Stuff I learned in Psychology can help you get what you want!
// January 30th, 2010 // Advice
The Foot in the Door Phenomenon
The Concept: If you’re wondering how to convince superiors, employees or customers to do what you ask, try using the foot in the door phenomenon. This refers to the tendency of people to do something huge if they have already agreed to something much smaller. Your friend should be much more open to helping you decorate your entire house for a dinner party if, for example, he already helped you pick out decorations.
How You Can Use It: Let say you’re trying sell something. If you can get a person to talk to you for a couple of minutes and have the person try your product, you’ve got their “foot in the door”. They are much more likely to buy from you than if you had just screamed a sales pitch at them.
The Door in the Face Phenomenon
The Concept: First you ask for something, crazy. Like a huge favor. When they turn you down, you then ask for what you really want, which now looks trivial in light of what you asked for a moment earlier.
How You Can Use It: It’s an easy way to get what you want. Here’s a scenario I used just this past week. I needed to find someone to cover my shift at work for a weekend. I asked someone if they can work for me for next week, I told them I could trade hours and everything. One week!? She kindly declined my request, but when I asked her if she can simply work for the weekend, she said she could!
