In the last three years, I've probably read over a hundred books. Among those books, there are only a few that I have read more than once because they are really fascinating. Today's book summary is about one of those books. It's called "Influence" by Roberto Cialdini. It is the number one book in the world when it comes to the psychology of persuasion, and the author, Robert Cialdini, is the god of ethical persuasion. If you are currently struggling with your business or job and are looking for ways to improve, then read this summary or read the book yourself. I am sure you will find some useful tips that will help you a lot. In this summary, I'll summarize four key lessons and explain how you can apply them. It doesn't matter if you need to convince a client, business partner, boss or parents; these principles will help you. Enough of the introduction, let's continue.

Principle number one: reciprocate. If someone buys you lunch, you feel obligated to pay for their lunch next time. If someone helps you, you also feel the need to give back. If someone buys you a present for your birthday, you feel like doing the same, right? Simply put, the principle of reciprocity tells us to give back to others when they do something for us. For example, in a restaurant, when the waitress gave a candy with the bill, people left a tip three percent more than usual. Tips increased to 14 percent when two candies were given, a pretty significant increase. But that's not all. Tips rose to 20 percent when the waitress handed out one candy, then unexpectedly turned and said, "For you people, here's another candy." People who received an extra candy and a compliment felt like they had to reciprocate by giving a bigger tip. Giving back is almost in our genes, and we can't stop ourselves from helping or giving back if someone does us a favor or buys us a gift. Even small favors or gifts can make the other party reciprocate many times over. For example, sometimes I go shopping with my three-year-old daughter, and some stores give balloons to children at the entrance. I have noticed that when my daughter gets a balloon, I feel like spending more and going back to that store again. That balloon doesn't have much value, but it still counts as a gift, plus it made my daughter smile and get excited. And guess what? If you make my daughter smile, I'll make sure to return the favor tenfold. If you want to successfully apply the principle of reciprocity, then you must include one of these three elements:

1. The service or gift you give should be tailored to the person. Let me ask you this: How many of you have given your clients a pen or notebook with your company name on it? I'm sorry, but that's the wrong move. If you get a pen with a company name on it, that pen will probably end up with other pens in your room or in the trash. But now imagine getting a pen with your name on it. That pen will probably always be in your pocket, and every time you use it, you'll remember the company or person who gave it to you. I have a cousin who is in the last year of his undergraduate studies. He is an excellent student, and almost all the professors praise him. A few days ago, he shared a picture with me. There was a picture of a pencil with two names engraved on it. One was his name, but the other I couldn't recognize. When I asked what it was about, he said he did well in one of his subjects, and the professor gave him a pencil. The pencil had his name and the professor's name written on it. You had to see how happy and proud he was. He treated that pen with so much care you'd think it was made of gold. I'm sure he will always use that pen and remember that professor. You probably think that it is not possible to customize gifts in your company because you have thousands of customers, right? Well, yes, it's hard to do it on a large scale, but you probably have VIP clients, right? You can do it with them. For example, airlines have first class customers, restaurants have loyal customers, hotels have customers who always stay in the most expensive suites. Your company also has VIP clients, and their number is probably not that high. So do it with them, especially since their numbers are not that high, plus they bring you the most profit.

2. The gift or favor you give must be unexpected. For example, the waitress candy experiment I talked about at the beginning has elements of the unexpected. People did not expect the waitress to come back and give another candy.

3. The gift must be meaningful to the person. Let's say you have a client who always pays invoices late. Next time you send an invoice, try to include some kind of small gift that he might find meaningful. For example, if the person is an art lover, then some kind of art as a gift would be great. Reciprocity is one of the principles that has helped me tremendously in growing my business. Here's how: It doesn't matter what your job or occupation is; we all need help from others who are more successful than us. And it is not easy to convince someone who is at a much higher level than you to help you. And do you know what most people do when they seek help from such people? They say, "Okay, here's a list of 10 people who can help me. Let's go and ask each of them, and one of them will probably be kind enough to help me." Unfortunately, most of the time it doesn't work, especially if the person has a higher position, higher income, higher reputation...

So what is the right way to ask for help? Well, the correct way is to apply the principle of reciprocity and see how you can help them first. If you can help them with something first, they will, in turn, try to help you as well. So you shouldn't look at a group of people and say, "Which of these 10 people can help me?" Instead, you should say, "Which of these 10 people can I help so that they, in turn, would be happy to help me?" You should spend most of your time trying to identify how you can help the person you need help from, especially if you can identify their pain points. In other words, if you can identify the problems and offer a solution, then you have a very high chance of getting help from them.

