This transcript was generated from the episode audio and may contain minor errors.
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The Six Factors of Persuasion, part two. Welcome to Side Hustle School. I am Chris Guillebeau. So glad you're here. We are making our way through a year's worth of classroom lessons, one a week interspersed with lots of different stories, listener, question, answer, et cetera, all about helping people to create security for themselves in the form of an income generating project.
Now we didn't expect to get derailed by the end of the world in the midst of this series, but it is all the more relevant. And in fact, this week, I'm also doing lots of interviews still for my new book, "The Money Tree," hearing from lots of people who are enjoying the story and applying it to their own goals and models. So that makes me very happy. If you haven't seen it yet, again, the book is called "The Money Tree." You can learn more at moneytreebook.com. Okay, enough of that.
In recent classroom episodes, we have looked at choosing your idea, how to convert that idea into a product or service, how to determine what's essential. And so on. This week, and also last week, it's a two-part series, we're talking about persuasion. If you can learn some basic psychological principles of selling, understanding why people make purchasing decisions, it's something you can apply over and over for the rest of your cytosling journey. Not just that, but any kind of business entrepreneurial project you ever have for the rest of your life, understanding this particular psychology, the psychology of persuasion is so important.
You can also just learn the basics like a little bit, and it goes a long way. So consider it minimum viable knowledge. Last week, we talked through three of six characteristics. Those would be authority, commitment and consistency, which kind of comes together as one, and social proof. All right, so this week, we're gonna continue that and talk about the other three, beginning with liking.
Okay, liking is pretty simple. Simply put, whenever there's any human interaction involved in the buying decision, we are more likely to say yes, if we like the person selling to us. This is true in all sorts of situations, online, offline, if we walk into a store, let's say like a Home Depot, we talk to an employee there. It's just as true as when we're selling our own products. Now, in some ways, it's not fair for Home Depot's entire reputation to rest on a single employee customer interaction, but that's just how we think as consumers.
This can be positive or negative, and naturally, you want it to be positive. So how do you encourage people to like you? Well, there are a couple of scientific things you can do. Again, all of this is based on science, it's not just a theory. Lots of research went into the original studies, which have been replicated many times since then.
So one of the things you can do is share some personal information about yourself, maybe even something a bit vulnerable. You can do this on the about page of your website, through your social media, can even go through some of your sales process, depending on what you're selling, especially if you have a personality-based brand. If you have a blog, a book, a podcast, any sort of medium like that, where you're trying to put forward a message, not just a product, but it is also a message. Sometimes, the more information, the better. And here's the thing, people misunderstand this all the time.
I had a story a long time ago, I couldn't find the episode number, but it was about a blogger who does beer reviews. I think she was in Texas. So she's out there going to different bars and such, writing reviews in the alcohol industry and other entertainment and such. So she had so much info on her about page. It was all like her favorite Taylor Swift song and what her favorite foods were and all this stuff.
And I thought it was brilliant. And here's what people misunderstand because a lot of people would look at that and say, "Well, this is kind of silly." Like, "Why do I care about her? Why do I need to know this about her?" And the point is, most people don't care. To most people, it is silly. But the people who are interested in her brand do care.
And that's the whole point. You're speaking to the people you're trying to attract. Okay, so when people discount that and say nobody cares, what they mean is they don't care and that's fine, but they don't speak for all of humanity. You could also work together with your customer. The concept of having shared goals, just kind of communicating, we are on a journey together.
If I'm that Home Depot employee, I might say, "I wanna help you find the perfect faucet for your kitchen remodel. And I won't be satisfied until we find it." So this human element matters a lot. That is the element of liking. The next characteristic is reciprocity. And this one is really simple to understand.
It's based on, again, a scientific principle. If someone gives something to us, we feel obligated to repay that debt. Now, this can sound kind of Machiavellian. It can sound manipulative. You're like, "Oh, well, all I have to do is give something to someone without really giving it to them.
And they're gonna feel like they're in debt to me." But it's not about manipulation. It really is just about people's behavior. And here's an example. This is the example that Robert Cialdini gives, who a lot of this research comes from. I mentioned him more in last week's episode.
