700,000 Great Reasons To Use Yellow Sticky Notes

Allow me to give you 700,000 great reasons to use sticky notes.  I work at State Auto Insurance which gives me a proving ground to see how influence and persuasion training works in “the real world.” After all, it’s one thing to read about psychological studies but it’s quite another to translate the findings into business practices that help the bottom line. 

In Yes: 50 Scientifically Proven Ways to Be Persuasive, the authors (Cialdini, Goldstein, Martin) cite two studies on the use of yellow sticky notes to show how they engage people and can increase the response rate. In both studies, when a sticky note with a hand written message was attached to a survey cover letter, the response rate to the survey more than doubled when compared to just sending out the survey cover letter.

Most people would deny they took the survey because of the sticky note and short message written on it. However, quite often the psychological principles of influence are triggered at the subconscious level and that’s a big reason people deny it – because they’re unaware of how the stimuli affected them.

Why does the sticky note with the short message work so well? Because of reciprocity; the principle of influence that alerts us to the reality that people feel obligated to give back when they sense someone has done something for them. Using a sticky note with a handwritten message takes extra time and personalizes the request. Consciously or unconsciously, recipients of the survey responded to that small act in a big way. After all, it’s hard to deny a doubling of the response rate in two separate studies.

You’re wondering where the 700,000 reasons are going to come in. Let me take you back a few years. Within days of returning from an extended Christmas break, I was called into a meeting because our company made a big error, a $700,000 mistake to be exact. Somehow we’d overpaid 150 insurance agencies in one of our operating states, doubling their commission income for the month! It would have been nice if we could have pushed a button and gotten the money back but we couldn’t. Part of the plan to try to get the money back as quickly as possible included a letter going out from our accounting department with clear instructions on exactly what each agency needed to do in order to remit the over payment.

Fortunately, the accounting person had been through my training where I shared the results of the sticky note studies. I reminded him about that and said, “If you don’t have time to put a note on each letter call me and I’ll come do it.” Because he was a good student he remembered the training session and assured me he would put a sticky note on each letter and sign them before mailing.

About two weeks later I called him to find out how the collection was going and he said, “I’m floored!” When I asked why, he proceeded to tell me 130 of the 150 agencies had already sent the money back. I was a bit surprised because if someone told me I owed them money due to an over payment, I’d send back what I owed right away. With that thought in mind I asked, “You mean they didn’t all send it back?” That got a laugh then he replied, “We’re talking about money here. A lot of times people will say, ‘It’s your problem, you fix it,’ or ‘Let’s work out a repayment schedule,’ because they’ve already spent the money.”

When we had lunch about two months later, he said 147 or the 150 agencies had repaid all the money. I’m not going to tell you they all paid it back so quickly just because of the sticky notes or even that twice as many did so, but I know for a fact more of them responded, and did so faster, because two separate psychological studies verify that for me.

In my Principles of Persuasion workshops I emphasize the reality that small changes can lead to big differences. The great news is so often what it takes to produce those big changes costs next to nothing. For my company it was a couple of packets of sticky notes and perhaps 15 extra minutes to sign them and stick them to letters. Do you still send things the old fashioned way where you need people to do something? If so, I encourage you to invest in some sticky notes and you’ll see better results because the science tells us so.


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Brian, CMCT 

influencepeople 
Helping You Learn to Hear “Yes”.

How We Deal with Information Overload

We’re in the dead of winter in Columbus, Ohio, and that means each morning as I make my way into work, it’s pitch black outside. As I drove to work recently, traffic was heavy and moving slowly so I had time to reflect. As I looked around I was struck by how much there is to see but which goes unnoticed when I’m driving closer to the speed limit.

During the drive I paid particular attention to the buildings and myriad of lights. The lights were easily distinguished from the car lights as were buildings from the trees and many other objects. Having worked for State Auto Insurance for more than 20 years, I’ve conservatively made the same drive about 4,000 times and yet, on this day, I noticed certain things for the first time.

