How to Coach Yourself and Others Essential Knowledge For Coaching | Page 583

The six laws of influence
In his seminal book Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion Professor
Robert Cialdini gives six laws or rules which govern how we influence
and are influenced by others.
The law of scarcity
Items are more valuable to us when their availability is limited.
Scarcity
determines
the
value
of
an
item.
For example if a customer is told that an item is in short supply which
will soon run out they are more likely to buy it. Time also works here. A
time limit is placed on the customers opportunity to buy something.
Customers are told by the seller that unless they buy immediately, the
price will increase next week. Auctions such as ebay create a buyer
frenzy often resulting in higher prices than the object's value. If
something is expensive, we tend to assume that it must be of high
quality because it is in demand: one jewellery shop doubled the priced
of its items and were surprised to find that sales increased!
For example, if you let an interviewer know that you have other
interviews coming up, they will be more interested in you as you are
perceived as a sought after candidate.
The Law of reciprocity
If you give something to people, they feel compelled to return the
favour. People feel obliged to return a favour when somebody does
something for them first. They feel bad if they don't reciprocate. "You
scratch my back and I'll scratch yours".
After someone has turned down a large request, they are very likely to
agree to a smaller request. This is why shop staff are trained to show
the most expensive item first. A salesman who suggested a 3 year
warranty costing £100 found that most customers refused but were
then happy to buy 1 year warranty costing £30.

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