‘Authority’ is the fifth characteristic, which will assist a person or company to influence its audience. Companies that sell toothpaste understand this and use the Dental Association brand in their advertisements. In our business, we often used terms such as ‘Australia’s Largest Provider’ in our marketing because it demonstrated the dominance we had in our market.

Politicians understand that demonstrating authority wins votes. In the small business context, the business owner must somehow make their market aware of their expertise and abilities rather than simply showcasing the products or services they provide. Businesses can do this in a number of ways such as advertising the longevity of the business operation or by providing a biography of the owner, which lists his or her past achievements. These things add weight to the experience and authority the business has in its field.

The final characteristic Cialdini writes about in his article is ‘Scarcity’. Every day we are advised of products or services that will be available for a ‘limited time only’. Special offers, discounts or limited editions are all designed to tap into the power of scarcity. The possibility that we may miss out on something if we don’t act immediately is a powerful incentive to buy.

In the last chapter we discussed how lower prices can attract bargain-hunting customers but this is not the same thing. Scarcity is about alerting your customers that the offer you are presenting has a limited life and therefore if they want to benefit they must act now or miss out. The key to using the power of ‘Scarcity’ to your advantage is to introduce a ‘closing date’ on the offer or limit the supply and strictly adhere to the conditions you set. You customers will soon wise up to special offers that are not that special so above all be honest. The notion of a ‘special offer’ is usually a psychological one and it needs to be respected internally within the business as well as by customers.

As an example, our business always ran a monthly special and some were much more popular than others. We had one promotion where we joined forces with our suppliers to offer a cut-price deal and this always worked well for us.

Although we made slightly less on each sale, the extra units we sold meant increased profits and it never failed. On one occasion we got greedy and extended the special for an extra month. The result was surprising. Our profit dropped because although our customers still liked the deal our sales team got used to offering it at the lower price and lost their enthusiasm. Not only did revenues suffer that month but they were also down the following month because our sales people then had to re-adjust to selling at the old higher price after two months of ‘specials’.