Cialdini and Baby Steps. Leading Your Client To Where You Want Them

Feb 122011

: Image via Wikipedia

I am sure you have heard the stories about American soldiers captured by the Chinese and later appearing on television denouncing their country and praising communism. What? You haven’t! Then really you should read Influence by Robert Cialdini. If you haven’t read it and haven’t got the time at the moment, make time, but first let me tell you here how they did it.

It wasn’t that as soon as a soldier was captured he immediately started to agree with communism, it was a series of baby steps taken by their captors, each one building on the last until they actually believed what they were saying. So for example the initial step would be to sign a piece of paper admitting that communism existed. Then the next might be for them to write a sentence with one thing they didn’t like about the States and this might have been followed up with one thing they liked about communism. I was reminded of this this morning when watching a couple of videos taken inside North Korea by a Newsnight reporter for the BBC. Some of the stuff the people believe despite the major evidence to the contrary in front of their eyes is unbelievable.

You can see the first of the videos here by the way but make sure to watch the second too and don’t you just love the North Korean Coat of Arms in the image.

The Art Of Seducing Your Client

In your market you are doing the same when enticing a potential client into buying your stuff. It is sort of like a seduction technique. (By the way for those of you who don’t know about Swiss Tony in the image have a look at his quotes here) You first want them to read your stuff, then sign up to read more of your stuff by giving them something of value of course and increasing the trust with your reader. Then you build up the trust over time and meanwhile all the time you are leading them to where you want them to buy your stuff.

Now if you offer nothing of value you will not get the trust built up. If it is blatantly obvious what you are doing then you will not get the sale either. It needs to be subtle but at the same time extraordinarily useful for your client.

Do you use the seduction technique with your clients or do you just go for the hard sell. Tell me how that’s working by the way if you do. When you ally this technique to check moves then you have a strong sales funnel working like a dream.

1) Check Move Theory. What Is It?

2) Check Move Theory: Do You Use It?

3) Who Do You Influence