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    Pre-Suasion: Channeling Attention for Change
    Pre-Suasion: Channeling Attention for Change
    Pre-Suasion: Channeling Attention for Change
    Audiobook9 hours

    Pre-Suasion: Channeling Attention for Change

    Written by Robert Cialdini

    Narrated by John Bedford Lloyd

    4.5/5

    ()

    About this audiobook

    The acclaimed New York Times and Wall Street Journal bestseller from Robert Cialdini—“the foremost expert on effective persuasion” (Harvard Business Review)—explains how it’s not necessarily the message itself that changes minds, but the key moment before you deliver that message.

    What separates effective communicators from truly successful persuaders? With the same rigorous scientific research and accessibility that made his Influence an iconic bestseller, Robert Cialdini explains how to prepare people to be receptive to a message before they experience it. Optimal persuasion is achieved only through optimal pre-suasion. In other words, to change “minds” a pre-suader must also change “states of mind.”

    Named a “Best Business Books of 2016” by the Financial Times, and “compelling” by The Wall Street Journal, Cialdini’s Pre-Suasion draws on his extensive experience as the most cited social psychologist of our time and explains the techniques a person should implement to become a master persuader. Altering a listener’s attitudes, beliefs, or experiences isn’t necessary, says Cialdini—all that’s required is for a communicator to redirect the audience’s focus of attention before a relevant action.

    From studies on advertising imagery to treating opiate addiction, from the annual letters of Berkshire Hathaway to the annals of history, Cialdini outlines the specific techniques you can use on online marketing campaigns and even effective wartime propaganda. He illustrates how the artful diversion of attention leads to successful pre-suasion and gets your targeted audience primed and ready to say, “Yes.” His book is “an essential tool for anyone serious about science based business strategies…and is destined to be an instant classic. It belongs on the shelf of anyone in business, from the CEO to the newest salesperson” (Forbes).
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherSimon & Schuster Audio
    Release dateSep 6, 2016
    ISBN9781508223207
    Pre-Suasion: Channeling Attention for Change
    Author

    Robert Cialdini

    Robert Cialdini is recognized worldwide for his inspired field research on the psychology of influence. He is a New York Times bestselling author. His books, including Influence, have sold more than three million copies in thirty-three languages. Dr. Cialdini is Regents’ Professor Emeritus of Psychology and Marketing at Arizona State University and the president and CEO of Influence at Work, an international company that provides keynotes and influence training on how to use the lessons in Dr. Cialdini’s books ethically and effectively.

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    Reviews for Pre-Suasion

    4.5/5

    268 ratings15 reviews

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    • 5/5
      He never fails to disappoint. I was hoping and waiting hoping he would produce another book. I don't want to give away the content but the most impactful lesson for me was: If-when-then.

      1 person found this helpful

    • 3/5
      Honestly the stories the book has are interesting, but the language used is just redundant, too proffesory, not straight forward and though interesting, it's not the kind of thing you feel compelled to listen non stop

      1 person found this helpful

    • 3/5
      I found that the previous book of Cialdini, Influence was easier to follow its ideas and concepts. I would recommend that book over this new one.

      1 person found this helpful

    • 5/5
      Absolutely revolutionary insights! I will be going through it again!

      1 person found this helpful

    • 5/5
      Awesome .

      1 person found this helpful

    • 5/5
      Great book! Definitely worth reading, especially for people not familiar with psychological research.
    • 5/5
      A very nice piece of wok. WNt to listen to it again
    • 5/5
      Truly a great inside look at how the psychology of buyers and sellers of anything works.

      Awesome takeaways!