The world we live in is not perfect; there will always be people who will offer you some favors or gifts to get you to do something for them. Try to say no to this kind of service. You have to distinguish between people who are genuinely trying to help you and those who are simply trying to trick you into doing something for them. You are socially obligated to return an honest favor with another favor; you are not obligated to repay the fraud with the service. For example, in negotiations, when one side compromises, it is almost considered a favor. A compromise on one side usually prompts the other side to make its own compromise; it is another form of reciprocity. That's why skilled negotiators often start with extreme demands. Once they compromise from that initial position, then the other side often feels obligated to make their own compromise. So the strategy is to make a big request first, then back off to a smaller request, and the smaller request is usually what they really wanted in the first place. The author calls this the "request then pull" strategy. If you're in a negotiation and someone makes a huge demand and then slowly backs off, I hope you already know what's going on here.

Before I move on to the second principle, I would like to give you one more tip about the principle of reciprocity. It probably happens to you often: you help someone with something, they thank you, and you reply something like "You're welcome, it wasn't a big deal, I didn't do much." Why do you do that? Why are you rejecting your services? You suddenly did something extra; you've gone out of your way, wasted your time or money. So why do you reject it by doing a favor? You activate the principle of reciprocity so that the person will be ready to return the favor in the future. But when you devalue your service, you deactivate the principle of reciprocity, and the person feels no obligation to help you in the future. What should you do the next time someone thanks you for something? Well, simply thank the person and say, "If the roles were reversed, I'm sure you would do the same for me," or "That's what friends or colleagues do for each other." Such a response keeps the favor in their mind, and the next time the opportunity arises, the person will make sure to return the favor.

Principle number two: sympathy. This principle simply means that we are much more likely to say yes to someone we love, or we are much more likely to buy something from the person we love. But what does it take for one person to love another? It turns out that there are three important factors.

The first factor: we like people who are similar to us, who have similar hobbies, similar taste in music, similar character, etc. For example, in one negotiation experiment, researchers asked two groups of people to negotiate and reach an agreement. In the first group, people were told, "Time is money, so start negotiations now." However, in the second group, before the negotiation, they were asked to spend some time together and identify the similarities they shared. In the first group, 55 percent of people reached agreement. However, in another group, where people spent time identifying similarities, they had a 90 percent success rate in reaching agreement. How can you apply this knowledge? If you are meeting an important business partner for the first time, try to find genuine similarities between the two of you and talk about them. And if there are any areas where you can give a genuine compliment, then do so. That brings me to the second reason we love each other, which is compliments.

We humans love compliments. In fact, we love them so much that we can't tell the difference between true and false compliments. Compliments don't have to be sincere or accurate to touch us. We get a compliment and just melt. Research shows that fake compliments have almost the same positive effect on us as true compliments. For example, I am not a detail oriented person. I'm good at seeing the big picture and creating a vision, but I'm pretty bad at details, and I'm aware of that. But once, somehow, I noticed a small detail on our project that everyone missed and pointed it out to my colleagues at work. One of my colleagues complimented me on this and said, "It's great to have such a detail-oriented person on our team." I knew I wasn't a detail oriented person, but still, that compliment pleased me and made me love him more. To this day, I still remember that colleague and the moment when he praised me. Of course, he wasn't trying to manipulate me with compliments; he really thought I was good at it. But I knew that wasn't the case. This is a human weakness, and some people will abuse it and give you fake compliments to make you like them. And when you love them, you're much more likely to say YES to their future requests. So be aware of this weakness, and if you notice that you like the seller after an hour of getting to know them, then understand what is going on and don't let it affect your decision. And if you want to apply it to others, then do it sincerely. Do some research online, find genuine similarities and genuine compliments, and bring them up in conversation. For example, for similarity, you can say, "Oh, I noticed that you like to play soccer. I do too. How often do you play?" And in the case of compliments, if you notice that the person is always quick to respond to emails, you can praise them for that. This way, not only will the person love you, you will also love the person. The author says that it is more important that you love a person than that a person loves you. Why? Well, just think about it. Yes, you like doing business with the person you love. That's obvious. But when you know that the person also loves you, then you trust them a lot more because you know that they are willing to fight for your interests and go the extra mile for you.

Principle number three: commitment and consistency. This means that we usually want to be consistent with what we have done and said in the past. Unfortunately, this human tendency can lead us down a path of foolish consistency. For example, you probably supported an idea or opinion simply because you supported it in the past, even though you no longer believe in it. You still defend her because you don't want to seem inconsistent. We hate to be inconsistent. Just think how you feel about a friend who never keeps his promises or never does what he promises to do. You probably don't want anything to do with him or her, do you?

