Tag Archive for: Marco Germani

Influencers from Around the World – Influence in Italian Gas Stations

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In Italy our highways are called Autostrade and with a very capillary network they cover almost our entire “boot-shaped” peninsula, enabling us to travel from the North of the country down to Sicily in a fast and easy way. Along these roads are many gas stations owned by a company called Autogrill which builds restaurants and drugstores close to the gas stations in order to offer travelers the chance to have coffee, a meal or to buy something along the way. In these shops the principles of influence are used massively and they always attract my attention.

When people stop in one of these places, aside from their need for gas, they enter the building mainly for two reasons: either they need to go to the toilet or they want something to eat or drink. The shop entrance is situated very close to the bar desk and to the toilet entrance. Once these two needs are fulfilled (a cash register is located close to the bar so customers can easily pay) people only want to go back to their cars as fast as possible and to resume their journey. The most logical thing would therefore be to exit from the same door they used to enter the store. However, that would deprive the store owner of a great opportunity – to possibly sell something extra to somebody who is already a customer and who has probably no other explicit need at that point.For this reason, in order to gain the exit, you are forced to take a very long walk within the store, where you are exposed to every sort of product imaginable. This “detour” is created within the store by adding cardboard walls in strategic positions, creating one of those lines which are often seen at airports for passport controls or baggage check-in, filing many people into narrow spaces. On the two sides of the narrow way, customers are exposed to regional foods from every part of Italy, toys, books, fine bottles of wines, and many other consumer products. Most of these products, regardless from the season, are offered with a “50% discount off full price” or with the formula such as “buy one get the second one free.” Both of these of course trigger the reflex to the principle of scarcity.Now, the theory is this; if asked almost nobody among those who take this forced walk would admit to have the original intention to buy a piece of seasoned Parma Ham, a box of “tortellini” home made in Bologna or any other of the goods they are exposed to. However, the fact is, most people end up actually buying something and paying for it at a second cash register which happens to be strategically positioned before the real exit. We can learn two things:1) The products are exposed in a very appealing way. People can smell the fresh food, touch the fabric of goods (because of the narrow space they are almost invited to do so) or open the books to have a look inside. In essence, a need is created by mere exposure. The lesson for you and I is this – by presenting our product in an appealing way, we can create a need where there wasn’t one in the first place.2) The store owner knows if you present these products to a very large number of people
, statistically some will end up buying. Their products are presented, with no alternative, to EVERY single customer because, unless they walk with their eyes closed, they are forced to endure the seemingly endless array of products. We can apply the same principle by doing whatever is necessary to expose our product or service to the highest number of qualified to buyers.So now you are warned, when you come to Italy and need to refill your tank, be ready to make some unscheduled purchases in one of those stores or accept the challenge to resist the impulses driven by the persuasion principles!Marco

I’m sure Marco would enjoy hearing from you so feel free to leave a comment below.
Brian
influencepeople
Helping You Learn to Hear “Yes”.

Influencers from Around the World – Scarcity at Italian Weddings

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This month’s Influencers from Around the World post is from my friend Marco Germani. Marco is from Rome, Italy, and will be sharing an interesting story about persuasion and Italian weddings. The wedding photos are from Marco and Monika’s wedding last summer. They’re expecting their first child this summer. I’m sure Marco would love to hear from you so reach out to him on Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter.
Brian
Helping You Learn to Hear “Yes!”

