Best Practices in Sales: The Six Principles of Persuasion

The Six Principles of Persuasion

 

 

I wish that I could take credit for the information that I’ll be sharing in this blog – but as I tell my clients – I’m only as good as the information that I repeat!

 

Dr. Robert Cialdini is considered the foremost expert on persuasion and influence. As I’ve written in previous blogs, he has written several books and has an excellent website. I encourage you to check out www.influenceatwork.com.

 

Dr. Cialdini has come up with these six principles of persuasion. There are worth committing to memory:

 

1.     Reciprocity:  People want to return a favor. When you do something for someone, like providing information – they’ll want to do something for you in return. Give something to get something.

 

2.     Scarcity: We deem things to be more valuable if they are hard to get. Perceived scarcity will create demand.

 

3.     Authority: People tend to believe “experts.” If someone who I believe is an “expert” said it, it must be true.

 

4.     Consistency: If you can get someone to verbally commit to or agree with an idea, they are more likely to stand behind their comments. We tend to stand behind our “stated” beliefs with action.

 

5.     Consensus: People will look for “social proof” of their ideas or actions. Do others “like me” feel the same way or do the same thing? This is why social networks are so important.

 

6.     Like-ability: We tend to believe and buy from people we like.

 

If you want to be more persuasive (and in sales, you need to be) – make sure you integrate these six principles into your selling style and process. It can make the difference between a winning year and a mediocre one.

Looking for the Right Sales Training Program?

by Lois Wong

Looking for the Right Sales Training Program?

When I was tasked with developing a training program for my company years ago, there were two things I needed

• #1: training for me (train-the-trainer)
• #2: training for the sales people.

There are many good sales training programs on the market; however, not many offer "Customization and Coaching".  In other words effective sales programs should provide customized training with follow-on coaching.  Without the follow-on coaching, the learning isn't reinforced nor are the metrics aligned with solid sales principles.

When sessions are taught in small portions (like a having small meals per day instead of one big banquet), information is ‘digested' more easily and ‘absorbed' more completely.  The combination of customized training and follow up incremental coaching enables better retention resulting in a higher degree of performance success.

Sales managers can provide a lot of benefit to their teams by doing their own "bite sized" training at weekly sales meetings. Spending even 20 minutes per week on training can make a big difference. Ways to structure these mini-training sessions include:

• Role playing an objection that came up during the week
• Assign each member of the sales team a particular sales skill that he/she needs to train the team on and rotate the training responsiblility among your team
• Assign a sales book, podcast, or video to the sales team and spend 20 minutes reviewing and role playing concepts that were presented
• Choose one deal per week that closed and analyze why
• Choose one deal per week that DIDN'T close and analyze why

These are just a few suggestions to get you started. We'd love to hear what's worked for you in the past. Let us know!