Robert Cialdini: "Everyone Should Memorise This Persuasion Principle"

My guest on today's episode of Nudge really needs no introduction. "Well, I'm a behavioural scientist, and all my life I've studied the process of influence and persuasion." My guest didn't just study influence, he wrote the era-defining book on influence. Published back in 1984, his book, Influence, has sold over 5 million copies and has been released in 44 languages, and it's won my guest the title, The Godfather of Influence. Today's guest is of course, Robert Cialdini, and Cialdini's passion for persuasion comes from one question that he's been asking for over 40 years. "How do we optimise our impact by using the smallest possible changes to our persuasive appeals? We call these small bigs the most economical way to produce a big effect, the ones that require the least effort or time or expense." Today on Nudge, Cialdini will share two of these small bigs. Two small principles you can apply to your work that will have an outsized impact on your bottom line. All of that coming up. Being a no-it-all used to be considered a bad thing, but in business, it's everything. Because right now, most businesses only use 20% of their data, unless you have HubSpot. HubSpot transforms data that is buried in emails, call logs and meeting notes into insights that can help grow your business, because when you know more, you grow more. And I think that's an example where being a no-it-all isn't so bad at all. Visit hubspot.com today to learn more. In 1985, Ethiopia had experienced extreme suffering, perhaps more than any other nation at the time. Its economy was in ruin, its food supply had been decimated by years of famine. Thousands of people were dying per day from starvation. And yet that same year, 1985, Ethiopia sent a $5,000 relief donation to Mexico to help Mexico City victims following a number of earthquakes. Now, it's worth noting that $5,000 isn't much, it's around $15,000 in today's money. However, typically incredibly poor countries, like Ethiopia, with suffering citizens, wouldn't give any foreign aid. So why did Ethiopia buck the trend? Why did they give foreign aid? Well, Chaldini looked up the reason why. He found that in 1935, Mexico had sent aid to Ethiopia when it was being invaded by Italy. Ethiopia, despite all of its troubles, wanted to return the favor. This is what Chaldini calls one of his seven principles of influence, reciprocity. We feel the need to return the favors of others. He writes that for Ethiopia, the need to reciprocate has transcended great cultural differences, long distances, acute famine, many years, and immediate self-interest. Quite simply, half a century later, against all countervailing forces, obligation triumphed. I think it's an imperative that every culture installs in its members from childhood the idea that we must not take without giving in return. We have very nasty names for people who do that. In the United States, we call them moochers, or takers, or ingrates, or teenagers, actually, and nobody wants to be labeled like that. And so people stand ready to give back to us. But there is a catch, reciprocity doesn't work if you give after you've received. No, for reciprocity to work, you have to give first. If we have gone first, if we have made the first presentation of resources, services, gifts, favors of one sort or another, they want to reciprocate. They want to give back. And the takeaway is that we do have to give first. If we want to engage that power of the rule of reciprocity, we need to go first. We need to give. We need to give benefits, advantages, information, effort, and people will return that. Chaldini clarifies this in his book. He shares how the Disabled American Veterans Association reported that its standard direct mail appeal for donations produces a response rate of around 18 percent, 18 percent of people who receive the letter donate. But when the mail first included an unsolicited gift, a pack of address labels in this case, the success rate of donations nearly doubled to 35 percent from 18 percent to 35 percent just with a small gift. However, sending the gift after the donor donated didn't increase future donations at all. This is not to say that saying thank you isn't worthwhile, but it shows that giving first is what triggers this reciprocity principle. There's a great study in McDonald's locations. It was done in Colombia and Brazil, and they showed that McDonald's locations there where for a week, every family who came in to the location, each child received a balloon. Half of them got the balloon as they were leaving as a gracious thank you for frequenting the McDonald's, right? The way we often do, we thank people after an exchange for working with us in a productive way. The other half, the kids got the balloon as they entered, and their parents spent 25 percent more of their wallet. So what we do first changes the way people want to respond to us and want to give back. So it's very important that we recognize that and that it doesn't have to be material. It can be something like effort or information that we provide to them that will be beneficial to them. They want to give back. In episode 69 of Nudge, titled "Ressiprosity", I put this to the test. I offered my followers not a financial favor, but information. I created two LinkedIn ads, both promoted a report I'd written on the top 15 insights I'd discovered since launching Nudge. One of the ads simply said, "Click the link to download the full list." The other ad gave some information away for free. It showed the first four insights up front and then asked the viewer to download. The first ad, with no information given away up front, had a click-through rate of 1.94 percent. The second had a click-through rate of 2.38 percent. When I gave away some information first, I boosted my click-through rate by 23 percent. There's a great study in the UK of investment bankers in London who were asked to contribute to a charitable organization that the bank that they were working for supported. And if they were given a packet of