A Personal Note From Orion

There is a psychology to why people say yes. By learning this, you can become more aware of implementing these fundamental principles ethically in your everyday life. A few examples would be to use memorable stories in conversations, give the person you’re talking to a genuine compliment, or be the first one to give something of value. 

There’s so much more to that, and I want to share this episode with you because it’s not just important for people who want to position themselves as authorities in their field, but for everyone who’s leading a unit, whether at work or home. And there’s no one more perfect to talk about than today’s guest, Dr. Robert Cialdini. 

Dr. Robert Cialdini is the New York Times bestselling author of Influence and Pre-Suasion. His books have sold over 7,000,000 copies in 44 different countries. He is known worldwide for his scientific work on what leads people to say yes to requests. Many people know him for the Cialdini Principles of Persuasion. Dr. Cialdini’s New and Expanded Influence just came out last week. Among other new findings, in his new book, he reveals his 7th Principle of Persuasion. He is often referred to as The Godfather of Influence. So without further ado, on with the show!

 

In this Episode

• [00:49] – Orion introduces Dr. Robert Cialdini. He is the New York Times bestselling author of Influence and Pre-Suasion. He is known worldwide for his scientific work on what leads people to say yes to requests. 
• [04:44] – Dr. Cialdini and Orion express their fascination and interests in knowing more about persuasion and influencing people’s minds.
• [11:22] – What is the difference between asking for advice and asking for an opinion?
• [15:29] – Dr. Cialdini discusses the first principle of influence, Reciprocity.
• [20:49] – How to practice the principle of reciprocation in a room full of influential people?
• [26:23] – How to establish Authority, the third principle of influence without being a braggart?
• [30:36] – Orion shares how she learned using statements that can help elevate her thought or idea in a conversation.
• [36:10] – Dr. Cialdini talks about the success of his books and his intent in publishing them in the first place.
• [40:54] – What is consistency, and how can it impact a person’s influence on people?
•  [43:20] – Visit Dr. Robert Cialdini’s website at influenceatwork.com to learn more about him and how to increase your influence.

Jump to Links and Resources

About Today’s Show

Hey, Robert, and welcome to the Stellar Life podcast. It’s a true honor having you here on the show. Thank you so much for being here. 

Well, I look forward to it. 

You’re a legend when it comes to influencing, and everybody knows who you are. I just wanted to ask you from your heart, how did you discover that passion for influence? What triggered you so much to focus on that?

Even as a young man, I realized that I was an easy mark for the pitches of various kinds of salespeople or fundraisers who would come to my door. I would find myself in unwanted possession of various items and contributing to causes I hardly heard of. It occurred to me that there must be something other than the merits of the offer that got me to say yes. It must have been the way that the offer was presented to me, how the features were delivered to me in some psychologically effective way that enchanted me or swept me along into saying yes. I thought to myself, “Well, that’s interesting. That would be worth studying.” Because other people would be interested in that and I’m interested in it myself. That’s how it began. 

I totally understand. That’s one of the reasons why I got into fitness is because I wanted to be fit. Sometimes we learn and teach the thing that we want to know for ourselves.

Exactly. I’m forever intrigued by the process of persuasion, how it works, how we can employ it, and how we can defend ourselves against it. I think I’m not alone in that. Most of the people I know want to know both of those things; how to harness the principles and how to reject and deflect when they’re being used on us in an unwelcome way.

I have the same type of fascination with influencing people’s minds, not necessarily for sales, but to give them breakthroughs. I studied hypnosis and NLP. It started as a hobby. A long time ago, when I was a personal trainer, I used to stretch my clients on the table and put embedded commands in their minds while they were in a relaxed state. “You are feeling great about your body. You are getting better and better.” I used to make sure that they notice the way they speak to themselves or about themselves. 

I was a good trainer, but I thought that the mindset, the way I spoke to their subconscious mind did more than the training, or it was just a wonderful combination. That’s how I left and became a coach and focused much more on how to influence people’s minds.

