Sales Influence and Persuasion

By Victor Antonio, BSEE, MBA

Studies upon studies, along with commonsense, have shown us that we as human beings hate owing or being indebted to other person or group.  The rule of reciprocity basically says if I do you a favor you will feel compelled to return that favor and eliminated that sense of indebtedness.  And, we will do whatever it takes to remove that sense of indebtedness by reciprocating in kind the moment the opportunity arises. 

Overt manipulators know how to use this tactic to get others to comply with their request.  Many of us have become aware of these ‘free sample’ tactics and will shun anyone who attempts to give us anything for free.  Because as we all know, free will usually wind-up costing you more than you’d expect.   If you’ve ever gotten free labels or gift cards in the mail, then you know what I’m talking about.  The senders are banking on your sense of indebtedness to send them money in exchange for the free labels or gift card that you never asked for in the first place.  If you give it some thought, I’m sure you can think of other examples where someone wanted to apparently give you something for nothing.  

When it does happen, when someone offers us something for nothing, we immediately raise our defense shield.  But beware!  There is another more subtle and covert way of triggering this sense of indebtedness and getting others to comply with a request.  This tactic is so subtle that often times even the best-of-the-best in selling, such as myself fall for it.  

Let me illustrate by sharing with you an incident whose result made me acutely aware of the subtle power of indebtedness.  Late one night while driving home from the office I decided to stop and fill-up my car with gas.  The credit card reader at the pump was defective so I had to go inside to pay after I was done pumping.

As I stood in line behind two other customers, I was suddenly caught off guard by a young voice off to my right saying,  “Wow.  That’s a real nice care you have.” 

I looked over to the right of the counter and there sitting on what appeared to be a big, plastic tub was a young man about thirteen years old smiling up at me.  He added, “How long have you had that car?” 

I remember responding hesitantly, “About two years now.” And diverted my attention back to the line I was in. 

The young man then said, “Two years.  You keep it so nice and clean.  You must really like your car.” 

At this point I didn’t know whether to be annoyed or flattered, I chose the latter, “Thank you.  I do try to care of it.”  

It was now my turn to pay the cashier.  After getting my receipt and I headed to the door past the young man who added, “Well, I hope one day I can have a car like that.”

I responded quite flippant, “Work hard, maybe you will.” 

The young man quickly responded, “I am!” and then he stood up to reveal boxes of chocolate under his tub and asked, “Would you like to buy a box of chocolate?  We’re trying to raise some funds.” 

I didn’t know how to respond since I didn’t expect this little sales pitch.  I meekly said, “Uh, No thanks.  I don’t really want any chocolates.” 

“Well, instead of a box, how about just a bar?” the young man shot back.

Without thinking about it too hard I pulled out a five-dollar bill out of my wallet and asked, “How much?”

“A dollar a bar.”

Feeling a bit generous I said, “I’ll take two.” and handed him the money.

“Ok.  Here you go mister.  Here’s you’re change and thank you.”

I grabbed my change and quickly jumped into my car and drove away.  As I drove, I reflected on the conversation with the young man.  It wasn’t until I was almost home that I realized that I had just been sold, and sold well, by a thirteen year old.  Yes me, mister sales professional, was out maneuvered and sold by a teenager!  I didn’t know whether to be mad for getting sold or happy for the young man who apparently has a promising sales career ahead of him!

So how did it happen and what psychological forces influence me to shift from a non-buyer to a buyer.  Well, as soon as I rejected the boys offer I felt a sense of guilt which translated into a moment of weakness were I then became more vulnerable to the next request or as I like to say, the second wave of this sales offensive to part me from my money.  Now, if he had not made the second request I might’ve walked away from the exchange feeling a little guilty but with my money still residing in my wallet.

But what happened instead?  When the boy made the first request and I rejected it, whether I was conscious of it or not, it created within me a sense of obligation.  So when the second request was made I was vulnerable and found it socially and economically difficult to refuse the request.  Socially I felt I had a moral obligation to help a fellow (young) man.  Economically, the second request was more than reasonable and within my economic reach.