sweets before the request by the requester, they doubled the likelihood that they would make a contribution. So this is something that's cross-cultural and very deep inside of us. However, Cialdini has a warning. He says that to get the most out of reciprocity, you should give a gift that matches your customer's needs. Researchers Friedman and Rahman, in 2011, conducted studies in a fast-food restaurant. Now, some visitors were greeted warmly as they entered. Others were greeted warmly and given a gift of a nice key ring. Now, compared to the visitors who received no gift, those given the key ring spent 12 percent more on food. This matches what we would expect. People reciprocate. However, a third group of visitors was warmly greeted and given a small cup of yoghurt. So not a key ring, but a small cup of yoghurt. Even though the retail value of the yoghurt matched that of the key ring, the yoghurt increased the food purchased by 24 percent, much more than just the key ring did, which was 12 percent. Why? Well, Cialdini says it's because visitors entered with a need for food and matching the gift with the need made the difference. So for reciprocity to work best, you must give first and match your gift to the customer need. One brand does this brilliantly. The family pet provider of food and equipment and so on. Chewy sends a condolences letter to every customer who's lost one of their pets and gives them that mention of their condolences. Chewy, the pet online retailer, isn't in the UK, so I had to look this up. And what I found was genuinely incredible. I saw a picture on Reddit of a Chewy customer posting an image of a bouquet of flowers alongside a handwritten condolences card after one of their pets had passed. Another shared an email screenshot where Chewy's, without being prompted, refunded a seven pound bag of dog food the customer had recently bought before their pet passed away. They did that unprompted. I think that's incredible. And there's even a number of people who received condolences cards from Chewy's where a hand-painted image of the owner's cat or dog that had passed was printed on the front of the card. Beautiful. I mean, because when you've lost a pet, it's like you've lost a family. And here's somebody who's just a purveyor. No, they're more than that. They're a relationship partner if they feel your sadness and acknowledge it. Of course, Costco, which uses free samples in their store, you go by the tables and there's a nice lady sitting behind the counter with little squares of cheese and meat and ask you if you like to sample them. I've done that and it's very difficult to just give back the toothpick. And I wind up buying and Costco's data show that if you do that, you get increased purchase almost exclusively from those people who've received this small gift. One Southern California study running a candy shop experimented with these free samples, cited on page 22 of Chaldeany's book. He writes that those who received a small free piece of candy as they entered the store were 42% more likely to make a purchase than those who received no piece of candy. Interestingly, the recipients didn't just buy the candy they had sampled. They bought more of all types of candy. Chaldeany notes that even if they didn't particularly like the candy they were given, they still felt obligated to return the favor by purchasing something. Coke these days have just revived a very successful program that they had from 10 years ago. It's called Share a Coke, where they have printed on the cans of Coke the names of people. You can buy a Coke for and you hand them this this gift. Or sometimes it's a category like mate or friend or sister. And you get that connection and you give their product as a gift, which causes those people to want to give back to you as a consequence. It's brilliant. This reminds me of one of the original studies on reciprocity. It's Dennis Reagan's 1971 experiment, which is now been cited 721 times. It's very popular. I've spoken about it before on the show, but I think it's worth sharing again. In this study, participants were asked to rate paintings alongside Joe. Joe was a research assistant posing as another participant. Now, in one condition, Joe returned from a break with two Coca-Cola's, one for him and another that he gave to the participant. He'd say, oh, I asked the experimenter if I could get myself a Coke and he said it was fine. So I bought one for you as well. In the other scenario, Joe returned with a can of Coke for himself, but empty-handed for his fellow participant. Later, Joe asked the participant to buy a 25 cent raffle ticket for charity. The results were striking. Those who had received the Coke gift bought twice as many raffle tickets as those who hadn't. A clear demonstration of how a very small favour can trigger a powerful sense of obligation. And this reciprocation is totally asymmetrical because the participants gave far more than they gained. The cost of a Coke at that time was just a dime. And yet, on average, most participants bought two 10 cent raffle tickets. That's a two-fold return on investment. Reciprocity is a simple yet powerful way to change behaviour. Give first and give something relevant, and customers will return the favour often with asymmetric benefits. But reciprocity is not the only principle Chaldeany wanted to share today. You know who uses it very well is Peloton. They have something that's called a one-minute commitment. At the beginning of the day, they ask you to make a commitment for one minute. Hear about Peloton, the one-minute commitment, and this principle after the break. The next wave, your Chief AI Officer, hosted by Matt Wolff and Nathan Lanz, is brought to you by the HubSpot Podcast Network, the audio destination for business professionals. Listen and you'll hear from leading AI creators who are your guiding light in the AI and technology frontier. AI technology is transforming the way we do business, and the media landscape is fragmented. The next wave strives to be the leading podcast on AI technology and how you can apply