From the Archive: The 7 Techniques to Influence Anyone of Anything | Robert Cialdini

[00:00:01] This isn't your average business podcast and he's not your average host. This is the James Altucher Show. Presenting the Archive. Classic episodes that remain timeless. The raw unfiltered conversations from the early days in which people shared their failures and showed us exactly how they rebuilt everything from the ground up.

[00:00:29] I'm certainly going to recommend to my two children that they listen to this podcast. Listing the negatives is often a powerful influence. The 7 Techniques Techniques. Warren Buffett almost starts off all his letters to shareholders with, here's what we did wrong this year. James, I'm a stockholder and I've seen him do it for 20 years now. And it's disarming every time he says, you know, we made this mistake.

[00:00:57] I believe the next thing he says to me, and that's where he puts the strength of the last year. He's just readied me to listen to and process the next thing he's going to say more deeply. Because he's established himself as a trustworthy source. What if somebody is building up their career, they want to leave their job, they want to be a speaker, they want to write books.

[00:01:26] How can they start to bring in some of these techniques? Here's what I would advise. I can't believe I have Robert Cialdini in the room. Robert, how are you doing? I'm well, James. For those who don't know you, your book, Influence, has sold over 3 million copies. You give the 6 Techniques for how to best influence people.

[00:01:52] And this has become, I would say, and you probably would agree, like the Bible of marketing for hundreds of companies. I know I have very directly made a ton of money because of your book, Influence. So thank you very much for that. It's gratifying for me to hear. And now you have a new book. You're like the Thomas Pynchon of marketing. Like you wrote Influence, then you disappear for 30 years doing your research, whatever.

[00:02:17] And now you have a brand new book out of nowhere, Persuasion, which is about how the moment of persuasion often happens well before the critical moment where two people meet and start negotiating or talking or whatever. And that so many factors play into persuasion, like managing the persuasive process before it even begins or before most people think it begins. So we'll talk about that. You also, in many cases in that book, update a lot of the techniques and influence. I want to talk about that as well.

[00:02:48] But one thing we were just talking about right before the recording started, I really want to hit on because it's fascinating. You were telling me you were walking around for six hours in New York City yesterday pointing out where companies or organizations or people were doing persuasion techniques already to kind of help persuade people to go in their direction. You mentioned specifically voting. And that example you showed was interesting. And I have a question about it.

[00:03:13] Well, there's a study, for example, that shows that if you stop somebody who's walking along the street and ask them about penalties for prostitution, right, they will be significantly more severe if you ask them in front of a church. That's very interesting. And you talk about this a lot in Persuasion that the background of where someone is.

[00:03:39] So, for instance, if a guy is asking a girl for her phone number in a mall, she's much more likely to give it if they're standing in front of a flower store, which is kind of, I guess, triggers romance feelings in the head than if they're standing in front of a clothing store, which doesn't necessarily signify romance. Exactly. This was done in France.

[00:03:57] And so people did this study there where a man walked up to a young woman walking by various stores, a clothing store, a shoe store, a pastry shop, only got the phone number 13% of the time, except in front of a flower shop where they got it 24% of the time. Now, the thing that was interesting to me was that these researchers asked the women afterwards, of all the products in these stores, which do you like best?

[00:04:27] And they said pastries. But pastries didn't produce phone numbers. So it was just a societal, like basically the fact that from birth we associate flowers with romance, like Valentine's Day you get flowers and so on. It's 40 years or 30 years or 20 years of programming that got them to be more susceptible to the guy's approach.

[00:04:51] What you are focused on, even by virtue of background characteristics, like the kind of shop you're passing, will cause you to see that particular concept, in this case romance, as more important. You prioritize that particular concept. So some strange guy asking for your phone number, that's a risky thing to give that guy your phone number.

[00:05:20] But when he asks in front of a flower shop. That's like a crazy thing to do, to give a complete stranger who's probably five inches taller than you and stronger than you, tell here's my phone number. Right. And it's just because you're in front of a flower store. Because romance has been prioritized as opposed to risk in that set of circumstances. Let me ask you a question. I bet you the same, and this is related to another experiment in your book, but I bet you the same result would occur if let's say five minutes earlier,

[00:05:50] someone else had asked the woman, hey, can you tell me the direction to Valentine's Street versus Market Street? So again, kind of putting in their head the idea of romance, even if it has nothing to do with romance. You're asking for a street address, and then later on, five minutes later, the new guy asks for the phone number. I bet the girl still would be more likely to give the phone number. Not only would your bet be correct, you would win a lot of money on that because most people would never dream

[00:06:18] that asking somebody for the directions to Valentine's Street versus Martin's Street would cause you to be willing to take a risky step. So achieve romance. So there's a bunch of examples like this in your book, where, for instance, if I walk into a wine store, and let's say the French wines are more expensive, the wine store owner should play French music in the background. So that seems a little more obvious that, okay, it gets me thinking France, I'll ask for a bottle of French wine.

[00:06:48] And you have many examples. We were just discussing voting, where this was our pre-talk slightly before the podcast. You were saying how you noticed just the other day that voters who vote in a church are much more likely to vote Republican than voters who vote in a school who are much more likely to vote Democrat, which sounds interesting to me. Because does that mean voters haven't decided until they get to the place? My guess is people have decided whether to vote Republican or Democrat.

