Notes on Selling - Two

by Greg Woodley

This is the second in a series of articles regarding the sales process. The ideas for this article come from "Influence - The psychology of Persuasion" - Robert Caldini.

Quote:
The only way on earth to influence the other fellow is to talk about what he wants and show him how to get it. - Dale Carnegie

This week we will look at the first Law of Influence - Reciprocation.

In a nutshell if you do someone a favour they feel obliged to return the favour. Nothing earth shattering in that. What is really interesting is how strong this desire is and how easily it is triggered. To examine this a more closely I once again cite "Influence" by Robert Cialdini. (It really is worth reading !)

Let's examine an experiment performed by Professor Dennis Regan of Cornell University.

"People were asked to judge the quality of some paintings as part of an experiment on "art appreciation". The other rater was only posing as a subject and was actually Dr. Regan's assistant, Joe. In some cases, Joe did a small, unsolicited favour for the true subject. During a short rest period, he left the room and returned with two bottles of Coke, one for the subject and one for himself, saying, "I asked him [the experimenter] if I could get myself a Coke, and he said it was okay, so I bought one for you too." In other cases, Joe did not provide the subject with a Coke. Apart from this, Joe behaved identically towards the two groups of subjects.

Later on, after the paintings had all been rated and the mentor had momentarily left the room, Joe asked the subject to do him a favour. He was selling raffle tickets and if he sold the most tickets, he would win a prize. Joe's asked them to buy some raffle tickets. Without question, Joe was more successful in selling his raffle tickets to subjects who had received his earlier favour. Apparently feeling they owed him something, these subjects bought twice as many tickets as the subjects who had not been given the Coke.

The Hare Krishna Society is an Eastern religious sect in the past groups of Krishna devotees-often with shaved heads, and wearing ill-fitting robes, leg wrappings, beads, and bells-would canvass a city street, chanting and bobbing in unison while begging for funds.

Although highly effective as a technique for gaining attention, this form of fund-raising did not work especially well. In fact they were going broke.
The people being asked for contributions did not like the way the members looked, dressed, or acted. Had the Society been an ordinary commercial organisation, the solution would have been simple---change the things the public does not like. But the Krishnas are a religious organisation; and the way members look, dress, and act is partially tied to religious factors.

Krishnas' resolution was brilliant. They began to employ a donation - request procedure that engaged the rule for reciprocation, which overcame the public's dislike for them. The new strategy still involves the solicitation of contributions in public places with Pedestrian traffic (airports are a favourite), but now, before a donation is requested, the target person is given a "gift"--a book ( the Bbagavad Gita), the Back to Godbead magazine of the or, in the most cost-effective version, a flower. Under no circumstances will the Krishna accept it back. Only after the Krishna member has thus brought the force of the reciprocation rule to bear is the target asked to provide a contribution. This benefactor-before-beggar strategy has been wildly successful for the Hare Krishna Society, producing large-scale economic gains.

RECIPROCAL CONCESSIONS

There is a second way to employ the reciprocity rule to get someone to comply with a request. It is more subtle than the direct route of providing that person with a favour and then asking for one in return; yet in some ways it is more devastatingly effective than the straightforward approach. A personal experience I had a few years ago gave me firsthand evidence of just how well this compliance technique works.

I was walking down the street when I was approached by an eleven- or twelve-year-old boy. He introduced himself and said that he was selling tickets to the annual Boy Scouts circus. He asked if I wished to buy any at five dollars apiece. Since one of the last places I wanted to spend Saturday evening was with the Boy Scouts, I declined. "Well," he said, "if you don't want to buy any tickets, how about buying some of our big chocolate bars? They're only a dollar each." I bought a couple and, right away, realised that something noteworthy had happened. I knew that to be the case because: (a) I do not like chocolate bars; (b) I do like dollars; (c) I was standing there with two of his chocolate bars; and (d) he was walking away with two of my dollars.

The general rule says that a person who acts in a certain way toward us is entitled to a similar return action. We have already seen that one consequence of the rule is an obligation to repay favours we have received. Another consequence of the rule, however, is an obligation to make a concession to someone who has made a concession to us. His request that I purchase some one-dollar chocolate bars had been put in the form of a concession on his part; it was presented as a retreat from his request that I buy some five-dollar tickets.

