Yes, Yes, Yes

📜 Sunday Strategy Breakdown

🪙 The Vault

You walk into a car dealership ready to buy a car.

But you know that you’re budget is $30,000, not a single penny over.

You’re the “bargain shopper” and you know how to negotiate a good deal. So no salesman can ever step on “your turf”.

Walking up to the front desk you say “ I am looking for a car for $30,000 or less “.

What ends up happening?

Later that day you’re signing papers for a car priced at $34,000, how did you lose??

Don’t “Buy” The Environment

If you’re looking at this on paper, it seems like you lost the negotiation.

But if you walk through it, you feel that you actually “won” in this case.

Let’s first discuss what is considered a “Buying Environment”. It’s the first thing that got you one step closer to paying more than you were supposed to.

In Robert Cialdini’s book Pre-Suasion, an experiment was run to test the “buying environment” of an early website selling furniture.

Long story short….

They tested the website wallpaper as a variable for sales, and the results might surprise you.

When simply changing the wallpaper to clouds, website visitors spent more money to buy a “more comfortable” piece of furniture, over the less expensive “regular” pieces.

And when the wallpaper was changed to pennies, their discounted and cheapest items flew out of stock.

Now how does this relate to the car situation?

If a variable as small as wallpaper on a website can change your buying behavior, you best believe car dealerships are set up to create “ a buying mood “ when you walk in.

• Comfortable Furniture (for you to sit and spend more time looking at cars)

• Discounted prices almost everywhere (making you feel like you’re getting a deal, even if you’re not)

• The Newest Models On Display (making you fiend for a newer vehicle even if yours is fine, or you were looking for a used model)

While slight, these tactics are purposeful and in place designed to push a sale.

Now that you’re skeptical of walking into a dealership, let’s consider what else might happen on your buying journey out in the parking lot…

Do You Consider Yourself A Buick Guy?

This could be a variation of a question the car salesman is likely to ask you.

While it seems like he’s getting to know you, it’s harmless, and the guy is being “down to earth”; you are being sold effortlessly.

Out in the parking lot you answer his oddly relevant question and say “ Yes! My Buick has been with me through thick and thin, I just love how reliable they are “.

Welp…

You might as well dig your bank account a grave, you just gave into a pre-suasion tactic:

Association.

While he’s “getting to know you” the salesman is subconsciously setting up the “buying environment”…. This all ties in so pay attention.

Again, from the book Pre-Suasion a study was conducted to test a new energy drink.

Participants were hesitant to try it, as it was a new energy drink ( which could mean harm since they were the test subjects ).

But one simple sentence changed the results completely to subjects drinking the new energy drink willingly!

What was it?

Before they were asked to try this new energy drink, the subjects were asked if they would consider themselves "adventurous”.

Almost every subject agreed, and when presented with the question of trying the new energy drink, the subjects agreed!

This is because of two main ideas, one is association, and the other is staying true to oneself.

Now back to the car example…

If the car salesman had an idea of what kind of car you’ve had in the past, he can use that to his advantage.

If you “self-identify” as a “Buick person” the sale is almost made.

Now all he has to do is find a Buick, and if it’s within a semi-reasonable price ( even one slightly above your budget ) you ought to buy it because you already know how great they are!

But Don’t Worry The Sales Man Is Actually On Your Side

While selecting the Buick that looks right for you, the salesman suggests the one that he would recommend to his grandmother.

The Buick that’s safe and would take good care of his own relative.

Strike 3. Your out. Out of money….

No matter if this is true or not, sympathizing with the salesman about his thoughtful suggestion is the final close.

He got you.

Human emotion is powerful, and he perfectly played right into it.

This Pre-Suasion tactic is called Unity. It works strongly because of the #1 driver for sales, persuasion, and for day-to-day decisions….

Emotion.

In the blindside the salesman is a nice gentleman happy to help you find the car that best fits your needs, but after learning just surface-level pre-suasion:

You’re never to walk into a car dealership with the same mindset again.

I’m no expert on car dealerships, but I can tell you that most people are probably signing that paper for $34,000 at this point, and are happy to do it.

So the next time you want to get a yes out of someone, start thinking of their personal motivators, and more time on setting up the scene, than the actual convincing.

Where all the best resources made for YOU live.

• The Book that goes deeper on Pre-Suasion ( we only touched 3 of the 7+ elements )