[00:07:16] But then you get down ballot, and there's this one candidate. You're not very sure about that individual, right? I see some down like on Congress. And then it's the cues of the environment that take over and steer you in that flip of the coin place. Now you're going to go in one direction versus the other based on the cues of the environment that are associated with that person's party. So another example you give is an online mattress store.

[00:07:45] If it has like clouds in the background, I'm more likely to choose a fluffy mattress. So the big question here is, are we just stupid animals? Like if I'm so easily and I'm not even aware, right, that I'm, oh, I'm going to, it's not like, oh, there's fluffy clouds. So I'm going to pick a fluffy mattress. I'm not aware of any of these signals. And I'm probably being quote unquote persuaded all the time as I walk around. Like you mentioned yesterday, you found six hours worth of examples just walking around New York City.

[00:08:14] Like what were some of the random ones that you saw yesterday? Well, so for example, we did walk by a flower shop. We did stop in front of a church versus a school. These are the kinds of things that we pointed out. But what I think you're saying really does resonate. And I don't think that it says that we're stupid.

[00:08:33] It says that most of the time, the thing we are being led to pay attention to is the thing that is important for us to pay attention to in our environment. Right. That's usually adaptive. Is that because as humans, we needed shortcuts to think? So for instance, we're not the most powerful animals on the planet. So our brain kind of had to evolve shortcuts so we can make decisions very quickly.

[00:09:03] But this works against us in an influence environment. That's right. Just because we're paying attention to something doesn't always mean it's important. We can be drawn to a particular concept or idea, fluffy clouds and comfort, right? Which then prioritizes fluffiness and comfort and softness in our mind when we are then encountering information about sofas or mattresses, right?

[00:09:32] So most of the time it makes sense. But we can be tricked because of this into paying attention to things that a communicator draws our attention to in the moment before our choice. Well, and you mentioned some other examples. And a lot of this has to do with background environment. But I do want to get into kind of the six and then seven qualities of influence that you talk about in your other book and then kind of enhance them in this book.

[00:09:58] But, you know, you have examples where if you give boys and girls math tests, if pictures of women scientists are around the room, the girls are more likely to do better than otherwise. Or like you and I both are writers. I suppose if I were to put around my room pictures of writers I admire, maybe I would be more inspired to write better. I don't know.

[00:10:21] Well, you know what I've experienced if I put on my computer screen in the corner pictures of individuals who are characteristic of the audience I'm writing for. I write better for those people. You mentioned that in the book how when you were writing in a university office, you would look up and you would see students and your language was totally academic as opposed to when you were writing home.

[00:10:48] You had to take all the pages that you wrote in the office to your home and rewrite them. So you would then write to a more general audience. Precisely right. And which, of course, created a massive bestseller, which was your first book, Influence. So I want to ask you about influence because you talk about kind of the six keys of influencing people in almost any situation like authority, likability, consistency, social proof, scarcity, reciprocity. So I want to talk a little bit about each one of them if that's okay. Of course.

[00:11:16] Because it's about your first book, but you also add to them in this book, Persuasion. I do. And I was blown away by the way you added to them in Persuasion. It's in chapter 12 or chapter 13 of this book. Let's talk about them a little bit. So reciprocity is if I send you a Christmas card, you're going to feel anxious unless you send me a Christmas card back and how that really cascades into influence. But I want to compare that to consistency for a second.

[00:11:41] So if I'm sitting here for let's say I'm trying to get a job from you and you're the boss and I'm coming in here and getting a job. You suggest that I should ask you, why did you call me in here for this interview? Because then you're going to later on be consistent thinking, so the reason you're going to say positive things about me when I ask you this is, oh, we called you in because your GPA was good. You look smart, whatever. So you're going to be consistent later on when you're making the actual decision whether to hire me. Oh, yeah.

[00:12:11] I said he was smart. So I have to hire him. Now, does this come into conflict at all with reciprocity? So let's say I come into the job interview and I give you a donut. So should I do that and ask you why you called me in for the interview? Like, can I combine these techniques? It's probably a bad idea because to the extent that people see those as devices, as artifices, they will push back and resist them.

[00:12:39] To the extent that they become background, they become a natural part of the interaction, then they're much more likely to get through because they won't be counter-argued. We counter-argue attempts at persuasion, or at least they are susceptible to counter-arguing.

[00:12:59] But not things in the background, fluffy clouds in the background of the landing page aren't counter-argued the way a persuasive appeal would be. So like, for instance, if I bring in a donut and the interviewer is more likely to think, oh, he's just trying to win over my favor. So things that are obvious. Right. And there's a beautiful example of this in the study of product placement.

[00:13:22] You know, these things in which somebody in a television program or a movie reaches for a Pepsi or drives a Lexus, something like that. The research shows if you have one of those in a particular Seinfeld episode, for example, they did this study with Seinfeld episodes. People are more likely to want to buy that product. If you do it three times, they're less likely. Ah, because they've really, then they're thinking to themselves, this is a trick. This was a push.

[00:13:52] And if you do it zero times, is there a difference? Well, if you do it zero times and compared to once, now once goes above zero. If you do it three times, now three goes below zero. You actually resist that attempt at pushing you in this undue, unwelcome way. Take a quick break. If you like this episode, I'd really, really appreciate it.

