Power of Influence and Persuasion: Robert Cialdini

Almost Everybody said yes. 98% of the people said yes just.

By planting that seed of getting them to focus on where their brain goes.

And now instead of 30% giving them their email address when they were later told about this new product, 75.6% provide that risky, chancy thing. I am primarily a scholar and a researcher. I love finding the answers to things that I'm curious about. But the other thing that I strive to do is to link those answers to actionable advice that we can give to people to improve their outcomes in life. That way, we not only get to scratch our curiosity itch, we get to make a contribution at the same time.

Yeah, well, you talk about this in pre suasion, that you actually, at one point in time were a palm reader.

Yes.

Right. And how did you go about, you know, I mean, at what point did you say, I'm going to start studying, like, you know, an influence? I mean, you studied everyone who was in the compliance field, I guess, from televangelists to con artists to salespeople to ethical marketers all across the board. Where did this curiosity come from? And how did it become this life work and this life passion to just figure out things that no one has figured out and then present it to everybody in usable ways, which is what you do, starting with influence and now with pre suasion.

Yeah, for me, it involved in making contact with an idea or some experience that I had that wouldn't leave me alone. It just wouldn't leave me alone. How did that happen? How do I account for that? How did that guy get me to say yes to this thing? I didn't really want, and yet I did want the money that I gave him, but he was walking away with my money and I was standing there with his. How did that just happen? And so when things won't leave me alone, that's my tell, that's my key. This is worth spending time on, because if it's not leaving you alone, it's probably not leaving other people alone. They're scratching their heads and wondering the same thing. So if we can provide that answer, you don't, again, just scratch your own curiosity itch. You get to make a contribution by informing people of how the world works.

Right. That's a fascinating way to. I mean, I could go off on a million different tangents on just things not leaving you alone in terms of just interest, in terms of passion, in terms of where you spend your time. And it's great that this occurred for you in such a way to where you have then taken your skills as a researcher, as a scientist, however you would describe yourself as and literally uncover all of these things that many people would never even know. So why did you write pre suasion?

You know, I had written influence 30 years ago and people have often asked me, why did it take you so long to write another soul authored book? And the best way I can explain it is that I didn't want to just plant a bunch of shrubs around the tree that influence had become. I wanted to wait until I had the seed for another tree. And that didn't come along until the idea for pre suasion hit me and wouldn't leave me alone.

How would you define selling? How would you define marketing? I'd be fascinated by Robert Cialdini's answer to how you view those two.

Yeah, I think the most legitimate form of marketing is a form of education. We inform people into ascent. We don't trick them, we don't coerce them. We educate them into the factors, the features of what we have to offer that will better their lives. And if we've done that well, storytelling is one we way to do that properly, then they will resonate with that information. They will make themselves available for our offers and our products and services and they will benefit in the bargain. Not just will our bottom line benefit, their outcomes will benefit. That's the most legitimate form of marketing that I can define it as.

Yeah, and I totally agree. One of the things I learned about marketing, starting being a Deborah carpet cleaner and everyone was advertising price. There was no Internet back then, so I was using direct mail and coupons and phone calls and referrals and word of mouth and that sort of stuff. And what I learned is it's all the things that people don't know that they don't know, that if you provide them with that information, they can make an informed, intelligent decision. And that all consumers are walking around with this question, who can I trust? And if you show up and build rapport, which I would look at as trust with comfort, where you just build rapport with people and you educate them on how to make an informed, intelligent buying decision, they will want to do business with you. So in the spirit of what you teach and with the objective and outcome that I want for you, the person either watching this interview or listening is I want to provide them with education and. And I want the outcome to be that you go out and get this book. And the reason I wanted to do this, there's no affiliate thing, I'm not getting paid anything to do this, I'm wanting to provide useful education to all our friends, most of them that live in the results economy where their income is based on their ability to produce a result. And in some cases that means selling people what it is that they're selling, offering things. I really want people to get the book because there's no way in a short period of time we could do justice to the amount of gold coins that are contained within the pages of these books. This is not just a book for entertainment. This book will give you specific strategies, wisdom, methodologies and processes that you have spent literally decades of your life studying and learning. And for a few dollars, you can get all of that as a roadmap to help you become more successful. And so what we're doing right now is we're providing you with education about this for free so that you can learn about this and using reciprocity. If we provide on that, you're going to go out and buy his book and tell other people to go buy his book. And if you're in a business that has many people that are in the persuasion and influence business, you want to give a copy of this to all of the people that work in your organizations because it will just simply make things better. So what has changed and what has stayed the same since you wrote Influence?

