Clients, Clients, and More Clients: Create an Endless Stream of New Business with the Power of Psychology

Establish Expertise

When you’re the expert on your topic, you activate one of the most powerful social influence principles: authority. Dr. Robert B. Cialdini, founder of Influence at Work and author of the groundbreaking books Influence: Science & Practice and Yes! 50 Scientifically Proven Ways to Be Persuasive, includes “authority” as one of the six most powerful tools of social influence (along with reciprocation, commitment, social proof, liking, and scarcity, which we discuss in other chapters). Here’s one example of the strength of authority.

In 1971, Philip Zimbardo, a professor of psychology at Stanford University, conducted one of the most illuminating social psychology studies in history, the Stanford prison experiment. Seventy college ...