The Small Big Quotes

“Regardless of whether you’re trying to convince someone to support your favorite charity, eat healthier, switch their business from their current supplier to your firm, or just adopt a new way of working at the office, one of the most common explanations for lack of persuasive success is also one of the simplest: People recognize they should change their behavior, but they just don’t feel like doing it right now.”
― Steve J. Martin, The small BIG: small changes that spark big influence

“The researchers thought that recipients of precise offers are much more likely to believe that the person making that offer has invested time and effort preparing for the negotiation and therefore has very good reasons to support the precise offer they are making.”
― Robert B. Cialdini, The Small Big: Small Changes That Spark Big Influence

“Successful influence is increasingly governed by context rather than cognition and by the psychological environment in which such information is presented.”
― Steve J. Martin, The small BIG: small changes that spark big influence

“The truth is, not only are people pretty poor at recognizing what will influence their future behavior, it turns out that they are also not that well attuned to what persuaded them after the event either.”
― Steve J. Martin, The Small Big: Small Changes That Spark Big Influence

“Behavioral economists have shown the effectiveness of this technique in another important domain: saving for the future. In one of the most powerful demonstrations of this persuasion strategy, Nudge co-author Richard Thaler and his research colleague Shlomo Benartzi showed that they could drastically boost participation rates in 401( k) plans. Using what they called the “Save More Tomorrow” program, rather than asking workers to participate in the program immediately, they instead asked workers to commit to putting a portion of their future salary increases into the plan. Although this program was successful for many reasons, one central reason is that it effectively shifted workers’ thoughts about the program from the concrete terms associated with it (e.g., “I’ll have less money in my paycheck each month”) to more abstract terms about how it would help them achieve their broader values and goals (e.g., “I should do this because it’s important and the right thing to do for my family”).”
― Steve J. Martin, The Small Big: Small Changes That Spark Big Influence

“People rarely make decisions in a vacuum; in other words, our choices are almost always influenced by context,”
― Robert B. Cialdini, The Small Big: Small Changes That Spark Big Influence

“Following the crowd is not an action that is simply fueled by a need to keep up with the Joneses. It is more fundamental than that, striking at the heart of three simple, yet powerful, underlying human motivations: the motivation to make accurate decisions as efficiently as possible, the motivation to affiliate with and to gain the approval of others, and the motivation to see oneself in a positive light.”
― Steve J. Martin, The small BIG: small changes that spark big influence

“This insight offers an important lesson for communicators wishing to increase the persuasiveness of a message. It can be easy to conceal a small doubt, tiny niggle, or slight uncertainty in your argument, believing those small things could make a large and detrimental difference to your success. However, in situations where it is clear that no single obvious answer exists, signaling a small uncertainty, rather than being detrimental to your cause, could make a big and beneficial difference to it. As a result, when seeking to persuade decision makers, a business consultant, rather than hiding or covering up minor uncertainties about a recommendation, might instead embrace them in the knowledge that they can actually make him or her more persuasive—assuming, of course, that the case is a strong one. Doing so affords another advantage—it is a strategy that is likely to build trust as well.”
― Steve J. Martin, The small BIG: small changes that spark big influence

“Consider the audience’s perceptions of social norms before characterizing the behaviors that deviate from that norm.”
― Steve J. Martin, The small BIG: small changes that spark big influence

“In short, it is not information per se that leads people to make decisions, but the context in which that information is presented.”
― Steve J. Martin, The small BIG: small changes that spark big influence