That’s interesting because I wrote a book a couple of years ago called Pre-Suasion. And it’s about arranging for people to be in a state of mind that is aligned with the direction you would like them to go before you ever offer communication or an appeal or a message designed to take them there. If they’re already in a mindset, then it becomes much easier. A good example is–I don’t know if you’re a wine drinker–but if you go into a wine shop, and the proprietor is playing German music, you are more likely to buy a German wine. If it’s French music, you’re more likely to buy your French drink, the same sort of thing. Where you are at the top of your mind determines the direction you’re going to take for your next step very often.

It feels like we’re almost not in control. We’re being bombarded by advertisements and news that want to take us in different directions. How do we protect ourselves from that powerful influence that is so smart that people spend years learning how to press our buttons and tap into our subconscious minds? How do we defend ourselves from all that?

First of all, we have to know the most basic strategies that they use and the most basic principles of influence that would steer us in that direction. So that when we encounter them, we can step back from the situation and say, “ I need to be careful here that what I want to respond to is the features of the offer, not the features of the way the offer was presented to me.” That’s a very important thing. In fact, at the end of each chapter of my book, Influence, I have a section called Defense. How do you recognize and resist when somebody is pushing you in a particular direction in a way that’s inauthentic? 

A lot of time, we do want information from people who honestly tell us what the authorities are saying about a particular topic, or what the largest selling or fastest-growing product on the market is, or whether there’s true scarcity and opportunity is dwindling away from us. We want to know that. It’s not that we always want to reject those kinds of fundamental ways to decide. We want to reject those that are fabricated, and people are not straight with us about whether there’s genuine scarcity in the situation or true authority voices speaking on behalf of their position, and so on. That’s the thing that I’ve learned to be alert to and guard myself against.

What’s the difference between ethical influence and fabricated influence?

It is the ability to, as a communicator, point to something that is inherently there in the situation that normally steers us correctly. Let’s say authority, expert opinions on a particular topic, if we have those available, and share those with people, then their uncertainty that that’s the correct way to proceed goes down, and they want that information. I would want that information if I was trying to decide what to take step A or B. And you were able to show me that here’s what the experts say. That would be something I would thank you for, and isn’t that something I would want to resist because you would be informing me into a choice rather than deceiving me. 

But of course, if somebody concocted those expert testimonials or wasn’t truthful in the extent to which the experts believe a particular direction is the right one. That’s the person we have to object to, not just in the moment, that is to say, “No, I’m not going there.” We have to then go online and tell other people about unethical conduct. Out of a desire to make sure that we’re dealing with honest brokers of information, we should reveal those people who have not been honest with us. And we should badge those people who have been honest with us online. 

Influence is when you arrange people to be in a state of mind aligned with the direction you would like them to go before you ever appeal a message designed to take them there. Click To Tweet

Can you explain the power of asking for advice versus asking for an opinion?

Very often, if we’ve got an idea, let’s say an outline form or a blueprint, we want to advance that idea, perhaps inside an organization of the line so that our boss or immediate manager would want to follow up on it. We want to get the buy-in from our colleagues first, to be sure that we can say that “I’ve tested this out with Jim, Janet, and Jane, and they all support it.” So how do we get people to give us buy-in to the ideas we want to make our own and employ to further goals that we have. 

What we typically do is we’ll show those folks an outline or a draft of our idea and ask for their feedback on it. But here’s the mistake we make, we ask for their opinion. And when we ask for an opinion, we get a critic. We get somebody who takes a half step back from us and goes inside themselves separate from us, goes inside themselves and aligns themselves with everybody else against us now that that’s how they’re thinking, “Okay, I’m going to judge this idea, and I’ll represent myself and everybody else versus this idea.” If we change one word instead of asking for their opinion, we asked for their advice. This time we get a partner instead of a critic.

Instead of asking for opinion, ask for advice. This time you will get a partner instead of a critic.

That makes a lot of sense. Because when you’re asking for an opinion, people look inward, and they think about themselves, and they want to be smart and sound smart, and the ego kicks in. They just want to give you their opinion and talk and talk. It’s like a self monologue. As you said, when you ask them for advice, it becomes a dialogue. People like helping other people. And they look at you differently when you ask for help.

