Tag Archive for: Cialdini

Influence PEOPLE – A New Video

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This week is a short post to share a new video I recently put online. The clips are from a keynote presentation I gave this past May in Cleveland, Ohio. The event was the annual I-Day Convention sponsored by the Insurance Board of Northern Ohio (IBNO). I hope you enjoy it.

If you’re getting this post via email click here to watch the video on YouTube. 

Is your organization interested in learning how the science of influence can help move your initiatives ahead? I can help! Contact me about keynotes, training, coaching or consulting.

Brian Ahearn, CMCT® 
Chief Influence Officer

influencePEOPLE 
Helping You Learn to Hear “Yes”.

No Battle Plan Survives Contact With The Enemy

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There’s a saying in the military that’s attributed to Helmuth von Moltke, a German Field Marshall in the 1800s – “No battle plan survives contact with the enemy.” Why plan for battle then?

The late Bill Walsh, the Hall of Fame head football coach of the San Francisco 49ers, was known for scripting out the first 15 plays his offense would run to start the game. Quite often the script was out the window depending on what happened during the first few downs of the game. Why prepare a script then?

In many martial arts, practitioners go through forms or katas that simulate fight sequences against multiple opponents. It’s highly unlikely that any fight ever unfolded as laid out in a kata. Why
practice the sequences then?

In each case it seems as if the best preparation is a gamble, a potential waste of time and effort, so why go through the motions? Because there’s value in planning beyond the plan. Things may not unfold as planned but soldiers, athletes, and martial artists are more prepared for different eventualities than if they never trained or planned.

How confident would you be in your country’s ability to defend your homeland if they didn’t train and plan? How confident would you be about victory if your favorite sports team had no game plan? How confident would a martial artist be if they never thought about and practiced defending against multiple opponents only to find themselves facing several attackers?

The same thought process applies in persuasion. Many of the concepts I teach in the two-day Principles of Persuasion Workshop® take time and preparation. You see, being an effective persuader isn’t about being a silver-tonged devil in the moment any more than success on the battlefield is just about weapons, or being a good athlete on the football field, or kicking high in martial arts. All of those things are helpful but the best in each field succeed because they prepare and train.

So, what does preparation look like in persuasion? It starts with learning the science of influence. With more than 60 years of research in this field we can turn to studies that clearly tell us which principles of influence to use and when. This understanding will lead to more consistent success than relying on someone’s good advice, what worked for a friend, or your best hunch.

Another way preparation leads to success comes with homework; learning as much as you can about the person you’re trying to persuade. The more you know about someone before you meet with them the easier the persuasion process will be for a couple of reasons.

You can invoke the principle of liking by connecting on what you have in common or offering up genuine compliments. Scanning Facebook, reviewing a LinkedIn profile, or a quick Google search might be all it takes to find the commonalities or things to genuinely compliment.

To effectively utilize the principle of consistency you want to tie your request to what someone has said or done in the past, what they believe, their values, attitudes, etc., because people like to remain consistent in those areas. Again, many of these can be uncovered simply by doing a little research in advance of your meeting.

Will your next attempt at persuasion go as planned? Probably not. Will you be better off having done some planning and preparation? Almost assuredly!

So, here’s my advice – next time you have something important you want someone to say “Yes” to do a little homework beforehand and then allow yourself to see the situation unfold in your mind’s eye in different ways. These seemingly small things could have a big impact on the outcome.

Brian Ahearn, CMCT®
Chief Influence Officer
influencePEOPLE 
Helping You Learn to Hear “Yes”.

 

No Pain, No Gain – A Sports and Persuasion Motivator

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It’s almost August and football season is right around the corner. All across the country football coaches from Pee Wee leagues up through the NFL are exhorting players to push themselves to be the best they can be. Many will go through grueling workouts; some enduring “two-a-days” and a familiar cry from coaches will be “No pain, no gain!”

I remember my high school football coach repeating that phrase many times during my three years of varsity football. The meaning was simple – sacrifice now and reap the rewards later. Lifting weights, running wind sprints, repeating drills, and long practices in the hot summer sun would all be worth it when we achieved victory on Friday nights under the lights in front of our parents, friends and community.

