Frequently Asked Questions

Business consulting firms specialize in solving problems that hinder the performance of the business. Our company focuses on improving trust in relationships and negotiating alignment both of purposes in the team and with valuable partners. It has a double effect on financial performance: better deals with partners and higher output from the team.

Statistically, the return on investment in negotiation skills is comparable to 25:1

A better-aligned team can tackle stubborn challenges and be flexible in the face of a crisis. The senior officers of a company are less competitive and more supportive. Better alignment could increase the outcomes multiple times and unlock the company's rapid growth.

Effective communication skills are skills to facilitate optimal decisions quickly and reliably. These decisions serve the company, the people who work there, the stakeholders, the market, and the greater society.

Effective communication skills are based on making connections, building trust in relationships, fostering a supportive environment for making decisions, and influencing decisions without applying force.

Building trust and influencing decisions are the most complex parts of communication skills. Lack of understanding in those areas leads to confusion, undue frustration, and competitive environments, which prevent collaboration and goodwill.

We get used to thinking of delighting the customer. What we may miss is building customer awareness. However, educating the customer is not an easy task. It could interfere with relationships. It's especially risky to educate the customer when it's time to decide. It may look like a trick to take away the options.

Managing customer relationships is about building trust and continue demonstrating that your business is the best option. We can't take trust for granted. We must be skillful about it.

To excel at managing many relationships one needs to consider a system that will bring you and your customers on the same page, establish a deep level of trust, and will guide customers continuously showing the value of your products and services.

How would you accomplish it? Only through conversations where you can build trust, influence your customers and make agreements for the continuous work.

The ideal relationship with any of your customers would be a relationship of a trusted advisor. It requires building trust in 2 areas: expertise and rapport. You wouldn't hire an expert who doesn't care about you. And you wouldn't hire someone who really cares but lacks the necessary skills.

The question is, what's first, expertise or rapport?

Many experts appear transactional and asocial because they believe expertise is the only thing that matters. Therefore, they don't get a lot of business.

On the other hand, people who are excellent at building and maintaining rapport don't need to be as sharp in their industry. They still have a lot of business.

Bet on rapport to get business and grow the evidence of your expertise to excel at customer relationships. Invest in both.

Active listening, or, more specifically, reflective listening, plays a major role in building rapport and trust in relationships. To build rapport, you not only need to listen to what the other side is saying but also be able to summarize it and reflect on both logical and emotional levels. Communicating the emotional impact of the situation that the other side is going through signals understanding and care. It nurtures trust in relationships and opens doors for questions that really matter.

There are three things anyone can do to connect with the client and build trusting relationships.

1. Reflect on what they are going through and what they feel about it. Just tell them what their life may look like and how they feel about it. This builds rapport and indirectly communicates: "You are important to me."

2. Get the conversation deeper than logical. People do things for reasons that are rooted in values and purposes. Don't avoid exploring it, take your time to understand what is driving people and how they developed their unique system of values.

3. Tell them what you like about them. Dr. Cialdini has figured out 7 things that move people, and Liking is one of the most powerful principles for building relationships. Instead of applying critical thinking, apply empathy and see their best intent.

The best way to improve customer relationships is to understand what's getting in the way. A history of something negative or a common negative perception may significantly reduce trust in relationships or completely destroy it. Understanding the problem and bringing it up, offering to fix it, is the first thing anyone can do to improve relationships.

The basis of any healthy relationship is respect, and if there's a lack of respect, then the whole focus of improvement should be on it. Before respect is restored, nothing can be done: no rapport, trust, or further business.

The skills to restore respect without compromising value, positions, or authority are a part of effective communication.

Despite the common perception that negotiation is about pushing each other and bluffing, the definition of negotiation is quite neutral to how it's done. Practically, negotiation is an effort to make agreements between people who are free to say NO and walk away without loss or damage. It's respectful of the rights and freedoms of people to protect their interests.

Influence is about creating a context for decisions. We make hundreds of decisions daily. Our decisions depend on our experience and our awareness of the circumstances. Ethical influence is leading people to the place where they will benefit and will be grateful for the guidance. But ultimately, everything is influential, especially our relationships.

