Three persuasion techniques we can learn from babies

On our very first day on the planet, the influence task that faced us was immense. We had to persuade those around us, without language, without consciousness, without anything like the oratorical prowess that we possess as adults, to take care of us—to subjugate their own interests at the expense of ours. 

Babies are equipped with three features, fitted as standard, calibrated to cut straight through our deliberation, which are:

1. An unignorable soundtrack that figures at the top of nearly everyone’s list of aversive acoustic stimuli;

2. Appallingly cute good looks, that prove pretty much irresistible to anyone caught in the spotlight;

3. A hard-wired propensity to make eye-contact, to attend to the eye-regions of faces.

In one study, a bunch of wallets were left on the streets of Edinburgh, each containing one of four photographs. A happy family. A cute puppy. An elderly couple. And a smiling baby. Which ones, the researchers wondered, would find their way back to their "owners" most often?

Of the 40 wallets of each type that were dropped, 28% of those containing the portrait of the elderly couple made it back successfully; 48%, the family snapshot; 53%, the photo of the cute puppy.

And a whopping 88%, the picture of the smiling baby!

HT: Via Kevin Dutton - Unfortunately no source was recorded at the time. Happy to rectify that if you can assist.

Your BODY doesn’t only ‘talk’, it actually thinks

Many people still mistakenly believe that the mind operates like a computer. It doesn’t. We increasingly understand that the brain’s job is not to simply process information but to control the actions of your body. The technical term is embodied cognition.

If you study linguistics you will appreciate how this works – and understand the relevance the sales, communication and persuasion.

If you think of abstract good things (morals, God, virtue etc…) you tend to think of those as ‘up’.

If you think of abstract bad things (the devil, depression, criminals) you tend to think of those as ‘down’.

That is you apply a spatial metaphor to abstract concepts. These ‘embodied metaphors’ are the building blocks of perception, cognition and action.

In practice what this means is that the actual physical experience and expression of the body determines thoughts, feelings and perceptions. Let me illustrate:

People who are holding a warm drink (coffee) feel more positively inclined (warmly) towards the other person.

People who are seated in soft chairs are more flexible in their negotiating positions.

Play along to see if you understand the concept:

You are raising fund for a charity. You have to choose where to position yourself and your bucket. Where would you stand?

1. At the bottom of the escalator catching the people who are descending?
2. At the top of the escalator catching the people who are ascending?

Answers in TOMORROW's POST. (Subscribe now :))

Dennis Price

GANADOR: Building businesses that can jump the curve with certainty.

The power of social to do harm

There are obvious benefits to being social.

It creates a sense of belonging and it plays an undeniably important role in shaping your identity. It offers protection and enables growth thorough cooperation and sharing. It is efficient.

It is no surprise that psychologists have isolated social proof and reciprocity and peer pressure and the like as powerful drivers of behaviour.

But gangs and suicide bombers are also testimony to the power of social forces. Unarguably these are not good. In fact extremists of any kind are linguistically a misnomer in the sense that ‘extremity’ implies being isolated, single and somehow rare. On the contrary, extremists are some of the most closely knit social groups that exist. Their beliefs are extreme, but they are highly socialised.

As participants in various social groups, we must learn to appreciate that sometimes belonging to two social groups are mutually exclusively. In some cases it is obvious in others not so much.

You can’t be a member of two opposing gangs – that is obvious. As groups grow they become weaker after a certain point.

Let's compare one group everyone is familiar with (Christians) with the company/ organisation that employs us.

You can’t be a real Christian and also be ‘of this world’. Christianity is losing ground in developed countries – not because it is being challenged by more educated people who have a better grasp of science.  There are many believing scientists – those belief systems are not irreconcilable at all.

(Ironically, it is more likely that people who have a poor grasp of philosophy to end up favouring scientism, mistaking that for scientific thinking. But that is another topic for another day.)