In persuasion, “no pain, no gain” has a different meaning but can lead to success just as is did on the gridiron. When trying to influence others it’s good to know this simple concept – people are more motivated by what they stand to lose (pain) versus what they might gain. This is a form of scarcity.

The late Amos Tversky, a cognitive and mathematical psychologist, and Daniel Kahneman, a psychologist, studied this phenomenon of human behavior. In fact, Kahneman won the noble prize for his work in this area in 2002.

Here’s what Tversky and Kahneman learned – people experience the pain of loss anywhere from 2.0-2.5 times more than the joy of gaining the same thing. So imagine you find $100 bill on the way to your car after work. You’re elated! You drive home with a broad smile, feeling great about your good fortune. You pull into the driveway and walk into your home with extra spring in your step. As soon as you see someone you begin to tell him or her about your good fortune. You reach into your pocket to pull out the big bill…and it’s gone! How do you feel at that moment? Odds are you feel much worse than however good you felt when you found it. And here’s your litmus test; you left the house in a good mood without a $100 bill, got home without the $100 bill, but now you feel bad…really bad!

Why is this important to know? Sometimes you have a choice about how you’ll frame a request – highlight the gain or highlight the loss – and that small decision could be the difference between a “Yes!” or “No!” quite often.

In one study of homeowners by the University of California, people were given energy saving ideas. One group was told if they implemented the recommendations they would save an average of $180 on their electric bill over the next 12 months. Another group was told they would lose $180 during the next 12 months if they didn’t adopt the recommendations because they would overpay on their electric bill.

It’s the same $180 but when the group that was told they would lose heard this, 150% more decided to implement the energy saving recommendations. That’s a pretty significant difference just by changing the way information was presented. It costs no more to say it either way but the end result was huge.

What does this mean for you? Next time you present to someone think about how you might highlight potential loss instead of what someone might gain. For example, if you’re in financial services encouraging someone to save a bit more could make a huge difference in their retirement.

Gain Approach – Bob, if you can find a way to set aside 1% more of your income that could mean an additional $250,000 by the time you retire.

Loss Approach – Bob, if you can’t find a way to set aside 1% more of your income that could mean losing $250,000 by the time you retire!

The financial rep employing the loss approach will be more successful over the long run and clients will appreciate the advice when they hit retirement because they’ll have much more in their bank accounts.

I’m not encouraging you to be a negative Nellie but I am encouraging you to use language that scientific research has proven will be more effective in helping you hear “Yes!” That’s what this blog is all about – making small changes in your persuasion approach with people in order to generate big differences.

Every Human Society Teaches Its People This

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Marcel Mauss, the late French Sociologist, wrote a book called The Gift. He asserted that gifts are never truly free because reciprocity dictates that people return the favor by doing something for the gift giver. He went so far as to say every human society raises its people in the way of reciprocity.

I’m on the Westerville Education Foundation (WEF), a non-profit board that raises money for the Westerville schools when budgets fall short or where budgets may not cover certain expenses. I was persuaded to join the board by two State Auto colleagues who had been through my Principles of Persuasion workshop years ago.

A few weeks ago I was manning the WEF booth during a Fourth Friday event, a summer event in which residents pack uptown Westerville for food, drink, and music while vendors display their wares. One way the WEF tries to grab people’s attention is by using a game kids can play and win prizes. While the children play we hand out literature to their moms and dads and quickly tell them what we do.

As I volunteered I couldn’t help but notice something that happened in nearly every instance after a child won a prize. One of the parents would inevitably say to their child, “What do you say?” Upon hearing that every child turned to us and said, “Thank you,” before leaving with their prize.

That simple act was repeated so often it made me think about Marcel Mauss and his belief that every human society teaches its people to respond to the act of giving. The principle of influence known as reciprocity says we feel obligated to give back to those who’ve first given to us. This is where the phrase “much obliged” comes from. It is a simple acknowledgment that once somebody has done something for us we feel obligated to do something for him or her at some point in the future.

