Robert Cialdini’s Advice if You’re Struggling to Influence!

Well, this is worth testing. So here's what we did. We brought people into an experiment. We said it was going to be two experiments. The first one, we wanted you just to read some articles about the importance of conserving water in the home. People read these articles and then we asked them to rate various things about the articles that they read. That was the control group. There was another group that said, here are these articles. And right now, 30% of homeowners do make a regular attempt to conserve water in their homes. And then there was a third group.

When you hear the words persuasion, compliance, negotiation, and influence, the next thought in your mind is probably what exactly? Dr. Robert Cialdini. Yes. Dr. Cialdini is the number one thought leader in the world today in the science of influence. His groundbreaking book Influence has sold over 3 million copies. Fortune magazine lists influence in their 75 best business books. CEO Reed lists influence in their 100 best business books. I would actually list this in the top five books I've ever read, including his newest book, which is called Pre Suasion. And so why is his work so widely recognized and appreciated? Simply put, it works. Robert Cialdini is the President and CEO of Influence at Work, a global provider of corporate keynotes, consulting and training by Cialdini Trainers. Those clients include some of the world's biggest and most progressive companies. His talk today is titled how to Leverage Social Proof Even if you Think youk Don't have It Yet. This information will be particularly good for. For new products and new startups as well. This is based on new research and will be included in the new edition of Influence, which it is. You're hearing it here. First, please help me welcome my friend and the Godfather of influence, Dr. Robert Cialdini. Thank you, thank you. So happy to have you here. This is awesome.

Well, thank you. I'm very pleased to be here. And I want to talk about the newest research that I've done. When Alex did that Cartesian wordplay earlier, I dash therefore I am. I put in there. I research, therefore I am. So I want to let you know what the latest data suggest about the influence process and how we can leverage it for positive outcomes. You know, it's the case that this book, Influence that I wrote has been very good to me, sold a lot of copies, appears in a lot of languages. I was in Poland a while ago, and I have a colleague there, Professor Wilhelmina Vosinska. She said, you know, Bob, your book Influence is so famous in Poland, my students think you're dead. So it's Been good to me. But there are limitations to those principles that I talk about, especially the one called social proof. The idea that people decide what is legitimate, what is a good choice for them to make in a situation by looking around them at people like them, what are those like me around me doing, what are they believing, what are they choosing, and so on. That'll probably be a good choice for me. There was a study done in Beijing that showed that if restaurant managers put on the menus of their restaurant a little asterisk next to certain items, they immediately became 13 to 20% of more likely to be purchased. Now, what did the asterisk stand for? It wasn't. This is our special for tonight. If you've read any of those Kitchen Confidential books, you know that tonight's special is what was left over the previous night and the chef is bringing it to us in that form. And it didn't say, this is a specialty of the Haussen. It said, this is one of our most popular items. And because it was popular, it became more popular for its popularity. So this is a very powerful principle. But when I talk about the six principles of influence in that book and I come to Social Proof and talk about popularity, I often get a question that goes something like this, but I've got a new idea, or I've got a startup, or I've got a product that isn't the most popular yet, but it's great. How do I use Social Proof? I don't have the great sales numbers associated with it. I can't claim that sort of top of the line popularity. What do I do? And I always had to say, well, thank goodness there are five other principles. Don't use it if you don't have social proof. Use scarcity or use authority, or use one of the others that's available to you. But then I was reading a book, it's an old book, and I like to reread books that I've always liked. And this was a book on the psychology of gestalt perception. The idea that we very often, especially in this country, we tend to focus on the thing that's in front of us, a point of information, what's focal in our visual field. And we pour our attention there and we miss the context, we miss what else is there that would allow us to leverage that particular point of information better. And the book was talking about something in the theory of gestalt psychology called the law of continuation. It's that if you present to people at least three data points that have Some kind of function like this, or like this, or. Or like this. They project the next data point as a continuation of that function. If you've got this, this, this, they never suspect the next one will be this. Or if you've got this, they never suspect that the next one will be this. Often that's the case, but they project the trajectory on into the future. And it seemed to me that that was a solution to the problem that people had been confronting me with about social proof.

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's free book and you can get a copy there.