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[00:17:08] It makes it hard in practice. If I'm just sitting down with somebody trying to influence them to either buy my product or hire me or invest money or buy my company or go on a date with me or whatever, there's so many factors to think about. I mean, you talk about these six aspects of influence. Then you talk about persuasion. Then you talk about the seven aspects of influence in the book, Persuasion. Maybe we can go over them a little bit one at a time and kind of figure out the best situations to apply them.

[00:17:37] Well, let me just suggest that there's one way I think we can channel our choices for which of these to use in the various situations. And that is to ask, is this principle inherent in the situation? Does it exist naturally there? Is there real authority that I can bring to the surface? That I have credibility? That experts have recommended what I'm suggesting? That's what we tap. Is there real scarcity?

[00:18:07] Is there real social proof? Then we go there and simply point to it rather than trying to fabricate it in some way that's not organic to the situation. That allows us to be ethical at the same time as being effective. So let me ask then about some of these ideas from influence, which you then added to in persuasion.

[00:18:34] So reciprocity, the idea that if I do something for you, you're going to feel obligated or anxious about doing something back for me. Right. What situations has that worked for you personally? Because you never talk about your personal. You talk about scientific research, which I appreciate in all the books and because that's the proof of all these techniques. But I want to know how you've applied some of these things.

[00:18:57] Sometimes when I am dealing with people about the possibility of bringing me in as a speaker or a consultant and so on, I'll come with a copy of my book that I gift to them and personalize to them. Because what research shows and the newest research shows, if I make the gift customized or personalized to that individual,

[00:19:25] they will feel much greater sense of appreciation for that. The best study I know in this regard was a study that was done in a fast food restaurant in which customers who came in in one condition were greeted warmly by the manager and then ushered to the food counter. Another set of people who came in were greeted warmly, given a gift.

[00:19:53] It was a nice little key ring and then ushered to the counter where they purchased 12% more food after being given a key ring. That's a classic example of reciprocity. Or the classic example you talk about in influence, of course, is the Hare Krishnas. They give this dead flower to people at an airport and their donations skyrocketed after that. That's right.

[00:20:18] But if that gift is customized to that individual, in that fast food experiment, somebody who came in, was greeted warmly and given a cup of yogurt, now they purchased 24% more food at the counter. Why? Because somebody who comes to a restaurant is hungry.

[00:20:44] You give them food and you have aligned your gift with their current set of circumstances. You've personalized it to the challenges, to the circumstances that they are in. And people feel much more appreciative and much more obligated to give back in return. Any economist would say, don't give them food. Now they have less reason to buy your food.

[00:21:13] A psychologist says, nope. Give them something that matches their needs in the situation, personalized to their circumstances, and they will show you the most return favors in response. So I'm trying to think, let's take some context like a first date. So man and woman going on the first date, the man's very interested. Let's say the girl's unsure.

[00:21:41] What should the man do in this reciprocity instance? Predate maybe, like or at the very beginning. Well, we've already learned one piece of news. He should send flowers before the date. Ah, yeah. Interesting. He should not send a bakery. Right. Frosted donuts. Won't do it. No. Sorry, Krispy Kreme. Not frosted donuts. So it should be flowers. Something associated with romance.

[00:22:11] And that begins the process of prioritizing romance for that young woman. So, okay. So that's reciprocity. Let's talk about consistency, which is one of my favorites. So the idea, and I'll tell you my favorite influence technique when it's a one-on-one situation. And this is, again, best, as you say, done with integrity and sincerity.

[00:22:37] But if I'm in a negotiation situation, it's usually with someone who knows more about their industry than I do. So I'll start off and I'll say, you're the expert. I need your advice on what I should do in this, given that you're like the grandmaster of chess and I'm just a novice. What should I do? What would you do if you were me? And you talk about this a little bit in persuasion, kind of ask for advice because, you know, I think then they give you advice and then consistency triggers.

[00:23:06] They realize, oh, I'm the type of person who helps out this gentleman and I'm going to continue to do so. And Benjamin Franklin is famous for doing that when he was younger. So let's talk about consistency and how you've used it in your life. Yeah, so one example is to give people a reputation to live up to so that they act in a way that's consistent with the label you've given them.

[00:23:34] Somebody once asked Henry Kissinger, who was the greatest international negotiator that you ever saw operate? And he said, Anwar Sadat of Egypt. Why? He said, well, what Sadat would do very often in the situation which his bargaining opponent had more political or military power in that moment. Let's say the Israelis, right?

[00:24:02] After one of the wars in which the Israelis had won and they could exploit that power. He would begin by saying, you know, everyone knows how important fairness is to Israelis because of the history. How important it is that they support the underdog because they've been the underdog so often. Would the Israelis, I mean, it wasn't like they were dumb negotiators.

[00:24:31] Like would the Israelis say, oh, he's just trying to flatter us? Not according to Kissinger. So it's a lot of its delivery then as well. He would say they would live up to the reputation he gave them to be consistent with that reputation. So that's one thing that we can do when there is somebody who we want to give us their opinion, their genuine expertise.

[00:24:58] Just as you said, you can go to them and say, you know, the reason I come to you is because of your expertise, because of the authority you bring. There's an interesting story that has to do with what happened when I was researching influence in the first place. I would infiltrate various kinds of training programs of salespeople and marketers and fundraisers.