it to growing your business. Listen to the next wave wherever you get your podcasts. Hello and welcome back. You are listening to Nudge with me, Phil Agnew. And today on the show, we really have a bucket list guest of mine. It is Robert Chaldeany, the Godfather of Influence, an author of possibly my favourite book in marketing psychology and behavioural science. So far, he has taken me through the reciprocity principle, but he wasn't done. People are socialised to be consistent with what they have already committed themselves to in public, and especially in your presence. If they have taken a stand, if they've voiced an opinion, if they've enacted a behaviour, they want to be congruent with it so that they don't look like they're not internally consistent within themselves. Let's say that your product is really strong in terms of security. If you ask them, so tell me, do you value security of your data? They're going to say yes, and they have now made a commitment to a strength that you have. And they're more likely to follow through because they have committed themselves. You haven't asked them to do something that they don't believe. You've asked them to go inside and find evidence for something they truly value. And then you are able to show them that you can connect with that value. You have an ability to realise it for them. In Chapter 7 of Influence, Chaldeany refers to the psychologist Stephen J. Sherman. Sherman's study is very interesting. He called a sample of Indiana residents as part of a volunteer request for the American Cancer Society. Now, sometimes Sherman asked the residents if they could volunteer, and when you ask people if they can volunteer, results tend to be mixed, as they were in this case. The vast majority of people said no. Other times he asked them first, could you predict what you would say if someone asked you to spend three hours collecting money for the American Cancer Society? Of course, not wanting to seem uncharitable to themselves or the survey taker. Many residents said, well, of course I'd volunteer. Sherman then called those people back a few days later and found that that subtle commitment increased volunteering by 700%. I have a friend who's a Boy Scout leader, and he has a couple of sons in the Boy Scouts. And he called me and said, you know, we try to raise money for the Boy Scouts on weekends by going to supermarkets, and we put up a table outside the entrance and exit. And as people leave the market, we ask them, excuse me, would you like to buy some popcorn? It would support the Boy Scouts. Well, they get very little result there because people have already spent their budgets. If they wanted popcorn, they could get it in the store and so on. He said, can you help me with this? So tell me what you say to them. He said, we say, excuse me, would you like some popcorn? It would support the Boy Scouts. And we get about 15%. I said, try this. Say, excuse me, do you support the Boy Scouts? They all nod, yes. Would you like some popcorn? It would support the Boy Scouts. Now they're being congruent with something they've already said. He gets 51%. What do you ask first? Where do you ask people to reach in and find inside themselves? You're not manufacturing it. You're not counterfeiting it. You are asking them to get in touch with something that they truly believe that is linked to a strength of what you have to offer them. Consumer researcher Daniel Howard found a way to do this for all companies, not just charities and Boy Scouts. He called residents in Dallas and asked them to allow a representative from the Hunger Relief Committee to visit their home and sell cookies to raise money for meals for the needy. Now, when this request was made on its own, only 18% agreed. That's where we're used to at this stage. But in another version of the call, the caller first asked, "How are you feeling this evening?" and then waited for an answer before making the same request as before. Out of the 120 people phoned, 108 gave the very typical positive response. When asked how you were feeling, people said, "Good, fine, pretty good." Now, among those people, 32% of them then went on to agree to host the cookie seller. That was almost double the response of the standard approach. So you don't have to ask up front if you would support the Boy Scouts or American Cancer Society, just asking a customer how they are feeling can be enough to trigger commitment and that need for consistency. You know who uses it very well is Peloton. They have something that's called a one-minute commitment. At the beginning of the day, they ask you to make a commitment for one minute on Pentatec. Well, nobody stays for just one minute. But if you make a commitment to it, then you go ahead and say to yourself, "Well, I can do this in one minute. I can satisfy my commitment here with this." But you don't. You stay on and everybody's better off for it. This reminds me of one of my favorite Chaldini studies. Alongside his colleagues, John Caccioppo, Rod Bassett and John Miller, Chaldini used a small ask to get students to commit to a much larger unpleasant activity, which in this scenario was a 7 a.m. lecture on thinking processes. Now, when calling one sample of students, they immediately informed them of the 7 a.m. lecture and only 24% of them were willing to come along. However, when calling a second sample of students, they threw in a small ask. They asked the students if they'd be willing to participate in a lecture on thinking processes and most responded positively. 