How to Coach Yourself and Others How to Influence, Persuade and Motivate | Seite 293

wherein students were only approached with the second request, only
demonstrated a 31 percent compliance rate.
The study continued the next day. As students showed up to donate blood,
they were asked if they would provide their phone numbers so they could
be called to see if they'd donate again later on. Of the first group (those
who'd been given both requests), 84 percent consented to giving their
phone numbers. Of the students in the control group, only 43 percent
agreed to give their phone numbers.[5]
The main reason the door-in-the-face technique is so effective is because
the contrast between the two requests makes your prospects feel like they
are getting more/or less than they would have if they'd gone with the
original offering. They feel like they've made a fair compromise, while
you get exactly what you wanted in the first place. Alan Schoonmaker,
author of Negotiate to Win: Gaining the Psychological Edge, makes an
especially interesting point:
A conservative first offer also creates the bargaining room needed for the
mutual concession ritual (you give a little; they give a little; you give a
little; and so on). You may regard this ritual as silly, but many people
insist on it. If you do not perform it, they may feel you are not negotiating
in good faith. . . . It is far better for them to feel that they have defeated
you, that they have driven you right to the wall. Lay the foundation for
their victory with an initial offer that creates lots of bargaining room."[6]
By way of example, pretend your local scout troop is canvassing door to
door to ask for donations to the scouting program. They ask you to donate
$200, saying that all the other neighbors have donated this amount. After
some discussion, the scouts ask for a $50 donation. You feel relief and
give them $50 — and you feel lucky that you got away with giving less
than your neighbors.
In these examples, the second request seems much more logical and
reasonable in comparison to the outrageous first request. We are creating
a perceptual contrast whereby we are defining what we think the standard
of comparison should be. When the second request comes along, it seems
much smaller than the first request, and in our case, much smaller than the
request would seem if presented alone.

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