[00:25:23] And then at the end of my time undercover with them, I would reveal who I was and that I was a university professor. I wasn't actually a candidate for a job with them, but I was trying to learn what worked. And they would throw you out. Well, I expected that they would, but I always had to say, look, I'm going to give you the chance to tell me that I have to remove my data that I got from you from my analysis.

[00:25:52] I won't use it. I won't mention you. Right. But let me suggest two things that I'll do. First of all, I will pay you in the coin that you paid me information. I will give you an early copy of my book so you'll be able to see what I learned. Right. If you will allow me to use your data. And sometimes, James, they didn't even listen to that.

[00:26:22] They would say to me, you're a university professor and you're learning from us. You mean you're the student and we're the teacher? And they would puff up their chests and say, of course, you can use our data. They were in the role of teacher.

[00:26:45] So what's interesting to me there is, yes, they realized this role, but a little bit was how you presented it. Like if you had just said, by the way, I'm a university professor. Thanks. I'm taking this data. They wouldn't have been. They would have just said, no, no, no, no, no. Right. But you kind of had this way of presenting it to make them feel like they're the authority figure. I'm here to learn from you.

[00:27:09] Well, in the role of teacher, of course, teachers give their information away. That's what teachers do. They don't constrain it. It's not proprietary. That's not what a teacher is. And so they were very willing to go ahead and proceed in that role that I had assigned them, to be consistent with that role. Okay.

[00:27:35] So that's consistency, which I find to be very fascinating to have someone, you know, and a lot of that is used in determining if someone is lying or not. So you ask someone a bunch of simple questions that they can say yes to, and then you get to make the questions more and more difficult, like in an interrogation, like were you, did you know the murder in advance or did you do this? And if they start to act uncomfortably because they're having a harder time being consistent, then you know they're likely to be lying.

[00:28:05] So I find consistency to be interesting, not only in influence, but in determining lying versus truth. So I don't know if you've noticed if that research has collided. No, I haven't really recognized that. But I think we're talking about a kind of consistency in which we harness our request to the desire of people to be consistent with what they've already said or done publicly, and especially if they've written it down.

[00:28:35] So there's this nice little study in the UK of people who don't show up for their medical appointments, and they could significantly reduce the percentage of those who failed to show up by instead of handing them an appointment card at the end of one, their most recent appointment, with the date and time already included.

[00:29:01] They would hand them a blank card and ask them to write down the date and time, and they got 18% fewer no-shows because people live up to what they write down. So I'm going to use your next technique, social proof, to get them to even show up for their doctor's appointments even more, which is to say to them as they're going out of their last appointment, and five out of six people with your condition show up for their next appointment. That's exactly right.

[00:29:29] And in fact, in that very same study, they did something like that. There was a sign on the wall in these British medical clinics that did the opposite of what they should do. It said X number of people have failed to show up for their appointments, costing the National Health Service money and all of us, right? Don't be one of them. And then, of course, they become one of them. That's what they focus on. Because they were now shown that a lot of people failed to show up.

[00:29:57] So if instead they said, honestly, 95% of our patients do appear on time for their next appointment, now they got a 30% increase in the percentage who did appear on time, just by saying how many people did appear instead of how many people didn't appear. I think what's fascinating about that is not so much that I'm going to say to myself, oh, everyone else showed up. So this means it must be good for me.

[00:30:27] But you make the argument in persuasion that it's about feasibility. So you had a great case study where people were selling a more energy efficient, make your home more energy efficient so you pay less. So you had two arguments. One is you can pay less or the other argument was three out of four of your neighbors are using us as well. And so you make the point that, of course, you could pay less if you just shut up all the lights all the time.

[00:30:56] But that's not feasible. I'm going to use the electric power in my house. But what people are concerned with is feasibility. Am I the type of person who can do this? Well, now I know three out of four of my neighbors are capable of doing this. It takes away excuses from me when they're social proof. That's right. And it lets me know that this is doable. It's operational. I can do this. It's feasible.

[00:31:18] So now they become freed to try it, to reach out and try some things that allow themselves, to allow them to reduce energy. Because after all, their neighbors are doing it. I mean, social proof, the idea that your peers are doing this and are successfully doing it seems to me one of the most important things in marketing and influence, in persuasion and persuasion. I was talking to Kevin Harrington, who does, of course, hundreds of infomercials.

[00:31:48] And for him, like if he's going to sell a fishing hook, a new type of fishing hook on an infomercial, one of the most important things is that a hundred other people have successfully tried this fishing hook and have testimonials saying this is the best fishing hook. I've ever used or whatever. I mean, I see social proof as incredibly important in terms of selling any product. Like what's happening there?

[00:32:10] Well, what's happening there is, first of all, you're getting evidence that a lot of people like you have decided this, which provides one of those shortcuts for the human brain. That means I don't have to. Right. The shortcut aspect. Think through all of the pros and cons. There's a shortcut here. Somebody else has beta tested this for me. Like I've outsourced this decision to the hundred other people.

[00:32:34] So, for example, a study done in Beijing, restaurant owners were able to significantly increase the percentage of people who selected various items from their menu just by putting a little asterisk next to the item that said one of our most popular dishes. And each one immediately became 13 to 20 percent more popular. Let me ask you a question about that exact restaurant menu study.

[00:32:59] Let's say instead of putting the star and saying most popular, I put a star and said chef recommended. So authority versus social proof. Which one would be more powerful in that case? That study wasn't done. But both of those should be available to us. Which is the one that's true? Right. Which is the one that's true? Use that. That's interesting because then I wonder there's so many different.