Well, you know, I wrote influence and described six universal principles of influence. If you include one or another of those principles into a communication, you significantly increase the likelihood that people will say yes to you. So there's reciprocity, there's liking, there's authority, there's scarcity, there's commitment and consistency, and then there's social proof. Here's what stayed the same. Those six principles remain important determinants of when people say yes to to a request, if one or another of those is in the message, it spurs the likelihood of yes. Here's what's changed. One of those principles is dramatically more available to us. Social proof. Because of the technology of the Internet, we now have access to to information about what many others like us are doing or have been doing with respect to any given choice. A product, a service, an idea, an initiative, a cause to support. Now, like never before, we can see in user groups, from reviews from various kinds of collections of people that we are members of, or just have access to what a lot of others just like us are doing or have been doing, which steers us to go in that direction. I saw an article a while ago that said 97% of all online buyers check product reviews before they make a purchase now, 97%. We can't get 97% of the people to believe that the earth is round, but we get 97% to go to this place of social proof. So if we can master how that occurs, how we can channel people into that dimension, that principle, and we've got it going for us. Wow. We don't need to go to the Internet if we're marketers of information. I saw this study from Beijing, shows you the cross cultural reach of this. If a restaurant owner wants to significantly increase the percent of people who choose an item from the menu, a simple thing they can do, they put an asterisk next to those items that says one of our most popular items, one of our most popular dishes, and each one immediately becomes 13 to 20% more popular for pointing to something. We all have most popular models, we have.

Did you hear that?

Did you hear most popular options? If we don't bring it to consciousness, nobody is going to be moved in the direction of a good choice before they even process the information associated with it.

You know, what was it? All humans are secretly wanting to be led. Just what you just said, I mean the whole asterisk idea there, that alone, that little in pre suasion and influence are filled with like hundreds of those sort of pieces of useful wisdom that are applicable and usable. And that one piece of information there for anyone that is a business owner, that alone could be worth thousands, tens of thousands, just that. But what you just said, directing their consciousness towards a certain thing, and that's really what it's all about. My favorite definition of selling came from Dan Sullivan where he said selling is getting someone intellectually engaged in a future result that's good for them and then getting them to emotionally commit to take action to achieve that result. And when I heard that saying, I thought about that a lot. I was like, okay, the keyword is good for them. Because you can get someone intellectually and emotionally engaged in a future result that kills them. Eat this crappy food, watch this pornography, guzzle this booze, smoke this cigarette. I mean, there's all kinds of ways to utilize influence and persuasion in ways that are destructive and there's all kinds of ways to do it and in ways that are beneficial and help humanity. As a matter of fact, the greatest people in the world that have advanced the world were powerful persuaders. They got people into that sort of position. And I really think what your knowledge does is it raises people's consciousness. I think it really does.

You know, I love that quote that you just stated, and I would just say that newest behavioral science offers an addendum to getting people engaged to a future result that will improve their lives. Getting people engaged to a future piece of information that will lead to a future result that will engage. That's what pre suasion is.

That's what pregnant. What is the premise of pre Swiss? So let's go into how does persuasion differ from or enhance persuasion? I guess, yeah.

In the book Influence, I talked about what you should put into a message to increase the likelihood that people would want it, would try to acquire it. That thing that you're talking about, your offer, pre suasion is about what you should say or do in the moment before you deliver that message. To make people attuned to the strengths of that message, to make them inclined toward open, to receptive to the thing about your message that is its strongest element, the thing that will make it wise for them to say yes. Because that's the essence of what it is that you are offering.