That is, if instead of simply presenting someone with information that says, well, we're in the minority now in terms of sales or market share, you presented someone with information that you have advanced to that minority, you've moved, they're going to project into the future that you will be in the majority. Well, this is worth testing. So here's what we did. We brought people into an experiment. We said it was going to be two experiments. The first one, we wanted you just to read some articles about the importance of conserving water in the home. People read these articles and then we asked them to rate various things about the articles that they read. That was the control group. There was another group that said, here are these articles. And right now, 30% of homeowners do make a regular attempt to conserve water in their homes. And then there was a third group. They read the articles and we said, two years ago, 20% of people conserved water in their home regularly. Last year it was 25. This year, 30%. It's the same 30%, right? Then we said, here's the second part of the study. It's actually a consumer preference study. We've got a new tube of tooth, a new brand of toothpaste. We would like you to try it, rate it while we leave the room, and then that will be the end of the experiment. So we gave them a tube of toothpaste, a toothbrush, and we said, so brush your teeth right at this. And we measured how much water they used. There was a basin underneath. Here's what we found. Those people who were told 30% of people conserve water on a regular basis used more water than the control group because they could do the math. If 30% were doing it. It means 70% were not. Social proof was on the side of not conserving water. But those individuals who saw the trend to 30%, they used significantly less water. Water. Brushing their teeth because they saw the potential of this idea. Two things about this that I like, and then I'm going to finish here. First is it was the same 30%. If you have a new idea, a breakthrough idea, it's got traction. Don't just say, here's the number where it is. Tell people how it got to that number. If it has merit, it deserves that presentation, that characterization of it. Right? That's one thing. It's the same 30%, but it gets a very different response depending on the context in which you place that number. Second reason I like this is this gets the attention and the response of two kinds of people. Because what we found when we did what's called a mediational analysis of our data was that the thing that produced this jump in those who saw the trending norm was their belief that it soon would be the majority. That's the thing that caused them to use less water. Right? So you finally get something that appeals to two kinds of people that we've all known about. Those people who want to be with the crowd and those people who want to be ahead of the crowd. They're both attracted to this trending norms idea. So this is my recommendation based on this new research. And by the way, Joe's right. Nobody else knows this research. Nobody else. This is the principle of scarcity, another one of the principles we talk about. Nobody else has access to this research. So a little value added for being part of the Genius Network. Thank you very much for your kind attention. I think Joe's going to be out here in a second. He wanted me to maybe take some questions from the audience. So let me ask if he's going to emcee that or I should just entertain questions that people might want to ask at this point. Yes, we have someone right here.

My name is Chris Murray. I recently have done my own research on your beautiful premise of reason why. And I want to ask you why you think humans are so much more willing to follow a leader or a marketer when you give them the reason why. It's amazing. My clients, they might be misbehaving or not following my rules. If I'm running a big event, which I did last week, and I give them the reason why, and it's magic. So I just wanted you to talk a little bit about reason why. It's been so effective for me as a business owner, with employees, with clients, as a marketer, you give people the reason why. It's like a magic to their brain about decision making. So if you could speak to that, I would love it.

People need reasons before they act. There's a good evolutionary account of that. We don't want to see ourselves as moving about in some sort of impulsive, spontaneous way. We want to see ourselves as having a rationale for what we do that's consistent with our self concept. So if we give people a reason, and sometimes the reason why we give them can be nonsense, but they still move if there is a reason offered in addition to a recommendation itself, we have to give them that justification for it. And it satisfies that primal need to move forward. Only if you have a strong reason to undertake that step.

Right?

Yes.

Mr. Tim Larkin.

Hi. Hello, Tim. Obviously, Scott Adams is a huge fan of yours. Read his book Think Bigly and read everything you've done without getting political. I just think it's really interesting, the influence that was used on both sides and what's currently being used and how a lot of it is literally bypassing facts, bypassing things. From a marketing standpoint, it's very interesting. It can be misused, obviously. What's your opinion, a on the current state of influencing people via, you know, the political situation that we have going on right now. And then also, do you agree with Adams on how he looked at Trump's use of persuasion techniques during the campaign? You know, I think Trump was very effective in his use of especially using the principle of social proof that we've just talked about. For example, before he would begin a rally during his campaign, he would tell the television cameras, turn around. Now, Donald Trump is not known for taking the focus off himself, right. But he knew enough to say, turn around, look at the crowd. And that legitimized him. He was an outsider. But if all these people were here now in an act of what I'm going to call pre suasion, he had pre suaded the television audience, not his physical audience, the television audience, to say, this guy is worth listening to. Look at all these people who are here listening to him. And I think that was that he was entitled to that. If indeed he had that kind of ability to bring in that many people, there was a need for change that was afoot. In fact, in that election, in the last 100 years, when one political party has had the presidency for two terms, in 80% of the next election, the other party takes the Presidency. It was a change election. It was a change election. He was the candidate of change. Hillary Clinton was the continuity candidate. So he knew that if he could establish himself with legitimacy, a lot of people want to listen to his vision of change. He was going to get not just the people in that room, but he was going to get a lot of the viewers to say, okay, this guy is worth listening to at this point. Yes, hello.