Mastering negotiation and influence in communication will empower you to lead others and align them around a bigger purpose and higher goals. They are the ultimate leadership skills.

Rapport could be established quickly with anyone who decided to interact with you. Through fostering a supportive and empathetic environment and sending the right emotional message, you can establish rapport in minutes. The key to rapport is good emotions, creating safety, and focusing on the other side.

Is it in your control? Yes, you have it in almost complete control. To have control over something means you can start it or stop it at will. Therefore you can establish rapport almost instantly. It only takes focus and skills.

The primary factor to succeed in influence is trust. It is well-known that people could be defensive and decline even beneficial ideas when trust isn't present. But the same people will blindly accept most dangerous and disadvantageous ideas from those who they trust.

Therefore building trust in business relationships gives a disproportional advantage. Of course it needs to be used responsibly.

Building trust in relationships depends on many factors. The biggest factor is a prior negative experience or a history of loss of trust.

The other big factor is environment. It is much harder to build trust in the environment where people don't trust each others or being highly competitive.

The following factor is fundamental for any environment and any type of situation. It is mutual respect. If people are trying to take advantage of each other regardless of relationships, the trust can't be achieved.

The next factor will be the presence of a mutual purpose. In a relatively safe environment, people may want to collaborate to reach a greater good.

If you're aware of the above factors and can fix problems effectively, you'll be able to establish rapport which will lead to trust.

Active listening, or a more specific type of listening called reflective listening, is designed to solve two problems: reduce defensiveness and connect with the other side emotionally.

Reflective listening is not just about listening. It's about reflecting, i.e., speaking.

Reflection is not the same as paraphrasing. When you paraphrase, you don't connect with the other person on an emotional level because you just retell the logical message back to the person. You may also irritate people if you do it every time because it'll take you excessive time to paraphrase over and over. It's not natural.

Reflective listening is when you summarize what they are going through and how they feel about it in one short sentence. It creates a connection on both logical and emotional levels and fosters deep rapport.

The biggest change would be decreased defensiveness and more straightforward conversation. It will result in following your lead, listening to your advice, sales, and trusting you as a business partner. In most cases people don't do business together and don't buy because they don't trust each other enough. Distrust is the costliest problem in the world.

The first thing to improve relationships is to build respect. Nothing will move forward if people do not respect each other. They will lie, trick, push, and provoke each other because there will be no respect in their relationships to prevent them from it. Respect has to start from one side first. It's a commitment. If the other side recognizes the value of respect, then both sides may agree about what it means to respect each other, what actions they treat as disrespectful, and why. Respect is the first thing that has to be negotiated because, without it, no one and nothing could be trusted. Respect is the only thing that guarantees trust.

Once respect is there, people need to start building relationships through reciprocity. Reciprocity, specifically gifts, has been used to make peace between tribes in war since ancient times. When both sides reciprocate, they build a positive experience and increase trust.

The next thing to do is build mutual purpose. Describing your goals and your mission is important at this point.

Finally, build liking and unity in your relationships. It will create a strong feeling of safety.

To quickly build rapport with clients, Nurture them on 7 levels: circumstantial, logical, emotional, aspirational, fundamental truth, purpose, and meaning. When you know how to nurture on these levels, you'll have no resistance in conversation because you'll be well-connected emotionally and through experience. It literally replaces years of positive experience if you do it right.

Engaging clients is not different from engaging anyone else. To engage clients or prospects, learn about their situation, their circumstances and from there ask them about their goals and values. In case you know common issues your clients experience, ask them about how they overcome these issues or how they feel about it.

Nurturing their perspective and and conclusions is important to keep the conversation going. Avoid shring your perspective as it may create inadvertant friction in relationships.

We all have a unique point of view to things based on our experience. There's time when people may run into a conflict or disagreement. Some of the decisions or lack of them may affect others.