      Read it if you want to be better at.. we’ll I don’t want to spoil things.
    • 5/5
      Why is this book not available in the UK? Can be something done about it? I mean, i read what i want to read pr listen to. It s not working with a vpn either
    • 5/5
      Mad good I really enjoyed this it helps a lot
    • 5/5
      Fantastic book. Illuminating and well conveyed to say the least.
    • 4/5
      Giving one star for tone deaf example about Ukrainian women.
      Before making stereotypic examples always compare to your mother.
    • 5/5
      Phenomenal book for strategic communications with potential clients and other people.
    • 5/5
      Robert Cialdini, Pre-Suasion: A Revolutionary Way to Influence and Persuade: Cialdini’s Influence is one of the best books on how to get people to buy things (and do things, but often operationalized in buying things) there is. Here, Cialdini more explicitly targets the persuaders, versus the persuaded, and argues that there are key moves made before any request that influence its chances of success. One might wonder about his touting of the utility of expertise, given the current nightmare of “screw the experts” we’re living in, but otherwise it’s a really powerful read. Indeed, it provides reinforcement for some other lessons from the 2016 election: there is strong evidence that people do agree that whatever the media focuses on is really important (but her emails!), related to the larger phenomenon that what is prominent is seen as important and causal. Thus, for example, the practice of embedding journalists with troops in the war on Iraq led to many more stories, proportionally, about the troops’ lives and tactics, and fewer about the overall nature of the war, with similar consequences for American opinion.Unsurprisingly, lots of persuasion is about similarity, and we are really vulnerable to similarities that are irrelevant, like salespeople with similar names to ours, or ethnic backgrounds. Women are twice as likely to friend a man who contacts them on Facebook if he claims to have the same birthday, and people prefer foods with names that share letters of the alphabet with their own names. If you saw all those Coke bottles with names, they produced the first increase in US Coke sales in a decade. The best factoid here: In 2004, Rolling Stone listed the greatest 500 songs of the rock era, and the two highest ranked were Dylan’s “Like a Rolling Stone” and the Rolling Stones’ “(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction,” and of ten similar lists, none of them picked either as the top choices.Persuasion is also about fluency—the ease with which we understand something influences its believability. That’s why rhymes are more persuasive. More than getting targets to like you, selling requires targets to believe you like them, and similarities and compliments produce these beliefs—targets believe that if you like them, you will steer them well. Social proof, where we follow others and also improve our behavior if shown that others around us are behaving well, is not just about our belief in the wisdom of crowds; it shows that improvement is feasible for people like us. How do we come to see others as within the circle of “us”? Cialdini tells the story of the Japanese civil servant Chiune Sugihara, who wrote visas for hundreds of Jews even as it destroyed his career, and suggests that the foundation of his acts was at least in part his childhood in Korea, where his family operated an inn: he routinely saw others within his home, expanding his sense of family. Likewise, he argues, the Jewish refugees in Japan saved themselves when a Nazi representative in Tokyo suggested brutal repression by a rabbi’s response to an official’s questions, Why do our allies the Nazis hate you so much and why should we side with you? The rabbi’s response, he reports, was “Because we are Asian, like you.” This triggered the officials’ understandings of white racism against the Japanese and led them to reject the Nazi entreaties. If he’s right, the circle of “us” is not irredeemably closed, with the right techniques.Less politically charged: if you want to use sex to sell, sex is associated with individuality/standing out because it triggers mental patterns about showing off/being chosen. Distinctiveness-based appeals should therefore be associated with non-frightening stimuli; in general, “don’t be left out” ads work better if people are frightened, so show those social proof ads with horror movies and sex/“show your distinctiveness” ads with romantic movies. To persuade someone, first intrigue them with a mystery: pose the mystery, deepen the mystery, consider and offer evidence against alternative explanations, then give them clues about the proper explanation and resolve the mystery. So, for example, tobacco consumption rose after TV ads for tobacco were banned. Why? The fairness doctrine: anti-smoking ads had been running as often as tobacco ads, and they were persuasive; removing persuasive counter-arguments was more helpful for tobacco sales than keeping the ads.Cialdini also argues against abusing these techniques out of enlightened self-interest, though he recognizes that short-termism among business leaders makes this a hard sell. He argues that businesses that cheat their clients end up experiencing employee underperformance (from demoralization), excessive turnover, and employee malfeasance (since if cheating is ok, it’s fine to cheat the boss), with some very suggestive study results supporting that, as well as intuition. I guess we’ll have a chance to look at all of that in the White House these next four years. PS: Among other studies, he cites evidence that income inequality leads lower-income people to put less trust in others, since they didn’t believe others would be fair—and this meant that “[s]tudents in schools in geographic regions characterized by large income inequality are more likely to visit online sites that provide them ways to cheat,” apparently because they have lower trust in others and think everyone’s doing it.
    • 4/5
      Cialdini’s Answer to GladwellIn “Influence,” Cialdini argued that there are six universals of persuasion: reciprocation, liking, social proof, authority, scarcity and consistency. The text stood as a benchmark of persuasion for nearly 30 years. Then came Malcolm Gladwell’s “Blink,” which showed that people make decisions in a blink of an eye for reasons they are not fully conscious of. The process of harnessing this tendency has been called (not first by Gladwell) priming.With nary any reference to Gladwell or priming, or the examples illustrated in “Blink,” Cialdini introduces the concept of “an opener… steps… persuaders can take to make audiences more receptive to the case they intend to present.” Naming a restaurant Studio 97 rather than Studio 17 will likely increase the amount of money patrons are willing to pay for a dinner. Wearing a high rather low jersey number will enhance estimates of an athlete’s performance. Asking students to draw long lines on paper will get them, minutes later, to extenuate estimates of the length of the Mississippi River. Playing a German song at a wine store will increase sales of German brands.If you read “Blink” and wanted more examples of priming you will be as pleased with “Pre-suasion” as those who have long awaited a follow-up to “Influence.” Cialdini reconciles his theory of six persuasion universals with Gladwell’s startling insights on priming, but it is a bit of a tortured path, fraught with unwarranted political opinions.It has been rumored that Cialdini worked for the Obama campaign and is now in the Hillary camp. For many this will put into question Cialdini precaution not to use the persuasion tactics explained in Pre-suasion to fool or exploit.