As parents teach their children to respond to acts of kindness and gifts with a “thank you” they are conditioning their kids to reciprocate. As the children grow up they learn more sophisticated ways to repay the favor. Eventually acts of kindness are met with thank you letters, thank you cards and return gifts.

The key to utilizing reciprocity is to be the first to act, the first to give. Once you’ve given something to another person the principle is set in motion and they feel somewhat indebted to you. If you wait for someone to do something for you, then you’ll be the one in debt.

You don’t need a budget to ethically engage reciprocity. Simple acts of kindness trigger the principle. When someone feels what you’ve done for them is genuinely in their best interest – as opposed to an act of giving simply to curry a favor – they’ll want to freely reciprocate most of the time.

If you want to become a master persuader then start looking for ways to become a giver. It becomes much easier as you begin to change your thinking from “who can help me?” to “whom can I genuinely help?”

Opportunities to give and help are always abundant so take stock in who you are, your resources, talents, etc., and begin looking for ways to use those to benefit others. Don’t be afraid of losing anything in the process because as the late Zig Ziglar famously told audiences for decades, “You can get everything you want in life if you’ll just help enough other people get what they want.” Zig was 100% correct because the more people you help, the more people will want to help you when you need it.

Brian Ahearn, CMCT®
Chief Influence Officer
influencePEOPLE 
Helping You Learn to Hear “Yes”.

 

The Messenger Can Make All the Difference

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Sometimes it’s not what you say but how you say it that can make all the difference. And sometimes it’s not what is said but who said it that makes all the difference.

I bet most of you would agree that our children are vitally important to our future. After all, at some point each of us will be retired and the fortunes of our investments and the direction of our country will be in the hands of the next generation – our children.

The late Whitney Houston said as much in her enormously popular hit song, Greatest Love of All. The song opens:

I believe the children are our future
Teach them well and let them lead the way

There’s another well-known quote that goes like this, “He alone who owns the youth gains the future.” Any idea who said that? If you’re like most people you probably didn’t know it was Adolf Hitler. I’m guessing despite the reality that children are our future and that you might have even agreed with the quote, it probably doesn’t sit well with you now that you know who said it.

Sometimes the messenger can make all the difference! If Whitney Houston had sung, “He alone who owns the youth gains the future,” and Adolf Hitler had said, “I believe the children are our future.

Teach them well and let them lead the way,” we’d all feel exactly the opposite about the quotes.

This comes to mind because a church in Alabama used the Hitler quote on a billboard to advertise their youth group! There may be truth to Hitler’s words but no one with any gumption about how to persuade would try to use Hitler’s words in a positive way because he’s considered one of the most evil people to ever walk the planet. Would you want to send your kids to a youth group that’s quoting Hitler?

In persuasion the principle of authority tells us it’s easier for people to say yes to those who have superior wisdom or knowledge. To effectively use this principle of influence you need two things – expertise and credibility. Without both you’ll never succeed. For example, Bernie Madoff has expertise. Despite his pyramid scheme, he does know about investing. But would you trust him with your money? I hope not!

On the flip side, you probably have friends you’d trust your life with … but not your money, because they have no expertise when it comes to investing.

Whether it’s investing, taxes, legal advice, etc., we want people we can trust and those we view as having expertise if we’re to do what they suggest.

Authority can also be borrowed. When I present I use lots of quotes from well-known people. I do so for a couple of reasons.

First, if I say something, people might agree with me, but if Dale Carnegie, Ronald Reagan or Dr. Martin Luther King say it, people will more easily agree because their reputations precede them.

Second, my use of quotes shows I’m well-read and that does add to my personal authority. If people view me as well-read then they naturally assume I’m smarter for it and are therefore more willing to listen to what I have to say.

However, when I choose to use a quote I’m conscious of what it says AND who said it. Many infamous people have made true statements (even a broken clock is right twice a day!) but I would almost never use them because the reaction would be the same as your reaction to Hitler’s quote.

Here’s the bottom line if you’re looking to be a master persuader. Keep your reputation intact so people trust you and continue to develop expertise in your chosen field. When you need to borrow authority, make sure the quote and messenger will both be acceptable to your audience. Do these simple things and your ability to get to yes will go up rather dramatically.

