My "success rate" (with approaching women) went up drastically when I changed the first words out of my mouth to "Can you hear me?". I now ask this even when I know a woman doesn't have earphones on.
Why does it work? I have a couple of guesses. It is a question that you can't help reply to. And inadvertently when you answer this question, you begin paying more attention to the party that asked.
In ad-speak, this pretty much takes care of the A(attention) in AIDA.
Ask him questions. Ask him rhetorical questions. It doesn't matter, just get a 'yes' out of him.
If you were drowning and I threw you a life jacket, would you grab it? Yes. Good. Pick up 200 shares. I won't let you down. Ask him if he wants to see 30-40% returns. What's he gonna say, 'no, I don't want to see those returns'?
Oh wow, sad that I could actually see that happening going by the gullible nature of the community. I'm pretty confident though that by the time its gone through the community's marketing machine, it will turn into some creepy move, available on DVD for $1,000.
Alas I got much out of the Bay Area scene back in the day so as long as the secret stays away from NYC I'm good :)
This has been proven to be one of the things that helps grease the slide for a prospect to become a customer. One of the key things a salesperson does is to get the prospect to get accustom to a "series of yesses." Even the smallest yes, such as
The thinking being that since the final sale will require one big yes, building up a series of small yesses gets the prospect in the habit (albeit subconsciously) of agreeing with the salesperson.
You might have been inadvertently employing the "disarming" technique used by pick up artists. "The Game" is an amazing book detailing the techniques used by pick up artists (and no, it's just for people who want to pick up ladies but more generally about influencing people).
As someone who has met a few of the people from The Game, I can tell you it's mostly crapware with very little to learn from.
The basic flaw with The Game(and most of the games of the characters in it) is that they take this to such extreme that instead of becoming charming and attractive, you become a paranoid insecure jerk.
That said, The Game has helped motivate many to take action in a critical area of their life.
I always wondered what bothered me about these 'The Game' approaches to "successfully influence people" and I think you really nailed it down.
OF COURSE people will find it easier to agree with you if they have agreed with you before - that should be obvious. The question is - what do you have to do to get that? 'The Game' seems to say - "well, anything that is necessary, of course", as though aping people into nodding was some kind of accomplishment and as though that accomplishment in itself was admirable and healthy.
I'd rather have people actually agree with me in small things that we both care about and then be happy to agree with me big time. If you need to bullshit, "warm up" or in some other ways mislead people (and yes, that includes "Weather is great, isn't it?" when you don't really care about the weather), you are building a pile of very tiny lies to make the jump to the big lie less noticeable. At some point, you will just cross the bullshit horizon, the point at which MOSTLY what you do is lie to and trick people - and have fun with your empty soul while you're at it.
It is indeed a cargo cult - you do achieve things with it, but then you sit there in your wooden mock-up flight control tower next to your empty dirt runway wearing your headphones made of straws and wonder why you never seem to actually be happy.
It took me a second too. What the gp says is that the fake relationships are cargo too. The players are mistaking the thing for its description. Beautiful people are not beautiful relationships, and friendships built on lies and partial truths are trustless and empty.
Alright now, let's not oversimplify this. There are billion shades of gray in how truthful we are in our daily relationships. Most people hide stuff from those close to us on a daily basis. Does this render those relationships as fake or almost fake? I'd argue no.
Similarly, while some of the relationships formed from your pickup skills may be premised almost entirely on lies, that is not the norm. I'd actually say most relationships turn out to be much like normal relationships--and most certainly not a type where the other party is thinking you're a millionaire when in fact you are broke in reality.
Actually, no. I think it's correct to oversimplify this - Either you care, deeply, about a relationship or you don't.
"I'd actually say most relationships turn out to be much like normal relationships"
I'm not sure you realize how extremely shady that sounds. Does that really sound satisfying to you? Real and honest? I understand that manipulating people into forming a relationship (of whatever kind) with you can somewhere in the end resemble something like a genuine relationship. But that still doesn't make it a genuine relationship. It either is a runway and you are a tower operator, or not.
If you define a relationship as one where two people occupy the same room and have frequent conversations then a lot of things are a relationship - all the way to a torture chamber. What I'm talking about is two people who really care about each other.