The goal is to come to an agreement quickly and keep supportive and respectful relationships. Negotiation helps people to find an agreement without taking away their right to disagree and say NO to any offer. Respecting people's right to say NO is the most important principle in resolving conflicts. Negotiation skills help us do it.

When it comes to difficult conversations, trust is what you'll need the most. There could be conversations when you need to hold someone accountable, or there could be challenges with disrespect. Sometimes, you may feel being limited or constrained by the other side. It may feel that you are attacked. In all of these cases, applying power, leverage, or emotional pressure or trying to defend yourself would destroy trust in relationships.

Holding difficult conversations is about making the right decisions, and in case you feel that the degree of emotions rises in a conversation, you need to make a decision to fix that first before moving forward. Restoring safety in conversation is a priority to keep trust.

There are many ways to restore safety in a conversation, such as nurturing, the Columbo Effect, contrasting, negative strip, emotional labeling, and reflective listening. The most important point is to keep the conversation safe and comfortable and avoid retaliation, sarcasm, avoidance, or any other disrespectful acts.

In the context of negotiation and building trust, Nurturing is your ability to foster a positive and comfortable environment for your dialogue. Nurturing may take many forms, such as acknowledgment, recognition, validation, appreciation, communication, and signaling liking and respect.

Non-verbal communication is extremely important, too. Calming and respectful tone of voice and supportive body language, such as nodding, respectful and attentive eye contact, and facial expression that communicate liking and respect, all of these factors combined together send a strong emotional message that comforts the other side and creates a collaborative dialogue.

The "7 Levels of Nurturing" model explains our mindset's depth and helps structure the conversation to go deeper to make a better connection and rapport. Often, when people talk, they miss the opportunity to create liking and unity between each other because the topics they discuss are informational and logical. Going deeper than that allows you to explore values, principles, aspirations, and purposes to create a unique and bonding experience in any short conversation.

"7 Levels of Nurturing" explains the levels of mindset that allow you to come up with any number of topics suitable to build rapport with anyone, adequately assess your level of trust, and detect issues with trust. It also explains the process of influencing decisions and causing transformation changes.

Unlike the common perception, negotiation is not about bargaining over the price. Negotiation has a broader definition and application. Negotiation is an effort between 2 or more parties to make an agreement where each party has a right to say NO and walk away.

Many people think about getting leverage - a thing that will force the other side into compliance. It is not considered a negotiation. Any use of force, coercion, threats, or emotional pressure is not considered to be a negotiation. The reason it is not a negotiation is because the goal of negotiation is to come to a reliable agreement that will work without applying continuous external force. The agreement should be able to stand on its own feet, supported by the interests of both sides.

Negotiation skills serve the purpose of creating agreements between parties that are free to make their own decisions. And though agreements represent a substantial pillar of business success, negotiation doesn't aim to educate, excite, entertain, impress, or interact with people without the goal of creating agreement.

Communication may include a broad spectrum of interaction, including one-way messages, with the hope that people will make their own decisions. If communication is designed to provide the necessary context and conditions for people to make their decisions, then it falls into the category of influential communication.

When most people think about negotiation, they think about give and take, win-win, compromise, bargaining, meeting in the middle, and splitting the difference. None of it is essential to the negotiation process. We teach you how to come to an agreement without compromising your deserved benefits.

Most people give up their opportunities and benefits when they feel powerless. They don't know how to negotiate without forcing the other side. In fact, negotiation is not about forcing others. Negotiation is about guiding others through their decision-making process. What decisions would you like the other party to make? You can ask for these decisions and you can influence these decisions. To influence decisions you need to walk them through the decision-making process and then ask about a decision.

The biggest mistake of most people is not having a system and just using random tricks that make everybody uncomfortable.

People may face many challenges during negotiations. Negotiation is a human performance skill.

Think about sports. The athletes who are conditioned to win have more success than those who are just starting. The challenges of amature athletes are different from the challenges of professional athletes. Though amature athletes are unlikely to win when competing with professional athletes. Still, everything is possible.