[00:33:28] This is where the mind gets a little confused because then you have the paradox of choice. If I've got stars here and teas here and, you know, all these kind of things saying this is chef recommended. This is most popular. This is what the people ate yesterday. It's too many choices now. I agree with you. So I say in each category have one specialty of the house and one most popular dish besides that.

[00:33:55] Because the specialty of the house for the dessert might be chocolate. And if you don't like chocolate or it might be something associated with a taste that you don't especially prefer. You want to have another option for them. But not many. I guess that's what you see in bookstores, right? You see staff picks. There's one wall of staff picks. But then there's that front table of New York Times bestsellers. Right. So two different sections and I can decide which section I'll go to.

[00:34:25] But then I'm there. Right. And here's what I'm going to say about persuasion. I could direct people to be more likely to go to the bestsellers than the staff picks. If above those stacks I had pictures of a lot of people standing together. If I had pictures of a crowd that orients people to the concept of social proof rather than authority.

[00:34:53] And that will become prioritized in the minds of passers-by. And they will be more likely to go to the bestseller table than the staff picks table. I travel a ton for this show.

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[00:37:08] That's E-X-P-R-E-S-S-V-P-N dot com slash altature to find out how you can get up to four extra months. Expressvpn.com slash altature. So persuasion versus the influence techniques, it seems like persuasion, which is sort of creating an environment where I'm more likely to say yes or agree,

[00:37:38] is better if I can completely control the environment. So if I'm setting up the online store, if I'm setting up the bookstore or the doctor's office or the mall, but then you have to kind of bring more and more of these influence techniques. If I'm in a situation which I can't control the environment, so if I'm sitting down for an interview or a date or a negotiation or whatever, then I kind of have to think a lot more about influence and some of the techniques you described and add to and persuasion. Yes.

[00:38:07] So let's talk about authority for a second, which is similar to social proof, which is that other people are recommending a product, but now it's authority figures recommending a product. So four out of five dentists recommend chewing this gum. And again, Kevin Harrington, who does infomercials, for any company presenting to him, he requires both social proof and authority. So we need to see that your fishing hook was mentioned in a scientific paper about fishing hooks or whatever.

[00:38:34] So when do I want to bring in authority versus social proof? Okay. When there is a clear empirical answer to the question, as opposed to merely subjective opinion. When there's subjective opinion, social proof is where you want to go. What are most people thinking about this? When there's no clear answer, you have to find the answer in the social aspect of proof,

[00:39:03] not the empirical aspect of proof. But when you have something where there's a clear answer that comes in some sort of declarative way, go to the experts who know what the evidence is. They're the ones who will be the best channels of information. So this happens with companies all the time. Like, you know, there's the whole VHS versus Betamax phenomenon, where the lower quality product became the product of choice.

[00:39:32] Was that a matter of they didn't use authority enough? Or what happens in situations like that? Or a great example, which we were actually just discussing outside, you know, often the iPhone is not really the best phone on the market, but because people love the Apple brand so much, they buy the iPhone. I'm not saying anything against Apple. Maybe they do have the best phone on the market. It's just some studies show this. So what's going on? Did these companies that are multi-billion dollar companies and could have spent the money,

[00:40:01] did they not understand authority techniques or did they mess up a little bit? They often mess up. If they've got authority in their camp, they can point to it. Here's how they messed up. They didn't put the authority information at the top of their ad, where it then prioritized subsequent search of the information for authority-related evidence.

[00:40:30] They didn't put a picture of Albert Einstein somewhere at the top of their ad. They didn't have imagery that was associated with authority that channeled people in that direction. And so how to overcome that if you don't have authority? So I'm going to use the example of you. So you're obviously not only an author, but you're a successful keynote speaker and consultant and so on.

[00:41:00] But you have social proof behind you. Three million people bought influence. Many people will buy persuasion. And you also have authority. You're the, you know, emeritus professor of this university. You were a professor at Stanford. You know, so people understand these authority titles. And so you bring that to the table. What if somebody is building up their career as a consultant or a keynote speaker? They want to leave their job. They want to be a consultant. They want to be a speaker. They want to write books.

[00:41:28] How can they start to bring in some of these techniques of authority or social proof, you know, to influence their potential customers? So you don't use authority if you don't have it. So that's the clear thing. You don't fabricate it. Which we weren't suggesting, but yes. But maybe you use scarcity. I'm new to this arena and I've got fresh ideas. I'm looking at this with eyes that haven't looked at it before.

[00:41:57] Or I've just completed my university training where I've been exposed to the newest research in this arena that I'm going to bring to this. Not the stale old habits that the established individuals are providing here. Or we use the strategy of, let's say, Avis.

[00:42:21] And here's what they said about 25 years ago with an advertising slogan that increased their market share by 700%. They said, We're number two, but we try harder. So by saying we're number two, they established their trustworthiness of being honest.

[00:42:47] And the highest kind of authority communicator is not just one who is knowledgeable or expert in a particular arena. It's one who is trustworthy and knowledgeable and expert. Well, it's funny because you don't list this necessarily. I mean, this is part of likability in influence. But you don't list this as a separate technique.