Competition is a Big Driver in Persuasion

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Have ever you found yourself driving down the road, lost in thought or just enjoying some music, keeping a safe distance between you and the next car when all of a sudden someone comes barreling up the lane next to you and obviously wants to get over? When that happens, do you sometimes find yourself unconsciously speeding up? Maybe you’ve done so with conscious thought.

Or how about when traffic is restricted due to road construction. You’ve waited patiently as cars inch along and next thing you know, someone goes as far to the front as they can get then they expect someone to let them in. Have you found yourself not being the one to let them in because you think, “If I had to wait, they can wait, too!”

These are just some of the many familiar situations you can find yourself in where competition begins to affect your thinking and behavior. No need to feel bad if you do speed up a bit or don’t always let someone over because it’s evolutionary. You see, you’re simply responding to the principle of scarcity – we want more of what we can’t have, and we react negatively to what we might lose. That loss could be as simple as our place in line on the highway.

When it comes to scarcity, competition ramps up the effectiveness of this principle of influence. When you saw the person coming up on the highway you were in competition with them for the spot in line and their desire to get ahead of you made you more determined not to lose. Think about something as simple as a sale.

“Sale Ends Sunday” is a form of scarcity. You can take your time getting to the store because you know you have until closing time Sunday to get in on the deal. But what if the ad says, “Sale – While Supplies Last”? Now you realize waiting until Saturday or Sunday might mean you lose out because other people may get to the store Friday. They don’t want to miss out on the great deal and neither do you, so you head to the store Friday afternoon also. Scarcity has changed your behavior but competition even more so!

Another example might have occurred when you were dating. Isn’t it the case that you value your partner more when you realize someone else is also vying for his or her attention? You might have been considering putting an end to the relationship but the entrance of someone else can sometimes cause you to rethink the situation.

When it comes to effectively using the principle of scarcity, limited time offers will motivate behavior but offers that involve competition will be far more effective. With that in mind, you need to think about ways to ethically invoke competition in order to get people to want your product or service even more.

Perhaps the best picture of competition for products happens every year the day after Thanksgiving. That day has become known as Black Friday. Limited time deals cause people to wait in line starting at midnight in some cases! You may have seen reports of people fighting and being trampled on in the news as customers rush into stores for great deals on limited quantity items. Seemingly normal, rational people begin to act like animals fighting over the remains of a carcass before it’s all gone! That’s how scarcity works on the mind because competition is a big driver in persuasion.

Brian Ahearn, CMCT®
Chief Influence Officer
influencePEOPLE 
Helping You Learn to Hear “Yes”.

The Most Valuable Real Estate

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Living in Central Ohio, golf isn’t the first sport you think of, but thanks to legends like Jack Nicklaus, aka the “Golden Bear,” our courses are hidden gems scattered around Columbus and its suburbs.

As I reminisced at the Memorial Golf Tournament this year, a thought struck me—sometimes, the game’s outcome isn’t about the physical distance covered by the ball, but rather those crucial six inches between our ears.

Jack Nicklaus, who has won a record 18 majors, is not just a testament to physical skill but mental mastery. The real estate I’m talking about isn’t the fairway—it’s the mind. In golf, as in professional life, the true game unfolds in the mental landscape.

At this tournament, watching a pro miss a straightforward putt reminded me how each swing, each decision counts. The winner often surpasses the runner-up by a mere one or two strokes—a fraction of a percentage that decides victory. So, what makes the difference? It’s how one handles the mental pressure, the adverse moments.

The Mind: Your Battlefield for Influence

This concept translates seamlessly into persuasion, especially in professional settings where we’re often stuck in old patterns or firm beliefs. Here are a few tactics, drawing from the subtle art of persuasion, that can shift outcomes in your favor:

Liking: A simple, deserved compliment could be all it takes for someone to favor you more, increasing your persuasive pull.

Reciprocity: Small acts of genuine help can foster a sense of obligation, nudging others to return the favor, possibly aiding in your next project completion or deal closure.

