Improving Our “Signals” and “Beings”

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“Man prefers to think what he prefers to be true.” - Francis Bacon, Sr.

“Leadership comes through respect, and a large part of respect is liking someone.” - Carol Leonard

“Each man is led by his own liking.” - Virgil

You arrive at a bus station where you wait for a bus to go to work. While you are waiting, a poor looking guy with messy hair who is dressed in dirty clothes sits next to you at the bus stop. “Ready for a big day today?” the man asks you and the conversation starts from there. You’re surprised that he is so open to talking with you as most people who wait at the bus stop hardly make eye contact with anyone.

The two of you have a fun and interesting conversation for five minutes, then your bus arrives and the two of you get up to walk on the bus. However, the man says he doesn’t have a couple of dollars to pay for the bus fare, but you happily pay his fare for him. The principle of liking is at work in this situation and is a powerful influence in how we interact with anyone.

The principle of liking says that people will say “yes” more often to those they like. Had the poor man not made you like him through the interesting conversation, you would had been less likely to comply with his request of paying his bus fare. If there was a situation of choosing who would likely follow your request between a complete stranger versus a friend, you can be very confident in knowing your friend is more likely to comply with your request than the stranger.

There are six principles of liking: physical attractiveness, familiarity, compliments, association, cooperation, and similarity.

1. Physical Attractiveness

Attractive women have a lot of influential power. More so around guys. Most men would bend over backwards for an attractive woman (pun intended). If the woman asked of these guys to do something for her like: buy her a drink, drive her somewhere, or to borrow his mobile phone for a call, the guys would very likely comply. It is a fact that more guys would comply with an attractive woman’s request than an unattractive women’s request. The same goes for women being more likely to comply with requests from handsome guys than ugly guys. Physical attractiveness also influences someone in same gender situations.

People who are more physically attractive are generally more liked. If you’re not so good looking, you probably hated reading that, but don’t ignore this component of liking. It doesn’t matter if you think looks are superficial because people will be judging you nonetheless. An unwillingness to use this component of liking means you will have less influential power with people.

On a scale of 1 to 10, I estimate that 99.99% of people can look at least a 5 (average looking) if they use the following tips. People just don’t realize what parts of their looks are holding them back. In the principle of authority, I provided some basic advice on clothing to improve your power and authority. I’m no stylist so the advice is very simple. Guys, if you have a partner or girl friends, ask them for their advice and perhaps they’ll go shopping with you. Okay, they will definitely go shopping with you like metal to a magnet. They will love the idea of helping you out as long as you aren’t all depressed about this whole “looks” subject.

In addition to clothing, there are plenty of other things you can do to improve your looks. Workout at least three days a week and eat healthy. This is the most powerful of the tips and is more life changing than just in improving your looks. You will have a lot more energy and a positive attitude which instantly affects: how you feel about yourself, how you influence people, and how you interact with people and yourself in general.

Get a modern haircut that is stylish. You can feel like a whole new person and dramatically get an upbeat attitude. Don’t be afraid to try something new like bleaching, dye, or perming, but ask others beforehand about what they think. Before doing anything to extreme with your looks, it never hurts to ask others what they think would be good for you.

Always keep clean, hygienic, and smell good. Don’t overdo makeup and jewelery. Keep all body hair to a clean level. If you’re a guy with a beard, you’d likely benefit from shaving your beard off. A beard acts as a shield which can “prevent” you from connecting with people. It can also act as a mask that subcommunicates devious behavior such as lying. Funny by true. I don’t think Osama Bin Laden did anything good for guys with beards.

2. Familiarity

We all like things that are familiar to us including people. Familiarity is a way of sorting through what’s safe versus dangerous, good versus bad, reliable versus unreliable, fun versus boring, and believable versus unbelievable. If you cannot make someone feel familiar with you, then you’ll lose out on a whole lot of influential power. I would hold more influential power towards you in this article if you are familiar with me. If you aren’t familiar with me, then I don’t have the full power of the liking principle working for me.

Each of us are usually familiar with those whom we have long-term relationships. We come to expect certain behaviors from these people. This provides us with a level of comfort because we like the known. We love to comprehend what we can expect from people and how somebody we’ve met fits into our lives. We are creatures of comfort and love familiarity even if there is a thing we hate because we then know to stay away from it.

Making yourself familiar to someone is far more than asking each other questions and talking for hours. In fact, I think that is the least effective method for creating familiarity. A “dirty” tactic you can use to make someone like you is to link yourself with someone or something the person you are talking to knows about. You heard the person say they like gardening so tell them how much you enjoy gardening. You see the person wearing football socks so talk to them about the latest game. Talk about subjects that are familiar and enjoyable to the other person.