56% of them said yes. Chaldini then mentioned the 7 a.m. start time and gave them a chance to change their minds. But none did. What's more, in keeping with the commitment to the principle, 95% of the small asked students did actually appear for the 7 a.m. lecture as promised. Peloton used the same principle. They get customers to commit to something tiny, one minute of exercise. That's very easy to commit to. But once you've woken up, put on your gym gear, loaded up the bike, jumped on the machine, started the session, you're just not going to stay for one minute. The one-minute commitment is easy to say yes to because it's a small ask. But that commitment encourages customers to stay working out for much, much longer. It's genius. But it's not the only way. Brands use consistency. Companies that use referral programs where you ask your customer base and you incentivize them to refer a friend or a neighbor or a coworker to what you have experienced as a positive thing. Those referral programs are among the most effective marketing practices that the data suggests works remarkably well. Because, first of all, the person who has made the recommendation to a friend or colleague has made a commitment to your brand. And you find out that they stay loyal to it as a result of having made that referral. They are on record as supporting. And if something goes wrong, something turns south, they stay loyal to you. Even under conditions where other people are leaving, they do not. They have been on record as recommending it. And the nice thing about it is that those people who have been moved in your direction stay as well and purchase more items because it was a recommendation of a friend. We'll get to the liking principle later. But someone they like has recommended it to them and you get that positivity associated with the brand as a consequence. So it's a double-barreled positive outcome. If you get your customers to publicly promote your brand, they will become far more loyal. We've known this since 1955 when Deutsch and Gerard published their well-known study. In the classic study, which has been cited over 9,000 times, Deutsch and Gerard showed college students lines and had them estimate their lengths. Some students publicly committed to their estimates, writing them down, signing them and handing them in. Others privately committed, so wrote them down and then erased them before anyone else could see. And a third group made no written commitment at all. They just thought about their answer in their head. Afterwards, all the students received information suggesting their estimates were wrong and they were given a chance to change. The results were clear. Those who didn't write down their commitment, they just thought about it in their head, they were most willing to change their answers. Those who committed privately, so wrote it down and erased it, they were less likely to change than the other group. And those who committed publicly wrote down their answers and then could still see those answers because they had handed those in to the researcher. Well, they were least likely at all to reverse their judgments. Public commitment makes students more stubbornly consistent. And likewise, asking customers to publicly promote your brand will make them far more loyal. We feel a need to return favours. We all know this, but some companies use it to their advantage. They give first, perhaps offering a free sample, a balloon to customers, or a $5 check before asking customers to complete a survey. These acts of kindness make the marketing campaigns more effective. Other smart brands leverage consistency. They ask customers to commit to just one minute of exercise. They probe customers asking, "Is security important to you?" And they create referral schemes to turn customers into loyal advocates. It's not hard to see why the world's fastest growing, most successful companies adopt Chaldeany's principles of influence. But we've just covered two principles today, and Chaldeany has seven principles in total. There's a good chance you want to learn all seven. So, do you want to learn all seven? Well, if you answered yes to that question, then obviously you've fallen to my consistency trap. You should have known that. But you should probably also attend Chaldeany's event on the 5th and 6th of December. Yeah, it's a mastermind event. It's going to be in Arizona and in the Phoenix area on December 5th and 6th, where we're going to talk about these principles of influence with a particular emphasis. It's not how they work and how to conceptualize them and so on. It's how to implement them. That's the key. This one is going to be about execution, about application of what we have known to the situations that people who come to this event find themselves. What are their challenges and how do we use these principles to overcome those challenges, achieve their goals? It's called Influenced Unleashed. It's an in-person event, but there are virtual seats available as well. So, if you, like me, live nowhere near Arizona, you can watch it online. I would suggest you go check it out. There's a link to it in the show notes. And I should also say it's been a huge privilege to speak with Robert Chaldeany. When I started Nudge six and a half years ago, he was at the very top of my list of bucket list guests. So, thank you Chaldeany for coming on. His content is fantastic. I'm sure his event will be wonderful. So, do go and check it out. Just search for Influenced Unleashed or click the link in the show notes. Today, we've covered reciprocity and consistency. I should say these are just two of the 85 different nudges I've talked about on this podcast and just two of the 85 nudges that you can look at and analyze in the Nudge Vaults. The Nudge Vaults is my new product. It is a database of 452 insights that I've shared over the six years running this show. There are 28 insights about reciprocity, 32 about consistency. And for each of those insights, there are examples and tips on how you can apply these insights to your business. So, if you listen to podcasts like this episode today and you want to take these ideas but translate them into results for your business, then I think Nudge Vaults is for you. You can preview the Nudge Vaults database for free with no strings attached. Just go to nudgepodcast.com/volts. That is nudgepodcast.com/volts to preview it today. Okay, that's all from me. I'll be back next Monday with another episode of Nudge and very good news. In a few weeks, Cialdini will be back on to talk about one of the most important principles of all time. Scarcity, don't miss it.