'The Game' is very particularly about getting women into bed. Being in bed together is usually related to a deep, emotional connection, but pickup artists just care about that last bit. To stay in the metaphor: They really, really do care about making those cargo planes appear. Boy do they ever love that cargo. They do everything they have seen others do to provoke the kind of reaction from the planes that they have observed. What they don't care so much about is what those planes are, why they usually care about ACTUAL runways and care about having a very good reason to drop off their cargo.
Because if they did care to understand, they'd very quickly see how pathetic it is to sit in that makeshift straw hut pretending to be an international airport.
So yes, Radix is correct - that's what I'm talking about. What ends up on the runway are either pilots who actually wanted to be somewhere else and try their best to take off as fast as possible, or are other islanders who push their own wooden boxes with straw wings onto the dirt road.
[edit] Maybe the easiest way to sum this up is: The fact that cargo arrives on your dirt runway doesn't make you a proper army radio tower operator. The fact that you score women or get people to do things that you want doesn't make you a good partner or friend.
What I'm talking about is two people who really care about each other.
That is only one type of relationship.
Every night thousands of men and women meet at bars and end up sharing a bed without necessarily the expectation that they each "really care" for the other. So this is the other extreme.
Between our two extremes lie all the other shades of gray.
Well, that may be true (Millions! I would even say). But to be perfectly honest, I'm not sure why they bother. To me, that kind of behavior always seems very juvenile and ultimately not very fulfilling.
I totally get that people are into that, but I really don't see them very happy is what I'm trying to say. The ones that find that sort of behavior to be pure bliss very often turn out to be rather shallow.
I also understand that sort of hedonism to be, supposedly, very glamorous - they argue that you only have 80 years, so better squeeze the juice out of every second you get in as self-involved a fashion to satisfy your desires as possible. As long as caring so much about other people is not on your list of priorities, it's very hard for me to make a case against that. I suppose it also comes easy to you when you're very young - the world just automatically cares more about you. What happens after 40 or 50 is a different story. (And yes, I've heard the live-fast-die-young argument where people would rather go down that road and die in their late thirties. Sounds super.)
I would rather spend those 80 years as much as possible with people I intensely care about (and who care about me) and while that may be uncommon in your statistics, I think I'm still in my right to argue that it's healthier. And not just because it carries a much smaller risk of contracting various venereal diseases.
I totally get that people are into that, but I really don't see them very happy
Look, I know a lot of people who are not into that and have super caring relationships and as a result are unhappy. Happiness is such a tricky thing: if you really care about someone and yet a specific part of them displeases you, well, you're unhappy. This doesn't mean you shouldn't care about someone; it does mean that your arguing that caring equals happiness is still gross oversimplification.
But to be perfectly honest, I'm not sure why they bother.
You're just looking at the empty half of the glass. If I were to do the same, I would look at the constant bickering of my neighbors in their 70s and the seeming unhappiness and wonder why anyone ever bothers getting married and remaining married.
I would have to correct you in that I think the glass that I'm looking at is really quite full. ;)
Sure, long-term relationships can be a terrible experience. But I have my doubts whether your neighbors really still care about each other. (I know, no true Scotsman, but there really is "caring" and "staying together for the kids".) It's very easy to become unhappy in whatever way, but I think it's easier to become unhappy on your own, independent and unaffected by the concern of and for other people, than it is in a caring relationship.
And you are of course right - you can find unhappiness even when caring deeply about people. I just think that it's fair of me to say that if chances really are so equal, I'd rather live in the world where people try to care.
It's simply easier to turn a net quality of life increase for society from people who are into caring about each other than from people who don't. In fact, I think the second model, while popular for a while, has quite thoroughly collapsed in the recent years.
I think I would say that experiencing that sort of bar culture is part of growing up, as is rejecting it. It's like telling kids to have fun at college--but not too much fun.
It's a foot in the door, you obtain a little something to obtain much more afterward.
It's because we tend to not contradict ourselves and act the way we acted, because doing otherwise would be irrational, right? :D
"I've started to talk to this stranger, there is no reason I stop now".
Of course there must be a ground for agreement in the first place, you cannot force someone to do something he absolutely doesn't want to do with this technique.
My wife is the Guadagno in Guadagno and Cialdini and if the reporting of her findings is any guide, ignore the rest of the article. Her findings were that women will not respond well to email unless there's an existing relationship. Men will respond better to email if there's an existing negative relationship, but it otherwise makes no difference.
The error is forgivable if the writer only read the title of the article.
