Flip This Wholesaler

Happy Monday guys and gals!

It’s time for another installment of Flip This Book Club!

This month’s review of  Influence, by Robert Cialdini was written by my pal Shae Bynes of Good Faith Investing.com.

Thanks Shae!

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Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion by Dr. Robert Cialdini was an interesting read. While it was definitely academic (it was written by a professor and researcher after all), it was also fascinating and practical in its approach to helping readers understand how and why people are persuaded to say “yes”. You can really look at this book from two perspectives –as a business person, you can read this as a guidebook on how to implement persuasive tactics and as a consumer, you can learn how to guard against these very same tactics in everyday situations.

Cialdini begins by explaining how people operate with an automatic, nearly mechanical sequence of behavior which can be exploited through powerful triggers used by those who are familiar with persuasion tactics. He called these weapons of influence and reasoned that our automatic, stereotyped behavior is necessary for us because we need shortcuts and can’t be expected to recognize and analyze all the aspects in each person, event, and situation we encounter.

The remaining chapters in the book cover one of six basic psychological principles that are used to direct (persuade) human behavior:

• Reciprocation
• Commitment and Consistency
• Social Proof
• Liking
• Authority
• Scarcity

He provides pretty compelling evidence of how these principles play out through a number of supporting and rather entertaining real world examples of research studies. The book covers the principles by explaining how they work but also how we can say “No”. I’m going to share the one principle that hit closest to home for me because I can think of so many instances where I was a “victim” of this!

Reciprocation

The reciprocity rules simply says that we are obligated to the future repayment of favors, gifts, invitations, etc. It’s such a powerful rule because it often produces a “yes” to requests that would have certainly been refused if not for that nagging sense of indebtedness. The reciprocity rule can be easily exploited for profit because it can trigger unfair exchanges where a small favor can produce obligation to agree to a much larger return favor.

And here’s where it hit home for me. It’s called reciprocal concessions.

This is a highly effective technique. If you want someone to agree to a certain request, you can increase your chances by simply first making a larger request that is likely to be turned down, and then after the person refuses it, you make the smaller request that you’re really interested in. If (and only if) you’ve done an effective job of structuring your requests, the person will truly feel as though your smaller request was a concession and will then feel obligated to repay with their own concession.

This doesn’t only work because of the rule of reciprocity, but also because the second request genuinely does seem smaller and more reasonable — certainly smaller than it would’ve seemed if you asked for what you wanted first.

Additionally, this doesn’t have to be in a sales situation (e.g. “Well, if you don’t want to buy this $10 item, how about buying this $3 item?”). Reciprocal concessions can happen in areas of volunteerism, politics, donations for organizations, or really anything that involves negotiations. According to Cialdini, this technique works not only on small requests, but also on significantly larger requests. He gave a striking example of how this played out during the Watergate scandal during Richard Nixon’s presidency…really quite fascinating.

The most interesting thing about reciprocal concessions is that although you’d think that “victims” of this technique would actually feel like victims and become resentful, research evidence shows that people are less likely to feel this way when this technique is used — in fact, they feel satisfied with the situation and have a general positive feeling of responsibility for having dictated the final agreement. Amazing, isn’t it?!?

Nevertheless, there were recommendations on how to say “No”

• Recognize that the requester has chosen to become a jujitsu warrior who aligns himself with the sweeping power of reciprocation and is releasing that power by providing a first favor/concession (that cracked me up…)
• Do not assume the worst, because it is possible to receive legitimate and ethical concessions
• Stop and consider the offer. The real opponent here is the rule. Once you realize that an initial offer is not a favor, but is actually a compliance tactic, know that you are completely free of its influence because the rules says that favors are to be met with favors, not that tricks be met with favors.
• At that point, accept the concession if its desired. Otherwise, show the requester the door (literally or figuratively)

For those who also read this book, I’m curious to know if you had any “aha” moments while reading it and which principles resonated with you? Did any of the principles or real world examples slap you in the face and make you feel like a sucker? Or did you get any great new ideas for things to implement with your real estate business? Let’s discuss!

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P.S.
Next month’s book choice will be Linchpin, by Seth Godin. We’ll meet here on Monday, June 7th at 8pm to discuss!