Scarcity

Scarcity is the final law of influence I am going to cover from the book by Robert Cialdini.

You all seen the shop fronts and adverts on the tv in the magazines stating limited offer. This is scarcity, it works on the principle of "act on or you will miss out". You get the sales men telling you at your front door he is only allow to sell x amount of these product at discount in anyone day and he isn't coming back this way for a few months. He will tell you he has already got orders for most of them and there is only a few left. "If you don't buy now you won't ever get it so cheap". They try and make out they are doing you the favour by give you such a discount offer. The truth be told they are always this price and the discount is always available to anyone at any time, lets face it they want to sell their product making out it is limited is purely to push up demand or trick people into making rushed decisions.

One of the other posts was about Consistency when I discuss the Christmas present trick many manufacturers use to force you into buying extra presents at Christmas and make a hyped up demand by limiting their stock for the Christmas period only. This is scarcity at work again, and as in the other example the product is not going disappear forever, unless it's total crap!!!

Will like the idea of having something other people may not have or we are concern we may miss out.

I was recently looking for a new car a the sales forecourt had up signs saying "10 day sale", this is an obvious scarcity trick. What you have to ask your self is which 10 days?

Near my house is anew building estate and they have a sign up saying "40% reserved", this works on scarcity and social proof. What they don't saying is 40% of what is reserved. Plus what does reserved actually mean. It could by 40% of the builders car park is reserved for plumbers. Reserved could mean they have just their name on a list, it does necessarily mean they have placed a deposit. It could they have resevred a viewing once built!!

Every time you go to buy a house the estate agent will tell they have other people interested and they are about to put in a offer. I was told such a story about a new house I was looking at, I decided I wasn't interested in the end. A year later the house was still on the market, what happen to those two to three other couples who were interested!!!!

Again think about what it the scarcity statement actually mean. Is there any evidence to prove their claims. Do you really need it that badly you are willing to be trick into a purchase. If they product is that good why resort to such tactics ion the first place.

Authority

Authority is the next of the 6 laws of influence I am going to cover. Again it works due to the social contract and experience we have gained as we become adults.

The book discusses that we are more likely to be influenced by a person in Authority than any one else. For an example you are more likely to do what a policeman ask you to do than a total stranger. What separates the two, a total stranger and a policeman? For most people the policeman is a total stranger to them, but the uniform gives them status as someone who can be trusted and someone whom you should listen to. We are taught by adults as we grow up to obey authority figures such as policeman, school teachers, doctors etc, as the know the right thing to do. It is part of the social contract that keeps society together. The total stranger has no uniform and thus carries no weight of authority that a uniform implies.

The knowledge that authority carries more influence is used by marketing and sales men. Often you will see the adverts on the tv when a "expert" will endorse the product. This expert appears to carry the right credentials, such as a Doctor. For example a new toothpaste is often recommend by well qualified Dentist that is associated to some government health agency. We believe them because it is an authority figure and we have been programmed to believe authority figures.

Proof of the influence of authority comes in the form of a famous experiment

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milgram_experiment

So think about the times you have seen authority selling products on the tv or in magazines. Car safety experts, Doctors selling wonder diets, finance experts selling insurance etc etc.

The thing to ask yourself is, are they really experts? meaningless qualifications can be obtain from mickey mouse universities or colleges. Does the institute really exist that they belong to or is it again something they have created them selves to promote their own job or product.
What is their vested interest in you buying this product? does their opinion actually matter? They are being paid to sell this product to you?

Is NLP a load of rubbish?

A question that seems to be asked but never really answered. Ask anyone who practices NLP and the answer is obviously "it's really powerful stuff". I would guess I would say the same as I am writing a blog on NLP. Nothing is that black and white, good or bad. I would say that some NLP is a load of rubbish, because it makes claims it simply can not justify. To get to this point let us start at the beginning.

At the basics of NLP we have very simple communication skills. How to build rapport and how to make yourself understood and how to influence others. Body language skills, filters, mirroring, meta model of language, sleight of mouth patterns etc. This all good stuff and it definitely works. However, I think some people believe it will turn them in a Jedi Master and be able to convince anybody of anything. This is definitely not true, from my experience it is a bit like the Jedi mind trick as it won't work on the strong minded/stubborn. Some people just refuse point blank to change their minds or allow another opinion to take hold. Just like some people can't be hypnotised. The problem isn't with NLP but with peoples expectations of the skills and abilities it will give them. They see people who are master of NLP, like Darren Brown, creating magic with words. They hear of the works of the founders of NLP, Bandler and Grindler, and are amazed at the work they have done in therapy with people. They want to be able to the same kind of stuff. The people who perform these almost magically events with NLP, work at it full time, they have been studying it for many years and have years of experience. You can achieve this level of NLP, but you will need the same level of commitment and it will take years to truly master. The best most of can hope for is an improved set of communication skills to help us for our everyday lives.