Benjamin Franklin once said, “Forever appreciate the wisdom of those who asked for our advice.” We’ve got a partner now. We’ve got somebody who stands with us on that opinion, who is helping us against everybody else’s view of our idea, our initiative and so on. There’s an old saying, “When we ask for advice, we’re usually looking for an accomplice.” Well, here’s what the science says, “If we get that advice, we get that accomplice.”

Why did you switch from helping customers to helping marketers?

When I wrote the first edition of my book, Influence, it was for consumers to recognize and resist these principles. And the feedback, letters, calls, and so on that I got from people who read the book said, “That’s great, that helped us. But you know, I would like to be more influential in my life, family, friends, colleagues, and with people at work. Can you steer me in that direction too?” And that’s what caused subsequent additions to be more focused on ethical influence, creating change in others—but doing so ethically so that all sides would benefit.

Forever appreciate the wisdom of those who asked for our advice.<span class="su-quote-cite">Benjamin Franklin</span>

What are the keys to influence? Can you walk us through the 7 Keys to Influence?

The first is The Principle of Reciprocity that exists in all human societies. We are obligated to give back to others first given to us. So if you invite me to a party, I should ask you to one of mine. If you remember my birthday with a gift, I should remember yours with a gift. And if you do me a favor, I owe you a favor. 

People say yes to those they owe. There’s a very interesting implication here. If you go into a room where you want to be influential with the people there, your first question to yourself should not be, “Who can help me here?” Your first question should be, “Whom can I most help here? Whose circumstances can I elevate? Whose outcomes can I enhance?” As a result of this rule that we have all been socialized into from childhood, that person will want to help you when you need it. It’s a beautiful system for arranging for the exchange of various kinds of resources, services, and opportunities to further one another’s outcomes. 

A study was done in McDonald’s locations in Colombia and Brazil, and what the researchers did was arrange for every family that came into the location to receive a balloon for each child. Half of the families got that balloon as they were leaving. The kids got the balloon as they left the door. The other half, the kids, got the balloon as they entered. The parents bought 20% more food when the balloon came first. Inside that 20% increase in food order was a 25% increase in coffee orders; that wasn’t for the kids. You just told me that you have a year and a half old?

A year and seven months, yes. He’s my first.

Well, here’s what you know, if I do a favor for your baby, I’ve done a favor for you.

Oh my god, you’ll get everything.

If I do something for someone inside your we-group, the group you identify with like these people are of me, everything, all the barriers to influence calm down. But anyway, that’s the first principle of reciprocation. 

We prefer to say yes to those we like.

The next one is Liking. You wouldn’t be surprised, none of the people who are listening to this program would be surprised that we prefer to say yes to those we like. No surprise to that. But here are two small things that we can do to significantly increase the rapport that people will feel while interacting with them. The first is to point to genuine similarities between us, real parallels that exist. The second is to give genuine compliments. 

I do that not to influence. I just kind of say what I feel most of the time.

You do that automatically; you give praise and compliments to people who deserve it. That’s my biggest weakness.

You’re such a wonderful person, I’m so grateful you’re on the show, and I’m enjoying listening to you right now. And I’m genuinely saying that.

That warms my heart genuinely. I’m an academic, and I research, and I would be in a research meeting with my graduate students, and I would hear myself say, “Geez, that was a smart thing that Brad just said,” or, “Oh, how Rosanna just characterized the next step we should take, it was brilliant.” I would say it to myself, but I would lose all of the goodwill that would come from that honest compliment. These people deserved it. Why was I hoarding it? It has to do with something about the way I was raised, I’m sure. But now, I specifically do what you do automatically. If I hear myself say something about another, that’s admirable or commendable, and I move it from my mind to my tongue. And I can’t tell you how much better the interactions become as a result of that.

