My friend, Bill Sherman, posted about Seth Godin’s “Are you in the tribe?” post.
Go read Bill’s post and Seth’s post. I’ll wait.
Do you want to be in the tribe yet? Of course you do.
If you’ve ever heard of Robert Cialdini, you know why you want to be a part of the tribe. Dr. Cialdini wrote about the principles of persuasion. He described these principles as the “click whirr” parts of our brain. When people invoke them, we respond almost automatically. Anybody can invoke them, but it takes a talented person to use them and not come off like a sleezy car salesman. That person is Seth Godin.
He’s heavily invoked the “Scarcity” principle, which basically means that as long as something is hard to come by, you can get people to buy it. That’s why you see a lot of ads on late-night television touting that some deal is for “a limited time only!!!” The three exclamation points are mandatory.
He’s also got “Social Validation” running in there too. Social validation is the idea that you want this product because everyone else has it too, and you don’t want to be the one left out of it… do you? If you don’t have it and everyone else does, you’ll be left out of the club… er… tribe.
He’s probably got a whole lot more in there, but I just gave it a cursory glance. Oh yeah, he’s edited that no one else can get in, because of the overwhelming response. That’s some more scarcity.
Give Seth a round of applause if you’re a member of the tribe. He’s a master of Cialdini’s principles. I wish I was, but I moved too late to be part of the club.
