Click Here To Solve Shyness
How would you like to have the power to persuade your boss to give you the day off, to persuade your husband to mow the lawn, to persuade your friends to buy you that expensive birthday present or even to persuade your customers to buy more of your products?
This article lists the top 5 persuasion techniques of all time, taken from the best-seller
“Influence – The Psychology of Persuasion” by Robert Cialdini.
Everyone is susceptible to being persuaded to doing something that they don’t like. There are experts that have discovered and mastered these incredible persuasion techniques and they’re using them on you every single day.
Yes…you’re being persuaded to buy things you don’t want or need and you’re being persuaded to do things you don’t want to do on a daily basis!
These master persuasion experts work for almost every major media and advertising company in the world. Their persuasion techniques are applied to advertising in all sorts and forms, and I’m willing to bet that at some point in your life (if not on a regular basis) you’ve been persuaded to buy something or agree to do something that you would never have voluntarily done if it weren’t for the persuasion technique used on you.
Knowing these top 5 persuasion techniques outlined in this article will not only allow you to have an edge over others when you need someone to do something for you, but you’ll also know when people are trying to take advantage of you. That’s right, you’ll know when someone is using a technique on you to persuade you to do something you don’t really want to do.
Persuasion Technique #1- The Reciprocity Rule
When someone does a favor for us – we feel obliged to return the favor
When executed correctly, you can appear to be doing someone a favor and the reciprocity rule will cause them to feel obliged to do something for you in return. The secret is that the return favor doesn’t have to be equal to the initial favor…the return favor can be much bigger.
Example: Let’s take the online world. How many times has someone offered you a free report to get you on their email list? And once you’re on their email list, they give you free helpful content. After a while they will ask you to buy something from them, and if they really gave you good content you’ll want to do something back for them and buy their product.
An expert at this technique has the ability to choose the initial favor AND the return favor, meaning that they have total control to persuade you as they please.
Why Does This Technique Work?
In society we needed a system that will allow us to do things for people without fearing that we would lose out. That is why it is so deeply rooted in our thinking that when someone does something for us, that we will return the favor. This way, we can do something for someone else and be sure that they will return the favor one day. Everyone benefits.
People who don’t return favors are avoided and cast out by society, hence the deep sense of obligation to return favors.
How To Exploit This Technique
Give something for free first. This is hardly ever refused. Once the prospect accepts the free gift, he is indebted to you and feels obliged to return a favor (which you can then ask/decide).
Persuasion Technique #2 – The Rejection and Retreat Rule
First ask a large (but not unreasonable request) and when (most likely) rejected, appear to make a concession and ask only for a much smaller (but initially desired) request which is usually met.
Example: Ask someone to buy a genuinely helpful video course for $97 and when (most of the time) refused, make a concession and ask them to buy the book version for just $15.
Why This Technique Works
When you make an initial large request that’s not ridiculous but still too large to be accepted, the prospect doesn’t hesitate to decline. You’re fine with that because you planned that initial request to be rejected. Then when you appear to make a huge concession by making a much smaller request in comparison the prospect firstly sees that you’re taking a loss and still trying to help and secondly feels bad if they were to decline your request a 2nd time.
The prospect will likely think something along the lines of “Well…he made a big concession and his second request really isn’t that bad, so I’ll make a concession too and agree to his smaller request”.
How To Exploit This Technique
Start by making a very large (but not unreasonable) request, have it rejected and then appear to make a concession and make a much smaller request (both in size and in price/time/effort).
The prospect thinks that you are making a concession but actually you are achieving the result you wanted the entire time.
Persuasion Technique #3 – The Consistency Rule
People want to be consistent in their actions. When someone make a commitment, they base their successive behaviour on their previous committed action and look for ways to verify and confirm that commitment.
Example: If you were to make a public declaration to all your friends and family that you’re quitting smoking you’re going to try as hard as you can to quit smoking (at least in front of the people you made the declaration to).
Why This Technique Works
The trait of consistency makes someone viewed as high-value, trustworthy, loyal and successful whereas inconsistency is viewed as flaky, prone to failure and being untrustworthy. We are conditioned to be consistent in our actions.
Once again this can be traced back to the early days of society where there is a clear benefit of being viewed as trustworthy so that the rest of the group will help and protect you when you need it.