By using this technique for building familiarity, you not only get the other person doing most of the talking because they are talking about what they enjoy, you are incorporating two other components of liking: association and similarity. What you are doing is subtly linking yourself to information the person already knows about. The person will unconsciously associate qualities of people who love gardening or football to you. By the principle of association, you all of a sudden become familiar to the person.

3. Compliments

Compliments can be an “iffy” subject. Think about it. A salesman knocks on your door and tells you that you are looking great. You’ll instantly think, “What the! What does he want from me?” A coworker or employee tells you your hairstyle is looking great today. You’ll instantly think, “Thanks. Wait… What was wrong with my other hairstyle?” A guy comes up to and awkwardly tells you how beautiful you are. If you’re a guy you’ll freak out and punch the guy. If you’re a lady you’ll think, “Ugh! He’s hitting onto me.”

On the other hand, if the salesman complimented you on the lovely paving he walked across when he approached your front door, you’d feel happy and liking him more. If a coworker or employee thanked you for doing something today that made them feel better, you’ll become all warm and fuzzy inside and like the person more. If a guys comes up to you and says “you’ve got great taste in your style”, then you’ll likely be: caught off guard, thanking him for the compliment, and liking him more. However, should the guy continually give you compliments and other types of praise, then you’ll begin to hate him!

Receiving well delivered praise is such a wonderful feeling, but when done wrong it can destroy a relationship. Think of a time someone gave you effective praise. How did that make you feel? You would have felt great and liking the person more! Given that the person complimented or encouraged you in an effective manner, you would have felt more “magnetized” towards the person. Now think of a time you were given poor praise. How did that make you feel? You would have felt manipulated and wondering what were the person’s ulterior motives for praising you.

Compliments and other forms of praise when delivered effectively possess a lot of power to make people like you. It is no wonder than that I’ve written an entire chapter on giving people praise using things like encouragement, compliments, and other forms of behavioral conditioning in my communication secrets of making people like you program. Go check it out for more powerful tips on making people like you.

4. Association

Ivan Pavlov’s well known experiment around the 1890s about getting dogs to salivate at the ringing of a bell is important in making people like you. Pavlov developed what is known as reflex conditioning, classical conditioning, or association. Prior to the experiment, Pavlov noticed his dogs would go through routines prior to being feed. To further explore this reaction, he feed the dogs and rang a bell simultaneously over a period of time. After a while, Pavlov decided to not feed the dogs and just ring the bell. At the sound of the bell, the dogs began to salivate without being feed any food!

My dog has been conditioned to bark like a maniac whenever he hears the house doorbell ring because he associates the doorbell with an intruder. Even if just my family or I use the doorbell, he’ll start howling until he sees who is at the door. Even then he sometimes doesn’t stop barking!

In Richard Bandler and John Grinder’s Frogs Into Princes, the authors discuss a neuro-linguistic programming (NLP) technique called “anchoring” which utilizes classical conditioning. Anchoring involves creating “bells” to make people“salivate”. For example, you can touch people at a certain time when they are happy and when they become unhappy, you touch them again and evoke happiness. The NLP technique is beyond this article, but if you’d like to learn more about it, go check out my review on the popular book and grab your copy.

There are other and more basic techniques you can use to create associations and increase your liking. Humans experience classical conditioning in so many ways you wouldn’t believe it occurs almost every minute of our lives. One basic tip you can begin using the next time you tell some recent news or events is to link yourself with good news and not bad. Another tip that you can use is from my communication secrets program where I encourage readers to tell somebody when they were praised by another person.

By becoming the “middleman” of positive messages, you transform into a likable person through the principle of association. Telling somebody good news or a compliment another person mentioned about them is almost as good as it originating from you. Sharing praise is a great way to give compliments without the risk of it being rejected and blowing up in your face. Link yourself with as many good things as possible and you will increase your liking.

5. Cooperation

Cooperation is a powerful step for teachers who want a successful classroom, parents who want a happy family, and managers who want happy and productive employees. From an ecological perspective, cooperation involves organisms living in a specific area and receiving mutual benefits. From a sociological perspective, cooperation involves the participants receiving mutual benefits like members on a sports team. From an economic perspective, cooperation again involves the participants receiving mutual benefits like an organization doing well.

Regardless of the perspective, we can see that cooperation goes beyond just working together. Cooperation is more than working together as a happy team. It is working towards a common purpose that involves each member receiving a benefit.

The opposite of cooperation is competition. From an ecological perspective, competition is fighting for water, food, and other necessities. From a sociological perspective, competition involves fighting for a common goal with losing and winning results. From an economic perspective, competition again involves competing and obtaining as much beneficial resources as possible.

