To enrich his understanding of the influence process- what makes people agree to do or buy something- Bob Cialdini, Ph.D., Regients’ Professor of Psychology at Arizona State University, left the classroom and applied for a sales job. In fact, he applied for quite a few sales jobs. A soft-spoken intellectual with a cool bead on what makes people buy, Cialdini went from selling encyclopedias, fire alarms and vacuum cleaners door to door, to tele-selling portrait photography, and even trained for insurance and car sales.

"I felt it would have been unethical to sell those so I just took the training," Cialdini explains. To prepare for his investigations, Cialdini read basic books on selling techniques along with a few books by selling superstars. He then scanned the local newspapers’ want ads and began applying for sales jobs. As part of the project, he also "infiltrated" two advertising agencies and two charity organizations to see how they used influencing techniques. Finally, he interviewed lobbyists, recruiters and even police bunco squad officers on the techniques con artists use to entice victims. In the beginning, Cialdini was interested in how the buyer could counter powerful influencers. Somewhere along the way, however, his interest shifted and he began to see the benefit side of influence. "When I switched to a consideration of how to harness these principles from a consideration of how to deflect them, I had to be concerned about the ethics of these powerful techniques," he says.

At the end of each sales stint Cialdini revealed his true identity and reasons for taking the sales job. "I was a bit apprehensive about the reception I might get when I told them my true reasons for taking the job or the training. But most of them were quite interested. In fact I got a lot of requests for my book (Influence: The New Psychology of Modern Persuasion, Quill 1984). I sent each of the organizations free copies for the time and effort they spent with Me."

Why all the interest in what makes people buy? "In many instances," Cialdini asserts, "the good case that a salesperson has to make for his or her product is matched by the good case of his or her competitor. What determines who gets the business may not depend on the merits of the case but on its presentation by the salesperson." The point is how to make your good case the best case.

Cialdini synthesized his selling experiences into three types of salespeople:
the bunglers, the smugglers and the sleuths. Bunglers are salespeople who ask questions and don’t listen to the answers; don’t use the power of scarcity to further their sales cause; fail to produce proofs that their product works when they have adequate proofs that it does. These folks simply miss chances and cues that legitimately they should take. In the process they shortchange the customer and their own sales efforts.

The second group, the smugglers, are too sneaky for their own good. They feel they must treat the customer like a mark. They may use legitimate techniques of influence, but at the wrong time and out of context. They may tell a customer about someone well-known who uses the product – a legitimate use of authority – but at a point in the sale where the technique is coercive instead of constructive.

The third type – the sleuth – uses all of the acceptable techniques of influence – at the right time and in the right context. This is the detective of sales, the professional who helps a customer discover ways to solve problems.

Most of the time," Cialdini explains, "if there are true authority credentials behind someone’s argument, it makes great sense to say ‘yes’ because this person is an expert who knows the issues at hand. When the authority principle is used in a sleuth’s or a detective’s approach, it is beneficial to all concerned. If you, the salesperson, are an authority in your field – that is, you represent your company’s authority – you would be a bungler not to bring that information to the top of your presentation. If your product truly is scarce, you would be a bungler not to present that information to the prospect because that helps the customer to understand what the value of your product truly is. Aside from its merits, aside from experts who say this is good, there is a demand for this thing."

Cialdini sees the influence process as a series of acceptable societal cues that we all tacitly agree are useful and valid. "Let’s say that there are a lot of people who have tried your product and liked it. That’s a principle I call social proof," he states. "If you don’t bring this social proof to the top of your presentation, everybody loses because the customer needs to know this in order to decide how attractive your product is. Getting good service is an example of the reciprocity principle. People who have received good service from a salesperson will want to come back not just to get that good service, but also because they owe that person the business by virtue of the rules of reciprocity in our society where you give back to people in the form that they have given to you. Now these things are not naturally a part of the quality of the product itself, but they can still be informative to a customer as to which way to move and what choice to make."

Again, society, in this case the business community, sets the rules. We have to negotiate the waters as we find them, smooth or rough, uncharted or highly traveled. "If an authority says so," Cialdini points out, "that’s a good cue. If a lot of people just like us are doing it, that’s another good cue. If this thing is scarce or rare, it’s another good cue. If we like the person who’s offering this thing, that’s another good cue. If we owe the person who’s offering us this thing, that’s another good cue for saying ‘yes.’ All of these principles are what most wisely counsel us toward saying ‘yes.’ In this regard mankind hasn’t changed in many centuries. What I think has changed is the extent to which we use these as shortcuts alone without considering the rest of the information in the situation. Because the world is so complex, now we have to use these cues to a greater extent."

Caldini’s Seven Principles of Persuasion

1) Reciprocity

In the beginning of a relationship this process frequently begins with small gifts or samples of the product. Professionals who sell, say, insurance may give gift calendars and so on. The key to reciprocity in sales, however, comes not with what happens first but with what happens second. That is the service that you provide in order to retain a customer and obligate that person to stay with your company. It doesn’t just benefit the person, it obligates that person to stay with you because the rule of reciprocity states that you don’t take without giving back equally in return.