So not really a question, but testimonial for you is. I was at the meeting in Tempe when you spoke, and we got your persuasion book and we had a small business issue. It wasn't a giant thing, but it was something that was significant enough that I was like, I have to find a solution. So simply by using your information in the subject line of the email, I said, let's work together to find a solution. And it worked.

And it worked great. Yeah. It's amazing how many opportunities go unemployed when we fail to recognize that persuasion is not just about the merits of our case. It's not about what we say or do inside our message. It's also what we say or do in the moment before we send the message that puts people in a frame of mind that is aligned with the message they are yet to encounter. I got an email from a guy. He said he was. He had two sons who were Boy Scouts. He sent me a picture of the three of them, and he said, we were trying to sell popcorn to support the Boy Scouts. Outside of supermarkets. We'd set up a table. You've probably seen these things. And as people came out, we would say to them, excuse me, would you like to buy some popcorn? It would support the Boy Scouts. Well, if they wanted popcorn, they would have bought some already. But the question, do you want to buy some popcorn? Focused them on whether they wanted popcorn. Right. He said, then we read your book and we changed the question to, do you want to support the Boy Scouts? You could do so by buying some popcorn. We went from 15% to 75% purchase. And he said the people who didn't buy the popcorn would give us money anyway. They said, we don't really want any popcorn, but we want. So where do you focus people first? That's the thing that will come to importance in their mind because what's focal is seen as more important to us because we are paying attention to it. So as communicators, the key to pre suasion is to focus people's attention on a concept that they're yet to encounter, but they will when they experience Your message now, they've been readied for it and they will be more sympathetic to it. Yes.

This is an ethical consideration. And I'm curious, when you're trying to persuade or influence someone, is there any limit to how much emotion you use to persuade or influence? Is there any heuristic you would recommend about adjusting that?

You know, I don't think the issue is emotion. I. If I want to be. If I want something, one cue that I have is how emotionally I desire that thing. So I'm not going to say that. Just that because it's emotional, it's off limits. Here's what I would say.

I guess what I'm asking is, is there any limit to the amount of emotion you bring into the influence or to the persuasive conversation? Just as much as. Yeah, I mean, can you just bring as much as you can to get the outcome you want, or do you check the outcome along some value set?

Yeah. So here's what I would say. Emotion is one way people decide what to do. If we just come in there and get them emotional and then lead them in the direction of this product or idea, then I have some problem with that. But if we decide ahead of time what we have is valuable to them, if we know that they will increase their outcomes as a result of the merits of the case, not the emotions supporting it, then I'm okay with. With getting them excited about this because they're still going in the direction of a properly made decision based on the merits, not the emotions. Got it.

Thank you.

You know what? Since she just. I'll just do this off. First off, this is. What do you think of Robert? So I'm going to see if I can find this, because I want to get your advice on this. If I can do it real quickly. So Annie is an amazing love coach, and we actually did a podcast episode called Marketing to Find True Love. And so she helped me draft a singles ad. Right. And I want to read it to you and get your opinion on if this is persuasive or not. So I'm not interested in changing you. I want you to relax into being who you most want to be. I'm here to protect and encourage the parts of you that are creative, intelligent, fierce, and tender. I'll be your sanctuary and your trampoline. What I want is a woman who's devoted to something so important, she's dedicated her life to it. I will devote myself to supporting you there. Your growth and expansion will become our priority. I once read you don't Fall in love with another person. You fall in love with who you get to be around them. I want you to feel the most yourself when you're around me. This will inspire me to do the same. I'm a successful entrepreneur with a wide array of passions. Committed to personal development and growth. I aim to add value to every person I meet. I create connections between powerful leaders and build networks of collaboration. My high paced, intense lifestyle requires a strong woman who knows how to represent her needs and capitalize on once in a lifetime opportunities. If you're proud of the way you love others, remain tender in moments of fear and feel confident in your ability to hold the pain of another, then will resonate well. It takes courage to be sensitive and honest when life feels challenging. I need someone with this kind of courage. If you're in the top five most extraordinary women you've ever met, then I want to meet you. I promise I will treat you like a queen, but you have to already know that you are one.

Wow.

No, that's Annie Lala right there.

Yeah, that's great. I'll tell you what struck me as especially powerful about that. When you go into a new relationship, there's a lot of uncertainty and you wind up fearing that you will be hurt. The first part of that said, look, I like you, I want you, your authentic you. I will be supportive of that element that I see in you. Well, great. That's like what I always claim about the sales process. Every time I attended any sales program, they tell you the number one rule of sales is to get your customer to like you. I think that's the number two rule. The number one rule is to come to like your customer. And when they recognize that you like them, all the defenses come down. Because you're there as a teammate, you're there as a help mate, you're there as eventually a soulmate. Right. That's the sort of thing that would get people to move in that direction. So I thought that was great.