When we ask for an opinion, we get a critic. We get somebody who takes a half-step back from us and goes inside themselves separate from us, thinking, 'I am going to judge this idea.' Click To Tweet

That’s fantastic. I have a question about the first principle. You said, “When I enter a room, instead of asking, ‘Who can help me?’ you ask, ‘How can I help people?’” This is probably because I’m shy. When I enter a room, especially with super influential people like you, I’m like, “I don’t think I can do anything for them. They’re so amazing and successful and wonderful. What can I do for them?”

One thing that you can do is to spend a little bit of time and talk with them about what is going on in their lives or what challenges they might be having. You said you were into fitness for a while, you might go up to somebody and talk about that, and some hints that you could provide for them, their family members, or their kids. Whatever that would help based on what you already know. 

That establishes the third principle of influence, which is Authority. You not only give them something, but they also want to give back to you as a result. But you have demonstrated that you’re somebody who is expert on the topic, knowledgeable on the topic. Now they see you as an expert in addition to being a generous person.

I can tell you. I am very knowledgeable. I studied from the best in the world, and yet, I come to a room, and  I don’t talk. I think I was raised not to, and you brag, and it’s nicer to be modest and be a good girl.

Here’s a piece of advice–not my opinion, it’s my advice: do what I did with the compliments except do it with the thing that you are under-representing yourself. Make it a goal to interact with people and honestly inform them of who you are, what you do, what you do now and what you’ve done in the past, just in terms of a sociable conversation. Those things will come up. And here’s something that helps in that regard. It has to do with reciprocity. If you reveal something about yourself, the rule for reciprocity says people will reveal something about themselves. Now you have an exchange of information where people get a chance to know you, and you get a chance to know them. That’s a sure way to build bonds where people are revealing. It’s called self-disclosure. 

There’s a very strong piece of evidence in the literature of behavioral science. Self-disclosure is a reciprocal thing. People give back the amount, the level of disclosure they’ve received to somebody who’s provided it.

Self-disclosure is a reciprocal thing.

What’s the line between sharing and oversharing or sounding like a brag?

The key is to describe your background rather than announce it or proclaim it as something important. The best way I know to do that is in the context of a story. People don’t counter-argue stories. Stories just are. They counter-argue claims and assertions but not stories. Tell stories about yourself.

If you were me, what type of stories would you share?

You have to tell me a little bit more about what you said to me earlier that you’ve made a lot of knowledge acquisition in your life.

Yes. I studied from the best in the world. I did everything; Tony Robbins, Landmark, hundreds and hundreds of workshops of anything in self-development, relationships, or masterminds. I was in Genius Network. My husband and I used to travel all the time and just constantly go to different conferences and learn from incredible people. I traveled to India. I did some spiritual work there.

People don’t counter-argue stories. They counter-argue claims and assertions. Tell stories about yourself.

Here’s what I would recommend, and I should tell you a secret of mine. I’m very awkward at parties, same as you. Here’s what I’ve learned that works; it’s to reveal something about myself. 

But everybody comes to you, how can that be? Everybody comes to you like, “Can I shake your hand?” “Can I talk to you?”

I don’t initiate. I’m awkward at parties, and it’s difficult for me to do it. Even though I have a degree and wrote a book, it’s still difficult to swallow. Telling that story, you learn about my background and credentials, but also, they will say something in return, they will reveal something about them. And now we have a basis to talk or other stories about ourselves.

That’s good. So the first one is Reciprocation, the second one is liking.

The third one is authority. If we can show people that the idea we have or the direction we think they should take is aligned with what the experts are saying about it, then they will reduce their uncertainty and be more likely to step forward. 

If I do something for someone inside one's 'we-group,' the group that one identifies with as these people are of me, all the barriers to influence calm down. Click To Tweet

Give me a few more examples of how to build authority. 

There are always ways to do it that involve if you have a meeting with people on a particular topic, you can send them your LinkedIn page, or you can say, “Well, I’m very glad we’ll have a chance to meet on the topic of such and such. My background and experience regarding that are as follows.” You can send them a copy of your resume. You don’t want to do it in person because of the thing that you were talking about early that you don’t want to seem like a braggart. You just want to be informative. Just give people true information about yourself. 

