Mastering Influence: Robert Cialdini's Seven Principles for Speakers (part 1)

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There are some key principles to influence that really anyone who's

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interested in being more influential and

persuasive should know, and they come

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to us through some amazing work by Dr.

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Robert Cialdini.

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And you may have already come

across his book, influence the

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Psychology of Persuasion where

these principles are contained.

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Welcome to present influence these

show for professional communicators who

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want to impact, influence, and inspire

with their talks and presentations.

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My name's John Ball, keynote

and communications coach on your

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guide on this journey to mastery

level communication skills.

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It never ceases to amaze me that I have

experts in influence come onto my podcast.

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Who have never heard of Robert Cialdini

and his principles of influence and

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persuasion, and so it may be the case

that you haven't heard of them before

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or that you have come across them.

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What I've been planning to do for a while

now is to run a series on influence and

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persuasion skills, starting with Dr.

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Cialdini's seven principles because

it has been expanded since the

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original book and some of the

additional principles that he teaches.

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As well as things like tools of

rhetoric, logical fallacies, and

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other aspects that affect our ability

to be influential and persuasive.

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We'll look at the key elements of

charisma for being on platforms

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particularly, and we are gonna be

relating all of this to you being on

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stage as a speaker, because generally

you don't hear about these principles

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being applied specifically to the world

of professional or public speaking.

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So in this video, I want to introduce you

to all of the seven principles, and then

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we will start on the very first one today,

and we'll continue those in this series.

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The first principle from Dr.

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Cialdini's book influenced the

psychology of persuasion is scarcity.

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So we're gonna come to what scarcity is

all about in just a moment and how it's

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relevant and applicable for speakers.

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But the other six principles

are authority seeming like you.

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The expert that you know

what you are talking about.

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I guess that you look the path,

that you seem like somebody

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who should be where you are.

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In the same way that doctors often

wear white coats and you identify

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that they're medical professionals.

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Not everybody wearing a white

coat is necessarily a medical

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professional, social proof.

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As a speaker, you might wanna be talking

about people who you've worked with, where

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you've helped them get great results.

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Most of us will have these kinds of things

on our websites with our demo reels.

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Showing places where we've actually gone

and done some speaking crowd reactions,

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maybe even some direct feedback from

people who've been attending our events

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from our bookers, that kind of thing.

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Social proof liking is another one.

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We tend to like people

who like us, people.

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Having people like you

is really important.

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As a speaker, you're probably never gonna

have everybody like you, but there are

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things you can do to help increase the

likelihood of people liking you, and

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we'll talk about that in another episode.

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Reciprocity would be another one

where you are essentially giving

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people something for free and then

they in some way feel that they need

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to give you something back as well.

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Now, that's something you would

maybe think has to be of value.

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Chad said not so much.

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However, I'll say this, we are, you

know, before, before we even get to

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that episode, we are all very used

to having things with free giveaways,

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and they mean less and less to us.

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And we don't always feel the need

to reciprocate when we've received

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something free as an online gift

or an additional bonus in our

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package or anything like that.

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So.

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If you're gonna use this, you have

to think about ways that you can

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give and give something of value,

something that will actually

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generate that feeling of, that.

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The principle of reciprocity

does still really work, even to

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some degree when we've become a

little, a little more immune to it.

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Consistency is a really

important one as well.

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If you are the kind of person who

always says that you're gonna do this,

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and you do things this way and this

is what you are about, and then your

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actions tell people the opposite,

it's gonna be hard to stay consistent.

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I'm talk a little bit about consistency

in relation to scarcity as well.

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In this episode, people want to know

that they can trust what you're gonna

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say and that you'll follow through,

and it gives them a level of safety.

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So this is really important

for you as a speaker.

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If one day you show up on stage and

you are super high energy and people

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are up and jumping around, but the next

day you're kind of low energy, you're

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exhausted, you're on a bit of a downer,

and your audience is, you know what's

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going on, you, you're not the, don't seem

like the same person you were yesterday.

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Perhaps more commonly.

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People who really just turn it

all on when they get on the stage.

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Everything is just the performance.

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And that's not even really who they are.

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They are the actors of the industry.

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The people who can turn on

the charm when it matters.

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They can deliver and they can go on stage.

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And yeah, people maybe want a bit of that.

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We don't want it to be

that who we are on stage.

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Is completely different to who we are

off stage, and I'll talk more about

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this when we get to this episode,

but I certainly have known people who

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were great on stage, great presenters,

great speakers, and off stage, could

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barely even say a word to anybody.

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Really socially awkward and

very difficult to work with.

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And then other people who are great on

stage, great presence and off stage.

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They're still the same person, but

just with the dials turned down a bit

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and they're a bit more, now they're

able to do the one-to-one stuff and

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just be more human with it as well.