> Guadagno & Cialdini research (2002) showed that men seem more responsive to email because it bypasses their competitive tendencies. Women, however, may respond better in face-to-face encounters because they are more ‘relationship-minded’
Yawn. Maybe we just don't want to deal with salespeople but instead judge the product on our own without being harassed. How is that supposed to be competitive?
Oh, I forgot, the self-fulfilling world of pop psychology, brought to you by eternal twin slogans "It's true if you think it's true" and "You can convert any social belief into a universal truth by citing agenda-driven studies". The greatest Jedi mind trick is convincing people that your Jedi mind trick actually works.
Maybe we just don't want to deal with salespeople but instead judge the product on our own without being harassed. How is that supposed to be competitive?
If that is true then why do women respond better in face-to-face encounters?
Same as you. It costs $11 to read that thing and I assure you, nobody has read it (except maybe now that I said it out of spite). It looky like every other pop-psy study out there, many of which have been discredited over the years - at least the ones that people actually bothered with. It's unscientific trash designed to support broad generalizations and preconceptions. The entire field is known for making stuff up in a manner that is consistent with the cultural background and expectations of the study's authors.
The crux of the matter is that these studies are supposed to show how certain behaviors are biologically hardwired into humans, when in fact the vast spectrum of human behavior and perception is frighteningly flexible and subject to the change of cultural and personal values over time. Many people, including pop-psy researchers, have a vested interest in showing that our behavior is preprogrammed by nature. In fact, the prescription of what's natural has been used as a justification for laws and rules for many hundred years now, so it's kind of a tradition.
Any study of human behavior, especially if gender roles are concerned, needs to cite specifically the cultural context and timeframe the observations were made in. Advertising people know this. That's why they use different strategies in different countries, and it's also the main reason why advertising premises change over time.
I have no opinion about this guy one way or the other.
Even brilliant people can make mistakes, and even brilliant scientists can be victims of their own preconceptions. I'm not trying to trash his life's work, I'm having serious doubts about the premises and results of this study specifically.
As I said many times in this thread: I called the study's conclusions into question, not the author.
> The only fallacies are coming from your posts, not from the article in question... :\
After fighting you guys for the last our without one single person agreeing with me, I'm inclined to say you're right. I should probably stop posting now. It wasn't my intention to upset anyone. I'm sorry.
Don't be sorry. You haven't hurt anyone's feelings (and if you have, they were too fragile to survive long on HN). It's fine to defend your arguments and later realise you're wrong. That doesn't make you a lesser person - on the contrary, you're someone who now knows one more thing. That's good. If HN can do that more often, that's good.
While the authority may not necessarily be wrong, the appeal itself is vulnerable to being issued for fallacious reasons, namely if it is made to prevent critical reasoning about the original hypothesis. The idea that authorities are infallible is a trap. Nothing should be beyond scrutiny.
Maybe we just don't want to deal with salespeople but instead judge the product on our own without being harassed.
It astonishes me that you're able to describe interactions with salespeople as being "harassed" yet can't understand how it could be construed as competitive.
(Not that the study you're dismissing has anything to do with salespeople... You'd be better off attacking the tenuous and speculative suggestion that author has made based on a reading that study rather than attempting to nuke the proverbial site from orbit with such a monumentally tired argument as "I don't believe it so it can't possibly be true".)
> It astonishes me that you're able to describe interactions with salespeople as being "harassed" yet can't understand how it could be construed as competitive.
You make it sound like I'm drooling into a cup. So the competitiveness hypothesis resonates with you personally? Don't just imply that I'm stupid, explain to me what the competition actually is, and why I am automatically triggered into participating just because I have a penis.
> You'd be better off attacking the tenuous and speculative suggestion that author has made based on a reading that study rather than attempting to nuke the proverbial site from orbit with such a monumentally tired argument as "I don't believe it so it can't possibly be true"
I'm straining to see how this rhetoric can come from someone who is - in their own words - "just here for the polite and friendly atmosphere". However, I think I am attacking a piece of tenuous and speculative suggestion the author has made. I get that you disagree, I just don't get your specific objection.
I hope not, because that would be an extremely facile explanation. I don't think anybody, when asked to describe the feeling of being harassed, would describe it with anything resembling "I feel like I'm in a competition with another male for autonomy, freedom and time to make up my mind."
You've got it completely scrambled: Nobody is being asked to describe the feeling of being harassed. That was the word Udo chose to describe the feeling of dealing with a salesperson.