Regardless of the perspective, we can see that competition goes beyond just “fighting” against someone else. Competition involves obtaining something such that the other participant misses out on the thing you obtained. It is working towards a common purpose for your own benefit and causing someone else to miss out on the benefit because you already have it or some portion of it.

When you are in cooperation with somebody, you will like the person more than if he/she was in competition with you. You see this affect in gangs and wars where members hate members of the side they are battling against purely because they are in competition with one another. I remember reading a poem in high school, which I can’t find, where the poet writes about war and the perspective of competition. The two sides battling against one another would actually be friends had they not met in the heat of intense competition. However, because they are under brutal competition and fighting for the resource of living, they hate one another.

At work, socially, and in the family, we to often put ourselves and others in competition whether it be for a pay raise, attention, or love. We can exist on the same team yet competition will be present should the parties involved be after a resource that is limited or made available to only a select few. When competition is combined with the principle of scarcity, you have a powerful combination for conflict. Internal conflict explodes when team members have individual ulterior motives that aren’t in the team’s best interests because of the principle of competition and cooperation. Wherever possible and whenever possible, cooperate with people such that you and them receive mutual benefits should you both succeed. Also, minimize competition where the participants are not fighting over a beneficial resource.

6. Similarity

Take a look at your friends and other groups of people with whom you have happy relationships. You’ll likely find one big similarity and that is similarities! Whether it be looks, hobbies, interests, occupation, or social activities, we like people who are similar to us.

The liking component of similarity is powerful for those who know how to successfully “manipulate” the technique. You can increase your similarity with somebody and hence increase your influential power with them, by using the same technique shared in the familiarity component of liking. If you are concerned about ethics, this is in no way unethical. All you are doing to “manipulate” the situation is expressing things about yourself which are similar to the person you are talking with.

Most people either aren’t aware of how similarities affect friendship, leadership, influence, and most relationships, or they aren’t proactive enough about making those similarities clear. We all are far similar to each other than most of us believe. It is a matter of having the skills to communicate those similarities.

Now, there are three main ways you can go about finding similarities. Firstly, you can spend a lot of time with the person and get to know them. The problem with this is we don’t have time for whatever reason to frequently use this method. A second option involves peppering the person with questions until you are able to “mine” and “dig up” something about the person which is similar to you. Lastly, you can be smart about exploring the similarities by using a combination of techniques listed below:

• Observe – look at what the person is wearing, observe the person’s friends and other people he or she is with, and be on the lookout for other information that provides hints with what the person is interested in. If you see the person browsing the computer games section of the stores or wearing a football shirt, talk about these topics and be sure to eventually show a level of enthusiasm towards the subject which matches the enthusiasm the person communicates. You ask a person what computer games they are into after seeing them looking at the games, but it turns out they hate games and are just looking at them as a present for someone. Did you stuff up? No. You can talk about your dislike towards computer games because someone you knows wastes a lot of time playing them.
• Listen for keywords – when we are in a conversation, we will use terminology or references to subjects that we like. This technique is a little more advanced, but very successful if you find these keywords when listening to someone talk. There are variations of this technique that can be used depending on the outcome you want like twisting words around to spark attraction or misinterpreting words to be funny for example, but we will use it for finding similarities. All you do is listen for keywords that indicate the person’s interests and you then link yourself to that information. If your talking about houses and the person starts talking about electrical work, then chances are the person is into electrical work and so you express your enthusiasm for this subject. You don’t have to know a lot about the subject, but you can show an interest and liking in the subject, which is what it takes to have someone like you.
• Ask questions – it’s okay to ask questions, but do so sparingly. Best friends don’t hammer each other with questions. You can use questions if you think you’re “onto something” in finding similarities.

In conclusion, we follow things we like more so than the things we dislike. The same goes for people and influence. By improving your physical attractiveness, making yourself familiar, giving effective compliments, successfully using the principle of association, being in cooperation, and having similarities, you can make people like you and increase your influential power.

If you’re reading this right now and you are after many secrets of making people like you and having great relationships with lots of love and minimal fights, then I highly recommend you go get my communication secrets of making people like you program by clicking here today.

Links in this Course: The 6 Principles of Influencing People

• Introduction to Influencing People
• 1. Commitment and Consistency
• 2. Reciprocation
• 3. Scarcity
• 4. Authority
• 5. Liking
• 6. Social Proof

You can download this entire course in a neat report format by right clicking here and selecting “save target as”. You can keep a copy safely on your computer. The report is in .pdf format so you will need this free software to view it.

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I'm creator of a highly praised program called "Communication Secrets of Making People Like You". You can read about it here and order it here.