People who raise money or sell for a living know that it often takes more than a single plea to win over a potential donor or customer. Social psychologists share this knowledge and have studied several compliance techniques that are based on making two or more related requests. Click! The first request sets the trap. Snap! The second captures the prey. In a classic and important book titled Influence: Science and Practice, Robert Cialdini described a number of sequential request tactics in vivid detail. Other social psychologists have continued in this tradition. The best known of these methods are presented in the following pages.
The Foot in the Door Folk wisdom has it that one way to get a person to com- ply with a sizable request is to start small. First devised by traveling salespeople peddling vacuum cleaners, hairbrushes, cosmetics, magazine subscriptions, and encyclopedias, the trick is to somehow get your “foot in the door.” The expression need not be taken literally, of course. The point of the foot-in-the-door technique is to break the ice with a small initial request that the customer can’t easily refuse. Once that first commitment is elicited, the chances are increased that another, larger request will succeed.