Same in negotiation, the challenge of (most) amateur negotiators is they don't know what to say and how to lead. They fear to hear NO. They don't know how to say NO without looking bad. And therefore, they give up opportunities, they avoid making decisions and articulating them to the other side. As a result, it makes them look incompetent, weak, and defensive. Their business is limited.

The challenges of professional negotiators are quite different and unique. But they don't have the problems of amature negotiators.

What we teach you is the system that will be your foundation for a lifetime. We'll bring you to the level of a professional negotiator.

People are afraid to hear NO for 2 major reasons.

The reason #1 is that they don't know how to deal with it. Most people hear a NO and think this is the end of the game. They hate being rejected and don't want to proceed because they expect resistance.

The problem with that is the negotiation only starts when you hear a NO. If you don't know how to proceed past the first NO, you are avoiding your valuable negotiations. You play it safe and miss your opportunities and rewards.

Instead, you settle on staying where you are, compromise your future, and agree on a smaller return for your hard work. All of it due to a lack of education and skills.

The reason #2 is that most people don't realize what NO means. They think NO is a well-defended position based on mindset. It can't be further from the truth. When people say NO, they articulate a decision, and decisions can be changed. There are 4 reasons why people say NO, and if you know the true reason, you can work with it and change it.

The bottom line is if you don't hear NO, you miss your opportunities because you don't know the reasons and can't change them.

When people don't want to say NO, they usually avoid conversation, or they say MAYBE. If you observe someone saying MAYBE or avoiding you, you must figure out what's preventing a straightforward conversation. You can encourage them to tell you NO. Then you'll be able to work with it.

The answer MAYBE doesn't solve any problem. It postpones the decision. Also it leaves the conversation highly emotional on both sides. One side becomes hopeful and the other side becomes more fearful.

When people fear to hear NO, they give up on their chances and don't ask. They assume that the only thing they get is rejection and bad emotions, but no results. It's not true. When people say NO, they need to decide. Decisions move the negotiation forward.

When people fear to hear NO, they miss a decision on the other side. The decision is important because it allows you to plan the next steps in negotiation. And an obvious next step would be to find the reason for a NO. When you find the reason, you'll be able to work with it. It's a path to a solution. Also, if you don't hear NO from the other side, you might be giving away your value, and you don't know how much. When people agree to your offer very quickly, it must be something very easy to agree to.

It's a common confusion to think that negotiation is the same as using power and leverage to corner people into the only "right" decision. On the opposite, using power and leverage is unethical and goes against the principle that everyone has the right to say NO.

To be confident in negotiation, you must focus on what you can control: your actions, behavior, and decisions.

Negotiation is a human performance skill, like any sport. Focusing on the scores won't help you win the game but will make you more emotional. You may try to gain control over something unattainable and will lose focus on something that will make a difference.

One of the goals of a negotiator is to create a comfortable and nurturing environment where people make better decisions. Negotiation tells you how to create such an environment and avoid adversity in relationships.

Success in negotiation is not defined by the ability to push others around but by leading others through their decision-making process.

A good, effective contract works without maintenance for both sides in the long term. It means that the parties have a mutual interest in keeping the contract in place.

A good negotiation leads to an effective contract and builds business relationships simultaneously. The art of creating effective contracts and increasing trust in relationships is called negotiation.

There are situations where a contract in place hurts the company's performance or doesn't yield the promised results. The common assumption is that it can't be changed once a contract is signed. But it doesn't mean it can't be re-negotiated.

In fact, everything is negotiable, even after delivery or exchange of value.

To succeed with re-negotiation, one must have a strong statement of the problem. If the problem affects both parties, there's a case for a negotiation. The key is to help the other side see how the problem may impact them. The stronger the vision of the problem, the more chances to come to a new agreement that solves it. The decisions are always taken in the context of a strong vision.

There are three essential things in communication that, if taken away, would diminish or completely prevent efforts to make agreements.

1. Keep focusing on emotions. It's proven scientifically that people make decisions emotionally. 96% of our decisions are made emotionally. Therefore, if you don't pay attention to emotions or don't know how to manage them on both sides, then your success in negotiation will be rare and unpredictable. You win in the areas where your relationships are great and the mutual value is obvious. But you'll struggle in conflicting or uncertain situations with strong negative emotions.