How To Exploit This Technique
Get people to make a commitment, which then changes their self images. (E.g. get someone to sign a petition to save energy) Much larger requests and even requests only remotely connected to the original can be extracted from the person due to them wanting to stay aligned with their new self image (eg asking the prospect to allow a huge billboard in their front lawn to reduce accidents).
“What may occur is a change in the person’s feelings about getting involved or taking action. Once he has agreed to request, his attitude may change, he may become, in his own eyes, the kind of person who does this sort of thing, who agrees to requests made by strangers, who takes action on things he believes in, who cooperates with good causes.”
Public commitment turns people into the most stubborn resistors. Once someone makes a public declaration (writing or video), they are very unlikely to change their view even when evidence suggests that their view is incorrect.
Persuasion Technique #4 – Lowballing
Lowballing entails making an offer that is never intended to be executed in order to get the prospect to make their own decision to buy from you. Once the prospect has made their decision to be loyal to you, there was an “accidental” mistake in the initial offer but you can get another offer for just “Insert reasonable offer here”.
Example: A car salesman goes on a rant about the sale on the latest BMW how the price went down from $40,000 to only $25,000. He goes on telling you about the safety features, the warranties and the sheer drivers pleasure you’ll get from owning that BMW. He even lets you go for a drive. At this point you’re totally ready to buy the BMW, but when you sit down to sign the papers the salesman says that there was a mistake of some sort. The BMW is already sold or there was a mistake in the sale price or something. Either way, you want a BMW and you’ll be much more likely to buy one, even if the price is higher than initially mentioned.
Why This Technique Works
The strongest influence comes from your own mind. You are much more likely to do something when you’ve decided in your own mind that you need it or want it compared to when someone is telling you why it’s such a great thing to do, blah blah…
The lowballing technique works to create and support the idea in your mind that you need to do X through an offer that seems to good to be true (X being whatever the persuader wants you to do). Once that idea is settled in your mind and you’ve accepted it, the persuader removes the “support” and the idea of wanting to do X still stands in your mind because you’ve accepted it as being something you want and need.
How To Exploit This Technique
Entice the prospect with an incredible offer. The idea is that once the prospect makes up their mind to buy or take part, the consistency rule comes into action and you have them hooked.You can remove the initial bait and the idea planted in the prospects mind will still be valid because it is now supported by the prospect’s own thoughts and beliefs. It has become a part of his reality and personality.
Persuasion Technique #5 – Social Proof
We tend to judge correct behaviour by the degree in which others behave. It is believed that the more people who do something in a certain way, the more correct it is to do it that way too. This is human nature to follow the herd, and can easily be manipulated by others.
Example: You’re much more likely to watch a video with 20 000 000 views than a video with 10 views, although the numbers could be fake and the video with 10 views could be much better.
Why This Technique Works
Social proof has the strongest effect when you are unsure of yourself (uncertainty). That is when you are most likely to turn to the actions of others as a guide for your own actions.
Social proof is also most powerful when it occurs to similar people as yourself. You are much more likely to bend to social proof when the other people are similar to you as opposed to being someone you totally can’t relate to.
It’s much more difficult to stick to your own beliefs when everyone else thinks differently. The reason is that you’re making yourself an outcast if your beliefs or habits are different to the rest. If your beliefs or actions are correct then you don’t have a problem, but if you are uncertain you risk being wrong and it would be safer to follow the actions of others.
How To Exploit This Technique
Social Proof is very easy to display, and it’s also very easy to fake but even fake social proof has a very strong effect.
Testimonials are a big source of social proof. That’s why they’re always present on products and sales pitches.
On most blogs and websites you’ll see many examples of social proof like a subscriber count, comment count, Twitter following etc. When you land on the blog and you’re not sure whether it’s any good or not, you can turn to that social proof and think, “Wow! 35,000 people are reading this blog. It must be good. I’ll stick around”.
The trick with social proof is to display it through people that are as similar as possible to your prospect. The smaller the similarity, the weaker the effect of the social proof.
Parting Words
I hope that you learned something from this article; both in the form of knowing how to persuade someone next time you need a favor, and in the form of recognizing when someone is trying to persuade you.
Now you know how to get that expensive birthday gift you’ve always wanted. 
This was my personal summary of Robert Cialdini’s book: Influence – The Psychology of Persuasion. If you’re interested in this topic I highly recommend you get yourself a copy to get a deeper understanding of the psychology of persuasion.
