If a Friend Asked You...

In John Maxwell’s 21 Irrefutable laws of leadership the 2^nd law is Influence.

This week we are looking and Dr. Robert Cialdini’s second rule of Influence from his book Influence.

The Rule of Liking: 

The rule of liking states that we are more likely to be influence by people we like such as our friends and family.

This also applies to people we want to be like.

This was something that I didn’t think about but it seemed obvious to me when I heard about it in the book.

In my own life, I am more likely to listen to advice or recommendations my friends suggest than those of a stranger.

As I read this chapter it made me think of the “In-group vs. Out-group”  concept in psychology.

We tend to have positive assumptions about people in our “In-group” and negative assumptions about people who aren’t, the “Out-group.”

Dr. Cialdini explains that we can quickly assume the role of friend with people to take advantage of this bias we have.

We like people who are similar to us, so finding commonalities with someone and talking about them can assume the frame of “friends.”

Cialdini talks about a top performing car salesman who consistently broke sales records for his dealership. The salesman would look at the car the customer was trading in and if he saw something he could relate to he would mention it.

For example, if the salesman saw golf balls in the back of the customer’s car he would say something like, “I’m hoping the rain will hold off this weekend so I can get a quick 18 in.”

By mentioning a common interest in an indirect way the salesman slips into the “In-group” in the customers mind because they had something in common.

We can also see the in-group vs out-group dynamic in the “Good Cop, Bad Cop” example Cialdini uses.

Police officers often use the Good Cop, Bad Cop technique when trying to get a confession out of a suspect.

The Bad Cop creates a strong anchor of a threatening “out-group.” When the Good Cop steps in as the protective “In-group” by showing the slightest support of the suspect a confession often follows.

This connects to the next idea in the rule of liking is that we like people who like us.

It’s a small ego boost but we tend to like people who like us. We can take advantage of this by giving other compliments.

Cialdini explains that compliments builds the sense of liking in someone when they are genuine.

Much like the reciprocity rule, people notice when the compliment isn’t genuine and are less likely to be persuaded in that case.

Marketers often capitalize on the rule of liking by using friends names and referrals.

Marketers understand that is easy to reject a stranger but it is hard to tell a friend you don’t want to help them out.

Dr. Cialdini uses an example from his personal life about how he switched phone service providers because the salesman told him his friend would receive a discount for Cialdini signing up.

(Important to note, the marketer used his friends full name)

Cialdini admits he was happy with his previous provider but felt obligated to switch because he didn’t want to tell his friend no.

Something that was not mentioned in this book that I believe relates is a trick Benjamin Franklin used to have.

There is a story about Benejamin Franklin when he first got to congress. There was a congressman on the other side of the aisle that wasn’t fond of Franklin.

The other congressman was known for his extensive library so Benjamin Franklin asked him to borrow one of his rarer books from his collection.

Franklin returned the book a week later, after not even reading the book, with a note thanking the congressman for the favor he had done.

The next time Franklin and the congressman met they were on much better terms and ended up becoming good friends.

The idea behind this is that when we do a favor for somebody we unconsciously assume that we like the person because why else would we do them a favor?

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