Well, that is such an important concept that if someone was able to do that 5%, 10% more effectively, not just twice as good, but just little incremental things, that would make a huge shift. But if you did it five or ten times more effectively, that would change your life, that would change the entire game. Talk about the scientific research around pre suasion so that people realize this is not just a really bright professor's opinion about how to set up the sale, setting up the request. This is like you have done some serious research on it. So I think people would really appreciate this at a much deeper level if they knew how hard you have worked on this. So if you could talk about that.

Well, there are some literatures in academic behavioral science about priming, about framing, about positioning, about anchoring. That all came together for me in terms of what they were implying about how you amplify the effect of your message. It's by what you do before you send that message. And it involves creating engagement, creating a focus in your audience on some aspect that they're yet to experience. They haven't encountered it yet. You just make them open and receptive to it before they ever encounter it. That's the idea. Let me give you an example. Suppose you want to sell somebody something that's new, or you want to bring them in. And you know that people hang back when they've got something that's new. They haven't yet tried it, they're unfamiliar, they don't like getting out of their comfort zone. But you've got this thing and it's really great. How do you. Here's a study. Researchers went up to people on the street, said, we have a new soft drink. It's untried. Nobody's ever encountered it before. Would you be willing to give us your email address right now, and we'll send you the information that will allow you to get this new product? Now, that's a risky thing to do. Somebody comes up to you unbidden, unsolicited, right? Unknown. Ask for your email address. That's a risky thing. Only 30% of the people were willing to do that. Under those circumstances, even that sounds to me like a lot, right? But there are risk takers among us. For another sample of people, the researcher walked up and said, excuse me, do you consider yourself an adventurous person? People thought for a minute and they went on a particular memory track for times that they were adventurous, because adventure was the question that they were now engaged in. And we've all experienced. Almost Everybody said yes. 98% of the people said yes just.

By planting that seed of getting them to focus on where their brain goes.

And now instead of 30% giving them their email address when they were later told about this new product, 75.6% provide that risky, chancy thing like the way.

That I look at that piece of information, which is again, so incredibly valuable by how you direct the brain to think about something before you then ask them for what you really want. Is like, so if a single person, if a guy was, you know, afraid of going up to a woman and asking for her email or asking for a phone number, if they said, you know, are you adventurous? And just plant that and say, oh, by the way, would you like to go on a date? You've just probably, in this case, tripled your chances of getting a yes.

Here's a piece of research that shows how you can increase that even more. A study done in France, researchers had an attractive young man walk up to young women who were by themselves strolling through a shopping mall. And he stopped them and said, I wonder if you could give me your phone number so I can call you for a date later. Another risky thing to do. And indeed, only 13.5% of the time did he get a phone number. If he did that, this is an attractive guy, though they got an actor, a matinee idol kind of looking guy.

That's part of persuasion also, right?

But even that, only 13.5, unless he asked in front of a particular kind of shop. And it doubled to, almost doubled to 24% success. A flower shop. In the environment of flowers, women are put in mind of romance. And now romance is more important than risk.

Wow.

Where do you put people first?

So the environment has everything to do.

With it can be a word that you use like adventurous, it can be a setting that you arrange, or it can be an image that you provide on your website. Let me give you an example of the image.

You can talk about these examples for the next week and I would love them all because they're fantastic.

A study done with an online furniture store. They sell sofas. They sent half of the visitors to their site to a landing page that had as its background wallpaper fluffy clouds. The other half they sent to a landing page that had as its background wallpaper coins, pennies. Now they then track what happens to those visitors who were randomly sent to one or the other place with different images. The first thing they can counter is an image of clouds or an image of coins. Those who experienced the clouds rated comfort as the most important feature for them to decide on a sofa. They then searched the site for information about cloud comfort and they preferred to buy more comfortable sofas. Those who got pennies rated cost as the most important feature for determining their choice. They searched for price related information and they preferred to buy inexpensive furniture. And not one of them recognized. They were asked afterwards. So do you think the clouds made a difference? Not one of them believed that the clouds or the coins made any difference. This stuff flies under the radar totally.

It's almost like people are thinking they know what they're looking for. But what you're showing here is. No, you're helping them to look.

