Social Engineering Blogs

An Aggregator for Blogs About Social Engineering and Related Fields

A Question is Like a Flashlight

A former coworker and good friend Nancy Edwardsshared an article from Southwest’s Spirit Magazine titled “Chasing Beautiful Questions.” In the article I came across a quote from Steve Quatrano of the Right Question Institute:“A question is like a flashlight that we shine into the darkness, allowing us to move forward into the unknown and uncertain.”I loved the analogy of a question being like a flashlight because it’s so memorable! I also like it because asking good questions is a big part of being an effective persuader. When it comes to the principle of liking – it’s easier for us to say yes to those we know and like – questions are key to finding out what you have in common with another person. What we have in common with someone (similarities) is a proven way to engage the liking principle. Think about people you know who are from your hometown, have the same pet you do, enjoy the same hobbies or root for the same sports team. Studies show it’s easier for them to like you AND it’s easier for you to like them. The end result is it makes it easier for them to say “Yes” to you.You can learn these things a number of ways – ask people who know the person you want to persuade, Google them, check out Facebook, LinkedIn, etc. Or, when you’re with the other person you can shine the light of good questions to try and find out what you have in common so you can use those things to connect.Good questions also come in handy when you want to engage the principle of consistency. This principle of influence explains the reality that people want to be consistent in what they say, do, believe, etc. Typically people don’t resist their own values, attitudes and beliefs. If you know those things and can align your request to show the other person how what you’re asking lines up with those beliefs, values, attitudes, or past behaviors, it will be easier for them to say yes to whatever you’re asking.In much the same way that you discover similarities you can discover these things to engage consistency. Talk to people who know the person you’re tying to persuade, do an online search, and look at Facebook or LinkedIn.One last place questions come in handy is during the sales process, with scarcity. This principle highlights the truth that people respond more to what they might lose than what they might gain. Telling someone what he or she might lose by not going with your suggestion is effective persuasion but there’s a better way. Asking questions that highlight potential loss is a much more effective persuasion strategy. For example, in my industry, insurance, an insurance agent might ask the following of a prospective customer if they discover some deficiency in their insurance program: Agent – If you were to have a catastrophic loss, would you expect the insurance company to completely replace your building?Prospective Client – Of course I would. That’s why I carry insurance.Agent – I thought that would be the case but the reality is you don’t carry enough insurance to fully replace your building. You’d have to pay more than $200,000 out of pocket. Did you know that?Prospective Client – No, I thought I was fully covered!By asking the right questions the agent is shining the light on a dark place, a place the customer had not considered. When the customer voices what he wants that solidifies his desire even more. And this approach drives home the potential loss much more than the agent telling him what he might lose.So whether you want to connect with someone using liking, engage them with consistency or highlight possible loss, good questions are the way to go. They will shine a light to allow you to see things previously hidden and increase your chance for persuasion success. Brian Ahearn, CMCT® Chief Influence Officer influencePEOPLE Helping You Learn to Hear “Yes”.Cialdini “Influence” Series! Would you like to learn more about influence from the experts? Check out the Cialdini “Influence” Series featuring Cialdini Method Certified Trainers from around the world. 

Ancient Survival and Modern Day Complexities

The more I teach others about persuasion, the more clearly I see the principles of influence as a survival tool. Not only did they help our ancestors live day to day, they help us deal with the complexities of life in this information-overloaded society in which we live.Let’s consider the principles in relation to our ancestors.Liking – One way to engage liking is through similarity. In ancient times someone who looked like you was probably friendly whereas someone who looked different might be an enemy. It became easier to trust those with whom you could quickly tell you had something in common.Reciprocity – If someone helped you it would be wise to help him or her when the opportunity presented itself because you never knew when you might need his or her help again.Consensus – There’s safety in numbers so it was probably a good survival bet to go along with the crowd instead of opposing it. If everyone was in favor of some action your optimal choice was to go along with the group or you’d find yourself ostracized.Authority – We place a lot of confidence in those with superior wisdom and knowledge. It paid to go along with the leader’s direction because opposition could end your life in a multitude of ways.Consistency – To do what you promised would gain you favor most of the time. In turn you learned to rely on those with a track record of coming through as expected whether it was on the farm or on the battlefield.Scarcity – When good opportunities, like food and drink, came along it was a wise choice to take advantage of the opportunity because you never knew if such an opportunity would come around again.In the modern world we may not have life and death decisions very often but the principles help us keep our sanity. In my presentations I like to share a quote from William C. Taylor’s article Permission Marketing, which was written for the magazine Fast Company.“This year, the average consumer will see or hear one million marketing messages – that’s almost 3,000 per day.”Can anyone possibly take in 3,000 marketing messages every day, sort through them all, weigh the pros and cons and make the best rational decision? Of source not! You’d need a super computer to do that. But here’s a scary thought – Taylor’s quote is more than 15 years old! A more recent article on the New York Times, Anywhere the Eye Can See, It’s Likely to See an Ad, puts the number of daily marketing messages we’re exposed to closer to 5,000!To help us deal with the complexities of modern life we use the principles of influence as mental shortcuts. They help us wade through all the noise and when we hear something that resonates with us quite often that’s all we need to make a quick, satisfactory decision.  Liking – A friend tells you the company they used to put in their new kitchen floor and after a few questions you like what you hear so you decide to call the company for a quote. That saves a lot of time because you don’t have to do a lot of research.    Reciprocity – You do something that’s helpful, something another person truly appreciates. You sense they appreciate you and believe you want the best for them. It’s only natural for him or her to say, “Yes” if you need their help in return. Now you’re building relationship.  Consensus – If everyone is doing it then it must be worth considering. After all, quite often the wisdom of the crowd is better than a few smart people. Therefore best-selling items can usually be relied on over new products or services. Authority – With the crush of modern life it’s easier to turn to accountants for our taxes, lawyers for legal questions and doctors for our health. We find it easier to pay these people for their expertise because it gives us time to focus on things we’re good at and things that are more important to us.  Consistency – As society becomes more inter-dependent we rely on each other. A big part of the reliability is banking on someone doing what they said they would. We may be more pleased with a “steady Eddie” worker over the person who sometimes does great work and other times does poor work or misses deadlines.Scarcity – “Sale ends Sunday” is a classic. We don’t want to lose out on the possibility of a great deal so we get off the couch and get to the store before the end of the weekend. Much of the time this is an open door for us to get better deals.So there you have a comparison of the principles of influence in ancient versus modern-day survival. They don’t explain all of human behavior but if you pay attention you’ll see they do explain an awful lot of why people do what they do. Look for ways to ethically and correctly tap into them and you’re sure to be a more effective persuader.Brian Ahearn, CMCT® Chief Influence Officer influencePEOPLE Helping You Learn to Hear “Yes”.Cialdini “Influence” Series! Would you like to learn more about influence from the experts? Check out the Cialdini “Influence” Series featuring Cialdini Method Certified Trainers from around the world. 