Christians are losing ground because the glue that bound them together (strong beliefs in specific norms and values guided by the Bible) are weakened. Christians are progressively unwinding the more polarising beliefs (about sex, marriage, homosexuality etc.) and it is this misguided attempt at seeking acceptance with the broader society that makes the group less distinctive and undermines the loyalties that the existing members have to the group.

As the group seeks to grow and spread its influence, it finds that it has to become more permeable at the edges of its definition. And this causes it to lose shape.

The same principle applies to companies who grow beyond a certain size. Whilst the Dunbar number may not be scientific, it is intuitively a very appealing concept.

When companies lose their founders/ great leaders (Apple>>Jobs) then social cohesion suffers. We call it something different – we may call it culture or values for instance; but ultimately it is the glue that loses its power to make the component parts adhere to each other.

This has implications for community engagement/ management and all other groups too.

We all want to belong to groups, but there are lessons we should heed:

1. The bigger the group gets, the weaker the social cohesion
   
2. Not all groups are positive
3. Blind conformity is dangerous

Chuck Norris and Rambo have now joined forces in The Expendables, but belonging is not always all it is cracked up to be. 

We need our fair share of Lone Rangers too.

What business can learn from Adam Scott at Augusta is legendary

All of Australia admired the putt on the 10th (the second replay hole) that won Adam Scott the Masters at Augusta.

Much has been said about Adam Scott’s win – none better than Peter Fitzsimons.

But the win wasn’t set up at the last hole with the last putt. There are several key moments that to preceded that moment in order for him to eventually capitalise on the opportunity.

There are a few obvious milestones along the way:

• It took years of training to get there.
• It took years of performing at the highest levels to be invited to that specific tournament.
• He had to play consistently well (under pressure) for four days before that moment.
• He had to keep the faith even though he wasn’t in the lead.

But this is where it gets interesting. There are many players – arguably even most of the field – that did all of the above.

On the last hole of the last day Scott sunk an excellent putt to take the lead. His opponent had to approach the green and sink the putt (make a birdie) just to draw level. Adam celebrated and pumped his fist when he did it. The emotional high was obvious and it was intense.

He trudged off to complete his scorecard.

His opponent (what a revelation Angel Cabrera was!) played the perfect approach shot and left himself with only a short putt to draw level. Which he duly did. 

What happened next is what distinguished champions from the mere mortals.

Adam had to regather himself and return to the first play-off hole. Like a champion he played every shot well, but his opponent matched him shot for shot. Both had to putt again; on the same hole where Scott thought he might have had it won a few minutes earlier.

Scott was closest to the pin, which meant his opponent had to putt first. Cabrera sank a longish putt which demanded Scott had to sink his stay in the game. It was a relatively simple putt of about three feet (a metre or so). He would expect to sink it 999 time out of a thousand.

But if you know anything about golf you will also know that these putts that you are expected to sink. Just the previous year at the British Open he let a 3-shot lead slip over the last three holes. Those thoughts must have been swirling in his head. 

He rolled the three-footer in confidently.

They then played the second play off hole and we all know what happened. He had to sink a fairly long putt – one that no one would have strange if he had missed it. And he made it.

But I firmly believe that the previous putt on the first play-off hole was the one where the pressure was most. And that is where his champion credentials shone the brightest. And that shot was the difference between a champion and a great champion.

But most importantly: He celebrated his victory with humility.

And that my friend, is the difference between a great champion and a legend.

Consumer behaviour stats only mean something if...

.. IF YOU DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT

Here are a few facts to consider.

1. People spend 2.3 seconds on in-store brand decisions.

2. Just over 90% of shoppers make unplanned purchases.

3. Gen Y shoppers are also more likely to make impulse purchases at end caps. 

4. About 62% of shoppers say they responded to merchandising displays.

5. About 93% of Baby Boomers, say they prefer product messages rather than price-point messages while shopping. 

6. Only about 25% off customers walk past halfway in the typical specialty store.

7. Sales can increase by1.3% when dwell time increases by 1%.

8. You get on average a 10% sales increase with a store design with a left entry and clockwise track.

If I asked you to answer a quiz based on the above, would you pass? Most wouldn’t because it is easy to skim over the list. 