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And I think that's a much better

and cohesive and integrated

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way to approach the speaking.

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So those are the seven principles of

influence, persuasion, according to Dr.

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Robert Cialdini.

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So scarcity authority, social proof,

liking, reciprocity, consistency.

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And, uh, as there was one more unity.

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So if you can make your audience feel

like you're all together and part of

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the group, and this is a great one for

speakers to be able to do, and this is

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the newer one that got added on later

in the revised book, making us feel like

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a collective unit of people is a great

way to have people not just liking it,

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but to have more influence as well.

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So many things can help you as a

speaker with doing that storytelling,

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humor to hypnotic language and

activities with your audience.

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There's so many things you can

do there that can help people

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to feel like a cohesive group in

your presentations and workshops.

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So that's gonna be a fun episode

when we get to it as well.

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But let's get to what

we are here for today.

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We're talking about scarcity,

the first of the principles.

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Now, this essentially means.

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Scarce resources are often in high demand,

and you will have come across this.

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You may have even used this

principle in offers you've made

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online for services or products.

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And so one of the common ways we see

coaches using this is for maybe you're

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gonna just have five spaces available

for people to come and join your program.

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Now here's what I'll say with this.

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A lot of people abuse

the scarcity principle.

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So everything suddenly becomes scarce.

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I used to see this a lot more

impersonal development events.

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I don't know if it still goes on because

those events happen a lot less, and I

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would imagine it still does, although

I think mostly people have moved away

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from that format in those events.

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But you would see the speaker from the

stage saying, the first 10 people to go

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to the back are gonna get this, and the

first hundred people are gonna get this

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price once we're past a hundred people.

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It's gonna go back to the normal

price, suddenly you have a rush to

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the back of the room because everyone

thinks they want this product.

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And some of it have seen it actually

being something as crappy as jars

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to put money into and label up.

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And people were paying probably

more than the jars were worth.

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But it seemed like such

a good offer at the time.

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Well, um, I'm not so sure

and I didn't rush to the back

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of the room with that one.

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Call me cynical that when this is

used, well it can be really powerful.

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So.

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When something is hard to come by,

it has a higher price and it should

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do, for example, for example, if

you have, uh, a, an old vinyl record

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collection, which you may have

held onto more sensibly than I did.

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'cause I let mine go mostly

other than a few albums.

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Um, and that has now come back

and people are collecting this

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and trying to get back their old

vinyls or trying to find old stuff.

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You may find you have some vinyls in your

collection that are worth a lot of money

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because they're hard to come by now.

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They're probably not being remade.

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They may not even be on CD or on Spotify,

and so that makes them even higher value.

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I.

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I can remember being on a flight one

time with a guy who was a big Bjork fan.

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I, I like Bjork and I have a lot of

her stuff, but I had some promotional

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stuff of hers that I didn't really

think was worth anything much.

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One of them had come with, uh, the evening

standard in the uk free newspaper in the,

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in London and another, it was a poster

that had come with one of the albums.

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He was telling me that those things are

so hard to come by and Bjo fans going

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mad for them, that that would actually

potentially be worth hundreds of pounds.

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Wow.

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Blew me away.

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I, I still didn't do much about that,

but that's the power of scarcity.

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Now, from the stage, it may be that if

you have a product or a service that you

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are offering to people, you want to give

some level of scarcity to that as well.

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So you want to give some encouragement.

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Now might be more relevant to people

who are doing sales from the stage.

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It probably is.

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But even if you're not doing direct

sales, even if you're trying to encourage

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people to another event or to join

your email list or something like that,

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which is very common for speakers to

do, give them an incentive to do so.

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So for example, if you join my email

list within the next 12 hours, I'm

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gonna give you, not just this, but

an additional bonus, and that's only

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gonna be there for the next 12 hours.

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The important part is if you,

if you announce scarcity, you

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need to follow through with it.

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You absolutely need to

follow through with it.

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So if you announce scarcity, you

absolutely need to follow through with it.

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And that means that you can't just

say that you are going to only have

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five places available and then still

take the sixth, seventh, eighth,

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ninth person, and so on, because

that is outside of your integrity.

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And here, what I want you to.

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Fall outside of your integrity.

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If you have an offer and you say it's

only gonna be available for 24 hours,

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and someone comes back after 48 hours and

that offer's still available to them, or

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they call you up and say, Hey, it's not

available anymore, but can I still get it?

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And you let them have it, you

are out of your integrity.

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They didn't take action in

the time that you gave them.

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So you, you can say, look,

I'll put you on a wait list for

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the next time we do an offer.