Authority: Displaying credentials upfront enhances credibility, making your propositions more persuasive.

Social Proof: Mentioning what other people, those most similar to the person you’re talking to, are doing makes it easier for people to follow your lead.

Consistency: Encouraging someone to agree to small initial requests increases the likelihood they will stick to bigger commitments.

Scarcity: Highlighting the limited availability of an offer can spur action, a principle as effective in business as it is in psychology.

Winning with Ethical Influence

Understanding these principles doesn’t just potentially enhance your professional relationships and outcomes—it aligns with ethical influence, ensuring you’re respecting others’ autonomy and creating win-win scenarios. Like employing a sports psychologist may not guarantee a win every time, using these principles wisely isn’t about manipulation; it’s about improving your odds ethically.

Your mental agility plays a crucial role, not just in sports but in every professional interaction. Each conversation, each meeting is your playing field, and how you engage your mind determines whether you merely play the game or change it.

What methods do you find most effective for influencing change in your professional interactions?

Edited with ChatGPT and reposted 4/26/24

Brian Ahearn

Brian Ahearn, CMCT®
Chief Influence Officer
influencePEOPLE 
Helping You Learn to Hear “Yes”.

 

A Question is Like a Flashlight

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A former coworker and good friend Nancy Edwards shared an article from Southwest’s Spirit Magazine titled “Chasing Beautiful Questions.” In the article I came across a quote from Steve Quatrano of the Right Question Institute:

“A question is like a flashlight that we shine into the darkness, allowing us to move forward into the unknown and uncertain.”

I loved the analogy of a question being like a flashlight because it’s so memorable! I also like it because asking good questions is a big part of being an effective persuader.

When it comes to the principle of liking – it’s easier for us to say yes to those we know and like – questions are key to finding out what you have in common with another person. What we have in common with someone (similarities) is a proven way to engage the liking principle.

Think about people you know who are from your hometown, have the same pet you do, enjoy the same hobbies or root for the same sports team. Studies show it’s easier for them to like you AND it’s easier for you to like them. The end result is it makes it easier for them to say “Yes” to you.

You can learn these things a number of ways – ask people who know the person you want to persuade, Google them, check out Facebook, LinkedIn, etc. Or, when you’re with the other person you can shine the light of good questions to try and find out what you have in common so you can use those things to connect.

Good questions also come in handy when you want to engage the principle of consistency. This principle of influence explains the reality that people want to be consistent in what they say, do, believe, etc. Typically, people don’t resist their own values, attitudes and beliefs. If you know those things and can align your request to show the other person how what you’re asking lines up with those beliefs, values, attitudes, or past behaviors, it will be easier for them to say yes to whatever you’re asking.

In much the same way that you discover similarities you can discover these things to engage consistency. Talk to people who know the person you’re trying to persuade, do an online search, and look at Facebook or LinkedIn.

One last place questions come in handy is during the sales process, with scarcity. This principle highlights the truth that people respond more to what they might lose than what they might gain.

Telling someone what he or she might lose by not going with your suggestion is effective persuasion but there’s a better way. Asking questions that highlight potential loss is a much more effective persuasion strategy. For example, in my industry, insurance, an insurance agent might ask the following of a prospective customer if they discover some deficiency in their insurance program:

Agent – If you were to have a catastrophic loss, would you expect the insurance company to completely replace your building?

Prospective Client – Of course I would. That’s why I carry insurance.

Agent – I thought that would be the case, but the reality is you don’t carry enough insurance to fully replace your building. You’d have to pay more than $200,000 out of pocket. Did you know that?

Prospective Client – No, I thought I was fully covered!

By asking the right questions the agent is shining the light on a dark place, a place the customer had not considered.

When the customer voices what he wants that solidifies his desire even more. And this approach drives home the potential loss much more than the agent telling him what he might lose.

So, whether you want to connect with someone using liking, engage them with consistency or highlight possible loss, good questions are the way to go. They will shine a light to allow you to see things previously hidden and increase your chance for persuasion success.

Brian Ahearn, CMCT®
Chief Influence Officer
influencePEOPLE 
Helping You Hear “Yes”

Influencers from Around the World – You Think You Don’t Have Authority? You’re Wrong!

