Influencing

Influence is to be differenciated from manipulation.

Manipulation is about controling someone and creating dependance. Influence is about persuading someone because they trully believe in it.

It would be good it our brain could process all the information available we have. But our brain use shortcut to go faster. Understanding and using this shortcuts can increase the likelihood of influencing, convincing someone. Here is the list of the 6 most common shortcuts / Biases:

Reciprocity: Reciprocity work as an obligation to give back what you receive. If you got invited to a party, you tend to have the social obligation to invite back to your party. Example, when waiters give mint at the end of a dinner, tips increased by 3% the more personalized and unexpected is the gift, the bigger is the reciprocity.

Scarcity: People want to get more of what they have the less of. It is mainly about the perception of reciprocity than real scarcity. You need to advocate for your uniqueness, your benefits and what they risk to loose

Authority: People follow the lead of knowledgeable experts. Displaying diplomas, uniforms provide more credibility. It is about signaling your authority before asking anything. You can also have someone introduce you in a complimentary way for the same effect

Consistency: People want to be consistent with the things they have previously say or done. You can encourage consistency by working on previous commitment. Look for voluntary public and active commitment. Start with small commitments and use them as foothold for bigger commitment

Liking: We like people who are similar, pay us compliment and cooperate with us. Starting a negotiation with finding things in commons and create a small relation can double the likelihood of successful agreement.

consensus: Especially when uncertain, people will look at other people's action to know what to do. It can be efficiently used to explain what is the expected behavior. It is even more efficient if you can create a similarity between the people you are trying to influence and the majority group.