So back to the question,"is NLP a load of rubbish". The answer is no, but people are expecting too much from it in a relative short space of time. Why? I believe it is because there are so many people out there selling NLP course with exaggerated claims. The NLP industry isn't regulated and has seem to attracted a lot of con men/women. I could set up a new NLP academy tomorrow and call it UNLP (Ultimate NLP) I could then certify myself as a master trainer in UNLP and start running courses out of my church hall for £1000 a day per person. I could just rehash all the existing NLP material and throw in some other material on influence, like the 6 laws of influence. Throw in a bit of extra psychology, mix it up and try and make it look slightly different to all the other NLP courses doing the rounds. There is nothing to stop me doing any of this, it is not illegal but very immoral.

So if you want to do a NLP course I could suggest you first of all get a few books on the subject as these courses are usually pretty expensive. Learn the basics and try it out. You my find the basics communication skills are enough for you. If you want to carry on look into the courses very carefully, try and find one carried out by a reputable trainer preferable some can traces their NLP back to the founders.

Liking

Another of the 6 laws of influence. This one is the obvious one, if you like someone you are more likely to be influence by that person. NLP really comes to work here by using NLP to quickly build rapport with a person and thus getting them to like you.

Whenever you get door to door slaes med they often refer to you as mate or buddy even although you have just met as they are trying to make out you are some how friend already.

Tupperware parties and the like are great examples of how Liking law is used to sell products. You have a party and invite all your friends around and sell them stuff. As they are your friends and like you they are more easily influenced into purchasing the product from you. Or may be buying as to feel they are helping you out. Works especially well if a couple of people in the party buy items earlier on, as it will use the effect of social proof in combination with the liking law of influence.

This should be an easily one for all you NLP 'ers to use an also seen before can be combined with the other laws of influence in the right circumstances.

Social Proof

You will see examples of the use of social proof every day. Before we start with the discussion I will name some examples to wet your appetite.

A busker places in some money into their hat to give the impression others have already tipped him.

The advertisers tell us it that it is the fast selling and most popular product in the market.

The door to door sales man who tell you that your neighbors have all bought the product.

Some night clubs purposefully create long queues outside their night club in order to make it look popular and give the social proof to potential customers. Even when there may be plenty of space inside.

There are also some negative responses to social proof as well. There have been case where victims of violent crime have been ignored in the street. Why? because no one else is stopping so I won't either. Experiments have shown if one person stops then more people we also stop, as they have the proof of others it is the right thing to do.

So why does this law work. Basically we have learnt through experience we are less likely to make mistakes if we follow other people. In fact kids learn to do things by mimicry. So social proof is essentially mimicry on a more adult level. We have learnt the right thing to do by following the crowd and have seen that not following the crowd can be dangerous.

In the case of the injured victim, if no one else is helping him then may be the know something I don't about this situation. Surely if they did need help some one else would have stopped by now. Not if we all thought the same thing!! There is an assumption with social proof that other people know best so the right thing to do is follow them.

Commitment and Consistency

This is the second law of influence and another one you see every day but just don't realise it.
The idea behind this law is that every one tries to be consistent and keeps to their commitments.

The best example is the one from the book about Christmas presents. Nearly every year there is a must have child's Christmas present and nearly every year they run out of stock before Christmas. So you promise you buy them this X present, but it turns out you can't get in time and thus have to buy them something with the promise you will get them the other X present after Christmas when there is more stock. And there always seems to be loads more stock after Christmas! To keep your commitment to your child you you buy them a SECOND present after Christmas. It is well believed that this type of event is done on purpose by the toy manufacturers. You probably find where the X present is suppose to be, but sold out, are toys sold by the said manufacturer. They basically get to sell two presents to you at this time of year in order for you to appear to keep your commitment and appear consistent to your child.

There are also other laws of influence being used here on your child, social proof as every one wants one and scarcity, they are limited amounts available, thus having one for Christmas will make them special.

Same thing is done with surveys. You sign a survey or petition to say you are against 'Animal Cruelty' then when they later contact you to ask for money in order to prevent cruelty how can you say no without appearing inconsistent, and without backing out of the commitment you made on the survey. There is proof that if you get someone to write down their commitment they are more likely to keep to that commitment!! Powerful stuff!!

Communication Skills part 1

Upon looking deciding the skills that made up the perfect manager, communications came to mind almost instantly. So I decided to start investigating all the different realms of communications skills available. I started with the obvious body language skills, which led into language patterns due there being a book by the same author. Whilst viewing the book shelves at Waterstones I came across a book on NLP, which seemed to cover both body language and language patterns. Also more complex language patterns such as embedded language, hypnotic language. Plus it covered off some management techniques and psychology as well.

So here is my list of communications skills

Body language

- Body posture

- Facial expressions

- Eye accessing clues

Language patterns

- Embedded language

- hypnotic language

- Precision language

- Milton model

- Meta model

- Sleight of Mouth

- Military language patterns

- Vak, Visual, Audio and Kinesthetic

- Filters

- Metaphors

- Anchoring

Influencing techniques

- Psychology

- 6 laws of Influence

In face to face communications 80% of communication is non-verbal, I am sure you will have heard this before. Not sure I agree with this statement. Once you start to understand the complexities of language patterns there is much more going on than you realise. It’s not about what is said, but more about how it is said and what isn’t actually said. Not saying Body language isn’t important, it adds to the overall meta-message and came show up any incongruence in the message being delivered verbally.

Next steps of blog to cover of individual parts of the communication skills I have listed above.