2. Don't let your assumptions limit you. Many people assume that they don't have options, are asking too much, or assume that the other side won't agree. Therefore, they give up and don't ask for what they want. They give away their value, compromise, and negotiate against themselves. You don't have a responsibility to solve problems for the other side, but you have a responsibility to ask for what you want. Don't act on your limiting assumptions.

3. Don't take away the right to say NO from the other side. On the opposite, assure the other side that they have this right. People who do not have the right to say NO and walk away from the deal without consequences can't make agreements. Attempting to force people into compliance is not a negotiation, as it takes away someone's freedom.

It's common to assume that when the price is not fixed or not defined, the sales process includes the phase of negotiation. People call it negotiation because they tend to go back and forth till they settle it. This is a very specific type of negotiation called bargaining.

Negotiation is not necessarily an agreement about the price of service. It could be an agreement to complete the work on priority. For example, if the price is fixed but the contractor puts you at the bottom of the list, you may want to negotiate a raise in priority. Other examples may include negotiating time, attention, mutual goals, focus, process, resources, titles, authority, etc.

The concept of negotiation is much broader than bargaining over the price.

What is common in sales and any other negotiation type? In any negotiation, people trust that the other side will honor the agreement and respect all the parties' interests. Therefore, the first step in any negotiation, including sales, is to build trust.

To plan an effective negotiation, you must prepare at least the following things.

1. Your mission and purpose statement. It's a statement about the problem that you'd like to solve that exists for the other side or provides an opportunity for the other side to share their problem and build a relationship with you for a potential future deal. A clear mission statement will help you understand what direction to take, what you're trying to accomplish, and what decisions to avoid.

2. The next important preparation step is to list what you and other negotiation participants may bring to the table and what they will keep in mind but will never reveal directly. This will form an agenda for different discussion topics.

3. Add here the information that might be missing but would help you understand the other side, their goals, and limitations. Researching the other side will help find this information upfront.

4. Finally, to prepare thoroughly, have a practice session with a professional who can give you feedback on how you structure your negotiation, exercise negotiation behaviors, and how you come across. Practicing your negotiation is important because creating a plan and exercising a plan are two different skills. You may compare it with planning a basketball game and playing the basketball game. It is very different. Be a good planner, but don't neglect to become a good player.

To maximize your profit and value in any agreement, you must know the limits of the other side. It's not in their best interest to pay more or take on more responsibilities for what you provide to them. Therefore, they won't tell you where the limits are.

But there's a way to explore the limits.

When they reject your offer, you can understand where the limits might be and explore the reasons for them. Therefore, hearing a NO from the other side, especially early in the process, is a good thing.

Most people fear the word NO and avoid rejection because they don't know its value and what to do with it. It feels like a full stop. But it's the time to roll up your sleeves, apply your negotiation skills, and find out more about limitations and their conditions.

That's the way to have a good-faith negotiation and maximize your profits.

There's one thing that affects agreements more than anything else. It's trust. Building relationships with clients is not so much about creating family ties, though it could be this way, but more about building trusting business relationships.

Trust in relationships progressively depends on respect, approval, appreciation, and liking. Start with respect as a first step to show your commitment to build trust. Avoid disrespect. If that happens, apologize and remediate the damage as soon as possible.

Some people demand a higher regard. Therefore, you can choose if giving them this regard is worth your effort and emotions in exchange for their business. If you want their business, commit to treating them as they expect it or better.

Influence is the effort to make someone take a certain course of action that they wouldn't do otherwise. Ethical influence is to do it without forcing others with any threats or misleading information. Ethical influence rests on communication that is true, natural, and wise.

The information must be true, complete, and not exaggerated.

It must be natural in the context it is presented and not imported from another context.

Finally, influence must lead to wise decisions where recipients will benefit and would be happy to do it again.

