Increase your influence with this bias
Let's stop our boat.
Last week, I told you about the halo effect.
Now, it’s time to explore another one.
The anchoring effect
But there are plenty of biases to exploit if you want to increase your influence and we'll talk about another one today.
Let's do the exercise and answer this question without cheating:
Is a diplodocus longer than 40 meters?
Write down your answer.
If you don't know the answer, I just influenced your answer.
Assuming that I have taken 40 meters to illustrate my point, the subject will imagine that the answer is close to my proposal.
The real answer is about 25 meters, but it doesn't matter because you have just understood how the anchoring effect works.
If you want to dive into how it works, there are many studies available.
How can you take advantage of the anchoring effect ?
Be the first to offer a price in negotiation.
Imagine being in the process of negotiating a salary: if the person offering you the job talks to you about $2000 per month, how will you manage to sell yourself for $3000?
Make your move first. Negotiation is a psychological war.
Inverting the situation, if you offer $3000 so that he can hire you, he won't be able to offer you $2000 since his anchor is around $3000. If your profile is really unique, they may make an effort during the negotiation.
Be specific in the numbers you advertise.
If I tell you that my next program is worth $55.
Not many people will think it's worth $20.
If I tell you my next program is worth $20.
Not many people will think it's worth $5.
Anchor a value in the mind of the person in front of you.
Marketing tip
Let's imagine that we have a product that we want to sell at 7 € but that for packaging reasons, we prefer to sell it in pairs.
Instead of displaying the price per unit at 7 €, we display it at 10.
And the pair is 14 €.
We anchor the value 10 € at our customer.
He makes a quick calculation 2x10 = 20 €.
He wins 6 € according to him by buying the bundle at 14 €.
You manage to make your sales in pairs.
He is happy.
You are happy.
Everybody wins.
It's a passive way of pressure so that we never get a counter proposal that is way too low compared to our offer.
There are still many ways to take advantage of the anchoring effect but it is now up to you to do your research.