In his ground-breaking book Influence, Science and Practice, Dr. Robert Cialdini of the University of Arizona uncovers six factors which have been established through research to be necessary to influence others. The book is about the psychology of persuasion and what ordinary folks like you and I can do to become a little bit more adept at influencing others.
Dr Cialdini identified these six factors after he spent years studying the language patterns and communication strategies of what he termed compliance gaining professionals, that is politicians, PR practitioners, advertisers, sales people, pastors and anybody who has to convince people for a living.
Today I am going to share some strategies from Dr Cialdini’s groundbreaking research as well as from my own experience having tested it in everyday life. One of the six principles of influence that Dr. Cialdidni identifies is “The Likability Factor.”
Which basically states that before you can influence others they have to like you, because if they don’t like you chances are high that their perceived low opinion of you will work against you. So let’s say that you have been invited to an important meeting where you have to influence some key players that you have never met and you are not sure if they will like you. How can you insure that they like you as a person and as a result by into your proposal? Remember people buy you first before they can buy your product.
In order for people to like you there has to be some kind of rapport or perceived likeness at some level because people generally like people who are like themselves. The first thing that you may want to do is to begin to look at the dress code of the people you are going to meet with and then mirror their dress code. It is not an accident that most business and social events invitations indicate the dress code. If you show up at black tie event in jeans you run the risk of losing credibility.
Now that you have gone to see your banker in a suit and not your usual jeans that you are used to, what then should you do to increase your chances of being liked and therefore close the deal? The next thing you have to do is to look at how they are carrying themselves and begin to mirror back the way they are carrying themselves. That means you talk like they talk, you stand like they stand, and gesture the way they do so that through your own behaviors and conduct you highlight other areas of commonality.
As people size you up subconsciously, the more they notice how much in common you have with them the more likely they are to accept and trust you as one of their own and the quicker you can be accepted as one of them the quicker you can begin to influence. The truth is that you don’t have to be one of their own; you just have to look, sound and make them feel like you are one of them. The reason why Barrack Obama was liked by so many people even beyond the US is because he learnt to sound, look and talk like he is one of us. He said things like, I have the same dreams and hopes for my children that you have for your children, I have the same frustrations about the economy as you and I have the same disappointments about our current leadership as you, that is why I am running for Presidency of the United States.
The more he talked the more he highlighted just how much more he was like his listeners and he used his common man appeal to inspire to common Americans to win the elections. His popularity doesn’t mean that he is more like us than most people are, but simply that he knows how we are alike and uses that skillfully to get you to like him which equates to influence.
So the quicker you can show people how much more alike you are to them in both words and actions the quicker you can influence them. It pays to respect the dress code because it gives you credibility you can turn into influence. As they say when in Rome do as Romans do, but if you want to influence people, when you leave Rome for Paris, stop doing what the Romans do and start doing as Parisians do.
This means you have to learn to blend into the crowd and become part of the crowd without losing yourself. It means that in matters of opinion you should flow gently like river but in matters of principle you should stand firm like a rock.
