How to Coach Yourself and Others Influencing, Inter Personal and Leadership Skills | Page 61

9. Cialdini’s Six Laws of Persuasion
How To Use the Six Laws of Persuasion during a Negotiation (Edrie Greer, Ph.D., Global
Knowledge Instructor)
1-800-COURSES www.globalknowledge.com
1. Introduction
To get what you want in life, in work, and in play, requires constant negotiation with a
variety of people.
This involves basic communication skills, such as active listening and attention to nonverbal cues, and a clear understanding of your goals, as well as the objectives of your
negotiating partner(s).
To be truly effective, however, you need to know more. You should be able to
communicate persuasively during the process of negotiation.
Many situations you’ll face as managers and employees will require you to effectively
negotiate to a mutually beneficial (win-win) solution, including:
1. Responding to staff members’ requests for promotions, salary increases, and other
employment perks (as well as negotiating your own)
2. Negotiating with vendors for their best possible products, services, and prices
3. Convincing your team to do what you would like them to do
4.Working with external and internal clients on contracts (such as Service Level
Agreements) that provide the quality services and equipment they need but in a manner
that allows you to use your resources optimally
5. Persuading supervisors to buy additional equipment, accept your budget proposals,
try a new idea, etc.
In order to be successful in these instances, you must master the persuasion process,
which will enable you to deliberately create the attitude change and subsequent actions
necessary for persuading others to your way of thinking. In other words, you have to be
able to “sell” your ideas in order to make changes in your favor and, in a win-win
situation, provide the other side with a fair deal.
This entails a process that can appeal to the intellect using logical and objective criteria,
as well as a methodology that positively engages the emotions of the negotiators.
The result of a successful negotiation is that all parties should believe they got a good
deal.
2. The Six Laws of Persuasion: an Overview
Persuasion is the ability to influence people’s thoughts and actions through specific
strategies. To become adept at this skill, you must first understand some basic
principles, called the Laws of Persuasion. These six laws by themselves are neither good
nor bad, but describe how most people respond to certain circumstances.
Psychologist Robert Cialdini wrote the seminal book on the Laws of Persuasion, titled
Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion, in which he discusses the prevalent methods of
marketing. Even though you may not wish to believe it, a great deal of psychological
research indicates that human beings are quite predictable in terms of behavior in
response to certain stimuli, such as ads. This is why marketing and advertising are
highly successful enterprises—by and large, consumers respond to most ads and