6 key principles of influence by Robert Cialdini

Reciprocity - People tend to return a favor, thus the pervasiveness of free samples in
marketing. In his conferences, he often uses the example of Ethiopia providing thousands
of dollars in humanitarian aid to Mexico just after the 1985 earthquake, despite Ethiopia
suffering from a crippling famine and civil war at the time. Ethiopia had been
reciprocating for the diplomatic support Mexico provided when Italy invaded Ethiopia in
1935. The good cop/bad cop strategy is also based on this principle.
Commitment and Consistency - If people commit, orally or in writing, to an idea or
goal, they are more likely to honor that commitment because of establishing that idea or
goal as being congruent with their self-image. Even if the original incentive or motivation
is removed after they have already agreed, they will continue to honor the agreement.
Cialdini notes Chinese brainwashing on American prisoners of war to rewrite their self-
image and gain automatic unenforced compliance. See cognitive dissonance.
Social Proof - People will do things that they see other people are doing. For example, in
one experiment, one or more confederates would look up into the sky; bystanders would
then look up into the sky to see what they were seeing. At one point this experiment
aborted, as so many people were looking up that they stopped traffic. See conformity, and
the Asch conformity experiments.
Authority - People will tend to obey authority figures, even if they are asked to perform
objectionable acts. Cialdini cites incidents such as the Milgram experiments in the early
1960s and the My Lai massacre.
Liking - People are easily persuaded by other people that they like. Cialdini cites the
marketing of Tupperware in what might now be called viral marketing. People were more
likely to buy if they liked the person selling it to them. Some of the many biases favoring
more attractive people are discussed. See physical attractiveness stereotype.
Scarcity - Perceived scarcity will generate demand. For example, saying offers are
available for a "limited time only" encourages sales.


REAL WORLD EXPERIENCE #2: Weapons of Influence

As a project manager, I have to use these tools on a daily basis. I interface daily with about a 12-
18 staff members working across five different projects. I also manage a contract on the East
Coast for a computer based simulation Trainer using graphical and GIS technology. I have
customers is three states, one on the West Coast, two on the East Coast and partner with two
Aerospace firms both on the East Coast. It can be quite hectic at times, and since our customer
has a fairly onerous project management style, getting things done requires a lot of persuasion.

My experiment involves influencing one of my managers to engage with the customer
regarding an Engineering documentation project. The manager is new to his job and under
severe time constraints to manage his current work portfolio. In addition a young Engineer has
been working this project who is very capable technically, but in his dealings with the customer
had over-committed on the work scope needing to be accomplished. I have been asked to assess
where we are with the project and how to align our current resources available with the work that
needs to be done.

Using Commitment and Consistency, I outlined a three step plan and provided it to the manager
for his review. In it I outlined three critical steps towards helping this Project get on the right
track. They are:

Develop Strategy to define what the mission is and who will be served by the Project
Develop Tactics to define methods for defining our role on team and our contribution
towards its success
Develop a Path Forward for I mplementation to define how the job will get done.

My manager signed of the steps and tasked me to move forward getting the job done. The next
step was getting commitment from the customer.

Using Reciprocity and Liking, in my first conversation with the government representative (also
new to his current job) I discovered he was a retired US Army Lt. Colonel. He used to be a
parachute jumper, and hes a football fan (the Redskins). I shared some ideas I had gotten from
Bill Walsh, the former head football coach of the San Francisco 49ers. He authored two books,
once called Finding the Winning Edge the other The Score Takes Care of Itself. In these
books Coach Walsh explains his Standard of Performance and provides 10 Leadership Lessons
which he used to turn the 49ers organization into a Super Bowl success. Two of the rules are :

Developing a Successful Team Starts with Developing a Successful Culture
The Leader Sets the Tone

Mission Readiness and Mission Accomplishment are very important to military personnel. In
two conversations we developed a dialogue about the Mission for the project and what the
various paths are to get it accomplished. I sent him excerpts from the book The Score Takes
Care of Itself which he liked enough to purchase for himself.

In that exchange of two meetings, I was able to gain enough of his trust to take a leadership role
in the Project to start the process of sorting out what tools are really needed for the project to
successful. This lead to a working meeting which will be held on July 17, 18 where we will
present a ideas for developing a Web Portal for storing and disseminating data for the Project
Team. There is still a lot of work to do, but now we have some momentum which I hope will
establish a successful path forward for the project.

Using a few simple Weapons of Influence a message can be developed and delivered to
different target markets with the goal of persuading them to address a common problem and
achieve a certain goal. Every manager, every leader is at some point Marketing ideas to their
peers, their staff, or their external customers. Leadership at many levels is the Marketing of a
persons abilities to accomplish goals and objectives.

Whether the market being influenced is large or small, understanding whats important to your
customers and communicating your message effectively will determine your level of success.

Lester Cano
Marketing 303
Professor Payne
07/13/2013

REAL WORLD EXPERIENCE #3: Brand Integrity