Authority Bias:Using its Power to Sell Cars!

It’s our parents who first expose us to the value of following authority going back to early childhood. Because they know more about the world than us & have control of reward & punishment as children we learn following their directions serves us well. Following authority is further re-enforced by teachers, church, police, and doctors throughout our lives.
And why wouldn’t you listen to higher authority, they USUALLY save you time and lead you down the right path.
However, because use humans seem to always be looking for life hacks to speed up our lives, blindly following authority can lead to Authority bias.
*********If you want to get better in sales-
Authority bias is the tendency to attribute greater accuracy to the opinion of an authority figure (unrelated to its content) and be more influenced by that opinion.
The classic Stanley Milgram experiment at Yale University in 1961 established authority bias existence by measuring to what extent a person would blindly follow an authority figure’s request to perform an action that obviously went against their moral principles.
Participants were led to believe that they were assisting an unrelated experiment, in which they had to administer electric shocks to a "learner." These fake electric shocks gradually increased to levels that would have been fatal had they been real.
To the shock of Milgram, the majority of the subjects continued to administer the shocks while the learner, who was an actor, screamed in agony and begged for then to stop. Given the results of this and other similar studies it’s easy to see the power Authority has in influencing & persuading people.

How do we ethically use the persuasion power of authority to close more car sales or many sales for that matter??
It comes down to 3 Factors that Create Authority Ethically:
1. Knowledge. The more you know, understand, & practice a subject or act, the better suited you are to advise someone with less knowledge.
If Kobe was a car salesman he wouldn’t just keep up on his new product knowledge, he would be his dealerships source of product knowledge.
He would know how his vehicles compare to the competition.
Kobe would know all the current factory & special incentives like college grad and military and even the obscure ones inside out & backwards.
He would know everything about every trade or used car in inventory.
Kobe would know how each dealership department works, master all dealership process and how to maneuver though each of them with style and grace.

2. Dress/Appearance. Doctors wear lab coats, Police and Firemen wear uniforms, and business people wear suits. Suits are the uniform of success and we tend to attribute authority to success.
In study on dress, from Robert Caldini in his book Influence. a 31 year old experiment assistance haft the time wears a freshly pressed suit jacket, pants, white button down shirt, with a tie and the other haft of the time wears a work shirt and dress pants He’s positioned at a traffic stop light and with research observers nearby, counted how many other people followed him as he jaywalks through the stop light. The pedestrians were 3 and a haft more likely to follow the experiment assistant when he wore a suit vs. the casual clothes.
If I have a dress code that states I wear a polo shirt and khakis, you go with high quality khakis, belt, and durable comfortable shoes. If you can afford the higher end of these clothing items it’s usually in your best interest do so because it will save you money in the long run. When I was pounding the lot I used buy cheap shoes since I would wear them out so fast. Then I learned that the higher quality shoes might cost 3 x a cheaper, low quality pair but they lasted 5 x times longer.
And I do understand how our society paradigm has shifted when it comes to success attributed to suits. And practically of a salesperson wearing one every day has you questioning this advice. Before disagree, let me share some advice from my Grandma.

3. The final Factor that leads to Authority is Titles. General, Doctor, President. These titles commonly indicate hard work, education, paying our dues, experience usually bringing with them a high degree of success.
In fact in famous a study using authority title and flight simulators the pilot performs an obvious error that any co-pilot knows is an indication the plane will crash, yet 25% they don’t speak up letting the plane crash rather than questioning the authority of their pilot.
In the car business most sales managers, GSM, and GM’s have held been other positions with in the dealership. Due to experience, skill, and success they were promoted to a position of authority.
As a salesperson you need to take advantage of the persuasion power that your manager’s authority carries with it by introducing them to all of your guests who leave the store without purchasing.
*********If you want to get better in sales-

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