Now let’s look at it from the young man’s point of view.  I can only imagine that he had been sitting in that gas station store for a long time.  All he wanted to do was sell his chocolate bars.  Somewhere along the line, after many attempts and rejections, he must’ve figured out that people don’t want to buy a whole box of chocolate.  He then switched tactics and probably started selling individual bars and he again realized that even single bars weren’t selling.

Then an idea hits the young man, ‘I’ll ask the prospect to buy a box knowing full well they’re going to say no and when they do I’ll ask them to at least buy the single bar.’  At this point he has made a tactical decision a la Sun Tzu and the Art of Chocolate War.  He is going to sacrifice the box of chocolate with the hopes of simply increasing his chances of winning the single bar war.  

In war, in open field combat, it wasn’t unusual for leaders to send in a strong wave of soldiers giving the impression that they were throwing in everything they had to win the battle.  Just as the opposing army seemed to be winning, a second wave, more powerful than the first, comes out of nowhere to win the battle.  The element of surprise is always the best weapon in any exchange of differences.

So here is this young man who’s figured out that the first assault of the unsuspecting prospect should be a Bogus Request that he knows will be rejected (or repelled).  Knowing this, he prepares his second request, the Target Request, hoping to catch the prospect off guard using the element of surprise.

This strategy exploits our social nature to want to reciprocate when we’ve rejected someone.  Accepting the Target Request is a concession for rejecting the Bogus Request.  No sooner than I said no to his offer a critical moment was created; an opportunity to get a yes. 

Knowing what we know now about he D.I.T.F. tactic, here’s a broader question, “Can this compliance technique be used in a social setting or used in a business/selling environment to gain compliance (i.e., get an order or advance a sale).  Or how about in our own personal lives?  The answer not surprising is, yes!

Social Compliance

Dr. Robert Cialdini and his colleagues conducted an interesting experiment to test out this Bogus Request and Target Request approach[1].  It is also known as the Rejection-then-Retreat approach. The goal again is very simple.  We want the target of our compliance request (i.e., person we are trying to convince) to agree to a Target Request (what we really want) by first asking for a Bogus Request.

Cialdini and his team decided to masquerade as representatives of the County Youth Counseling Program and they approached college students on campus and asked them if they’d be willing to donate one day of their time to chaperon a group of juvenile delinquents to the zoo.  This was the Target Request.  As you can probably guess, 83% of students (83 out of 100) rejected the offer. 

In the second scenario of their social experiment, they decided to first ask for a Bogus Request then ask the Target Request.  The bogus request, this large request made of the students, asked if they would be willing to donate two hours a week as counselors to juvenile delinquents for a minimum of two years.   If this large (bogus) request was refused, the students were then asked if they would be willing to chaperon the juveniles to the zoo for a day (i.e., Target Request; what they were really after).  How many accepted the Target Request?  Three times as many did!  Out of the 100, 50 students agreed to chaperon the juveniles to the zoo.  From 17 to 50, that represents an almost 200% increase in compliance gaining!

Sales Compliance

Now let’s see how we might use this in the realm of business, more specifically in the sales process.  Imagine that you’ve been working on a big deal and it’s time to close the sale.  Now, you know that the chances of you getting the whole, large order at once isn’t going to happen.  But if you could get the first order, that would indicate the buyer’s commitment and seriousness in viewing you as a partner.   So your best approach is to figure out beforehand how you’re going to ask for the big order and how and what you’re going to say when asking for the secondary, target request.

So when you ask for a big order or large request to advance the sale and the potential client says no, right there, at that very moment, your customer’s sense of obligation (i.e., an opportunity for a yes) is exposed.  That is the precise moment to make your second (target) request.  Here are some real world examples of how you might want to use this technique:

·      I can understand why you don’t want to replace all your (fill in the blank) at once, so why don’t we just start with only a few (fill in the blank).

·      Well, if you don’t want buy our (fill in the blank), would you at least give me the name of three folks who you think might benefit from our product/service?

·      Since it’s not possible to meet with your CEO and staff, would it be at least possible to meet with the key people involved in making the final decision?