Once we commit to something, we humans want to see consistency in ourselves and also in others. For example, imagine you're hanging out with friends, and one of them publicly says that he really likes how reliable you are and how good you are at keeping secrets. Everyone around you agrees with his opinion. Now, even if you're not very good at keeping secrets, from that point on you'll do everything you can to present yourself as someone who can keep secrets because you don't want to lose that status and act inconsistently. For example, one study found that people who agreed to put a small "drive carefully" sticker on their home window were more than four times more likely to agree to put a large sign with the same message on their front lawn two weeks later. Agreeing to a small request obliged them to agree to a much larger request.

The obligation is especially powerful if it is done publicly, voluntarily, actively, which means that the person either says it out loud or writes it down. And finally, if the obligation requires some effort from the person. I am sure you are now wondering how you can apply all this knowledge in real life. Here are some examples and tips.

Let's say you are presenting a very important idea to your boss or colleagues, and during the presentation they are nodding their heads, but you are not sure if they will really accept it or not. Obviously, you can't say to your boss, "Do you promise to actually do this?" But what you can do is send him an email summarizing everything you discussed and ask him to confirm that what you summarized reflects what you just agreed on in the meeting. If he answers positively, then that email is a confirmation of his commitment. The best part is that it was done publicly in front of others.

Another example: if you have a goal, then making it public to others can make you stick to that goal. To make your commitment to that goal even stronger, you can prepare a calendar and put it on the wall and put a cross on each day you stick to your goal. For example, if you want to exercise or diet for 30 days, putting a calendar or chalkboard on the wall can be very powerful because: 1. On some level, it's done publicly. At least family members can see it. 2. It requires some effort from you to prepare the board. 3. It is written. And finally, 4. It was done voluntarily by you. Such a board actually activates all four elements of the commitment and consistency principles I just mentioned. Once you start putting in a few crosses, you won't want to have empty frames in there. You will want to be consistent. Every cross you make will be a commitment to yourself. Each cross will be a commitment to the type of person you want to become.

For commitment to be effective, you need to start small and build on it. For example, if your goal is to read one hour every day, then you should not start reading one hour a day. You should start with one minute a day. And it's perfectly fine if you spend the first 30 days just reading for one minute because in the beginning it doesn't matter how many pages you read, it's the commitment that matters.

Let me tell you a personal story to explain why you should start small or make the first step very easy if you want someone to agree to help you. When I was in college, I wanted to research a topic for my thesis, and I was looking for a professor to supervise me. So I prepared a very nice and detailed email describing every aspect of the research and added as much information as I could. I spent almost three days preparing the email and sent it to several professors. A week went by without an answer, two weeks went by and not a single answer, a month went by and still nothing. I became quite discouraged and lost interest in research for almost four months.

But one day, I read this book and realized what I had done wrong with my email. When I looked at the email again, I realized that the professor should have spent at least 20 minutes reading, analyzing, and writing a response to the email. You probably know that most professors are busy, and if you're a busy person, you know very well that when you see an assignment that requires a lot of attention and time, you say, "I'll deal with that later," and that's probably what happened to my email. They said, "I'll deal with it later," and that "later" never came. My email ended up in their inbox somewhere.

So I decided to send another email, but this time I described everything in two sentences and asked a simple question that could be answered with a yes or no. This time, I got a response from most of them because it only takes a few seconds to respond yes or no to an email, and most importantly, by responding, they committed to responding to my future emails. After all, if you say yes to someone, you feel obligated to respond to their second or third request, even if it takes 30 minutes, right? And that's exactly what happened to me.

Before I explain how you can defend yourself against people who use commitment tactics for nefarious purposes, I'd like to give you another example that shows how one restaurant manager used it successfully. If you understand the restaurant business a little, you know that it often happens that people who reserve tables don't actually come, which is quite bad for a restaurant because you reserve a table and buy ingredients according to the number of reservations, and if they don't come, as a restaurant owner, you lose a lot of money.

That's why one restaurant manager decided to use the commitment principle to reduce the number of cancellations. Usually, when people call to make a reservation, the receptionist would say, "If you decide to cancel or change your reservation, please call us." And as you guessed, most of them didn't come and didn't even invite. This manager asked the receptionist to ask the question a little differently. Instead of saying, "Please call us if you decide to cancel or change your reservation," she now said, "If you decide to cancel or change your reservation, could you please call us?"