The point is this: When you consider these facts, ask yourself the question: SO WHAT? 

And then change something based on your answer. Don’t let the facts just slide you by and move on to the next thing because you are busy.

Research and experience is only useful to the extent that it changes what you do.

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We have created a market for IDEAS and you are welcome to swing by and get yourself some.

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Only you can decide the truth about this

Not so long ago I wrote a post where a commenter took me to take on my understanding of neuroscience, implying that I did not really ‘get’ it. (Note the date: 18th March 2013.) And she said explicitly that my knowledge was based on a pop-science book by Cialdini. She could not be further from the truth, so after a bit of to and fro, I eventually let it ride.

Here are a few facts:

1. I did indeed read Cialdini’s book – the 2001 edition (acquired c2007 – some six years before the current hype-cycle) is dog-eared on my desk as I write this. But preceding that Ganador had build a sales training product (Sell$mart) using the principles of Neuroscience. We had carefully distilled the research and created a framework that we could train (and test and monitor) on the sales floor.
2. I subscribe to the original journals via my connections with University of Wollongong.
3. I do have doctorate in the subject I think I am better qualified than most to assess the state of this discipline, but despite an apparent academic foundation, I am hugely sceptical of most research that is conducted – and am on record.

I think my commenter is blindly accepting the gospel of Neuroscience, but I am not overly impressed with the quality of the research being conducted in the field Neuroscience.

In many respects Neuroscience is only a small advance in the right direction away from Phrenology. In fact, Scientific American said ‘Neuroscience gets an F for reliability’. (Note the date: April 10th, 2013.)

Neuroscientists eager for tenure also use the press very cleverly and the under-resourced journos are guilty of perpetuating myths that become entrencehd in our received wisdom.

For instance, most people would believe most (if not all) of these.

• The “left-brain” is rational, the “right-brain” is creative 
• Dopamine is a pleasure chemical 
• Low serotonin causes depression 
• Video games, TV violence, porn or any other social spectre of the moment “rewires the brain” 
• We have no control over our brain but we can control our mind 

NONE of those are true.

The point I want to make here is that qualifications and experience, no matter how ‘impressive’, are no guarantee of veracity or validity. Not even of my views.

I would like to challenge you to think about how you process advice - even what appears to be very sound advice.

The problem with the internet is of course that is indeed a shallow pool. There are different types of ‘advice’ served up via blogs, newspapers, books and consultants directly.

The challenge for the business owner is to distinguish between the types of advice, understand the source of the advice and the agenda of the advice-giver.

And the only one that can decide is YOU!

No one has the answer, we just have a better (or worse) answer and it is the personal responsibility of the reader to process the advice/ideas/conversation and to make sense of it.

That is; it is YOUR responsibility to process the information you are presented with. Reading things you may potentially learn form are only useful if you learn something – even if it is what NOT to do, or to keep doing something despite suggestions to the contrary.

We live in an age where data is abundant and information is free; but knowledge is (and always will be a scarce commodity because it requires thinking.

If you accept the responsibility to critically evaluate the information you are presented with and make your own decisions you will have real, sustainable competitive advantage.

http://goo.gl/Xuzed

Why Marissa Mayer agrees with me and predictions about privacy

I continue my smartarse theme this week.

I wrote this in early 2001 and touched on the idea that people don't care too much about the information they share (privacy). If you consider what people put online via social media you will have to say that even people will say they value their privacy, they don't really act that way.

I also spoke about why tele-commuting is not going to take off in a big way any time soon,.

As I said, it is smart-arse week.

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The new world of work

A lot has been written and said about the new world of work where we will all tele-commute, work via the Web and where robots take over all manufacturing. Without exception, the main proponents of the new way have at the very least got their timing very wrong.

