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Imagine you are approached one day by someone introducing themselves as a local youth centre worker. They want to persuade you to become a volunteer. In fact, they have a specific task in mind: “Would you be willing to escort a group of children on a trip to the zoo this weekend?”

You politely decline, thinking that the youth centre has its work cut out persuading people to sign up to such a scheme. And you would be right. Only a few people were willing to say ‘Yes’ to such a request.

But the next day the youth centre is able to triple its success rate by making one small change. Remarkably this change costs nothing to implement.

"Would you be willing to become a counsellor at the centre?” people are asked. The representative then goes on to explain that this would involve two hours of their time every weekend on a programme that lasted three years! No surprise when everyone refuses. But immediately after they do, they are asked, “Well, if you 
can’t do that would you at least go on a zoo trip with some kids this weekend?” The result? A 300 per cent increase in people who say ‘Yes’.

This zoo trip appeal was, in fact, part of a study carried out by persuasion researchers keen to understand how people respond to concessions. What this study, and others like it, have found is that we are more likely to say ‘Yes’ to smaller requests immediately after we have said ‘No’ to larger ones. One reason for this is that people feel more psychologically obligated to give a concession to those who have given them a concession first.

This ‘rejection then retreat’ strategy is most effective when the first request is not so extreme that it is seen as 
an obvious trick. Secondly, and most importantly, the second request needs to be made immediately after the rejection of the first proposal. It may sound obvious but it is something that is often forgotten. After a proposal is rejected we often work out an alternative and come back another day. In doing so we miss our moment of persuasive power. Another mistake is to fail to ask for our ideal scenario. In an attempt to avoid a refusal we’ll reduce what we ask for in the first place. In doing so we also reduce our persuasiveness.

Children however seem intuitively to know this. When Naomi wants her mum to buy her a kitten she knows to always ask for a horse first!

Steve Martin is co-author of Yes! 50 Secrets from the Science of Persuasion, scienceofyes

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