That’s one thing. Then here’s another, and this is the one that most people will get wrong. It involves, let’s say, you have a particular idea that you want to further among a group or with a particular person. You’d like that person to adopt this idea. And what we typically are trained to do is to talk about all of the favorable aspects, all of the most positive features of that idea, the most compelling reasons to undertake it. Then if there are drawbacks, if there are weaknesses– all ideas have strengths and weaknesses, then at the very end, after we’ve got people leaning in our direction, we mention the drawbacks associated. This may take a longer time and other ways of approaching things, but you’re okay.

Here’s the key, the weakness should go much earlier because it establishes that we are not just knowledgeable about the strength of this idea. We know the pros and the cons. And secondly, it establishes us as credible sources of information—people who are willing, to be honest, enough to provide the weaknesses as well as the strings. 

Here’s what the research shows. If you mentioned a weakness early in your case, not the very first thing, you don’t sit down with somebody and say, “Let me tell you all the things that are wrong with me, my ideas, my product, my services,” No, but early. People say to themselves, “Well, I’m dealing with an honest broker of the information who knows the whole story, the pros and the cons. What’s the next thing she’s going to say?” They listen differently to things you say. And that’s the place where your strongest argument: immediately after you’ve mentioned a weakness. Then you provide the strongest argument that just sweeps away. But what remains is the perception of you as an honest broker of information. That’s the principle of authority, how you can get authority to work on your side.

That’s fantastic.

Here’s one other that we’ve learned recently in the research on persuasion science. If you have an expert voice that you can point to, in an appeal that you’re going to make. You say this, “This person, this acknowledged expert, believes what I am recommending as well.” You can multiply that authority impact by multiplying the number of authorities. If you can get multiple authorities, if you can marshal the evidence that multiple authorities are recommending are congruent with what you are recommending, that works better than a single authority.

You can multiply that authority impact by multiplying the number of authorities.

A very long time ago, I took a course in how to be on TV, and I did some TV appearances. I’ve been taught in my pitch to start with “Oprah Winfrey” and just say all kinds of celebrity names and how they relate to my idea and then speak about my idea. Because the moment I put them in the same sentence, I’m elevating my status, and people connect this. This is a little similar. I just that you bring some experts’ opinions and relate them to your idea, and then it elevates the state status of your idea.

That’s a bull’s eye observation. I would just add that the way you described it is exactly right. You do it upfront, so that authority aura infuses everything you say. I often hear people say, “Oh, by the way, this is something that Elon Musk believes,” or “This is what Charlie Munger and Warren Buffett believed.” Why would you wait until the middle or end of your presentation? Why not make that part of the aura that infuses everything you have to say right from the outset?

The next one is what we call Social Proof. Not only do people reduce their uncertainty about what they should do next by listening to or watching what the authorities are saying and doing. They do the same thing for their peers. What are the people around me saying or doing, or experiencing with regard to a particular idea or product or service? That information you’ve got from many people like you, who have already experienced something positive from following the particular recommendation you’re making, also reduces people’s uncertainty. “Oh, this is something for me too. I can do this and probably come out with positive outcomes as well.” 

A well-known principle of human behavior says that when we ask someone to do us a favor, we will be more successful if we provide a reason. - Dr. Robert Cialdini Click To Tweet

For example, there was a lovely study that was done in China. It shows you the cross-cultural reach of this idea of social proof. Managers at a string of restaurants in Beijing tried a little technique to increase the purchase of certain kinds of items on their menu. They put a little asterisk next to those items. And the purchase of those dishes increased by 13-20%, depending on which dish it was. Now, what did the asterisk stand for? It wasn’t what we usually see on menus. This is a specialty of the house, or this is what the chef is recommending for this evening. It wasn’t that. It was, this is one of our most popular items. And each one became more popular for its popularity. 

As communicators, if we can honestly give information that what we are recommending has been and is being chosen by many other people like them, it’s a popular choice that causes people to get off the sidelines and into the game with us. Stop dithering around and say, “Okay, well, then, this is probably a choice. I can make and do well and step forward, and act.” 