This is a great insight, Joe, because there's an old saying, tell me what you're paying attention to and I'll tell you who you are. In other words, if you're always watching espn, you're probably a sports fan. If you're always getting gourmet magazines, you're probably a foodie, that sort of thing. Here's what the newest behavioral science says. What you're paying attention to doesn't just reveal who you are. It makes you who you are in that moment.

Right.

The guys in France could make those women romantics in the moment after they passed a flower shop, but not a bakery. Because flowers are associated with romance, not cheese Danish.

Right. Here's a croissant. Can I have your email?

No. Right. That's why if you've got a date, you don't send the young woman a box of Krispy Kreme. Right?

Right. Right.

You send flowers. So what is the thing that is the essence of your message? You create attention to that concept before you send your message and people are attuned to it.

That's so good. It is honestly so good.

Let me give you another one because I love this one. It's one word, changing one word pre suasively. So suppose you want to co create with your customer base your new line of products or services, or you want to ask them about how to best improve what you have for new models and so on. And this is this co creation. It's the biggest thing right now in marketing. What we typically do is to ask people for their feedback, ask for that information by saying, could you provide us with your opinion on this topic? It's a mistake because researchers have found that when you ask for someone's opinion, that person takes a half step back from you, a separating step, and they go inside themselves for the answer.

Interesting.

If instead of asking for their opinion, you ask for their advice, they take a half step towards you. Wow. And you've created a partnership, teamwork, collaborative frame in their mind. And here's what the research shows. Now when they encounter your products or services or your brand, they're more supportive of it because they feel more a part of it. They feel a merged identity with it because they've moved into that identity with you by providing advice instead of an opinion.

I love it. I love it. So one method of approach is repelling, the other is attracting. And so it reminds me of the quotes. People support what they help to create. And the others, if you let them plan the fight, they don't fight the plan. And I utilize that with my team in my own company by having everyone do teamwork together. But you just gave me a whole other way of thinking about framing it.

In fact, what I like, there's a quote, people don't sink the word boats they're riding in, right?

Yeah.

If you can get them to see them as part of your enterprise. It's both of your boat now. You're both riding in that boat. They're not going to torpedo.

Hey, I hope you're enjoying this video. And I want to let you know that I have a new book that's come out and if you'd like to get it absolutely free, there's a link below in the description. Or you can wait till the end of this video or you can Simply go to joe'sfreebook.com and you can get a copy there. One of the things that I have always thought of in marketing. And I learned this from studying sales copy and persuasive words. When you're not having the advantage of being face to face with someone and you have to use words to persuade, part of it is the communication, how you say it, the phrase, frequency of it, the usefulness of it. And I've always thought the number one thing to do with clients is to bond and how to bond with them. And anything that breaks that bond is not good. And alignment is critical. Like in business. The way that I My new marketing book, which is coming out currently titled Joe's Marketing Book and we're crowdsourcing different titles, although everyone seems to love the title Joe's Marketing Book, it'll be out in a few months, is it's all about elf. You can have an elf business, which is easy, lucrative and fun, or you can have a half business, which is hard, annoying, lame and frustrating. And I think learning persuasion is going to give you an elf business. Because if you don't utilize what you have researched and proven and studied, then to do anything other than what you're saying is hard, annoying, sometimes lucrative and frustrating. And so I look at like any sort of thing that I can do that's going to give me a greater advantage, that is going to get a better result. To not only study it, learn it and apply it is just idiotic. And now in some cases you can't fix stupid. So some people, they just don't get it. However, knowing that there is knowledge out there, knowing there is a method that will improve things is critical. And I only want to align myself with people that are aligned with me. And I think the greatest joy of using persuasion and getting someone into a better position to make their lives better is if they wanted to go along with it. It wasn't like trickery, it wasn't manipulation. Although sometimes you persuade people into directions that they don't want to go, but it's actually good for them. So you can argue that you're doing them a favor. However, anything that can be set up to just, you know, I think people love to be sold. They hate to be pressured. And if you do things in a way, certain, certain way, it doesn't even occur to them that anyone's selling. When anyone is really conscientious and cares about us and gets us into something to exchange our money or our time or our energy for something and it actually helps you and you like it, that feels good. Everyone loves that.

