3 days ago I just read a chapter in the book “Influence.” The chapter talks about “concessions.” The book is all about how to influence people, a.k.a, how to get your own way, a.ka, how to manipulate people

This particular chapter teaches you to go in with a HIGH demand with the expectation that the person will reject it. Here’s the neat part…

It’s proven that when someone declines you, a small part of them feels a bit guilty for doing so. Now, if you come back at them and DECREASE your demand and re-position it, they’re mind thinks “Oh…he’s willing to work with me, he’s making exceptions” – I should say yes.

Here’s the example used in the book to explain this (I only roughly remember it):

As a research experiment, a few people set out on a campus to ask students the following question:

“Would you be willing to commit 2 hours of your time to help guide and mentor a young child?”

If I remember correctly, about 15% said yes and the rest said no.

As a part of the research, they changed it up. Now the LEAD question became:

“Would you be willing to commit 1 day a month to guide and mentor a young child?”

Not to their surprise and overwhelmingly large percentage said no. However, they had a follow-up “decreased” request:

“OK…we understand, that is a LOT of time, how about just 2 hours ONE TIME deal to help mentor a young kid really in need?”

Guess what the results were?

A 233% increase in the number of people that said “Yes.” From 15% to 50%! (Again, I don’t remember the exact numbers but the increase was HUGE).

The only difference was that they changed the LEAD question.

Why am I talking to you about this today?

A) It’s a freaking awesome strategy, I just realized how often I personally use it without even knowing.

B) I just realized how often it’s used on ME.

Also, the day after I read that chapter, I witnessed in-front of my very own eyes, the concession sales technique being used and it worked amazingly.

My roommate in Mumbai, Ankur and I were at dinner and he got a phone call from someone who was at the house trying to deliver a package (but we were not there).

Ankur asked if he could bring the package where we were and the man declined.

Ankur flipped on the salesman and pushed hard, but the man insisted that he had “other things to do…”

Immediately Ankur offered him a concession (realizing that the REAL problem was not that the guy was busy but that he did not want to pay the fare to come to where we were).

Ankur offered to pay the taxi fees for his commute if he would bring the package that night itself to where we were eating dinner.

The result? 30 minutes later, Ankur was collecting his package!

I laughed after seeing this and then also realized how many times Ankur has used these mind jedi tricks on ME. I’ll give you another example of when he used this very example on me.

Ankur does design work for me sometimes. About a year back, I was not happy with his design work and actually got upset. I was about to “fire” him or at least pull my projects from him and he again put his salesman ship hat on.

I told him that I could no longer afford his high rates for the quality of work and that I was going elsewhere.

He did not want to lose a client so his next offering was: “Fine, I want you to be happy with me and I refuse to lose you as a client – you don’t have to pay for this or pay me whatever you want, but I need you to be happy.”

How does someone say NO to that? Of course I said OK and since then he’s collected MANY new projects from me.

I can give you yet another example from when Ankur (again) used these tricks on me (I really need to be careful of this guy).

Again, for design work, he quoted me a price and I said “WO! way too much buddy…”

His concession:

Don’t pay it to me now, just pay me over 6 months…all of a sudden the cost was really just 1/6th to me. I said “that sounds fair, let’s do it.”

Again, MY thinking is that “Man, he’s really willing to work with me, how can I say no?”

So, there you have it Fighters – use the concession technique. Use it wisely and for good only.

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I was recently having a conversation with a friend of mine, we were talking about “leadership” and what it takes. He’s currently in a position where he might have to step up and take control; it seems that he is concerned.

We were chatting about how he should approach certain problems and he made a statement that made me think…

I was giving him some “sneaky” advice about how to talk to people and well…get them to do what YOU want.

His response:

“But I don’t want to be manipulative…”

hmm…”Is that what I am?” – Time for a “self-check” – one of those moments where you wonder “Have I gone from good to evil some where along the way?”

Let me give you some background about why I felt this way…

I checked the definition of the word “manipulation” and I actually found two completely contradictory definitions in the dictionary right next to each other.

Here are the two definitions:

Skillful or artful management.

and…

Shrewd or devious management, especially for one’s own advantage.

Correct me if I’m wrong, but they seem to be the exact opposite. One seems to be a compliment and the other seems to be slanderous.

My personal opinion is that “manipulation” has been taken the wrong way – but it does sound like a negative word. So, after lots of thinking I realized that “No, I’m not evil, I’m not really manipulating anyone…I’m INFLUENCING them…”

Using Your Manipulative Powers For GOOD….

Here’s the blatant truth whether you like it or not. All good leaders, political, CEOs, religious (you name it) are INCREDIBLY manipulative – they know how to get what they want from a MASS of people.

But, here’s what differentiates between good and evil…

Are they using it for GOOD or for BAD?

If you’re using it for good then let’s call it INFLUENCING and not manipulation…

Bottom Line, 99% of People Are Followers…

Here is the next blatant truth for you: most people are followers, not leaders. We’re taught to be that way from birth. Even religions are built with hierarchy – you are to FOLLOW…

So…because of this, if you want to be a leader, you have no choice but to learn how to influence.

A good leader has to motivate and get the mass to do what he/she feels is the best to do.

Leaders Get Inside Heads…

Bottom line, you need to be able to get into the heads of others, lower their red flags, gain their trust and then lead them in a direction.

The powers of influence can be enormous, use them wisely and use them only for good – but you have to use them.

In the coming weeks, I’ll share some of my *sneaky* techniques here, they already did wonders for my friend (from what I’m hearing)…

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