257New Marketing Reality 9New Marketing Reality 9
How Fast You Close Depends on How Well You Start (Authority)
Dr. Robert Cialdini’s fantastic book Influence —The Psychology of Persuasion
clearly shows the power of authority for helping in the sales and marketing arena.
Among other important keys such as social proof and likeability was authority.
That ability to be seen as someone people should listen to. He described the power
of this while reporting about the scientific research work of Dr. John Milgram.
The famous Milgram studies concluded that if someone held a high enough
position of authority, he could get subjects to do just about anything. His
seminal study involved gathering students in a waiting room where they came to
participate in a study on electricity. He would go into the waiting room dressed in
his white medical smock, stethoscope and clip board to pick subjects. He would
take them into the lab two at a time. Once inside, he sat one student in a chair
and hooked him up to electrodes while the other student watched. Once done,
the second student would go to the other room where all the electrodes gathered
to the back of an electrical contraption.
The second student was told that he was there to measure the effects of electricity
on the human body. He was to ask a question of the zappee and if the question
wasn’t answered correctly, he (the zapper) had to flip a switch on the electrical
machine which would shoot a jolt of electricity through the wires into the zappee.
In addition, after every question asked, the zapper would double the watts being
sent into the other student. After 4 or 5 wrong answers, there were screams from
the other room ... yet, still he was told to flip the switch.
It got so bad that the screams could be heard down the hall. The zapper was