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Our “Influencers from Around the World” post
this month is courtesy of Hoh Kim. Hoh has been guest writing for so long I’m
hard pressed to tell you something that hasn’t been said before so I’ll tell
you this – I am very thankful I met him in January 2008 when we trained
together under Robert Cialdini. Hoh and I have remained friends ever since and
I’ve enjoyed our communication and getting to know each other even more. I
encourage you to visit his website, The Lab h, and his blog, Cool
Communications. You’ll also find Hoh on Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter.
Brian Ahearn, CMCT® 
Chief Influence Officer
influencePEOPLE 
Helping You Learn to Hear “Yes”.


You Think You Don’t Have Authority? You’re Wrong?
Do you ever find yourself thinking you don’t
have any authority because you’re not the boss, a C-suite executive, a celebrity
or something else like that? I’m here to tell you that you do have some
authority!
1. Let me ask you this question first. Do you
have experiences? Of course you have experiences. If you have experiences then
you must have some expertise. Seth Godin, one of the world’s most respected
marketing experts said, “Everyone’s an expert (at something).”
So ask yourself, in what area do you have
better, deeper and more experience? One good way to find your expertise is to
write an “experience resume.” A typical resume will show you where you worked,
which school you attended and what jobs you’ve held. An experience resume lists
experiences, maybe up to fifty, you’ve had during your lifetime. It could contain
trips, work, cooking, art, baby-sitting, reading, etc. You will find your
expertise from the list by looking for patterns in the experiences or through
connecting the dots among experiences.
Here is a personal example; I like to teach
and I like communication consulting in business as opposed to working as a full
time teacher in a school or university. By combining those two I became a business
coach. Also, I enjoy workshop facilitation and I like LEGOs so I learned LEGO
Serious Play, a method of using LEGOs for business strategy development. Now
LEGOs are one of the major teaching methods I use during my workshops.
2. Once you identify your expertise you need
to consider what evidence or symbols give other people proof of your expertise.
Without having some evidence your expertise will not be perceived as such by
your customers.
Questions to be asked include: a) What
advanced education or certification have you earned in your area of expertise? b) What awards or recognition have you earned? c) Have you written articles,
books or contributed to other publications in your area of expertise?
Don’t worry if you do not have enough evidence
to support your authority yet. That means it should be part of your plan to
obtain that evidence moving forward. Someone might say, “I don’t need evidence!”
Perhaps. After all, neither Steve Jobs nor Bill Gates graduated from college. However,
most of us are not Steve Jobs or Bill Gates! They now have tremendous evidence based
on their amazing business results and great product innovations. That is the
evidence to support the fact that each is a respected authority. Each of us has
to have some evidence if we want to be recognized as experts in certain areas.
3. Lastly, to build your authority you need to
have E3 = Experiences, Expertise and Evidences. If you’re a manager
here is one more very important tip. One of the key roles for managers is to
help build their team member’s authority. Ask the above questions to your
members and help them to identify their personal authority. If they need more
evidence to support their authority you can come up with a plan to help them,
including training or a project assignment. If you’re good at this you will be
a successful manager.
Here’s the bottom line – Authority is waiting
for you to use! It just needs to be discovered then developed.
Today’s column is based on my recent webinar “The
Cialdini’s Influence Series for Managers.” In that webinar I talked about the
principle of authority and while preparing I received help from two people with
many experiences – Bobette Gorden of Influence At Work and Brian Ahearn.
Thanks!
Hoh Kim, CMCT® 
Founder, Head Coach & Lead Facilitator,
THE LAB h

Thinking Is Some Of The Hardest Work There Is

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Henry Ford, founder of the Ford Motor Company, once said, “Thinking is some of the hardest work there is, which is probably why so few people engage in it.” Thinking may not be like manual labor but for those of you who engage in deep thought you know it’s tiring! But why is that the case? Here are a couple of reasons:

“The brain represents only about 2% of most people’s body weight, yet it accounts for about 20% of the body’s total energy use.” – from Brain Rules by John Medina.