Of course, the tendency to reciprocate a concession is not so strong that it will invariably work in all instances on all people; however, in my exchange with the Boy Scout, the tendency had been sufficiently potent to leave me in mystified possession of a pair of unwanted and overpriced candy bars.

We decided to test the effectiveness of the rule. Posing as representatives of the "County Youth Counselling Program," we approached college students and asked if they would be willing to chaperone a group of juvenile delinquents on a day trip to the zoo. As we expected, the great majority (83 percent) refused.

Yet we obtained very different results from a similar sample of college students who were asked the very same question with one difference. Before we invited them to serve as unpaid chaperones on the zoo trip, we ask, them for an even larger favor---to spend two hours per week as a counsellor to a juvenile delinquent for a minimum of two years. It was only after they refused this extreme request, as they all did, that we made the smaller, zoo-trip request. By presenting the zoo trip as a retreat from our initial request, our success rate increased dramatically. Three times as many of the students approached volunteered to serve as zoo chaperones.

Be assured that any strategy able to triple the percentage compliance of a request ( from 17 % to 50 % cent in our experiment ) will be frequently employed in a variety of settings..."

How could we employ this law ?

If you know that a client of yours likes doughnuts, why not take some with you when you go call on him. Or if you know that he likes a certain leisure activity like sailing - how about cutting out articles on sailing and just sending them to him, without expecting anything in return.

The second part of this law regarding offering concessions is a commonly used practice in negotiation. How many times have you inflated the price of what you want to sell so that the customer can bargain you back. I wonder how many times after granting the customer this " concession " of a lower price do we seek a concession from them ? Do we ask for a bigger order or for delivery in bigger allotments ? Do we ask for an order on another product we are trying to sell to them ? And when will we start doing these things ?

The final word this week is on the use of the phrase " yes .. but " ..............Don't use it !

It really is not a very good way to be talking to your customer. You see, " but " negates everything that has been said before it.

Imagine saying to your spouse, " You look beautiful in that but …" ( look out !! Be very careful what your next words are !! )

"You have done a great job on that proposal but …" How would you feel if your boss came up to you and said that, ? Perhaps like the next words would be, " ... I want you to do it all again " .

So, if I can't use "yes ...but" what do I use ?

Use the word " and ", it's much more respectful of your customers opinions and beliefs.

I understand … and….I was just wondering
I appreciate … and….I am curious to know
I agree …. and….I am interested to know
I respect …. and….I am fascinated to know
I recognise…..and ….I was thinking
I appreciate …..and….I was asking myself
I appreciate…..and ….you know I am interested in
I appreciate …..and….I'm just interested to know

You can move the first and second part of these sentences around to suit yourself.

It works like this :
A customer says AMP 95 is too expensive
In the past you may have said … " yes,... but"…
Now you have a more elegant way of responding.

"I agree AMP95 is expensive compared to ammonia and I was just wondering if you had done the sums to work out what your final formulation cost is BECAUSE ( there's that B word we mentioned last week ) the makers of AMP tell me the formulation cost is actually LOWER ? "

OK, we're going to be the good guys and use "and" instead of "yes ...but", what do I do when my customer says "yes... but" on me ?

You can turn "but" around when it's used on you. Remember "but" rubs out all that's come before it in an utterance.

Here's a good example.

" Darling, would you like to go out to dinner ?"

" I'd love to go out for dinner but I'm very tired ", ( assuming you want to go you say )

" Oh, you're very tired but you'd love to go out to dinner " ( and say the "love to go out for dinner" with feeling )

This leaves your spouse with going out as the last thing in their head. This gives you a much better chance of getting out to dinner.

The idea would be to try out some of these and see how effective they are for you.

Greg Woodley is an NLP Master Practitioner who has spent over 20 years in Sales. Greg is also a successful life coach and corporate leadership trainer. He can be contacted via phone on +61-4627-6582 or
gregwoodley@aol.com