Sell Better by Earning Small Initial Commitments

As Dale Carnegie says in How to Win Friends and Influence People, “Get the other person saying “yes, yes” at the outset.”

For selling our products & services, we should earn a small initial commitment, say through a low-cost sample or audit, for upselling the best items.

This is described in Thinking, Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman. Known as a priming effect, this means that a current “yes” leads to behavior that affects our thinking. This makes another “yes” more likely, perhaps only unconsciously.

This complements one of Robert Cialdini’s principles of persuasion known as Commitment, in that we like to be consistent with things previously said or done.

For today’s digital marketing, these little successes can be leveraged for more reviews, improving your online reputation, which increases conversions for everything else too.

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