Strategic Discipline Blog

You may have heard timing is everything.

Is there a time when your employees are more open to change?  What’s the best time to convince your customers to stay loyal?   Are there associations you can make to make your employees and customers more open and receptive to your suggestions.

Dr. Robert Cialdini, author of Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion and most recently, Pre-suasion, provided expert advice on these ideas at the San Antonio ScaleUp Summit.

Business Coaching Opportunity

Before sharing Cialdini’s ideas on when to influence your customers and employees, a quick offer to my readers.

If your business is searching for a coach to help you achieve above industry standards in revenue growth, hire and retain A Players, build a harmonious culture of accountability, increase your cash flow, execute brilliantly - attain higher profit margins, Positioning Systems has an opening.  Currently I have room to help one more customer.  Please contact me at: dwick@positioningsystems.com while I have room in my schedule to work with you.

In our previous blog Pre-suade Your Prospect Before Your Message – Dr Robert Cialdini – San Antonio Summit we shared Cialdini Six Universal Principles of Social Influence. Here's an 11 minute video to review the power of these techniques:

Just as timing is important for this opportunity, so is it critical in achieving change.

TIMING: Reducing the Reluctance to Change

When is your staff more open to change? 

Your team is more likely to consider and be open to change at the beginning of a month than at the end of a month.  They’re more open to change on a Monday or a Tuesday then on Thursday and Friday.  At the end of a month or end of a week your team will be more resistant to change. 

Next time you consider pushing a new agenda, idea or policy change keep this in mind as to when to do it to gain more approval and less resistance.

Recognizing this, recognize the best time to ask customers for loyalty is at the end of the week or at the end of a month.  Customer loyalty offers should be exploited at these times.  Since at the end of the week or month, people are less likely to change, this is the best time to achieve success in appealing to your current customers.

How do you get people to be more adventurous, to try something new?

It may be as simple as asking this question: Are you adventurous.   In an email test to get recipients to try a new soft drink, subscribers were asked, “Are you adventurous?”  The headline increased trial numbers from 30% to 57%.

In Pre-suade Your Prospect Before Your Message – Dr Robert Cialdini – San Antonio Summit, we shared how the background on your website can influence visitors to purchase products based on the images representing the strengths you have.  When influence your team to perform better, images can have a dramatic impact.

Students calling from a university to ask for contributions were given a tip sheet for their calls.  The students who received a tip sheet with the image of a runner winning a race performed 60% higher than their counterparts not given this image on their tip sheet ($217).

Establishing a Feeling of Togetherness

How powerful are images?

Cialdini shared a study of images shown to test subjects of people standing apart, together and individually.  When subjects were asked later to help someone, the subjects shown images of people together performed at a 60% rate versus those shown people standing apart (20%), and individually (20%). 

Here’s the surprising revelation.

The subjects were 18-month-old children.

These techniques are so powerful, intuitive, and human, even an 18-month-old child responds to them.

Change what people pay attention to, and you can change who they are and what they do in that moment!

REMINDER

Positioning Systems’ Strategic Discipline can elevate your business in each of the Four Decisions: People, Strategy, Execution, and Cash.  Learn how to Build a Winning Habit.  Contact dwick@positioningsystems.com for a limited time to coach your business.

NEXT BLOG: How Do I Get My People to do More Great Work?

What’s the difference in your people doing good work, bad work and great work? How can you get them to more great work? Michael Bungay Stanier, The Coaching Habit: Say Less, Ask More & Change the Way You Lead Forever, offered several impactful questions to empower your people.  We’ll explore these questions and how to get your people doing more great work next blog.