Science of Persuasion (or how to get someone to do what you want them to do…)

Great animated video on the science (six universal principles) of persuasion, based on the research of Dr. Robert Cialdini, Professor Emeritus of Psychology and Marketing, Arizona State University.

Link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cFdCzN7RYbw&list=UU8IMseLCZx2BZe3thxHXnog&index=1&feature=plcp

Seven personality traits of top salespeople

So what distinguishes the top sales dog from the rest of the pack? It seems that high-performers are conscientious, achievement orientated, have high levels of curiosity, don’t get discouraged easily, and don’t suffer from being overly self-conscious. No surprises there then. However what’s rather more counter intuitive is that successful sales types are more modest than their pushy, in-your-face colleagues (hype and bull(dog) seem to put customers off); and, even more surprising, they are less gregarious. What’s going on here? Well it could be that being too friendly gets in the way of establishing dominance in a sales scenario – and you do need people to go into ‘obedience’ mode to get them to say ‘yes’. Anyone for walkies?

Want to know more? Read Steve Martin’s post on the Harvard Business Review blog.

Photo credit: Maggie Smith/freedigitalphotos.net