Scarcity at Italian Weddings
I recently tried an interesting application of the principle of scarcity at the wedding of a couple of friends here in Rome, where I live. It is common practice in Italy that, when a wedding takes place, beside the “official” photographer of the event, a “clandestine” photographer magically shows up outside from the church. This guy, with no authorization at all, takes pictures of all the guests as they are entering the place, asking them to pose for him and playing on the fact that they don’t really know whether he is the official photographer or not. He then takes a quick picture of the bride and groom at the very beginning of the ceremony and then rushes to a mobile photo studio parked in the back of the church, to very quickly create nice cardboard-framed pictures of each guest, close to the picture of their newly-married friends.
When the celebration ends, the fellow waits for the guests to exit the church and, one by one, propose them to buy his newly-made artwork, usually for a price of about 8 Euro. As strange as it might appear, this technique works wonders and these guys usually sell almost every picture they’ve taken. The reasons being that people see in front of them a picture of themselves, nicely carved in a paperboard frame and close to the picture of the bride and groom and, for the principle of reciprocation, enhanced by the surprise (most people don’t go to weddings every day and are not aware of this technique) feel a certain compulsion to buy and to pay the overpriced amount. I have to add these pictures are after all a nice souvenir of the event, so I am not against this service, even though I think it is presented in a questionable way.
Being aware of how the principle of scarcity works, during the specific event I recently attended, I decided to try and use it at my own advantage. When the photographer proposed selling the picture to me, I kindly declined and moved away from him. I then waited for him to complete all the sales and, when he was done, I approached him again. At this point, he had in his hands only a few pictures of people who didn’t buy and those pictures were absolutely worthless for him, probably ready for the dustbin. I told him I was still thinking about buying the picture but that I thought the price was too high. He immediately proposed me a price of five Euro. At this point, I casually pulled out from my pocket four one Euro coins (which I had previously prepared) and told him I only happened to have four Euro in coins, would that do for him? He grabbed the coins in a split second, gave me the framed picture and we were both happy campers!
Now, I have to specify that, having a friend who works in photography, he previously explained to me that the cost to print the picture, for the photographer, should have been around two Euro, so, considering myself an ethical persuader, it was my duty to offer a price which also included a reasonable profit margin for the “smart” photographer, granting me the best buying price at the same time.
Marco

Influencers from Around the World

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Some of the best things about blogging for me have been meeting new people, making friends and learning about other cultures. Many of the people I’ve come to know through blogging are from all parts of the globe because people in more than 95 countries have taken time to read Influence PEOPLE! That stat blows me away!
Because the audience is becoming so diverse I’ve decided to try something new. I contacted several people in other countries who also have a deep interest in ethical influence and persuasion to see if they would write guest posts for Influence PEOPLE from time to time. They said “Yes” (see, persuasion works!) so I’d like to introduce you to four gentlemen because you’ll be reading their thoughts on influence in future posts.

Marco Germani calls Italy home. Marco reached out to me through Facebook and we quickly realized we had much in common. Besides the bond of influence, Marco has been an avid martial artist for many years. He recently wrote a book on persuasion in Italian, I Meccanismi della Persuasione, and has a blog by the same name, I Meccanismi della Persuasione.

A chemical engineer by training, about 15 years ago he became passionate about the study of personal growth. Over the years he’s channeled that passion by attending dozens of seminars and training courses around the world, learning from some of the best international coaches. An avid reader, he’s read countless books on subjects like persuasion, time management, coaching and goal setting.

He’s lived in France, Belgium, the USA and China while working as a technical manager and as export manager for several multinational companies in various industrial fields. During that part of his career he had the opportunity to take part in and manage negotiations in several international business deals. He presently works as a consultant for business internationalization, with a focus on Asian markets.

Marco has always been passionate about persuasion, negotiation and ethical sales. His personal mission is to create a high value for others by living his life with passion and total integrity. He realizes the key in this pursuit is the constant striving for self-improvement. He’s pictured above with his wife Monika. Marco is on Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter if you’d like to reach out to him.
Sean Patrick resides in Ireland. Although we both enjoy good ale we didn’t meet in a pub. We met because of this blog and Facebook. After having read my blog Sean reached out to me on Facebook and we started chatting then exchanging massages because of our interest in training, particularly influence. Thanks to technology (Skype) we now video chat with some regularity.

Sean has more than 15 years experience in generating high value, high turnover strategic business. He has worked in roles ranging from inside sales, account management, new business specialist, and sales management. He’s been a business owner in six different companies in the technology sector. He’s managed multiple teams of salespeople in different geographic locations across the UK and Irish Republic. His reputation for ruffling feathers and getting business in the door quickly is legendary. In addition, he’s coached and continues to coach salespeople from all industries because he is passionate about the art of negotiation and customer service.