·      I understand that $500 is a big donation, let’s just go and put you down for $50 and maybe next year we can look at doing more; sound good?

·      I realize tomorrow (Tuesday) is short notice and understand that you have other commitments.  Shall we say next Tuesday?

Personal Compliance

This technique also works in your personal life.  The best users of the Door-In-The-Face technique are teenagers and spouse.  With my own family I have to be on guard 24/7 for the DITF tactic.    Here are three scenarios I got caught in:

·      Daughter: I’d like to go to France next year?

·      Father: That’s out of the question; too expensive and too far?

·      Daughter: Ok, well how about a summer trip to Florida?

(Turns out none of my daughter’s friends could afford to go to France, so her friends colluded to go together to Florida for summer vacation; we live in Georgia)

·      Son: I need some new tires for my car; I found a perfect set I like for $400.

·      Father: That’s a lot of money.

·      Son: Well, what if you give me $200 and I’ll come up with the other halve?

(Found out later he settled on another set of tires that only cost $200)

·      Wife: I want to replace the whole house with wooden floors?

·      Father: How much is that going to cost?

·      Wife: About $20,000

·      Father: No way!

·      Wife: Alright, let’s just go ahead and just do the living room.

(She later admitted that all she really wanted was the living room floor all along)

Contrast, Anchors and Reference Points

Another subtle feature of the Door-In-The-Face tactic is the inherent use of the contrast or perceptual contrast principle.  Whether we care to admit it or not, we base many of our decision on some reference point.   We are by are very nature, human beings who like to compare and contrast in order to make decisions. 

When you’re buying a house, you compare what you should pay to what other similar houses are selling for.  When you’re choosing a mate, you’re comparing that person to the multitude of options available in the social marketplace.  When you’re deciding on where to go for vacation, you compare it with what other vacation location have to offer and cost.  And finally, when you reflect on whether your life is going well, you do so by comparing yourself to what others in your age bracket have accomplished.  We are comparing beings! 

When someone makes a Bogus Request, this becomes the anchor, the reference point from which all subsequent requests will be measure against.    If a family member begs you to lend them $100 dollar and you reject them, a follow-up request of $40 will seem less painful by comparison.  

There is also an opportunity for manipulation of perception for those who know about this tactic and how to use it.  There is a manipulative aspect of using the D.I.T.F. strategy. The person making the initial target request establishes the reference point and by default has framed the negotiation around that initial request.  

For example, knowing full well that you will reject my first request, I now know that I must make a bogus request first in order to get what I really want.  So the person requesting becomes the manipulator of the reference point.  In other words, knowing how to use the DITF allows me to control the initial price point (i.e., the anchor).  This is why in any negotiation scenario you always want to be the one that makes the first request.  The first request usually becomes the anchor or reference point that will frame the rest of the negotiation.

Lastly, studies have shown that making a bogus request that goes beyond a point of reasonability will cause you to render the D.I.T.F. tactic useless.  Said another way, if your first request is so ridiculous as to be credible, any subsequent request will be treated with the same level of incredulity.  So to use the D.I.T.F. properly, the bogus request must be reasonable in order for the target request to have any chance of being accepted.

Summary:

D.I.T.F. requires a two-step method to gain compliance.  First a large bogus request is made.  Upon rejection a smaller target request is made.  Because the second, smaller request seems like a concession, the ‘pull’ to reciprocate moves people to comply with the second request.  The bogus request is the reference point from which the second request is to be measured against. 

If you intend to use the D.I.T.F. you have the advantage of being able to establish the anchor, the reference point.   Keeping in mind that if the initial bogus request (anchor or reference point) is too large to be believable, the target request will be rendered ineffectively and your chances of getting the other party to comply will more than likely fail. 

Copyright © 2010 by Victor Antonio.   All rights reserved.  This article MAY be reproduced in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, as long as the author’s name, website and email address are included as part of the article’s body.  All inquiries, including information on electronic licensing, should be directed to Victor Antonio at victor@salesinfluence.com.