Before we move to the next key, can you share a story about a social proof about people that read your book or went to your lectures–I’m sure you have about a million of those–but something that is special, where people get your information, and it changed our lives?

I’ll tell you a social proof-based example that allowed people to buy my books for their teams. This was a manager who wrote to me and said, “I was in a bookstore, and I have a sales team. We were struggling. We weren’t making our numbers. And I was looking for a book that I could buy for each of my salespeople. And then, we would talk about the ideas in the book at weekly meetings. I saw your book on the shelf, and I didn’t know if I wanted to choose it versus some of the other books available. But then I looked on the back, and it said, ‘3 million sold.’ And I said, ‘This must be something that works.’” He said, “I bought it. We go through each chapter week by week, a chapter a week, we talk about it, and our sales numbers have skyrocketed.” So it had a big impact on this guy’s life because he got promoted from regional sales manager to national sales manager because of the principle of social proof. That was in my book.

The way to love anything is to realize that it might be lost. - Dr. Robert Cialdini, Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion Click To Tweet

Are you surprised by how incredible and how well your books did? Are you in shock or awe at your success?

I never suspected it. I’m grateful for it. I think I know the reason. I made a decision early on to look not at which principles of influence worked in particular settings, like sales versus marketing versus management versus public relations versus charity fundraising. I looked at which principles work in each of those, which were the principles that across the range of professions designed to get people to say yes to them, which principles were used in common across all of them. That was the evidence. 

When I look back, it was that choice, not looking at the differences between the various kinds of approaches and industries and professions, but the commonalities. That was the key. And if all of them use these principles successfully before I ever wrote about them, I just learned them and that they were using these principles. And by the way, I did that by being an undercover spy. I went into their training programs with disguised identity and disguised intent. I listened to what they said and worked across this range of influence professions. There was only this very small number that worked, and each one is a chapter in the book. 

Nice. So we had Reciprocation, Likings, we had to give genuine compliments, Authority, and Social Proof. So we got two more. 

People want to be consistent with what they have already committed themselves to.

The next one is Commitment and Consistency. The idea that people want to be consistent with what they have already committed themselves to. Now, what do we mean by a commitment? In the language of behavioral science, it’s something that you have already said or done on a particular topic, a position that you have taken on. So people who have made even a small step in a particular direction. If a communicator can get them to take a small step in that direction, those people will be significantly more likely to take a larger step, as long as it’s consistent with what they’ve already done. 

There was a study done in a restaurant in Chicago, Gordon Sinclair’s restaurant. He was a student of behavioral science. He was having a problem with no shows, people who would call, book a table, and then fail to appear. They just didn’t show up. We call them no-shows. He had 30% of them who were failing to show up. And he went and listened to what his receptionist said when she took in a reservation. She said, “Thank you for calling Gordon’s. If you have to change or cancel your reservation, please call.” He asked her to change her words. Instead of saying, “Please call,” he asked her to say, “Will you please call?” and pause to wait for people to say, “Sure, of course, glad to.” 

The no-shows at Gordon’s restaurant dropped by 67% and never went back up. People want to be consistent with what they have already said or done. A study showed that if you ask people to help out with a survey, for which they get no compensation at all, only 29% do. But if you first say “Excuse me,”–they stop people on the street– ”do you consider yourself a helpful person?” Well, everybody said yes. Then the marketer said, “Well, could you help us with this marketing survey?” A powerful principle of influence. 

Consistency is a willingness to be aligned with what you have previously said or done.

What is consistency?

Consistency is a willingness to be aligned with what you have previously said or done. Not to deviate from it without some good reason, like, “Oh, I got new information in the situation that I didn’t have before.” People don’t want to be seen as inconsistent because we think an inconsistent person is a flip-flopper or wishy-washy, or even dishonest. You say one thing and do another. People don’t want to see themselves that way, and they don’t want others to see them that way.

