Last week I wrote about Steven Covey and the seven habits(now with an 8th habit) that can help with selling. I put the book into our favourites list below and saw another great book that we like which is by Robert Cialdini called influence (see herefor a review). I wondered what he was doing currently and found out that he has just recently retired so to celebrate Cialdinis work here are some thoughts about how to apply his main principles of influence specifically to selling.
The main principles of influence from Cialdini's book are:
- Reciprocation - People tend to return a favour.
- Commitment and Consistency - If people commit, to an idea or goal, they are more likely to honour that commitment.
- Social Proof - People will do things that they see other people are doing.
- Authority - People will tend to obey authority figures.
- Liking - People are easily persuaded by other people that they like.
- Scarcity - Perceived scarcity will generate demand.
Reciprocity means that you should be taking opportunities to give to your client. This might be as small as lunch but ideally you will willingly give information or some other resource such as your time. Giving in this way will increase the tendency to give back to you.
Commitment and Consistency means listening to your client so that you really know what they are committed to. Ideally something that they personally believe in and not just something they have been told to do. When you find this you have a compelling reason that you can sell to.
Social proof is a significant part of what you are doing when you use references to convince a client to buy from you. It is the emotional part of using references that is often overlooked. References should not just be used in a logical way to prove that something works there is a key emotional element too.
Authority is something you can use in at least two ways. The obvious one is to convince their manager that they should go ahead and buy from you - an appeal to direct authority. Another aspect that we call credibility is to ensure your client sees you as a credible expert.
Liking relates directly to that old phrase "people buy from people" and it's obviously got a significant role to play even when you are in a really formal, procurement driven, environment. We use a term from NLP - rapport - to cover this and there's a previous article you can read to learn more.
Finally there's that old ruse scarcity. If there are only a few left or time is running out on your offer people are more likely to buy. It's been used since the pyramids I think to get people to buy and it's still used a lot today. Don't knock it though - Cialdini shows that it works and I don't think it would still be in such common use if it wasn't still effective even though you kind of know that you are being sold to.
Get all these aligned on a sale you are making and you are well set to influence the deal to go your way. Do you agree? have I missed anything that you find works well?