2) Scarcity

The rule of scarcity works on the principle that we are especially attracted to it when we are in competition with other individuals. We find that those things which are rare, are twinkling and less available to us are valued more highly. If you doubt that, go to any art museum or fine jewelry store. For example, suppose I am interested in buying a certain piece of property but I want to think about it for a while. As a real estate person who is showing me that property, you learn that one of your colleagues at the office is going to be showing that property to a physician who has just moved to town and has to make a decision this week. You would be a bungler not to call me up and tell me, "You know that piece of property you’re interested in? Somebody else is going to be looking at it and making her decision on Saturday."

Your prospect should want to know about that. You’re not pressuring as long as that information is real. If, on the other hand, you are using that as a tactic without any real situation to back it up, then you are a smuggler, bringing something into the situation that doesn’t belong. That will backfire on you in two ways. One, it is unethical and therefore dangerous. Two, using smuggler tactics will make your job unbearable after awhile. What worries me is how it affects self-confidence, how it affects your view of yourself. If you have a job in which you have to systematically employ deception strategies in order to be successful, you’re not going to like it very much. A job like that is going to do damage to your self image.

3) Commitment Consistency

We all have a tendency to be consistent with our commitment. Once we’ve taken a stand, once we’ve taken a position on an issue, we are more likely to say ‘yes’ to a request that is consistent with what we’ve done in the past. It goes back to the complexity of our world. Why rethink what we have already thought and decided on before. It’s so pervasive that frequently it is unconscious. We won’t say ‘yes’ to requests that aren’t consistent with the stand we’ve already taken. It’s another shortcut. If I’ve made a commitment to this, I don’t have to process all the information again. I just have to be consistent with what I’ve already decided.

From the salesperson’s point of view it would be worthwhile to find out the consistent kinds of decisions that this prospect makes and then try to fit to them. What are the things this person values? Does this person want to get quality? Does this person go after price? Does this person value efficiency? Does he value prestige? Then link those aspects of your product to this person’s values. That’s the detective at work and you’ve got to do your initial homework. It would be good to keep profiles of your customers somewhere where you can get to them easily and review them.

4) Social Proof

We frequently decide what is appropriate in a given situation by looking at what those around us – and who are like us – think is appropriate for them. Professional or managerial level women now often wear jackets and some kind of tie. Certain kinds of businesses will only locate their offices in up-scale office parks. Sometimes a buyer will visibly respond when you say his competitor uses your product. You must be sure that these reference points are true and real, however, or you could be in the position of the smuggler. And you must know the prospect well enough to be sure that social proof is, in fact, a useful tool in the situation.

5) Authority

A useful authority to cite would be someone who has credentials in the area, who is knowledgeable and an expert, who employs this product and likes it. That is another shortcut that we use to decide what makes sense for us. Somebody who is knowledgeable suggests the right direction to take, provided the people understand the finances of the situation and that the claim is true. What you want to do is stretch your own standing within the industry, the credibility of your company, the expertise, the scientific merit behind your product.

6) Liking

Prospects, like the rest of us, prefer to say ‘yes’ to the requests of people they like. Most salespeople use strategies that get the customer to like them. And those typically are pointing out similarities between them, complimenting the prospect because we respond to approval by warming up to the person and the person’s requests.

The standard sales approach is to find something about this person and comment on it in a positive way. If you see camping equipment in the driveway, you might also mention that you like to camp, too. Now, in some sales programs you’re taught to do that whether it’s true or not. That’s the smuggler’s approach. The sleuth approach is to do your homework first, ask the prospect various questions, find out the things that are similar. If he likes to golf and you like to golf, you should mention that. If I’m a salesperson who doesn’t like to golf but I know I’m calling on someone who does like to golf, I would ask her about her golf game and be sincerely interested in how well she’s doing or what her problems are even though I’m not necessarily a golfer. That’s showing interest and concern. Another way to be a detective is to find similarities between the two of you. Once you find them, that’s a basis for an exchange that you might not have known about unless you were a sleuth. The other thing is to find genuine, praiseworthy things about your clients and mention them. The advantage of doing that as a detective in a situation where your common ground is genuine and the compliments are real, is that you come to like your customer more. It works both ways. Having a common ground makes you like the person as well as the other way around. And the prospect recognizes that you’re a person who likes him. When that’s the case, all of the defenses are down because we recognize that we don’t exploit the people we like. This person is going to trust you more because he recognizes that you like him. Salespeople tend to think of how they can make the prospect like them and buy from them. So the advantage of being a sleuth in liking is not that the other person comes to like you more, it’s that you come to like him more.

7) Cooperation

"We like the people whom we work with to achieve a common goal. If you like the person you’re working with and he or she likes you, then the kind of win/win arrangement that we’re all looking for flows naturally. You don’t tell this person to buy something that isn’t right for him. You wait until you’ve got something that’s right and that reinforces this person’s reasons for buying from you.

You create a long-term customer. And you create a chain of events that can be called a cooperative effort."