Everybody feels good about that and so they want to continue to do business the Next round and the round after that.

Exactly. Because the most expensive business cost is client acquisition. And once you've already done that, I always think of it as it's a lot harder to create momentum than it is to maintain it. Every once in a while I'll run into you guys at the gym because you work out consistently. The thing is, if you just did that every three months, I'm going to go work out and do a really great workout. It doesn't work that way. I think what you teach is kind of the same way. These are just, just ongoing practices that if you put them into place, your business, your connection, your quality of clientele, your joy of how you do things just increases. So this is great. Well, you've already covered some of this, but I'm going to go a little more specific. So what specific steps could someone listening to this take to better persuade or prepare the moment or moments before the message is delivered that you've not shared?

So. So let's take a step back and provide a general approach. It is to focus your attention on your message. What is the strength of your message? What is the strongest element of it? The thing that if people say yes to it, makes it most wise for them to say yes so that they will benefit. Right. What is it? Identify that thing and then reverse engineer the persuasion process to the moment before you describe that thing so that you've aligned people's consciousness and their sense of who they are with the strength of that message. We just saw. You could make me a comfort oriented buyer. You could make me a cost oriented buyer, depending on what you put first. If you put fluffy clouds or coins in the background of your landing page, I become that person. Now, if you know that and comfort is the strength of your product, you've got me. I'm going to rate that as important, I'm going to search for it and I'm going to use it to determine how to behave.

Well, I'm not sure if it's in the second chapter or third chapter in your book. You talk about playing French music or German music. Explain that.

So there's a study that shows that if a, a wine shop owner plays German music for a particular time of the day, people buy more German vintages. If he plays French music, they buy more French vids because they're put in a German or a French state of mind. And now they're going to behave in ways that are aligned with that state of mind that's been installed by something as background based as the music that they're hearing on the PA system.

I always listen for words that you say because it leaves so many strategic clues on what to do installed. So if you sit and think like, okay, I want to sell more of my thing here. What do I need to install in order to set it up? In order to do that?

Let me give you an example. It's just worked for me. I've got a colleague who I've worked with for a long time over in the psychology department where I'm housed and I needed a big favor from him. I sent him an email and I said, don, I'm working on a project. I don't have the information I need in my files, but I know you have it in your files. I'm going to call you later to get that information. I would really appreciate it.

You planted that seed.

So I called him up. He said, bob, I know why you're calling. I can't help you. I'm swamped right now. I know you've got this project with a time limit, but I've got projects with time limits too. I'd like to be a bit of help, but I can't this time. Sorry. So I didn't say to him, but Don, I'd really appreciate it if you could help me with this one. It would mean a lot to me. I said, don, you know, we've been in the same department now for 10 years. I really wish you could help me with this. It would mean a lot to me. I created a framework of unity. I had the information that afternoon.

So what happened in his head? I mean, slow. What with Dowd?

There was something that was true, that we had a relationship, a long term relationship, but it wasn't at the top of his consciousness. It wasn't the thing that was aligning his subsequent behavior until I brought it to top of mind. We're relationship partners, Don, for 10 years. And inside relationships you say yes to people. I just moved it from somewhere at midbrain to top of mind and it made the difference. So what did I. I didn't install the relationship. I installed a focus on that relationship that he was, that was now the thing that he was paying attention to. And what you're paying attention to in that moment changes who you are. He became a relationship oriented respondent, not a selfish respondent about his own issues.

Right, right. You know, you have a real power to where these sort of things could be used in very manipulative ways. And for the time that I've known you, I mean, I would like to think in the same way, you know, our relationship. I've never overly asked for anything. You've not either. You've always approached us. You're very cognizant of the ethical use of persuasion. And you know, this is filled with literally a ninja assassin methodologies if used in the wrong way and incredible human betterment methodologies. And the other side, what is your advice for the people out there about the proper care and feeding of others utilizing persuasion once you learn what is in persuasion? Because this is, I mean you literally teach people how to get what they want.