As you can see, the difference is very small. Instead of saying, "Please call us," she said, "Could you call us?" Although the difference was small, the number of people who came increased dramatically because when the receptionist asked, "Could you call us?" the caller actually thought about it and made a conscious commitment. When they said yes, they felt obligated, and that's why most of them came or called to inform about the cancellation.

The principle of obligation is often used by marketers and others to get you to do something. For example, a seller offers a benefit so that a person makes a purchase decision, and then the benefit is removed. The person has made a decision and wants to stick to it.

To recognize such manipulative situations, we should listen to the signals coming from two places within us: our stomachs and our hearts. Gut signals appear when we realize that we are being pushed to agree to a request that we do not want. Signals from the heart are quite reliable when it is not clear to us whether the initial commitment was correct or not. Here we should ask ourselves a key question: "Knowing what I know now, would I go back in time and repeat the same commitment?" If the answer is no, then it's better to just give up.

Principle number four: social proof. This principle states that we decide what is right based on what other people think is right. If a lot of other people are doing something, then it must be right. For example, when you buy a book or some other product, you probably check the reviews, right? This is the simplest example of social proof. This principle is especially powerful under two conditions: first, when we are uncertain. For example, you see a group of people running towards you for some reason, you will probably join them instead of continuing to walk in that direction, right? Second, yes we copy others, but we don't copy any random group of people. We copy others who are similar to us or who are in similar situations as us. So remember these two key terms: uncertainty and similarity. You will soon see how powerful they are and how they can help you earn thousands of extra dollars in your business simply by changing a few words.

For example, the UK government tried to force tax defaulters to pay their taxes on time. First, they sent a letter threatening them with certain sanctions. This resulted in a 67% success rate. They then added one small sentence to the letter which read: "The vast majority of UK citizens pay their taxes on time. Please do so this time." The success rate rose to 74%, a pretty good increase. But we're not done yet. Here's the most interesting part: they made another small change in the previous sentence. This time, the letter read: "The vast majority of UK citizens in your city pay their taxes on time. Please do so." Success immediately jumped to 83%. By simply changing a few sentences, the UK government has made billions of pounds. Not bad, right?

I will soon explain what this experiment means for you and how you can apply it in your business life, but first, let me tell you another experiment because it shows how powerful the principle of social proof is even across borders. A Chinese restaurant in Beijing put stars next to certain dishes on the menu that said, "These are our most popular dishes," and guess what happened? Those dishes were ordered 13 to 20% more. You've probably seen restaurants that say things like "Chef's Choice," but we all know what that means, right? That means it's probably leftovers from yesterday. But on the other hand, when we know that most people who visit this particular restaurant choose certain items, then we have a feeling that it is the right choice. When we go to a restaurant, most of us are unsure of what to choose from the menu, and as I mentioned earlier, when we are unsure, we look at what others have done who have been in a similar situation to us.

Now, how can you apply this knowledge in your business or business? If you or your company sells something, it means that you already have a certain product, service or payment package that is mostly chosen by your customers. So the next time you have a new client, just mention this fact. For example, "Most freshmen buy this computer from us," or "Most small business owners like you choose this paid plan," or "Most of our new customers choose this financial product," etc. When people make a decision, they want to know what others have done who are in a similar situation, and simply by mentioning what is already true, existing or happening, you give them a guideline to follow. You are not deceiving them or misleading them, you are simply stating the truth. If most of your new clients choose a particular product when they start and you've seen them be quite happy with that choice over the years, then there's nothing unethical about mentioning that to your new clients.

I would like to say a few words about protecting yourself from this principle because sometimes it can really hurt you. For example, many traffic accidents occur because a few drivers in front start to change lanes, and other drivers coming up behind start to do the same. They think that if others are doing it, then it should be fine. Sometimes even a large group of people can do nonsense. This phenomenon even has a special name called pluralistic uninformed. So before you follow the crowd, ask yourself if it really makes sense to you. If not, then don't do it. Regardless of how many people do it, the masses can also act in certain ways that don't make sense. For example, sometimes you see someone on the street who needs help, but no one approaches thinking that someone else will do it. Everyone thinks someone else is going to do it, and no one actually does anything.

So if you have an emergency on the street, don't turn to the crowd yelling, "Help me!" or "Call the police!" Identify the individual and make the request. For example, "You in the red shirt, call the police," or "You in the white hat, call 911," etc. The same principle applies when you email a group of people for a request. Don't just send an email to everyone in the company or department saying, "Hi everyone, can any of you help me with my project?" You probably won't get an answer because everyone will think someone else will. Identify the most appropriate person and submit your request.

That's all for this summary. If you liked this literary analysis, I think you will definitely like the book analysis called "Predictably Irrational" by Dan Ariely.