Predicting the future is a dangerous business made doubly so when you are trying to predict human behaviour and slap a deadline on it. However, there are some fundamental values and characteristics of human nature that you can pretty much bank on as being timeless. Man is a social animal. The people who predicted that the VCR would spell the death of the cinematic experience did not consider this simple fact. The consulting landscape is littered with corpses who staked their reputation on the extrapolation of a trend or the discovery of a new technology without due consideration of the essence of human nature. It is time to dispel a few myths about the new world of work.

Privacy.

Man likes to talk about himself and herself. All those who bemoan the demise of privacy on the Net should think again. Barring some really confidential information like a criminal record or serious lack of funds, people generally don’t mind talking about themselves. There are thousands of market research firms in the world who can attest to the fact that the vast majority of people who do not want to participate in a survey do so purely because of the perceived lack of time. They just could not be bothered at that particular point in time. It is very rarely a matter of principle.

Once aggregators of data such as marketers of consumer products and services have all the info they need, the real question will be what to do with it. People are a peculiar mass of contradictions and inconsistencies. Traditional market research has long perpetuated the notion that people can be grouped together as markets based on a slicing and dicing of their attitudes, behaviours or lifestyles. This has given the managers and accountants the false sense of security that marketing is an exact science. The real truth is that people are as unique as their fingerprints signify. In the past the (subtle) differences between people have been disguised by the limitations of research methodologies and the lack of data. If you ask people a few questions, chances are that their answers will be able to be grouped in a meaningful way. With access to perfect information and limitless data, the differences become more pronounced.

And even if marketers figure how to use data in some meaningful way, the targets of their advertising or sales techniques will have found a way to block them. The key in the privacy debate is not whether researchers/marketers will gain access to personal data. I think it was Scott McNealy [CEO- Sun Microsystems] who said famously that ‘privacy is dead – get over it’. He is right of course; but the funny thing is that, by and large, people don’t mind. The reason is that they fully expect to be able to somehow filter the appeals of the marketers – probably through the use of technology. Only messages from trusted sources will get through to them. It is the modern, adult version of “talk to the hand because the ears aren’t listening”. Somehow the Internet will have its own version of the TV remote that allows users to zap between channels and skip commercials at will. It might be as simple as filtering applications as they exist today or something more fanciful. The important point is that consumers/users don’t mind the loss of privacy (outward-bound data flow), but mind the intrusion (inward-bound data flow) of messages coming in. The overload of information has long been identified as an issue that has been made more ubiquitous with the advent of the Internet. But people will find a way to cope, they always do.

Like most people with Internet access, I have done the Amazon.com thing and I certainly do a lot of banking on the Net. There is a bit of concern when I pay by credit card, but I keep a low limit on the card anyway, so my exposure is limited. I tend not to divulge my e-mail address to all and sundry websites, and when I do, it is the freemail one. There I would monitor the spam vs. quality and if necessary, transfer it tio the regular address or attempt to cancel. I have never had difficulty in getting unsubscribed from a website.

Work from home

As stated earlier, man is fundamentally a social animal. Work from home and telecommuting is bound to increase – up to a point. It is a work style that will suit certain jobs more than others, and more importantly the ability to work from home will be important at certain stages of ones life. A career woman who wants to raise a family, a son who needs to look after frail parents or someone who needs to live in one city but work in another are examples of the people who might seek out telecommuting opportunities.

But most people seem to like the idea of leaving the drudgery and dirty dishes behind, dress up a bit and get out. It probably provides people with some meaning in their lives and also gives the man opportunity to play different roles, which are so necessary for their psychological balance. And employers will realise sooner or later that a lot of progress and problem solving comes from the creative tension fostered by direct interaction with peers, customers and competitors.