Yes, it's dynamite. And dynamite can be used to build a bridge or blow up a bridge right between people. So Joe, we've been friends for a long time and the reason we've been friends for a long time is what you said, that we share values. And the reason I've liked interacting with you over that time is that your ethical approach, you take an ethical approach to this. So here's why I am recommending that people who understand the pre suasive strategies that are available to them only use them in ethical ways. We've just completed a research program where we find that those organizations that use influence attempts in dishonest, deceptive, unethical ways produce two big damages to their viability. The first is there are some people inside the organization who are just not comfortable with the unethicality and they are stressed by it and they try to leave. They don't do very well on the job because of that stress. They try to leave. When they do leave, you get all these turnover costs that are associated with that big cause. But here's the one that was most interesting to me. When those people who are stressed by the deception leave, who remains is those people who are comfortable with dishonesty and cheating. And they're going to cheat you.

Wow.

They're the ones who are going to steal equipment. They're the ones who are going to run these under the table deals with vendors and partners and suppliers. They're the ones who are going to pad their expense accounts. Count on it. They've been selected for. They've been selected for. You've pulled the viper under your coat.

Yeah, exactly. You have really changed. I mean, tons of people's lives. I have no idea. Do you have any idea how much impact your book influence and your work has done? I mean, does it ever occur, do you think about like, I'd love to hear a couple of stories that you're most proud of, of someone that has done something. It could be just building and Growing a business. It could be a cause. I mean, you know, have done a lot.

Let me give you an example of an email that came to me maybe three or four days ago. Guy whose two sons are boy Scouts, and they were selling popcorn outside a supermarket. You know, they had a table and they were having very little luck. He said, maybe 10, 15% of people were, because as people approach, they said, would you like to buy some popcorn? 10 or 15%, they had just come out of a supermarket. If they wanted popcorn, they would have gotten it right. He said, I read your book. He had gotten an early copy of Pre Suasion. And he said, I thought to myself, what's the essence of our message? What is it that will make people happiest if they give to us? And so we change the question to, do you support the boy Scouts? And now we get 90% of people who either buy popcorn or if they can't buy popcorn, they give us some money. Wow. Because that's what they want to do. They want us. What's the frame that you put first? And I have to say, I've been getting a lot of these kinds of emails, emails and messages back in the old days, letters from people about influence. Yeah, those things happen. That people who are using this for good causes do improve the outcomes and everybody wins. Here's the best example I know of how Pre Suasion works. That made me. When I saw this rock band in my chair, I had to read this study three times to believe it. So let's say you want people to be more helpful. Okay. They do a study in Belgium. They bring subjects into an experiment and they are shown photographs. And in the background of the photograph, for a third of the subjects, there's an individual figure standing alone. For another third of the subjects, there are two figures standing apart from one another as a distance, a separation between them. For a third sample, the figures in the photograph are standing together. They're shoulder to shoulder. They're unitized. Now, the researcher, in all of those instances are at the end of showing the photographs, gets up from the table and spills a bunch of items onto the floor accidentally. And the question is, which subjects get off of their chairs, down on their knees spontaneously, and start helping the researcher. There's no question those who saw the people standing shoulder to shoulder, who were put in a togetherness, collaborative state of mind, are three times more likely than anybody else in the study to do that. Now, that's not what rocked me back in my seat. Here's what it was. The subjects in this study were 18 months old. They were babies.

Wow.

That's how fundamental this process.

That is fascinating.

So we've got raw material to work with. That's dynamite. We just have to be sure that we channel it in productive ways.

What do you hope that people take away, learn, and utilize the most out of persuasion?

I would say this general idea that the old way of thinking about the influence process of focusing on your message and how to craft it will get you a long way. But if you want to maximize your impact, you want to leverage the features of your message, you have to think about the moment before you deliver it and structure it as carefully as you structure your message.

Okay. I hope you found that video awesome and useful. So if you want to get a free copy of my book, I want you to click here. And if you want to watch some more videos that will be useful and awesome, click here. Go ahead. You're over here.

Do it now.

Come on. Thank you.

Watch them.