We just bought a car yesterday and returned it today. And one of the reasons I think, besides the fact that the car, even though it was a fancy car and it’s nice to think about as driving in this nice car, there was something about the salesperson. In my interactions with him, he says one thing, and then I caught him saying another thing later on. So it seems like he was kind of wishy-washy, kind of lying to me to try to push me to buy it. I think this was part of why we decided to return it.

Because you just couldn’t trust what he was saying that the results would be consistent, the experience would be consistent with his promises.

I like honest people, and I like to buy from honest people. It’s very important to me.

Somebody once did a study of the most positively rated trait in the English language. What is it? Is it intelligence? Is it altruism? Is it helpful? It’s trustworthiness. That’s what we value. And so we want to be that person in the eyes of those around us and our own eyes.

Yes, for sure. I wish we had more time, but I want to be respectful of your time. This was so far, unbelievable, and awesome, and just fantastic. Thank you for sharing all that with us. But before we say goodbye, for now, I have two more questions for you, Robert. The first one is, what are your three top tips for living a stellar life? And the second one is, where can people find you?

Go into every situation where you are meeting people for the first time, by thinking the best of them and thinking the best about them.

Let me take the second one first. Our website is influenceatwork.com, and they can get all kinds of information about what we offer. The first one, I’m going to take it a little differently. I’m going to give my top tip that has three positive consequences. And it is, go into every situation where you are meeting people for the first time, by thinking the best of them, thinking the best about them. That will allow you to be generous with them, and that generosity will have three very positive downstream consequences. 

First of all, they will like you, because you’re a generous person. Secondly, by the principle of reciprocation, they will be generous to you. And finally, by the principle of commitment and consistency, after they have seen themselves being generous to you, giving you resources, opportunities, information that will help you, they will see themselves as having made a commitment to your well-being. You will be consistent with it in the future. 

Beautiful. Robert, thank you so much. I appreciated our conversation. Thank you for sharing your wisdom and for taking the time to be with us. 

I have to say I enjoyed it. 

Awesome. Thank you. And thank you, listeners. Remember to think the best of people and use those incredible keys of influence that Robert shared with us today. Use it for good, be kind, genuine, loving and caring, and have a stellar life. This is Orion, until next time.

Your Checklist of Actions to Take

{✓} Learn more about the principles of persuasion. Learning this does not mean you become better at coercing people to do what you want, but it helps you become more trustworthy and relatable so that others find it worthy of supporting you.
{✓} Leverage the principle of reciprocity. This means that when someone does a good deed, people tend to return the favor. In this case, be the one who gives first so others will most likely reciprocate the action.  
{✓} Stay genuine. Authenticity in your actions without any form of bias or hidden agenda can help earn you more trust from people. 
{✓} Constantly build your social proof and authority. Keep improving your skills, knowledge, and network so you can share more value with your followers.
{✓} Ask for advice, not opinions. When you ask for advice, you instantly turn the person you’re asking into an ally. They will tend to look after your best interests when you seek their counsel.
{✓} Stay committed to your followers and provide value consistently. Owe it to your subscribers to remain active in engaging with them. It’s okay to take a break but make sure your followers stay informed and updated.
{✓} Don’t be ashamed to show vulnerability. Being vulnerable helps you connect better with people because they can relate to your pain or weakness. However, make sure that you aren’t doing this just to get sympathy. 
{✓} Compliment generously and genuinely. If you like what you see, don’t hesitate to say it out loud. You will instantly make other people’s day. 
{✓} Look out for the best in people. When you start with positivity, you achieve positivity. 
{✓} Grab a copy of Dr. Robert Cialdini’s latest book, Influence, New and Expanded: The Psychology of Persuasion.

Links and Resources

About Dr. Robert Cialdini

Dr. Robert Cialdini is the New York Times bestselling author of Influence and Pre-Suasion. His books have sold over 7,000,000 copies in 44 different countries. He is known around the world for his scientific work on what leads people to say yes to requests. Many people know him for the Cialdini Principles of Persuasion.

Dr. Cialdini’s New and Expanded Influence Just came out last week. Among other new findings, in his new book, he reveals his 7th Principle of Persuasion. He is often referred to as The Godfather of Influence.

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