This means of course that if you had hoped traffic jams would become a thing of the past any time soon, you are wrong. I am rather more fortunate of course, as I drive for an hour every morning and an hour every evening down one of the most beautiful stretches of road in the world. The south coast of New South Wales, Australia is a beautiful part of the world. Particularly as the highway crests Mt. Ousley and follows a sweeping curve downwards it delivers a stunning view of Wollongong. The early morning sun paints the shimmering expanse of sea and harbour and this picture is framed by lush vegetation.

Source: www.mademan.com

We have created a market for IDEAS and you are welcome to swing by and get yourself some.

Franchisors: Convert your OPS MANUAL into a custom-branded, interactive web-based application for $5k only

Standing on the shoulders of giants to see retail's future

To continue this weeks theme on the FUTURE and PREDICTIONS, I want to take you back to the 1980s when Alvin Toffler wrote Future Shock (1980) and The Third Wave.

Remember that when he wrote this, we had not yet seen the wide-scale adoption of the PC or the Internet.

This is what Toffler predicted:

"For Third Wave civilization, the most basic raw material of all--and on that can never be exhausted--is information... With information becoming more important than ever before, the new civilization will restructure education, redefine scientific research and, above all, reorganize the media of communication... Instead of being culturally dominated by a few mass media, Third Wave civilization will rest on inter- active, de-massified media, feeding extremely diverse and often highly personalized imagery into and out of the mind- stream of the society.

"The giant centralized computer with its whirring tapes and complex cooling systems--where it still exists--will be supplemented by myriad chips of intelligence, embedded in one form or another in every home, hospital, and hotel, every vehicle, and appliance, virtually every building-brick. The electronic environment will literally converse with us" (352).

"To operate these factories and offices of the future, Third Wave companies will need workers capable of discretion and resourcefulness rather than rote responses. To prepare such employees, schools will increasingly shift away from present methods still largely geared to producing Second Wave workers for highly repetitive work" (353).

Today we are living these predictions.

Toffler got it right because he did not simply look at basic statistical trends, he looked at the fundamentals and did a meta-analysis on the context. He understood human nature and based his thinking on those timeless principles.

I am sure there are a few companies out there who wished they had paid a bit more attention back then.

Dennis

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We have created a market for IDEAS and you are welcome to swing by and get yourself some.

Franchisors: Convert your OPS MANUAL into a custom-branded, interactive web-based application for $5k only

Connecting the dots like a turkey

NN Taleb explains the turkey problem thus:

“Consider a turkey that is fed every day, Every single feeding will firm up the bird’s belief that it is the general rule of life to be fed every day by friendly members of the human race ‘looking out for its best interests,’ as a politician would say. On the afternoon of the Wednesday before Thanksgiving, something unexpected will happen to the turkey. It will incur a revision of belief.”

Of course most people who think about the future, think they are thinking when they are simply extrapolating the trends.

They are usually right about tomorrow looking like today, But the further out you go the more useful your predictions would be, the less accurate they are.

There is of course a better way - a smarter way. More about that some other time.

We have created a market for IDEAS and you are welcome to swing by and get yourself some.

Franchisors: Convert your OPS MANUAL into a custom-branded, interactive web-based application for $5k only.

Grunt and Grind: Retail is a sprint race

Life is a 100m dash after all

Dear Dennis: I seem to do be working my butt off but all to no avail. I just don’t seem to be getting the promotion or rewards that my efforts seem to justify. I have a small business and it seems my growth has plateaued and I just can’t seem to kickstart it.

Grumpy

Dear Grumpy,

Forrest Gump was wrong: life is not like a box of chocolates. Life is like a 100 sprint. Let me explain.

If you are a professional sprinter, your success comes down to two distinct and separate aspects. Firstly, when you sprint, you gotta win the race. It lasts about 10 seconds, and one minor stumble can cost you dearly. Just getting off to an average start could easily see you finish last. Or worse, third.

This may seem unfair. Especially if you are training to qualify for the Olympics and one bad race sets you back four years. But that is how it is.