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Or you can do the original prize or,

hey, maybe there's another offer, maybe

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there's something else we can do for

you here, but to stay in your integrity

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so that people can trust your word and

don't just, you may have this as well.

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I mean, if you, if you subscribe

to something like Audible,

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like I do audiobooks, there is

almost always a sale on Audible.

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It's almost never not a sale on Audible.

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There is no scarcity to that.

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There is no urgency to it.

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You know that there, even if you

don't buy something within the

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current sale, there's gonna be

another sale coming up just after it.

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There's no urgency with that.

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Almost defeats the point of having sales

other than just like internal sales.

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So what really is the point of that?

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Well, they can do it and it

doesn't really matter to them.

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They don't need to create the urgency.

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But for us, we do need that

urgency and that's what we're

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taking advantage of with scarcity.

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So if the urgency isn't real and

you regularly make offers where the

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urgency isn't real and the scarcity

is fake, people are gonna wise up to

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that and they're not gonna trust it.

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So they're not gonna react with urgency

to your offers 'cause they're gonna, well

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you say, you know, I have told Midnight

to do this, but I know that if I go onto

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your website in a few days, you're gonna

let me have it at that price anyway.

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That is not good, I suppose.

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Um, that's what I want is steer you

away from when it comes to scarcity.

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Another way, look, another

way that you could potentially

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use this from the platform.

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If you're delivering a keynote or any kind

of presentation workshop of the, like,

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you might wanna say, Hey, look, I'm gonna

be available to, to chat with you, answer

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any questions you have outside of this.

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Anyone who wants to talk one-to-one,

anyone who's may be interested in

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working with me or finding out more,

I'm gonna stick around here for.

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Maybe an hour afterwards.

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So come and find me.

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Let's grab a coffee, let's have a

chat, whatever you want to do, and

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actually do that and stick around.

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And then when your time is up, when,

when the hour is up, say, look,

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hey look, I really do have to go.

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You know, unless you've got, unless you've

just suddenly done it, this massive cure,

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people, even then I think I would probably

go and maybe start handing out business

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cards or go another way to get in touch

with you to set up some meetings, some

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follow up calls, some discovery calls,

whatever it is that you want to do that.

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That's probably how I would do it.

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Encourage people to take that action.

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There is a limited time in which

they can do that, and you have

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invited them, you've given them

permission to come and speak to you.

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You've actively encouraged

it and that is probably where

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you're gonna get extra referrals.

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It's, and certainly would encourage

you to say, um, Hey look, this actually

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is a great idea if, um, if you are

looking specifically to get referrals,

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and you should be as a professional

speaker, you should be doing that.

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Then saying that if you know

another company or organization

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that would be interested in this

topic, come see me afterwards.

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So you could then say, my calendar

is really filling up right now.

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However, I've still got some

spaces available in there

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for people who act fast.

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So you are.

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Giving them that urgency, and you

are encouraging the people who may be

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able say, yeah, maybe they would be

good fit for that, but I don't know.

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I know.

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Maybe I should speak to them first.

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You need to encourage the

urgency and the fast action.

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They come and connect with you,

at least have made the connection.

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You can put them into your CRM,

you can follow up with them.

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You can have your discovery call.

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That is a good way to use scarcity.

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Now, if your calendar is completely

wide open, then I'll leave it

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to you as to how you feel about

that with your own integrity.

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You could actually just say it in a

way that makes it sound like there

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is some scarcity there of, I have

some spaces available on my calendar.

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I don't know how long

they're gonna be there for.

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That's not a lie.

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It is not, it's not.

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There's maybe, uh, manipulating the truth

a little bit there, but it's not a lie.

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So I would maybe express it a little

more like that if you don't have any

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bookings on your calendar right now, so

that you can still feel well, you know,

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in my integrity, and I'm giving you the

impression that I don't have that much

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availability, that I'm in high demand.

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These are good ways to use scarcity.

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I hope one has been useful for you.

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Are you gonna use any of these principles?

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Let me know in the chat.

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Leave me a comment.

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You can either do that on our YouTube

channel, which I am building up

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the YouTube channel at the moment.

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You'll see there's a lot of more

tailored to YouTube content going

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out there, and things have been

really taking off on YouTube lately.

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So do content drawings there.

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You can comment on the videos.

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Please do feel free to do that.

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Maybe have a question about scarcity

or influence and persuasion principles,

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maybe about speaking on stage.

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If you want to know more about

working with me personally,

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then visit present influence.com

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and by all means, check out

the enormous back catalog of

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episodes, expert interviews on

solo shows, on present influence.

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There's a lot of good information

there and I hope you'll enjoy it.

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Next week we'll be taking

a look at the next of Dr.

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Robert Cialdini's influence principles.

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Hope you'll join me for that and

have an amazing rest of your day.