Skip to main content

How to use the Scarcity Principle to exercise Influence

 


Scarcity: Have it before it is gone

I am currently reading “Influence” by Robert Cialdini. Today the key idea learned was how the scarcity principle influences decision-making.

Have you ever noticed how the hotel booking websites display messages of the Last room left, the Last few rooms, and 1 room booked just now? Also, infomercials flash messages of "Limited Time Deals" with a timer running to push customers to buy immediately lest the product of their dreams disappears from the shelves.

In the U.S., on the launch of a new model of iPhone, queues of buyers form a night before the stores launch the phone. The die-hard fans of the iPhone fall prey to the scarcity principle cleverly deployed by Apple by offering just a handful of units. People want to lay their hands on the new phone as if their lives depend on it. They are ready to do unimaginable things just to trade a closer spot in the queue. The artificial scarcity works wonder for the brand as its sales skyrocket.

How can we use this principle to our benefit? The ads on TV published by the Health Ministry to counter Tobacco use are spot on. They show the painful outcomes associated with tobacco use whereby people lose their lives or facial tissue. It shows the broken family as a result of the continued habit of tobacco use. It is a way of saying that you will lose the chance of a good life or suffer physically and emotionally if you continue. The loss is imminent.

The principle deployed is to prevent a loss than show the potential gain. Imagine how the ads would have fared if they had pointed out the benefit of not smoking- healthy life, whiter teeth, saved money, or better cardiovascular health! If we show the downside of a particular action or inaction it is going to have better compliance from people. 

So, if you want the people to comply with a request, state the loss of not following it than highlighting what they will gain out of it.

Another striking example of using the scarcity principle by just adjusting the placement of words in a line got me thinking. The Author’s friend who is a Divorce Lawyer practiced marital resolutions outside courts. She used to make the parties sit in different rooms and hop between these rooms with proposals from one side to the other. This was to evade situations of deadlock. Then when a final proposal was ready she would use the statement: “All we have to do is this, this and this….and we can have a Deal”. In most cases there used to be a disagreement leading to parties approaching courts. When she was suggested to use the statement by changing the placements of the words it gave 100% results. The changed placement of words was: “We have a Deal, All you have to do is this, this and this…..”.

The scarcity principle was cleverly invoked by giving the parties a Deal that was conditional if they fulfilled certain conditions. Parties having a resolution in mind were pushed into a scarcity mindset of just having the Deal or losing it if they did not act on the conditions.

I think this principle works as we have plenty of examples in real life like “finish your veggies first then you can have the pudding”, “you can go out and play the moment you finish your homework”, and countless other instances.

Exercises for the Day

Strength: Chest Day/ Biceps Day.

4 sets of Flat Bench Press.

4 sets of Inclined Bench Press. 

4 sets of Inclined Dumbbell Bench Press. 

4 sets of Barbell Preacher Curl.

1 set each of Dumbbell Curl and Cable Curl.

4 sets of Seated Calf Raise.

Rehab: McGill Big 3 (1 set each). Lock Big 3 (1 set each).

Cardio:  Running(Zone 2-3 Training)

35 mins for the Day. 

35 mins completed for the week.(Last week 91 mins.) 

Target 180 mins for the week.

Anything I like to share/ Habit Tracker

Clean for 122 days.

Pic of the Day 

Salute to your Honesty, Sir.( Only Punjabis can infer)


Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Index funds: How they can be a better instrument over Mutual Funds

  Over the years I have got exposed to the idea of Index Funds through reading some books and following the advice of celebrity investors on social media.  An index fund is a type of mutual fund or exchange-traded fund (ETF) that aims to replicate the performance of a specific market index, such as the S&P 500 in the U.S., the FTSE 100 in London, or the Sensex 30 or Nifty 50 in India.  Unlike the actively managed funds, which rely on the expertise of fund managers to select individual stocks, index funds passively track the composition and performance of an underlying index. Now the question arises what is an Index? An Index is a benchmark for evaluating the performance of an investment portfolio. In India, we have 2 major Indices- Sensex 30 and Nifty 50. In Sensex 30, we have the top 30 companies by market cap (Share price X No. of shares) listed on the Bombay Stock Exchange, and for Nifty 50 it is the top 50 companies by market cap listed on the National Stock Exc...
Post a Comment
Read more

One who agrees against his will, Is of the same opinion still !

Compliance refers to the act of following instructions or conforming to the expectations or demands of others. It is an important concept in psychology and child development as it relates to how individuals, particularly children, respond to authority figures and social norms. Compliance can occur due to various reasons, including a desire to avoid punishment, gain rewards, or seek approval from others. To understand the practical outcomes of compliance tactics, Jonathan Freedman, a social psychologist conducted an experiment involving school boys to assess their compliance to directions to not do a certain activity. The direction in this regard was to not play with a particularly attractive toy and different samples of school boys were given directions in different ways. In the first leg of the experiment, Freedman invited the boys one at a time into the experiment room and presented them with 5 toys to play with. However, he gave a command to the child to not play with an attract...
Post a Comment
Read more

Think before you say something, it may be hard to retract- the fallacy of Consistency Bias

  The Korean War was a conflict that took place on the Korean Peninsula from 1950 to 1953. It began on June 25, 1950, when North Korea, supported by the Soviet Union and China, invaded South Korea. The war stemmed from the division of Korea after World War II, with the Soviet Union occupying the north and the United States occupying the south. In the conflict, many American soldiers were taken Prisoner of War (POW) in the Chinese camps. The Chinese treated these soldiers differently than their North Korean allies who were brutal in their tactics to solicit compliance from the POWs. The Chinese followed a compliance tactic through commitment garnered from American soldiers by making them write marginally anti-American things about America and marginally good things about Communism. But how did they achieve this? They set on a path of staggered compliance by committing soldiers to their own confessions. What were these confessions about? The Chinese used to force American soldier...
Post a Comment
Read more