Sean’s interest in persuasion began in the late 1990s. He wanted to know what motivated people to buy and what factors made people hesitate to say “Yes” even if price was irrelevant. As if this isn’t enough, Sean is master practitioner in NLP. Well-read and familiar with leading persuasion authors, Sean also enjoys reading academic papers on psychological persuasion. He believes it is important to explore what we know and what we learn. He advocates putting everything into practice as often as possible while continuing to learn from those with whom we interact. You can find Sean on Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter.

To learn more about Sean visit his training site, Sean Patrick Training, and check out his blog, Professional Persuader.

Yago de Marta hails from Spain but gets around quite a bit having conducted lectures, seminars and training sessions in Spain, Mexico, Chile, Puerto Rico, Nicaragua, Panama, Honduras, El Salvador, Bolivia and Colombia. He contacted me because of his interest in persuasion and possibly pursuing the CMCT designation. His list of current undertakings is quite impressive: Consultant and trainer in personal communication and persuasive oratory; Trainer of Directors and Spokespersons; Political Candidates trainer in Spain and Latin America; Debate coach for teams from the University of Zaragoza, Pablo Olavide, Seville, Cordoba, Diego Portales (Chile), Uniminuto (Colombia), CIDE (Mexico) and American (Puerto Rico).For 12 years Yago has being training people and candidates to speak fluently and persuasively in areas such as parliamentary debate. He’s a fiery competitor, having received major awards for his debate skills in Spain and world-wide competitions. He was a champion runner-up in 2005 and 2004 Spanish debates and runner up in 2005 and 2004 in the World Debate in Spanish.The technique Yago applies in his training is derived from his experience working with thousands of different personalities who are trying to become good speakers in complex situations. His style relies on practical learning where participants take into account their potential as they sift through weaknesses and improve strengths. The results obtained can be seen within the first hour of training because the tools used match up to the ability and style of each individual participant. In training workshops led by Yago people develop techniques to enhance their emotional intelligence, NLP, Social Psychology and Persuasive abilities, ethnomethodology, Institutional Communication Techniques Enterprise and, of course, classical rhetoric. All this requires a keen sense from Yago for detecting the skills and qualities that can be improved in each person. Yago has prepared many political and parliamentary leaders, sales teams and managers. He has explored the application techniques of debate to the teaching of bioethics, has improved the teaching skills of teachers and students, and has personally coached leaders in important positions responsible for many different projects and companies. Feel free to connect with Yago on Facebook and LinkedIn.Hoh Kim is from South Korea but we met in Arizona in January 2008. We were both there to go through Dr. Cialdini’s certification training. Hoh is one of the two dozen Cialdini Method Certified Trainers (CMCT) in the world and he’s the first person to present the Principles of Persuasion (POP) workshop in South Korea. He is the founder & head coach of THE LAB h, where he counsels business executives and high-ranking professionals in government and medicine to positively influence their stakeholders.

With over 10 years of experience in strategic communications consulting, executive media coaching, and crisis simulation and workshop design/facilitations, Hoh is one of the most sought after consultants, coaches and speakers in the area of crisis communication management and crisis leadership. His client base ranges from local non-profit organizations to consumer electronics companies in Korea and multinational companies listed on Fortune Global 500. Find out more about Hoh at his website, THE LAB h , or by visiting his blog, Cool Communications. You can connect with Hoh on Facebook and LinkedIn.

Globalization is here to stay, even if we never move. In all likelihood it will only accelerate as the world seems to get smaller with technology. We will be interacting with people all around the planet and because cultural differences impact the persuasion process it is good for us to learn about those differences. I hope you enjoy exploring the different perspectives on influence and persuasion from this group if international experts. Look for the first guest post on April 5th and the first Monday of each month thereafter.

Brian
Helping You Learn to Hear “Yes!”