“The brain consumes 300% more caloric intake when engaged in cognitive evaluation and logical thinking than when in the automatic mode.” – from The 7 Triggers to Yes by Russ Granger

Bottom line – that small piece of grey matter in our skulls requires a lot of energy and when used to capacity it leaves us quite tired. We do what we can to avoid working harder than we have to so Henry Ford might have been correct about our aversion to the hard work of thinking.

Or perhaps our ability to reduce our thinking and save energy is a survival mechanism. Whether it’s laziness or survival, one thing is for sure, when we can think less and conserve energy, we usually do it. This is important to understand if you want to become a better persuader. In March 2009, ABC News featured an article titled Expert Advice Shuts Your Brain Down. Here’s my Cliff’s Notes version of the article:

Two dozen Emory University students are given complicated financial problems to solve. They’re hooked to brain imaging equipment so their neural activity can be observed. As they try to figure out answers to the problems their brains are hard at work! Eventually a professor from Emory University is introduced to the class, and it’s made known he’s also an advisor to the U.S. Federal Reserve. In other words, he’s a very smart financial guy. As he begins to give the students advice, even advice he knows is bad, their brains “flat lined” because they stopped critically thinking.

So, what went on there? From the perspective of the psychology of persuasion, the principle of authority was engaged. This principle of influence tells us people defer to those with superior knowledge or wisdom when making decisions.

I like to share the ABC account because it illustrates an important fact about persuasion – it’s not pop psychology or some fad. When a principle like authority is engaged correctly it causes physiological changes in the brain and that’s part of the reason the principles of influence can be so effective when it comes to persuading others.

Consider the Emory University students. Left on their own, they had to work hard to come up with answers. However, when a credentialed individual who is viewed as much smarter than they are comes into the equation everything changes. They can cease from the hard work of thinking!

Each of us does this at different times. This is why we pay accountants to do our taxes, lawyers to defend us in court or stockbrokers to invest for us. We don’t want to do the heavy lifting associated with each of those mental activities.

How does this understanding help you be a more effective persuader? Two ways.

First, the more someone understands your expertise the less critical they will be of your ideas and recommendations. That’s not to say everyone will do what you want nor am I advocating trying to get people “brain dead” in order to persuade them. However, when they understand your expertise, they will more readily accept your position just as the Emory University students did with the professor.

You can establish your credentials on your business card (title and designations earned), through letters of reference and introduction, speaker bios, years in business, how you dress, the car you drive, etc. Each of these can indicate success which usually carries with it the assumption of some expertise.

The second way to engage this is using outside sources. You may be an expert or maybe you’ve not established expertise yet. Either way, when you bring outside sources – other experts, graphs, charts, stats, etc., into the persuasion equation, you begin to bring authority into the mix and people will more readily accept what you’re sharing.

How will you apply this concept? Next time you go into a situation where you need to be persuasive make sure people know your credentials up front. Doing so after the fact does little good because the person, you’re attempting to persuade might have already made up his or her mind. If you go this route, do so by engaging someone to introduce you either in person or by email. When you do this, make sure the person making the introduction knows the most important credentials you have.

The other thing you want to do is look for valid stats, charts, quotes, or other references that show you’ve done your homework and there’s respected support for what you propose.

Here’s an example of putting this into practice. I’m in the insurance industry and work for an insurance company. Quite often insurance agents will call their underwriter for more in-depth understanding of coverages or insurance provisions. An underwriter might answer the agent’s question off the cuff because they know the answer. However, if it’s not what the agent wants to hear the agent might contend with the underwriter. It’s a good bet the underwriter’s knowledge came from continuing education so why not cite the source of knowledge? Here’s how I would advise an underwriter to answer:

“That’s a great question. I remember when I was studying for my CPCU…”

Now the answer is not just opinion because it’s backed by the authority of the CPCU Institute.

Sometimes seemingly simple things like citing a source or establishing credentials up front can make all the difference in turning a no into a yes.

Brian Ahearn, CMCT®
Chief Influence Officer
influencePEOPLE 
Helping You Learn to Hear “Yes”