[00:43:13] But listing the negatives is often a powerful influence technique. So then, you know, if you let the other person list your negatives before you do, then you lose trustworthiness to some extent. That's right. And you mentioned in persuasion a great point where Warren Buffett almost starts off all his letters to shareholders with, here's what we did wrong this year. Or here's what we did wrong in our career.

[00:43:35] So all of a sudden, Warren Buffett's our nice grandfather who is telling us what he's done wrong before he gets into the kind of the hardcore financial stuff and why you should buy more Berkshire Hathaway stock. James, I'm a stockholder. And I've seen him do it for 20 years now. It's disarming every time. He says, you know, we made this mistake.

[00:44:02] I believe the next thing he says to me. And that's where he puts the strength of the last year. He's just readied me to listen to and process the next thing he's going to say more deeply because he's established himself as a trustworthy source. And I've now researched his letters to shareholders for 50 years.

[00:44:31] He's been doing it for 50 years. For the first 30 years, mentioning a weakness first and then following with a strength. He did it a total of seven times in 30 years. In the last 20 years, he's done it 26 times. I guess because there's more and more. If you think about the last 20 years, two things have happened.

[00:44:55] One is the tech revolution, which he didn't miss because he managed to obviously outperform everything in the long run. But he suffered criticism of missing it in 1999, 2000. And then the other thing that's happened is he, like all of us, got older. And so a big criticism of not him but of Berkshire Hathaway is that one day he won't be there to run the ship. I think there's a third reason. He's learned to do this.

[00:45:23] He's learned that it's an effective strategy for retaining and recruiting shareholders. So, for instance, if someone is running a prediction service or running even a magazine or a business, and if you're able to directly communicate with customers, being upfront about here's where we went wrong this year and here's how we're going to try to do better, that's often an effective influence or persuasion technique to retain customers.

[00:45:51] It's probably a very good retaining technique. That's right.

[00:46:23] Once again, it's disarming. It allows people to say, oh, somebody's being really forthcoming with me, not trying to maintain some sort of superiority, right? So I'm going to give that back, that same level of honesty. And when you have that, I think you have a better relationship.

[00:46:46] And so let's say again, let's say I'm listening to this and I'm going to go to work in my cubicle later today, but I really want to break out and do consulting. So the first negative might be, listen, I've been working in a cubicle for the past 10 years and now I'm trying to do consulting with you. So I'm listing a negative. How can I use this to take the conversation one step further and say, now you should hire me as a consultant?

[00:47:12] Well, you can say, but I'm a very fast learner. And let me tell you what I've been doing. I've been researching this arena while I was in my cubicle. And in all my time, I know the latest developments in this domain.

[00:47:33] And I'm able to provide fresh eyes to suggest some things that you won't get from the more established people who are just providing information on the basis of what they habitually offer. Well, okay, so I'm going to pretend you're pitching to me. I'm going to say, okay, but why don't we try you out for free? And then I'll decide later if I should actually hire you as a consultant because you have no experience. I don't know. You've just been in the cubicle.

[00:48:03] How would you negotiate pricing with me from that point? Or how would you influence me on pricing? I would say, here's what I would suggest. Don't pay me a salary. Pay me a percentage of the difference between your profitability and those of your rivals. At the time that I begin, we'll use that as the baseline. Now, you pay me a percentage of all the gains that you get relative to your competitors.

[00:48:33] And I'm going to use a technique from either Persuasion or Influence now. I'm forgetting which book. They're kind of melded together in my head. But maybe the person negotiating could also say, listen, I could come out here and charge you a million dollars because the new information is much better than the old information. And then they get scared. And they say, but don't worry. I'm not going to do that. And then they never negotiate again after that. That's right. By beginning with... So you prime them.

[00:49:03] Yeah. So you prime them with this large number. And then when you say, I'm only going to ask for $50,000, you know, for this project compared to a million, 50 seems trivial. And they're more likely to resist pushing back and asking for a cut in your charges. You know, a fascinating technique that you don't mention in Influence, but you mentioned in Persuasion. And this is in the context of Warren Buffett.

[00:49:32] Warren Buffett, you kind of mentioned, is more and more up against the wall. The older and older he gets, people are more anxious about what's going to happen to their Berkshire Hathaway stock when he's no longer there. So not only did he list the negatives, but he did one more step, which you call unity as a seventh influence technique you introduce in Persuasion. And he basically said, this is why I'm telling my family to hold on to Berkshire Hathaway stock. Right.

[00:49:58] And so you're saying, oh my gosh, he's telling me what he's telling his family. This is the most important advice of all. Yes. He's included me in the kind of information he would give to a family member. All right. That was so powerful when I read it. And I've never seen him do that or heard him do that in any public setting before.

[00:50:20] But he did it at this crucial point where he was saying, what's Berkshire going to be like for the next 50 years? You know, it's so interesting because not only has he never done it before, I would say it's actually out of character for him to do it. Because he doesn't talk about family at all. It's almost like he's against talking about family in these letters. Right. But he did it here. He did it here. It just caught my attention.

[00:50:45] And truthfully, I was considering, well, you know, Buffett is 89 years old. His partner, Charlie Munger, is in his 90s. I mean, how long are these guys going to be around? You know, should I take my enormous gains from having gotten the stock very early now before they leave? And maybe the whole thing will crash. He said, believe in Berkshire. And that's what I would tell my family if I were advising them for the future.

