strongest evidence to the contrary. After ‘the day’ comes and goes without the world coming to a halt, the ‘believers’ will invariably become ever more zealous and ardent in their beliefs, more committed to converting others to their ideas. They have come too far and given up too much to give up on their belief now. They subscribe to the theory that they greater the number of people who find an idea correct, the more correct that idea will become.

There is a lot of evidence that makes the power of ‘social proof’ somewhat troubling. Not least of which the Jones Town mass suicide. What Cialdini describes as ‘pluralistic ignorance’ – the tendency for a mass of people to choose NOT to act in spite of evidence that they should, on the basis that ‘if no one else is acting, it must be OK to do nothing”.

You might be wondering how you can apply this to your marketing – and the answer is simple. If 3000 people can be persuaded to end their lives, just because everyone else is, you can reasonably assume that a good testimonial will be a VERY powerful advocate for your business. Nothing dangerous or manipulative – just people saying that what you do is good and worth looking into. Whether that’s on your literature or website, or via social media.

Testimonials can be something of a ‘ball ache’ to gather I know – you need to get people to commit to something more than ‘you were great!’, you need their permission and ideally you need photograph too.

But the value? Priceless.


Liking Know, like and trust It’s a simple fact that we all prefer to deal with people that we like and so, in a business context, it pays to get people to LIKE you.

In Cialdini’s book ‘Influence’ he talks about the Tupperware phenomenon. These use many of the rules we’ve already covered in this blog – reciprocity, social proof, commitment and so forth – but its most powerful weapon is the ‘liking’ rule.

Even though the Tupperware sales rep is on hand, the party is hosted by someone you know – your friend. It trades on the attraction, warmth, obligation and friendship that go hand in hand with your relationship with the hostess.

Interestingly, research shows that the strength of the social bond is twice as likely to get you to purchase, compared with your liking for the product itself – which is astonishing at every level. And bizarrely, as customers we are aware that this is what is happening – some of us don’t mind, and others don’t know how to avoid it. Others choose not to go to Tupperware parties as they know they’ll end up spending!

People like us We prefer what we are familiar with – in other words, we like people who are similar to ourselves. We are much more likely to do business with people who dress like us and have similar backgrounds and interests.

Car salesmen are adept at being our friends. The salesman who happens to say he plays golf, is just as likely to have spotted your clubs in the boot of your car. The salesman who is running between you and his boss is becoming our friend, trying to get the best deal possible for us.

The power of referral

The concept of refer a friend is greatly used in business - and for good reason. We are much more likely to entertain an approach if it has the endorsement of someone we know.

The tools of friendship can be easily deployed - sending cards to say ‘thank you’ in business work for a good reason. As they say – the best way to make friends is to be friendly. It’s not rocket science – but it is powerful!


Authority Why it really pays dividends to position yourself as an ‘expert’ in your business

This Cialdini stuff is hot property you know! So much of it is ‘obvious’ but I’m not sure any of us really understands just how POWERFUL it is. His book ‘Influence’ talks us through the main reasons that we are persuaded by others to do the things we do. His Weapon No. 5 is ‘Authority’.

He cites the most amazing real research example. He takes us through situation where two people have agreed to help with some research at their local University. When they get there, it seems one is to assist the Chief Researcher and the other is to be the ‘Guinea Pig’.

The Guinea Pig is duly strapped to a chair / machine with sensors attached and it is explained that if they give a ‘wrong’ answer to any of the forthcoming questions, they will receive an electric shock and experience some slight discomfort. As the experiment progresses, the more wrong answers they give the stronger the shock will become. I’m guessing by now that the ‘Guinea Pig’ is beginning to wish they were the Research Assistant!

Anyhow, the experiment progresses and, with each successive wrong answer, it is clear that the Guinea Pig is in some pain. At first some twitching, then obvious discomfort and finally shouting out in an agonised scream for the experiment to stop.

The Research Assistant was put in charge of the knobs and dials – inflicting the shocks - under the direction of the Chief Researcher and, as the pain gets worse they look to the Chief Researcher for reassurance … should they really carry on? Yes he tells them, it’s perfectly safe.

Where’s the catch?

OK, this all sounds bizarre I know. But what if I told you the Guinea Pig was, in fact, an actor – in no pain at all? And that the true Guinea Pig was, in fact, the Research Assistant!

They repeated the experiment countless times and only in a tiny minority of cases did the Research Assistant stop inflicting the pain. Can you imagine putting someone through that – just because the man in a white coat told you to? Extraordinary! Even when the actor tried a variation by shouting out that they had a serious heart problem, 65% continued administering the shocks.

It seems clear that our deep-seated obedience to and trust of ‘authority figures’ will lead us to do unbelieveable things. It causes us to abandon our own judgement.

He cites many other experiments including many more people being prepared to jay-walk in the wake of someone in a suit, versus a ‘hippy’. They’re smart and represent authority, so it must be OK.

Becoming the leader in your sector …

These experiments are at one end of the scale. But it explains why, in your business you would do well to establish yourself as an authority figure in your sector. It will make a massive difference to the degree to which your audience accepts what you say and follows your lead. It’s why I commonly advocate becoming a business speaker. Or writing your own book. Just associating with other authority figures will move you up the scale.

Try it – it works!


Scarcity Please don’t let them run out … sell me one NOW! We all acknowledge that, as items become rarer, they become more valuable. Limited editions, flawed stamps or a double struck coin, for example. In the final chapter of Cialdini’s Influence, the Psychology of Persuasion, he explains why the idea that we may not be able to access a ‘scarce’ item is so powerful that it is one of the key pillars of many successful marketing campaigns

“There aren’t more than five convertibles with this engine left. When they are gone, they’re gone. That’s it – ‘cause we’re not making ‘em any more.

“… there is no telling when we will get more in.

“… there’s only two left and you wouldn’t want the other one!”

How often has our decision to buy been influenced by the thought that another customer looks like they may be interested in it? In shops at SALE time this can end up in physical tussles between competing customers!

Meaning that an offer where there are ‘only 10 places available’ or ‘the first 50 will be sold at only £X’ create very compelling reasons to buy.

Similar to the ‘not many left’ concept is the deadline. The idea that time is running out and we need to act now. Sales of products as the deadline approaches will always peak.

How it works...

Ciladini explains this by referring to ‘psychological reactance theory’, apparently developed by a chap called Jack Brehm. He explains that, as our opportunities – or freedoms – are threatened, our desire to reassert control becomes overwhelming.

So when scarcity Is increased – or the time to access is decreased – we will instinctively react against the interference by wanting the item more than ever before. And one easy way to regain our freedoms and put ourselves back in control s to buy or possess the item under threat.

Diminishing abundance

However, Cialdini also shows us that there are times when the principle works better than others. In an experiment participants were asked to rate biscuits from a jar. When the jar contained just two biscuits, they were consistently rated higher than when there were an abundant 10 biscuits, which would seem to confirm the core principle.

However, when participants were shown the jar of 10 first and this was later replaced by the jar of two, the ratings were consistently higher. It seems that when ‘abundance’ is replaced by ‘scarcity’ – we can see the items disappearing before our eyes - our motivation or desire is considerably more heightened.

It works – so use it!

Whatever the theory, using the principle of scarcity and deadlines works well in marketing. Giving people a reasons to act NOW. Not tomorrow, or next week or sometime in the future … but NOW.

Every call to action should be accompanied by a deadline or by limited numbers available. You are much more likely to get the outcome you were looking for.

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Influence a summary