How do you take a good brand that has had a mishap and more or less destroyed their good standing with retailers, from underdog to leading brand in sales? That was what I was wondering when I took on the scuba diving drysuit brand Hot’n’Dry as a sales representative. At the same time I was introduced to the influence work of Dr Cialdini. The implementation of his principles was relatively easy and helped me turn this damaged brand into market leader in 18 month.
My personal journey with Influence and the brand people laughed at
The application of simple changes and ethical communication strategies to be more persuasive stole my heart and I’ve used the principles of influence the rest of my personal and professional career. Teaching it to hundreds of people who were equally impressed how well it works and that without putting any weight on your conscious.
My personal journey with the Principles of Influence as taught by Dr Cialdini started shortly after the turn of the century. As an existing outbound sales rep looking after a large area of Australia for a wholesaler in scuba equipment, I was offered to take on the brand Hot’n’Dry. A good qualitative brand with a unique design, but due to the supply of faulty materials from suppliers a whole year worth of dry diving suits saw them all returned leaking.
The problem was now fixed but retailers had lost all faith in the brand and called it funny names. Here I was… a great product, but no one wanted to hear about it. I was learning about the principles of influence at the time as I was being trained to be a business consultant to our retailers. As each principle of influence was brought to my awareness, I started looking for them in my interactions with retails and found that many principles were present and could be brought to the attention of those I was trying to convince.
Which Principles of Influence are in my situation?
There are a number of principles of influence. Rules of thumb if you will. Short cuts for the mind to do what what typically works out well for us in an effort to deal with decisions. Identifying which principles are in your given situation BEFORE you try to influence someone, is the key.
The principle of CONTRAST isn’t strictly speaking a principle of influence. It’s a principle of perception. It is present in EVERY communication setting and works very well together with the principle of reciprocity. It was easy to find genuine opportunities to bring to light against what else, my audience needed to consider what I was offering them.
My background as military diver, my history of cold and low visibility diving and extensive experience with this type of diving suit, all were fuel for the use of the principle of authority.
The use of Trial Days, in which people could listen to a presentation and then try the suits in the pool, gave power to the principles of reciprocity and consensus.