[00:51:14] I have never since thought about selling that stock. So let me ask you a question. When you were, you talk about writing a little bit in Persuasion. And you mentioned the importance of mystery and how you use it in your talks. You use it in books. And I appreciate it. Like in the book, Persuasion, you talk about how you infiltrated all of these organizations where their business is influenced because you wanted to see how they would do it. And that creates this mystery. You're like a spy all of a sudden. And that creates this mystery.

[00:51:44] And you said sometimes you wait till the end of the lecture before you kind of reveal what you've learned. So people are captivated the entire time. So mystery is important. But this idea of family, I think, is even more important. Did you consider even starting the book like influence and persuasion are so important to surviving in today's modern economy? This is the advice I give my own children on how to influence and persuade and be successful in today's world.

[00:52:13] Did you consider starting the book that way? I didn't. But, you know, that's a great way now that I think about it. To begin. I'm going to steal the idea. I'm going to start an article that way. You know, on a telephone call with somebody who's wavering, right? Should I go with you? Which of these options should I take? Should I continue my search? Or should I just say, let's go with James on this, right?

[00:52:38] Here's what a friend of mine who is maybe the best saleswoman I have ever experienced. Here's what she does. When she sees that happening, she says, let me tell you what I would say to you if you were my brother. Or if you were my cousin. Here's what I would advise. She says, it ends the dithering.

[00:53:03] That's so funny because you, a lot, I've never heard it worded exactly that way, but you often hear things like, let's forget about the fact that we're doing a transaction. I'm just speaking to you friend to friend. Here's what I would do if I were you. So that I find is often a persuasive technique. Right. It's another version of unity, but a closer version to the core of what is us. What constitutes we is family. You know, there's a story.

[00:53:33] You briefly mentioned it towards the end of persuasion, particularly in the unity chapter. I don't know how it's directly applied in common business or whatever, but it was such a beautiful story. I really want to talk about it. And I didn't know this story at all. Apparently there was this large or semi-large population of Jewish people in Japan in 1940. And the Japanese had just signed their alliance with the Nazis.

[00:53:58] And Germany sends a top ranking official to Japan to basically say, hey, throw all the Jews in the Pacific Ocean. And the Japanese, to their credit, like said to two rabbis, hey, come in and explain to us why we shouldn't throw you into the ocean. One rabbi was extremely educated but had no idea what to say. The other one you give credit as being, you know, kind of an intuitive social psychologist. And what he said was fascinating. Maybe you could. Yeah.

[00:54:28] The tribunal of Japanese military officers confronted them with two vital questions. Why do the Nazis hate you so much? And why should we take your side against our allies? And this expert in human dynamics that rabbi everybody went to when they had problems inside their family or their relationships. He was the guy who understood human behavior better than anybody.

[00:54:55] He responded with what may be the single best persuasive appeal I have ever experienced in my over 30 years studying this. Because of the weight of the consequences associated with this. In the moment, he had to think on his feet immediately. And he answered in a way that responded to both questions. Remember the questions.

[00:55:23] Why do the Nazis hate you? And why should we take your side against our allies? Why did the Japanese give them that choice? Why didn't the Japanese just follow their Nazi overlords at that point? To the credit of the Japanese, they wanted to hear both sides of the story. Why do you think that is? I don't know. I'm not quite sure except that there was a story that was very popular in Japan at the time.

[00:55:50] That one of the lost tribes of Israel had crossed Asia and settled in Japan. Merging their blood and their beliefs with the Japanese people. So, perhaps out of a sense of unity. Right. So, what this rabbi said is the answer to both of those questions was because we're Asian like you.

[00:56:17] In other words, we're of the same identity. That alliance with the Nazis is a temporary wartime collusion. We're talking about a different kind of unity, a more durable one, a more essential one. And that's why the Nazis hate us. And that's why they're going to hate you, too.

[00:56:46] And I thought that story was incredibly beautiful. And you have actually a couple of stories like that in Persuasion. You must have read through several stories of Jews and other groups who escaped the Nazi extermination. Because you looked at kind of the Persuasion techniques throughout. We don't have to talk about this one.

[00:57:04] But there was the other Japanese official who was in Lithuania who was writing transportation passports for all the Jewish people against the orders of his bosses. But people should read that in the book. It's a beautiful story. So, that's the unity technique. And I thought that was incredibly powerful. Let's say I'm sitting here for a job interview. And I'm white from a middle class family. And let's say you're black from a completely different background.

[00:57:33] How can I start to use unity to convince you to hire me? Let's say I come from a completely different background than you. Yes. And it is by going to the value statement of the organization and saying one of the reasons I was so attracted to this position because of the congruency between the values that I most subscribe to and the ones on your value statement. I see a real alliance there.

[00:58:03] People, when it comes to ideas that resonate with them in terms of a unity of identity, it's values. And what about, let's say I'm on a date with someone with a completely different background than me. What would be something? I mean, I suppose values also could play a role.

[00:58:24] Values also, but it would be to be a bit of an interviewer on the date, asking questions, indicating the extent to which you are interested in this person as a person. And where you find commonalities of thinking values. Now stop the interviewing and begin an exchange.

[00:58:51] Begin a conversation on those dimensions. And let's take that same scenario. How do you bring in, I don't want to, it sounds like I'm focusing so much on dating. I'm not trying to go on a date, you know, and influence someone. But how would you bring in, I'm thinking more in awkward situations where you bring these things in. How would you bring in social proof and authority? I would never bring in social proof or authority there. What I would bring in is liking.

