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PERSUASION WIKI

Specialization

Limiting your product, service or value proposition to only a specific set of tasks for only a specific set of people makes it seem more specialized. It can be used unethically as you don’t have to be a specialist – you can just seem to be one.

Becoming a true specialist necessarily demands the sacrifice of other people or services that are not a fit. You can only become targeted to something by sacrificing being targeted to other competing things.

The Persuasion Psychology Behind the Technique

When someone limits themselves to one specific area or activity, people implicitly assume they are better at it due to it. Therefore, people who are specialists are seen as having more authority.

Also, limiting your value proposition creates scarcity (the less things you do, the less people you can serve), which reinforces your desirability as well.

You can leverage specialization by appearing to be a specialist or actually being one (or in the case you are pitching a product or a service, you make them seem like they achieve a specialized purpose).

Usage

Sub-Techniques
(3 in Total)

Examples

Developers

Developers usually specialize in specific technologies and parts of the stack (frontend, backend, etc)

Surgeons

Surgeons are specialized in surgery precisely because they sacrifice everything else

Curve fitting

The practice of taking a set of very similar examples and attempting to extrapolate a general rule from them (which will fail, only working for super-specific situations)

  • Other examples:
  • CV tailoring (When applying for different jobs of different natures, many candidates create multiple versions of their CV. Each version makes the person seem a specialist for that position)

Use Cases For the Four Quadrants

Key Takeaways
(4 Total)

How to Stack This Technique