And so influence is way more important than just selling things, products and services. And in your business, I mean, your. What are some of the. You've done more research on this subject than anyone in the world. You're the most cited living social psychologist. What, what is some of the most surprising things that you have discovered about human behavior and what they respond to and what they don't do in all of your research that you've not talked about?

Well, I think what I mentioned and what got me to write the book Pre Suasion is a good example. People don't recognize the extent to which they are influenced by in a particular direction before they receive the influence appeal. I'll tell you how it came to me, Joe. I had written this book with six principles and there was a knock on my door one Saturday morning. The guy, he appeared, he wanted me to support a good cause, after school programs for children in my district. He didn't show me any credentials to indicate that he was with my district. I hadn't heard anything from the school district about this after school program idea, but I gave him more money than I normally do to people who come to my door actually like almost twice as much. And after I closed the door, I remember leaning back against it and saying, what just happened there? This guy didn't use any of the six principles that you've built your reputation on and you just gave him more money by twice as you normally did. He didn't use the liking principle. He didn't say, oh, you didn't compliment me on my landscaping. He didn't use the social proof. He didn't say oh, all your neighbors are already giving. He didn't use authority, didn't say, all the experts say the importance of after school programs. He didn't use scarcity. He didn't say we only have a limited amount of time before the semester starts to get this program. No, he didn't do any of those things. Here's what he did. He brought his seven year old daughter with him and he focused me on children and he focused me on the needs of children and the challenges of children. And he had me pre sued that when he then launched into his appeal about the need for kids. I was readied for it. I think the biggest thing we fail to recognize is that there's an entire persuasive arena that exists before we send our message. What do you build on in that arena? You build a launching pad for your message. People don't understand that it's there. And that's why almost no one recognizes what that they've been persuaded because they never look at what happened before, just what happened in the message. Never recognizing that there was a teeing up of their message that produced their questions. Why did I give so much to this guy?

And by the way, what you just said, the teeing up so everyone, there's a lot of people that said, I want to get better at selling, I want to get better at marketing. Read his book. Read his books. I've been through your influence at work, certification, training, I've hung out with you and Bob Beck quite a bit. I mean, we've done multiple interviews. You're a genius. Talk about how people can get more of your methodologies. What's the best way to become just so literate in this area?

Well, we have a two day intensive workshop on how to use influence properly, ethically and effectively in business communication, business interactions. So we offer that. We have certified trainers, 25 around the world who can do this. We do it twice a year here in town. So people who might want to sign up for that, that's available. We of course have books as well. And then I do talks, I do platform presentations for organizations. Those are the kind of avenues that we have available.

I gotta say this about Robert. I had recommended Robert to a, you know, a friend to do a talk, which he did. And you know, he has a pretty good speaker fee and he literally contributed all of it to the Genius Recovery Foundation. I didn't ask him to, he just did it. And I've seen, I mean, you're just a great guy. You and Bobette just do amazing things. And I was so appreciative of that. And if you're available, I would love to do a influence two day event for Genius Network members. You can have 100% of the money. I don't care. I would just love to bring all of your knowledge at a deeper level to this group. How many of you would go to that? If I said.

So.

We can do it my office at Tempe, whatever. I would love to do that if. If that would be the case. So yeah, we'll look at date. Anything else that you wanted to say that you did not?

You know, here's something. Recently a colleague of mine is writing a book on advice. What's the best advice you could give? He's got a son who's 13 years old and he wanted to ask all his friends who he thought had some experience, he said, what's the best advice I could give to my son going forward? And here's what I said. And it has to do with two of the principles of influence. Even though I didn't think about it at the time, that I was sort of developing this tendency, this practice, and is when you go into a new situation, one where you don't know the people there, think the best of them, go in with the best expectations of those people and their goals and their morals, what happens is that that allows you to be generous to them. And as soon as you are generous up front, two very good things happen. One, by the rule of reciprocity, they become generous in return, they give that to you. The second is they like you for it. They like you for thinking well of them right away. And now you have two people working together who like one another and are engaging in this age old beneficial exchange process that that's governed by the rule for reciprocity. Love it.

Well, we did our first interview in the early 90s. We've known each other about 30 years.

30 years.

And I've learned so much from you and I really, really appreciate you coming out and presenting to everyone. So give it up.

Robert, tell me.

Thank you so much.

Thank you for coming. 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'll be useful and awesome, click here. Go ahead. You're over here.

Do it now.

Come on.

Thank you.

Watch them.