Persuading Einstein and Members of AARP

I just finished Einstein: His Life and Universe by Walter Issacson. Excellent book! Issacson also wrote another very interesting biography I read a few years ago, Steve Jobs. His book on Einstein was so well written and portrayed Einstein in such a way that I was sad at the end to read about his death because I felt like I was just getting to know him. We all have notions of Einstein from school, quotes we’ve read, movies we’ve seen and various other sources. Some of what we learned was true and much was fairy tale or at least exaggeration. What fascinated me about Einstein was how much of a rebel he was in his youth and how much he was willing to change as he got older when the facts warranted change.As we get older, change gets harder. In some sense we’ve honed what works for us and those patterns or habits – which include speech and thought – are no exception. We think what we think and do what we do because we believe it’s the right way or the best way given the situation. Dale Carnegie understood this and that’s why one of his tips from How to Win Friends and Influence Peopleencourages us to “show respect for the other person’s opinion and never say, ‘You’re wrong.’” Never forget, right or wrong, people have reasons for what they do.Beyond being stereotyped as “set in their ways” is there any proof that older people are more difficult to persuade? Actually there is. A study mentioned in Robert Cialdini’s Influence Science and Practice noted, “in a follow-up study employing subjects from ages 18 to 80, we found that preference for consistency increased with the years and that, once beyond the age of 50, our subjects displayed the strongest inclination of all to remain consistent with their earlier commitments (Brown, Asher, & Cialdini, 2005).”So as we age it’s natural to cling tightly to closely held beliefs, attitudes, values, and ways of doing things. As most of you reading this know, it can be darn hard to change someone’s mind, especially as they grow older.So what’s this have to do with our friend Albert Einstein? On one hand he seemed to cling stubbornly to his view of the universe and dismissed some newer science including quantum mechanics. Without going into detail on either issue, suffice it to say that despite lots of data on quantum mechanics, there were a few important questions Einstein could not reconcile in his head. Had someone been able to help him do that he might have changed his mind and abandoned his search for a unified theory.Being an analytic personality, Einstein would naturally cling to his beliefs because he so thoroughly thought them through. You’d need data to convince him AND you’d need to do so at the points that were of most concern to him. No scientist could convince him that we can never truly tell a particle’s exact position and momentum (a tenant of quantum mechanics). Scientists believe we can only guess at those two things but Einstein could not reconcile that in his mind so he held to his earlier beliefs about the universe.On the flip side there was something very dear to Einstein’s heart that he eventually did change his mind about. He was an ardent pacifist in his younger days and believed if people would refuse military service there would never be a need for military action by nations. His view on this was shaped by the horror of World War I and the unparalleled destruction it brought on the world at that time.Through the early 1930s he held onto this view. However, with the rise of Hitler and the Nazis in Germany he began to re-examine that view. While he never embraced war, he came to believe people should enlist to defend freedom. He was also instrumental in getting President Roosevelt to start exploring nuclear technology and was against unilateral disarmament towards the end of his life because of the imbalance of power it would cause.Why did he change? He was confronted with facts and the reality was the stakes were too high to be wrong. As you attempt to persuade people you’d do well to consider where they are in their life cycle. Teenagers and younger people have not developed the same groove older people have. It’s easier for them to experiment and quite often there is much less at stake for them in terms of loss should they make a mistake.However, as people get older and responsibilities increase, scarcity – the fear of loss – also plays into the equation too. Changing jobs when you have a family or child getting ready for college changes the equation for many people. The stakes are much higher for a wrong decision.Helping minimize fear of loss becomes very important, as does the ability to tie your request to consistency – what someone has said or done in the past, what they hold as far as values and beliefs. And when you try to tie into consistency make sure there’s not some other point that’s most important for the other person otherwise you’ll hear, “Yes, but…” That was Einstein’s retort to the physicists who pushed quantum mechanics.As is the case with sales, persuasion comes down to knowing your audience and their “hot buttons.” Once you know those two things, crafting you argument becomes much, much easier.  Brian Ahearn, CMCT® Chief Influence Officer influencePEOPLE Helping You Learn to Hear “Yes”.Cialdini “Influence” Series! Would you like to learn more about influence from the experts? Check out the Cialdini “Influence” Series featuring Cialdini Method Certified Trainers from around the world.