How to Flip the Magic Switch of the Consensus Principle of Persuasion to Achieve Mega Success

Persuasion in sales has everything to do with human psychology and the study of human behavior.  

But you’re thinking.  We’re in the body contouring business.  

Well, we too, are not psychologists, though sometimes we feel like it.

Fortunately, none of us have to be psychologists.  The study and findings of behavioral science tells us a lot.   

And the more we learn about human behavior, and then implement what we know, the more success we’ll achieve.    

It’s been 35 years since Dr. Robert Cialdini published his revolutionary findings on the six scientific Principles of Persuasion.  We’ve discussed five of them in earlier episodes. If you missed them, go back and catch them. There’s valuable insight in each of them.

Previously, we’ve broken down the Principles of

Reciprocity

Liking

Authority

Consistency, sometimes called Commitment

and

Scarcity

In today’s episode, we’ll explore the sixth and our final Persuasion Principle, the Principle of Consensus, sometimes referred to as the Principle of Social Proof.

What is the Principle of Social Proof or Consensus?  And how does this Principle trigger the response, “yes?”

Even though all of us like to think of ourselves as independent people, we all look to others when we’re deciding how to act and sometimes even when we’re determining whether something is right or wrong.  And the more people who are doing something, the more correct it seems for us to do.

Behavioral scientists have a name for this kind of behavior. They call it a decision heuristic.  That’s their term for a decision shortcut.  

Why do we take shortcuts in our decisions?  It’s because our lives are busy and complicated.  We feel like we can’t take the time to evaluate all the elements of all our decisions.  So…we use shortcuts to help us make what we consider to be reasonable decisions.

After all, we can justify it mathematically.  We reason that the more people are doing something, the more likely it is to be correct.  And fortunately, in most cases, we’re right.

This Principle is easy enough to understand, right?  So how do you implement it in your body contouring business?  

How do you flip the magic switch of the Consensus Principle?   

It’s not complicated.  You just follow the logic.  If you want patients to do something, show them others are doing it.  

Use patient testimonials of happy patients (video is best)
Tout the number of happy patients you have or the number of treatments you’ve done
Recount case histories of some of your more interesting or relatable patients
Tell how long your business or practice has been serving satisfied patients
Use a celebrity or public figure to show support for your business or practice – or even better having them use your services and then talk about you and your services

So how do YOU plan to use this Principle to achieve mega profits?  

That brings us to our action step for this episode.  There are 3 parts to it.

Action Steps:  

 Collect your patient testimonials and put them on your website.  If you don’t have video testimonials, start asking for them.
 Consider the number of satisfied patients you have.  Use that number in your advertising and in your conversations with patients.  
 Consider whether there’s a local celebrity or public person in your community that may like to have a body contouring treatment and then be paid to talk about it.  

That’s it for the Principle of Social Proof also known as the Principle of Consensus.  

We hope you learned a lot from our discussions of each of the six Principles of Persuasion.  

Now use each of them.  When you do, you’re sure to see skyrocketing sales.  

Stay tuned and don’t forget to subscribe so you don’t miss a single episode.

Bye for now from Shannon and Kay at the Body Contouring Academy’s Proven Profits Podcast.