He referenced a study where restaurant servers, waiters, waitresses would leave a mint when they brought the check for the customer to pay. And this is pretty common, right? Like lots of restaurants, you'll get a little mint or you'll get something extra at the end. So what they discovered was, first of all, just leaving a mint, just the mere act of leaving it, resulted in a 3% increase in the tip that they received. But here's what's really interesting.
When they left more than one mint, they left an extra mint. They're like, "We're giving you a couple extra mints." You know, 14%, they had a 14% increase in the tips. And then finally, here's the third thing. They had the servers go and leave a mint and then turn and walk away, then turn back and say, "Oh, you know what, because you're special, or just because you folks deserve one, I'm gonna give you an extra mint." So in this case, they're leaving the extra mint, they're also kind of making a big deal about it. "Hey, I left you an extra mint." When they did that, the servers had a 23% increase in the tip that they received.
So merely leaving the gift, which is a pretty small gift, right? But just leaving that mint 3% increase, giving them something extra, here are two mints, 14% increase, and then actually noting, "Hey, by the way, I left you an extra mint, a 23% increase." When I read that, I was like, "Wow, that is so interesting." You know, I think a lot of us make these decisions, like whether it's a decision of what we're gonna tip or something else, without even thinking about it at all. We're not even considering these variables that are actually influencing our behavior, which again is why some basic understanding of these principles can really make a big, big difference in your messaging, which leads, of course, to persuasion. Persuasion, of course, is connected to sales, what it's all about here, 'cause I wanna help you make money, I wanna help you change the world, also. But one of the ways you can do that is by creating more freedom for yourself.
All right, so in a moment, we're gonna cover one more characteristic, and you'll get your assignment for the week. First, I would like to thank our sponsor. Thank you, sponsor, we appreciate it, for making all of this series completely free to you. [Music]
Okay, we are back, we've got the sixth and final characteristic. Let's see, we have looked at authority, we have looked at consistency and encouraging small commitments, social proof, liking, reciprocity, and the last one, I don't wanna say it's the most important because I said authority was, but this one is pretty powerful, scarcity.
And it's all based on this simple question, what do you stand to lose if you don't purchase now? You can think of all kinds of scarcity tactics and examples that you've probably experienced, the price is gonna go up if you don't buy now, the class will fill up, the offer will disappear, you won't be able to get this. Limited time only while supplies last, going quickly, all of that messaging has the goal of making you feel like you're gonna lose out if you don't purchase now. However it's phrased, however it's delivered, the key point is you need to act now. So whenever you have an element of scarcity that is genuine and not artificial, because people don't like it when it's fake, but if you have a class, for example, and the class is going to meet four times a month, every Monday or something, well obviously there is a deadline in which you need to register for the class because then the class is going to come and go without you in it if you don't register.
There may also be a limited class size, so if other people purchase seats for that class, you might not be able to get in. Those are very real and reasonable reasons to highlight the scarcity. If you're selling a physical product, well, you probably have a limited amount of that product, right? Now it may not be incredibly limited, but the point is it's not infinite, like it is finite. And if enough people purchase, then it will no longer be available to anyone else.
You can also offer some bonuses that will go away if you don't purchase by a certain time. Anything special or celebratory, again, anything that highlights that key point, you need to act now. All right, so in reverse order, we had scarcity, we had reciprocity, liking, social proof, commitment and consistency, which go together, and authority. The six characteristics of effective persuasion. The more you understand this, the easier it will be, and even if you just have a basic understanding, as I said, a little bit about each one, and you try to incorporate these elements as you're building out your offer, considering your messaging, writing your sales copy, the more effective you will be at persuading people to say yes, which is ultimately what you want.
So your assignment for the week naturally relates to the three characteristics we covered, liking, reciprocity, and scarcity. How can you make a small but significant improvement, a tweak in each of those three areas we talked about? Okay, so last week you had the three others, this week you got the three new ones. See what you can do, and let me know what you come up with. You can read notes for this in every classroom episode this year at sidehustleschool.com/classroom.
This has been episode 12.06. Thank you so much for listening. I am cheering you on wherever you are in the world, whatever you're working on. You're not alone out there, and I'm so glad to be on this journey with you, right? 'Cause we have shared goals, we really do.
All right, thanks again. My name is Chris Guillebeau. This is "Side Hustle School." [Music]
from the Onward Project.