The other facet of success is the work that you do in between the dashes; your training, your discipline, your diet. Not going to the parties. You know - the grind. The grind that gets you to the race.

If you don’t do this part well, you will lose the race. But doing this part well doesn’t guarantee that you win the race. If you want success, you still have to win the race – and your opportunities are few and far between. You get judged on your performance in that sprint. And you get rewarded for your performance. Everything is based on the outcome. The moment of truth, so to speak. I call this the ‘grunt’ – when it is about putting everything on the line.

So, success comes down to the grind and the grunt. And you need to excel at both if you want to taste success. The whingers will bemoan their lack of opportunity. They moan about the fickleness of the judges who make split-second decisions and how they keep such little mistakes against you. But life is like that.

And sometimes you get the flashy performer who arrives at the race; all mouth and shiny tracksuit. They talk the talk. But when the gun goes, their lack of grind shows through. They might win a few easier races early in their career when the competition is light, but they don’t go the distance.

There are two possibilities to explain your lack of success:

Option 1: The business is weak because; at the grunt (‘the moment of truth’) it just doesn’t perform.

This is every touchpoint with the customer. Your hygiene factors, the quality of the service, fairness of the price, convenience and value for money.

Option 2: You lack success because you are not prepared to suffer through the grind.

How well you are managing your risk. Are you planning your strategy? Are you constantly looking out for innovative ideas? You are managing your cash flow.

So the question is this, if you were honest with yourself, is your lack of success because you don’t grunt when it counts, or because you don’t grind through it? Any examples of grunt and grind in your business?

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If your only tool is a hammer every problem looks like a nail

In a previous post I revealed that I have a weakness to explore multiple topics and interests – always seeking the latest and best.

I also have a pet hate, which may or may not be a weakness too. It may be the flipside of my yen for the epistemic; so let me explain:

I am reading a book at the moment This Explains Everything edited by John Brockman. Find it in my Library here.)

Basically it is a hundred plus thinkers/intelligentsia who are all trying to answer the same question: What is your favourite deep, elegant or beautiful explanation. The responses range from theories on consciousness to particle physics to natural selection. (Incidentally, it may the most referenced idea in the book.)

However, one thing struck me immediately:

• Physicists expounded a Physics theory
• Neurobiologists and neuro-scientific idea
• Linguists offered a linguistic idea.

And so on.

The bogan version of that phenomenon would be:

If the only tool you have is a hammer then every problem looks like a nail.

And THAT is one of my pet hates.

The book offers over a hundred ideas that are meant to be THE idea, which ironically proves the point that there is no ONE IDEA that ever will.

One of the flaws in our everyday thinking patterns is that we think exclusively more often than inclusively:

We normally think the answer is A or B. We rarely think the answer can be A and B.

Example 1: A company may feel compelled to choose between launching Product A or Product B, or feel compelled to choose a market penetration strategy over a diversification strategy.

Example 2: Australians are encouraged (by politicians and media alike) to be either for or against boat people. (The local illegal immigrant narrative in Australia.) But there is an inclusive solution.

Example 3: If you want to persuade a child to brush their teeth before they go to bed, you offer them two options: Do you want to brush your teeth now after the meal or do you want to brush it before you go to bed?

Example 3: In retail sales, we train assistants to use this general thinking style in their favour. When you ask a customer whether they prefer the red dress more or the blue one more, they say neither.

Practical resource constraints aside, there is no logical reason why only one answer will be the right answer.

I am not advocating indecisiveness – that would simply be lazy.

I am not advocating lack of focus – that would simply be stupid.

What I am saying that there isn’t always just one correct answer. There isn’t always just one tool for the job. By recognising this, we may actually save time and money by cutting short the search for perfection.

Dennis Price

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How we are programming our own demise

Don't watch this by yourself - it is too scary.

This is a must watch talk by Kevin Slavin: How algorithms shape our world.

I normally do a funny Friday - but this is NOT funny... sorry to ruin your weekend.