OG NOTES (AUG-2018)
Part III: Choice Influence
Before we get into influence techniques, it’s important to point out the difference between persuasion and manipulation.
Persuasion: is the process aimed at changing a person’s attitude or behavior toward some event, idea, object or other person(s), by using written or spoken words to convey information, feelings, reasoning, or a combination of them.
Manipulation: implies the intent to fool, control or contrive the person on the other side of the conversation into doing something, believing something, or buying into something that leaves them either harmed or without benefit.
Richard Thaler, another top influence of mine, who won a Nobel prize in 2017, coined the term “nudge” in his 2009 book by the same name…
Nudge: any aspect of the choice architecture that alters people’s behavior in a predictable way without forbidding any options or significantly changing their economic incentives.
To count as a mere nudge, the intervention must be easy and cheap to avoid. Nudges are not mandates.
When you think of a grocery store trying to get consumers to be healthier… Putting the fruit at eye level counts as a nudge. Banning junk food does not.
In the book, Thaler highlighted how the use of certain techniques can lead to better decision-making. These techniques are subtle and aren’t meant to manipulate, but I found if you combine them with what we know about how someone makes a decision, they can be very effective to use when trying to influence a decision.
Next, I’ll highlight the main components of choice influence…
Primary Components of Choice Architecture
Anchoring: We can influence the figure one might choose in a situation by ever-so-subtly suggesting a starting point for your thought process.
Priming: subtle influences that can increase the ease with which certain information comes to mind.
Framing: The idea is that choices depend, in part, on the way in which problems are stated.
In the information that follows, I will go through the three of these in more detail, introduce some new terms and also bring in some terms that we have already learned, to show how we can use that knowledge our advantage during a sales interaction.
Let’s begin with Anchoring.