The 7 Principles of Influence by Robert Cialdini are Reciprocity, Liking, Unity, Social Proof, Authority, Consistency, and Scarcity.

Each principle has individual power to persuade, but when combined, they may have a more profound impact.

The principles are based on the fact that people have social norms for interaction. We follow them to feel safe, connected with others, and maintain our reputation.

Negotiation is about making agreements with others. It takes a collective decision to collaborate.

Influence doesn't require agreement. In fact, many things are influential, like a banner on a highway advertising a nearby restaurant. It may influence you to take an exit and have lunch there.

Influence moves people to make decisions and take action on their own.

Dr. Kahneman scientifically proved that people make most decisions emotionally and automatically. He created a model of our mindset, describing it as 2 systems: System 1 and System 2.

System 1 is very quick, effortless, and based on emotions. We make decisions based on how we feel about it. It's a good system because, without it, we'd spend hours deciding on very simple things, like buying a cup of coffee. Fortunately, we don't need to verify every detail about coffee before buying a cup. instead, we make a decision instantly, based on how we feel about it. Those emotional clues are mental shortcuts that allow us to skip tedious analysis.

For example, if we see many people sitting in a restaurant, we assume it's a good restaurant. We don't bother analyzing it. We make this decision very quickly.

During the day, we may face hundreds of decisions and must act quickly. We need our mental shortcuts to be efficient.

Unfortunately, the System 1 could lead to a wrong conclusion. This is where System 2 helps. It is slow, logical, and effortful. It makes decisions based on data analysis and logical conclusions. It is much more reliable, and it creates new mental shortcuts for System 1 so it can operate better and faster. This process is our experience.

The 7 Principles of Influence by Dr. Robert Cialdini are universal because they are based on emotions, and emotions are caused by chemical reactions in the human body. We also teach and train our children similarly to maintain social ties. Some groups of people have more social rules than others, but the 7 Principles are common between all of them.

Every known group or tribe used reciprocity to make peace with the other tribe if they were in a state of conflict. We are all trained that if given something of value, we must repay it.

We also all feel the same about what a genuine smile means. We all understand it as a symbol of liking regardless of the origin of people.

We all tend to protect our smaller group, like family, from outsiders. And in times of uncertainty, we tend to look at what other people do and follow the advice of experts.

The principles are wired into us so we could survive and collaborate with others.

We all are trained to follow the principles. From an early age, we are told that we must obey the authority, give back when given, play nice with each other, and support the group of people we belong to. When uncertain, we look at what other people do and feel uncomfortable going against the majority.

However, few people know and practice the principles to build a business or grow their career. Usually, these people are marketing or sales professionals, psychologists, politicians, press, or public speakers. Instead of using the principles, most people try to use emotional pressure, dominance, and logical arguments. The biggest mistake is ignoring the principles.

The second biggest problem that most people run into is using principles improperly and, therefore, losing their power.

For example, with reciprocity, companies make small gifts but also include logos and branding. People write "thank you" cards and include a call to action in the end. Such gifts or signs of liking change the purpose and erases the principles' power. People don't treat them as social values but identify them as business tactics. That causes negative results.

Finally, even if people know what to do and do it right, it takes creativity and out-of-the-box thinking to see the opportunities to apply the principles. It's easy to follow the beaten path, like saying that the offer expires in 1 day. But when overused, this form of Scarcity principle becomes a cheap, unethical trick.

Can you be more creative? How can you express your unique value proposition, and why is it hard or impossible to obtain it anywhere else? This will also trigger the Scarcity principle, which will be ethical and powerful.

The modern persuasion principles show us what our decision-making process is based on. It is based on emotions and depends on the value-effort combination. Something very valuable that could be hard to accomplish is still looking attractive, while something that has little value needs to be extremely easy to obtain.

The problem is that different people have different perceptions about what is valuable and different feelings about what is easy and hard. This is where the principles of persuasion are most useful. You may have heard the phrase, "Perception is reality." That is the opportunity to use the principles of influence to surface certain topics and shape perception to attract supporters and followers of your cause.

