How to Coach Yourself and Others How to Influence, Persuade and Motivate | Page 295

quality properties that have been on the market for some months, often
because of the seller's high asking price of $500,000. To drive down the
seller's expectation, the property developer employs an agent who, acting
anonymously, displays great enthusiasm for the property and then makes
a very low aggressive offer — say $350,000 — which the seller angrily
rejects. The developer then moves in and offers a much more reasonable
price — say $430,000 — which, after some negotiating, is accepted.
Labor negotiators frequently deploy this tool as well. They begin with
extreme demands that they expect to be turned down. Abruptly, they
repeat a series of smaller demands, or concessions, which will then be
more easily accepted. These smaller demands are the real target of the
labor group.
The door-in-the-face technique can also save you from lots of headache
and hassle. You can get people to go from hating you to thanking you for
the same exact thing. For example, when I assign my college students a
ten-page final paper, it makes the students tense and vocal. They complain
about time, length, font size, etc. You name it; they'll bring it up. I was
getting tired of the complaining, so I changed the way I approach the
subject of the paper. I use this principle: I bring up the paper and wait for
the moans, but then I tell them this twenty-page paper will have to include
the following. . . .The uproar starts: "Twenty pages! I won't have time for
that!" I then graciously acquiesce and tell them if they promise to do a
great, concise paper with the proper research, I will make it only ten
pages. The cheers erupt and everyone is happy. The students see the tenpage paper as a great deal compared to the twenty-page paper. Now the
students thank me rather than hate me.
Many times, we can fly under the radar with the contrast principle. There
is a theory called the "Just Noticeable Difference" (JND),[7] which means
the minimum amount of difference in the intensity of the stimulus that can
be detected. What does this mean? How much can you raise the price of a
product without anyone noticing? How many ounces can you take out of a
can of soup before people start to catch on? Can we really tell the
difference between 21 ounces and 20.25 ounces? Many marketers would
rather change the packaging and offer less of their product than resort to
charging more. When we don't notice the difference, we think we are
getting the same deal.

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