Robert Cialdini Essay

Words: 3894
Pages: 16

After spending a good amount of the semester discussing and learning about Robert Cialdini, it is safe to say that no good discussion on influence and persuasion can go very far without talking about the man who wrote the book on influence. After learning about Cialdini, we now know what he identifies as the six weapons of influence. The six weapons are reciprocity, commitment and consistency, social proof, liking, authority and scarcity. By weapons, what Cialdini really relays, are the six behavioral triggers that tend to create habitual and expected compliance. To see if these influences really exist in the real world, we made trips to places where we were going to be potential customers, being sold a product or service by someone. We …show more content…
Some 10 minutes later, we walked into the showroom, expecting to be bombarded by sales hungry representatives. Again, to our surprise, we made a few laps and read every cars sticker that was being modeled in the showroom, before we were finally approached and directed to a salesman’s office. It was nearly 25 minutes before we were approached by a salesman, who would have thought! Almost immediately, our salesman, Bill Daly, made us feel very comfortable. Besides the usual small talk and why you are here, he dived into his career background, which included 35 years of selling vehicles to customers in the Western New York region. All but 3 of those years, he’s been selling the Ford brand. After a good half hour of hearing about Bill’s successful career, what the dealership strives for, both accomplishments in the marketplace, as well as recognition for its employees, we briefly spoke about Mike’s interest in a new pickup truck. After gauging Mike’s needs, wants and financial leverage, Bill agreed that Ford F-150 pickup truck Mike was browsing in the showroom was right up his alley. Bill went on to prime up the success and unique features, some of which are only exclusive to Ford (such as thicker transmission lines, which make it nearly impossible to blow a transmission). Bill, hands down, stated that the Ford F-150 was the best pickup truck in