[00:59:21] I would bring in scarcity. I would bring in consistency and commitment to similar values. What does scarcity mean in this situation? The extent to which you are, you have certain characteristics that are unique and uncommon.

[00:59:41] And so you can only get those things or one of the few places you can get those things, including, for example, the commonality of values is with me. You can't get this with everybody and you don't even have to say that. You can just show particular kinds of features that are especially compatible with the person you have now learned is sitting across the table from you.

[01:00:10] So now let's switch this to from in-person to sales letter, because a lot of online marketing now occurs through sales letters or a lot of times I want to meet somebody or meet a potential customer or meet a potential boss. I'm sending an introductory letter. Obviously, there's some social proof or authority like so-and-so recommends I write to you or I've been mentioned here, here and here. So now I'd like to talk to you about this. I want to talk about fear versus greed.

[01:00:38] And you mentioned this briefly in persuasion and particularly in the form of Daniel Kahneman's research on this. But people are much more averse to loss than going for greed. They're much more afraid to lose money than they're happy to win money. So how do you bring that into a sales conversation, like a sales letter? Yeah.

[01:00:57] So we have to be careful to be sure that we recognize what Kahneman is saying about loss aversion and our preference to avoid losses over obtaining gains. That's only true under conditions of uncertainty. When people are unsure, when they're unfamiliar, they become protective. They don't want to lose opportunities that might be there for them. They become loss averse to a greater extent.

[01:01:26] So you can set up that environment. I can be persuasive in a sales letter and say, look, the world is uncertain. Here's why. Things are changing. There's never been an environment like there is currently on this planet, right? There's so much information. We're stimulus saturated. Things are always in flux. Yes, of course, you can set that up as an introduction to you.

[01:01:50] And then you can say, we have or I have particular ways to deal with this uncertainty, to deal with a world like this. They are unique to our analysis of how to approach. And I would hate for you not to be able to take advantage of these things. We wouldn't want you to forego the opportunity to employ our unique thinking in this regard.

[01:02:20] So let me ask you a basic question about sales letters because we all get them all the time in our inbox. And one thing I notice is that people do short sales letters, like a few paragraphs, and they do the long sales letter. And according to direct marketers that I know, the long sales letter, a 30-page letter, is much more powerful than a one-page letter. Is that a consistency technique? It's an authority technique. It shows how much I've thought and know about this particular arena.

[01:02:50] So taking it all a step back, you have persuasive, setting up the environment as much as possible before a persuasion happens. Then there's the seven influence techniques all the way up through unity. I'm going into a situation. What do I do? How do I decide how to best bring influence on my side? Yeah, this is a crucial question. And it is once again to look at what exists in that situation naturally. First of all, what is your strength?

[01:03:19] What is the feature of your message that is most wise for a person to use in deciding in your direction? I would then, before I send the message, provide some sort of cue. Let's say it's authority. Some sort of cue associated with authority, expertise. How would I do that?

[01:03:46] You could do it with an adage at the bottom of your email or at the top of your email, a saying about the importance of authority and wisdom. There's a Chinese saying that the years say what the days can't tell. It tells you, no, you have to have thought about this.

[01:04:07] You have to be steeped in this for a while, for a long time before you're able to truly get a perspective on this. So, if that's what you have, if you have that expertise that's been developed over a period of time, say that, right? Because we always see these emails at the bottom. There's some adage or some slogan or some saying.

[01:04:33] Choose the one that fits with the strength of your case that you're about to present before you present it in the attachment, right? Okay, so that's the first thing. You decide what it is that's your strength. You optimize attention to it before you present your case, and then you highlight that within your message.

[01:04:57] It's the thing that you have going for you that allows you to be both effective and ethical in that choice of which of these principles to employ. And then going in there, you decide which of the seven influence techniques are most applicable. Yes. Do you really have scarcity? Then that's the one. Oh, yeah. So, here's a question. So, I get all these online—let's say there's an email about an online course.

[01:05:26] Only 27 seats left. I'm calling BS on that because it's an online course. How could there be 27 seats left? So, I feel like right away a lot of these people don't get—they try to do scarcity. They understand it, but they don't fully understand it. I love that comment, James. I love that because that's the key. I mean, you can sometimes pull the wool over people's eyes, but as soon as they recognize it, not only are they unlikely to say yes in that situation,

[01:05:55] they're unlikely to see your subsequent communications as credible, even when you're no longer using anything that's deceptive. You've just polluted the well. So, the key is always to think about this in terms of the most scrupulously honest ways to present these principles based on what you already have in your camp waiting to be employed.

[01:06:24] Well, I'm certainly going to recommend to my two children that they listen to this podcast. So, Robert Cialdini, thank you so much for coming on. It's really an honor to meet you in person and talk to you. And just really, I did this selfishly because I had a bunch of questions that I was able to ask you about your books, which I thoroughly enjoyed. And thanks once again for coming on. Well, let me say something that I always recommend, and that is to give compliments where they are due.

[01:06:51] I genuinely enjoyed this interaction because of the quality of the questions you asked. Thank you so much. I really appreciate it.

[01:07:34] For showtimes, press nothing. They're free, 24-7. That is so fetch. On Pluto TV. Stream now. Pay never.