I simply found it odd (very odd) that someone who uses a word that denotes aggression or attack to describe that situation would simultaneously find it totally alien to think of it as competitive.
Though those are valid definitions, I don't think "harass" necessarily has that violent connotation in most people's minds. It is commonly used as a slightly more intense form of "pester." I've actually heard people laugh at the term being used to refer to violence, because they think of it as a synonym for "annoy," and the idea of being "annoyed by gunfire" is humorously mild.
I think you did that fine on your own, to be honest. The attitude expressed in your posts reeks of pride in ignorance. It's like you genuinely don't care what the truth might be, but don't want anybody to believe this could be anything close to it. You blast the study you didn't read as "unscientific trash" and yet rail against preconceptions while vividly illuminating your own. I did not think you were stupid, but I won't deny I think this thread a singular parade of foolishness.
Don't just imply that I'm stupid
I'm was not implying that you're stupid. Perhaps I should have said "don't" instead of "can't" understand. There may be many reasons why you don't see those interactions you call harassment as competitive that don't involve you being stupid. For instance: your definition of "competition" may have a much narrower scope than the one meant. You may also be conflating competition with antagonism or hostility, which doesn't necessarily follow.
explain to me what the competition actually is
The salesman has an incentive to get you buy, and when you buy, to spend more, because then he gets paid more. This is at cross purposes with your desire to spend less while still getting only what you want and nothing you don't want.
In a sense is a competition over your money, but as the salesman does not attempt to physically pry the money from your hands, it can better be though of as a competition over your will.
(All of this is more evident in situations where directly haggling over price is permitted. If you wanted an avenue with which to consider cultural factors, the variable global popularity of haggling vs. fixed prices would be one. But the basically competitive nature of bargaining in general seems, with the sole exception of you, to be uncontroversial.)
and why I am automatically triggered into participating just because I have a penis.
That's a straw man under construction. Nobody said anything about being "automatically triggered" or about having a penis causing you do anything. You're injecting your own preconceptions about what the cited study claims, just as you injected the scenario of dealing with salespeople.
I think I am attacking a piece of tenuous and speculative suggestion the author has made.
What you think and what you've written appear to be at odds. You attacked an entire field of study[1] and singled out the authors[2] of the particular study on the basis of the blogger's interpretation[3] of that study, which you didn't read[4], while providing no evidence at all beyond personally disagreeing with the implication that human behavior might have something to do with the human body.
The reason I call this a "monumentally tired argument" is that it's been lashed out like a giant reactionary noodle against every bit of evidence ever recorded that human behavior is anything more complicated than the things humans are consciously aware of then they behave.
[1]:"The entire field is known for making stuff up in a manner that is consistent with the cultural background and expectations of the study's authors."
[2]: (I can't actually quote this because you edited your post to remove the part where you claimed the entire blog post was about selling Cialdini's book.)
[3]: "...showed that men seem more responsive to email because it bypasses their competitive tendencies." (Which the study doesn't actually conclude.)
[4]: "It costs $11 to read that thing and I assure you, nobody has read it (except maybe now that I said it out of spite). It looky like every other pop-psy study out there, many of which have been discredited over the years..."
One of the best ways to influence people is to ask someone to do a favor for you. Especially if the person you are asking has more perceived power. It is called the "Ben Franklin Effect"
Conversion is action (not reading), so actually this works well. While I don't like popups as much as the next guy, its ridiculously effective. 80% of opt-ins come via popup (all double opt-in).
Persuading people is a lot easier if you look at it as mutually trying to make the best decision--to be persuaded as much as to persuade--instead of some stupid gimmicky power grab. "I felt so powerful because I got someone to agree with me!" Feel powerful when you're right, feel powerful when you're wrong and can admit it, but feeling powerful because someone else thinks you're right is folly.
Actually they're not. I specifically point out in the beginning of the article that I don't cover stuff from Cialdini's Influence (as it's been over covered). Who hasn't read it yet, definitely should.
A slight twist to this: get people to say yes.
My "success rate" (with approaching women) went up drastically when I changed the first words out of my mouth to "Can you hear me?". I now ask this even when I know a woman doesn't have earphones on.
Why does it work? I have a couple of guesses. It is a question that you can't help reply to. And inadvertently when you answer this question, you begin paying more attention to the party that asked.
In ad-speak, this pretty much takes care of the A(attention) in AIDA.