Say Yes to Influence

Originally from Aartjan van Erkel blog post De 6 geheimen van verleiding

In recent days I devoured the book Influence of persuasion, Professor Robert Cialdini. He presents it 6 scientifically proven seduction techniques from social psychology. The book gave me a few ideas that websites can increase their conversion. Plus, I give examples of Dutch sites that already use the techniques.

If you read this, you are by 4 methods of Cialdini’s tempted to read. I’ve used them because in my intro …

Cialdini calls itself the "weapons of influence": psychological "buttons" which can be printed for an automatic response.

The 6 secrets of Cialdini are:

1. Reciprocity
2. Commitment & Consistency
3. Social attachment
4. Sympathy
5. Authority
6. Scarcity

1. Reciprocity

Give away something free and the recipient feels obligated to give back to. That is the principle of reciprocity. People who are in debt will always redeem their debt. That is so because. This social obligation is inherent in humans. Give a gift, and your client is trapped in an invisible safety net.

Freebies work often increasing conversion. Because sooner or later the prospect repay the favor. The easiest way to do that is by an order.Simple gifts are enough. Do you have a website, think more of a free:

• Newsletter
• E-book
• Quickscan
• DVD with movie product
• Love Call
• Tip or secret (eg this article

Entrepreneurs make extensive use of the temptations of power presents, and thus of reciprocity. Gifts, Christmas gifts and giveaways are a complete industry.

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Quoted from MySpace.. Read the Full Article Here

Fiat is taking over Chrysler after Daimler lost billions trying to do exactly the same thing. Time Warner and AOL ended up in a fiasco. GM lost Saab, Ford lost Jaguar and Land Rover and today we have the battle of Kraft taking over Cadbury.

Why do most of these mergers and acquisitions end up in disaster?

Because they don’t know the code… they don’t know their own code – their corporate code. They don’t understand that a corporation is a culture (rituals, myths, heroes) and has a code. They also don’t know the code of the company they want to acquire or merge with. Of course they end up experiencing a “Culture Clash” and “Cultural War”. Then they have no idea of the country culture code, (see how the Cadbury people in ..England.. are reacting to the American take over or the Danone disaster in China).

To succeed you need a corporate Psychologist-Anthropologist. You need a corporate culture Match Maker who can identify each corporate culture code and facilitate the creation of the NEW culture while keeping the best of each of the old cultures.

Royal Bank lost most of the brilliant people from Royal Trust when they acquired Royal Trust. Daimler lost ALL of the Chrysler executives when they took over Chrysler (most of them went to GM).

What is the value of a company if all of the brilliant people leave?

Mergers and acquisitions should bring more than the sum of their parts. How do we do that? By creating a new corporate culture that integrates the best of each original corporate culture. This new corporate culture should have “babies” with both companies DNA.

Continued on Dr. Rapielle’s MySpace blog

“I believe in Harvey Dent”

How the joker left his mark, and the way we will be marketing in the future. A case study in the persuasion game played before the release of Dark Knight

The teleseminar interview with Dr Cialdini scheduled for June 18th was postponed.

We will reschedule, and post here shortly

We regret any inconvenience

Be sure to fill in the form to the right to get priority announcments

UPDATE: The call is on for July 9th

Still a few days until the official release date of Yes! 50 Scientifically Proven Ways to Be Persuasive

After reading the book, I knew what I had to do.

In a word.. Reciprocity.

I contacted some of my friends.. authors who have written on influence, persuasion, sales, marketing, advertising and PR, and arranged to send them a book.

We do this from time to time to get reviews and attract mailing list owners, marketers and thought leaders to new books by new authors. But with a book like this one, from Dr. Cialdini, I decided that the promotion partners would come to us, and just gave away books with no expectation. No quid pro quo, just “Here’s a book from someone I know you respect”

Did it work?

Another one word answer.. WOW!

The phone has been ringing off the hook, the twitter feed is blazing and my in box is full all day long with requests to be a part of the program. When I tell them the rules. No back end sales, no upsell package, no guarantee of anything.. they still begged to help.

(I’ll attribute this to the book.. not my brilliant strategy<grin&gt;)

So here’s what we will do. Everyone who follows this feed, or signs up to be on the exclusive interview call with Dr. Cialdini will have the option to see the work of the best persuasion experts I know.

The cost? FREE

We want you to read the book, but if you really want to just take the gifts and goodies and borrow someone else’s copy, so be it.

Once you start to become familiar with Cialdini’s work, I know you will want to buy a copy of YES! for your library, and a few copies for co-workers and friends who study sales and marketing.

Just watch this space for announcements. Leave a comment if you’d like to be part of the conversation and please.. tell everyone that wants to be more persuasive about this site. It’s the highest compliment you can give Dr. Cialdini for his work and your friend will never forget who first told them about the best influence and persuasion stuff on the net.

Be there hero.. tell the about Robert Cialdini’s work