My business book club chose Robert Cialdini’s classic book on sales, Pre-Suasion: A Revolutionary Way to Influence and Persuade, for its March read, and I’m still thinking about what was in it.
Weirdly, it wasn’t what I thought would be in it.
I’ve heard about this book for ages. Lots of people have recommended it. And I kind of thought it would be more about words and selling and how words persuade. But instead, the main thing I took away from it is that even more than words, images persuade.
And in particular, what people are focused on just before they are asked to take action is more important than you think. In fact, they can make people view your message in an entirely different way, depending on what they saw right before they focused on your message.
The author, Robert Cialdini, PhD, is not your average business author. He’s really a researcher and shares the result of numerous studies in the book. So this is not just guess-work on what causes people to be persuaded to change their minds or take action or buy something.
But the most surprising thing about this book is that it’s actually a self-help book. Meaning, you can take all of the things that he teaches and apply them to your own life to get better and faster results.
You can actually PRE-SUADE yourself.
It was like learning shortcut keys for your brain reading this book. I kept saying, “Oh, I get it now! This makes sense!”
A lot of the things that I have been doing intuitively to help myself succeed (like vision boards and focusing without distraction) have really helped.
So, if you haven’t read the book yet, or you need a refresher, I’ve compiled what the takeaways that I am planning to use to pre-suade myself to make changes and reach goals.
You can too.
11 Key Takeaways From Robert Cialdini’s Pre-Suasion
People elevate the importance of whatever they are focused on just because it has grabbed their attention.
Whatever grabs your attention may not be the most important thing to focus on, which is why it’s important to decide in advance your focus and eliminate distractions as much as possible during your focused time rather than letting what’s in front of you dictate what is important (hello email or social media).
If someone will likely be shocked by what you have to say then jokingly say something more shocking first and they will be more open to what you have to share.
In business, you can see this when brands offer price drops. If you introduce a number that’s even higher before you share your price then customers will likely be more accepting of that price when asked to purchase.
Images people see before making a decision has an outsize influence on how they make their decision. For instance, a customer might make a purchase based on comfort if the product is surrounded by images of clouds. Or based on price if they see an image of pennies. Think about your images as an influential part of your message and decision matrix.
Office environments have a bigger impact on performance and productivity than you might think they do. Photos of people running and crossing a finish line, in particular, have been shown to increase workers’ performance. Reducing clutter and making a space more conducive to creativity really does help.
If you work in a home office make sure you surround yourself with images of successful, happy people or places to motivate better performance. Or put up a vision board with images of your goals to remind yourself of them regularly. You’ll be surprised at how much faster goals become realized when you do this.
You can set better goals if you use If/When-Then Plans to change your behavior. Cialdini talks about how writing down your behavior in advance has a much better chance of influencing your behavior than if you simply write down the goal. An example might be, “If I am hungry, then I will eat what I have planned.”
If you have performance anxiety, do not go over and over what you are going to perform next in your head right before the performance. Instead, review your past successes mentally or visually and write down what you do well.
Ethics matter. Companies who regularly cheat and deceive their way to success have low employee morale, high turnover rates, and pay a large price when the public finds out.
When you use tools of persuasion be careful of having positive intent. It’s important not to manipulate people or misuse people with these tools.
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