Learnings from Influence by Robert Cialdini
Principle 2: Offer something to someone
When you offer something to someone first, then it is easier to ask for a favor later on. The reason is that people, because you helped them in some way, or you have been kind with them, feel the need to pay you back.
The initial situation needs to be studied, but in general that is the idea.
Implication in entrepreneurship: Let’s say you have a main product. You can create a complementary product, which still has a cost, and offer it for free for a certain amount of time to some of your prospects. It will trigger this feeling of “I got something for free”, hence I need to pay back in a certain way. Example with Lesk: A tool that can help DJs (access to library of ads for social media, a tool to help them divide their library) at a price of 10$/month but made free because they show some interest – and track this interest.
However, you need to be careful, because some people might just accept the free gift without caring about paying you back (ex: Free work for a reference).
Principle 2-2: Anchoring
This one is a kind of known principle: The fact of anchoring. The higher (or lower) you set the expectation, the most probable you can have what you want.
The examples that are taken here are the fact that shops displays expensive items in order to make lower sales rather than displaying cheap items.
The reason I can come up with, is that, it helps to attract people who can spend money on your product, no matter how much of their budget it will eat them. Example: I wouldn’t go to a shop where I know they sell 3000$ jacket, but someone, who even have the same amount of savings than me, might go if it’s ok for this person to spend this amount of money. It’s a way to filter your potential customers/niche. Then, once they are inside of your shop, they might as well think they have made a good deal by buying something at 1000$ while the revert would maybe happen less.
If we take the example of video editing then, I think that a high price listing all the services with the capacity to be modular could trigger this. Example: videographer : – For 3000$ I do 15 tasks. Client : – What about 10 tasks for 1500$ ? This can be a better deal, a better anchor than I’ll do it for 1000$ while the budget could have been better.
Same with organizing parties: I am looking for a venue to launch a concept of 10 parties minimum, here are the posters (you need to make the posters in advance). If the venue accepts 3 or 5 nights it’s better than struggling for 1.