The 7 Principles of Influence by Dr. Robert Cialdini helped thousands of organizations build trust with their clients, raise funds, collect donations, grow business, and solve problems. That's why the book "Influence, the Psychology of Persuasion" has been sold over 5 million times and used by most reputable organizations worldwide.

Friendly persuasion is truthful, natural, and wise. It benefits the recipient in the long run. It advises on how to grow and prosper by applying resources and efforts.

How can you advise your clients and prospects about achieving their goals? You can't force them to take specific actions. Therefore, the only option is to use friendly persuasion and show them the most efficient ways to achieve their goals.

The first problem to solve is how to engage your customers. Everyone is busy, and engaging customers takes skills and effort. Your customers will pay more attention to you when they treat you as a trusted advisor, an authority in a specific field acting in their interests. You'll need to use the principles of Reciprocity, Liking, Unity, Social Proof, and Authority to build your credibility and relationships. To make the request important, use the principles of Consistency and Scarcity.

If you have excellent customer relationships, then any valuable, unique, actionable, and timely information that is not yet available to the public would be highly appreciated by your customers and will increase their engagement and satisfaction.

Advertising has to be as influential as possible and lead to your product, not anyone else's. How can you achieve it?

The marketing guru, Jack Trout, said, "There are so many choices in the market. If you make a mistake [in your marketing strategy], your competitors will quickly get your business, and you rarely get it back."

What does he say about the right marketing strategy? It's about the message you send to the public and the position you claim in the market as an authority.

Therefore, your marketing must use all seven principles plus the universal amplifier of all principles, called Contrasting. That's why all successful companies apply them routinely to grow their businesses.

The most notable principles that stay at the core of any marketing campaign are the principles of Scarcity and Contrasting. The ultimate marketing goal is to show that your value proposition is unique and scarce compared to your competitors.

Apply the other principles to show that you're the authority in this niche and build trust with your customers for a mutually prosperous business.

Influence could be considered an art because there are many ways to achieve various results. Still, it could be considered science because there are universal principles that work in all situations for all people. The degree of influence on different people will vary, but the effect will be of the same nature.

Daniel Kahneman, the author of the bestseller "Thinking Fast and Slow," has proven scientifically that we make most of our decisions emotionally. It was a significant step forward in the science of persuasion.

At the same time, science shows us that different emotions represent themselves in the human body as specific hormones, such as cortisol, adrenaline, dopamine, endorphin, serotonin, and oxytocin. This is what we can measure and analyze.

Finally, Dr. Robert Cialdini developed the common and universal 7 principles of influence that provide a degree of control over the emotional reaction. Today, we can apply principles and build systems to influence people reliably. That's why it's important to apply it ethically and responsibly.

Common sales tactics are focused on a couple of principles: Consistency and Scarcity. We are all familiar with the common high-pressure tactic to get someone to say Yes and then continue soliciting the same answer. People consider it high-pressure because it misuses the Consistency principle to generate guilt of being inconsistent with the answers. It is provocative and challenging. The price of getting out of the deal is feeling bad about yourself.

The other common sales tactic is generating urgency by posing artificial time limits and availability shortages by hiding important information or providing partial or exaggerated data.

These unethical ways to pressure people to make unwise decisions are notorious in sales. They go against the principles of Ethical Influence, which promise truthful, natural, and wise application of the principles.

The information presented to the potential customers must be full, accurate, naturally presented in the context, and should lead to wise decisions that the customers will be happy about later.

The science of persuasion helps business leaders in many ways. First of all, it helps create customers and keep them happy. Marketing is mainly based on persuasion. However, it is increasingly important to create alignment within the organization these days.

The science of persuasion helps both in running and growing businesses by applying the universal and common 7 Principles of Influence together with the Contrasting principle that helps to amplify the effect.

Reciprocity, Liking, and Unity principles focus on building relationships with the clients and within the team. Social Proof and Authority principles help customers make important decisions and create order in the teams. Finally, the principles of Consistency and Scarcity improve revenues, help organizations achieve quality, and improve the loyalty of the employees.