In the midst of all this my mind wandered to persuasion and how the principles of influence work on people. Just like my brain doesn’t need to process certain input – many objects in the distance – when making the drive, neither do our minds process all the information that comes our way each day. Here’s an interesting quote that tells us just how bombarded we are:

“This year, the average consumer will see or hear 1 million marketing messages - that's almost 3,000 per day. No human being can pay attention to 3,000 messages every day.” Fast Company – Permission Marketing by William C. Taylor

You might be thinking “Wow!” right about now, so I’ll wow you even more. That quote is now 14 years old! Imagine how much more marketing material comes your way though the proliferation of the Internet, Facebook, and smart phones. There’s no way you can process it all and that’s why Martin Lindstrom, author of Buyology, asserts that 85% of what you do every day is processed by your subconscious.  

Because we cannot process all the information that comes in through our senses, our brains develop shortcuts to help us manage. The principles of influence tap into this subconscious processing quite often. While there are certainly times when they lead to mistakes and other times where manipulative people use them to take advantage of us, more often than not they lead to good decisions and that’s why we come to rely on them so heavily. Below are some examples of the principles at work in your decision making.

1. When your neighbor gets his house painted and you think it looks nice you’re probably very willing to use the same painters. Your friendship – liking – lets you rely on their recommendation much more than those of mere acquaintances. After all, friends want to help friends.

2. Someone invites you to a party and you enjoy yourself. Even though you’ve never asked them to a movie or dinner before, you do so next time because you appreciate their hospitality. We tend to “return the favor” because that’s how reciprocity works.

3. You’re not too interested in seeing a new movie but four people in your group of six want to see it, so you go along. Consensus, what everyone else is doing, impacted your decision. You may or may not like the movie but odds are you still enjoyed yourself because you were with your friends and that was better than going to a movie alone.

4. You’re watching your regular news station – could be FOX or CNN – and hear political commentary from a news anchor quoting a prominent politician from the party you support. You’re more likely to believe the report without investigating it further because of the authority of both the news anchor and the politician.

5. Your friend asked you to help him move next Saturday because you once said, “If you ever need anything just call me.” You really wanted to watch the ballgame but you help him instead because if you didn't you’d feel like you were backing out of your word. That’s consistency at work in you.

6. You love IKEA and hear they’re having a huge sale but it ends on Sunday. You hop in the car and make the drive to the store even though you don’t really need any new furniture. Scarcity is prompting you to do something you wouldn’t have done otherwise.

In most of these examples, critical thinking is largely bypassed. When I give a talk or lead a training session I always have people who insist they don’t fall for any of this. I just smile because I know those are typically the people who respond to persuasion attempts the most and their strong reaction is a way to convince themselves they don’t, because it makes them feel as if they’ve lost some freedom of choice and have been duped. But they also miss the point that most of the time people are not trying to take advantage of them. There’s nothing wrong with going to the movie most people want to see or inviting a couple out to dinner because they first invited you to a party. As I noted earlier, the principles of influence generally guide us into good behavior and that’s why we continue to use them "on automatic pilot" so often.


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Brian, CMCT 
influencepeople 
Helping You Learn to Hear “Yes”.

Why We Put Up with Hazing

Hazing is defined as the act of forcing someone to perform strenuous, humiliating, or dangerous tasks. It’s especially prevalent with new or potential recruits in the military, college fraternities, and various other clubs. Hazing is typically part of the right of initiation; passages people must endure before becoming a full-fledged members of some groups.

Who can forget National Lampoon’s Animal House and the classic scene where Faber college freshmen pledges to the Delta Tau Chi fraternity were repeatedly spanked with a wooden paddle, each time responding with, “Thank you sir, may I have another!” The portrayal of what the Delta Tau pledges had to go through in the movie was seemingly innocent, albeit humiliating, college fun. Unfortunately life isn’t always like the movies. Last fall Robert Champion, a 26 year-old Florida AM University student, “died within an hour of a hazing incident” according to an autopsy. 

Champion was the band drum major and allegedly was repeatedly hit by other band members in a hazing incident. Roland S. Martin addressed this dangerous practice in a CNN article he called “Only students can truly end hazing.”

One question that needs to be asked is why Robert Champion would choose to go through such hazing? Why do fraternity pledges endure “Hell Week”? Why to military recruits and others voluntarily put themselves in harm’s way just to join a group? I think two principles of influence address a good bit of the psychology behind the decisions of people who want to become members of certain groups.

Consensus, also known as social proof, is the principle of influence that alerts us to the reality that people look to the behavior of others when deciding what the right course of action is. We are influenced by what many other people are doing or by the behaviors of people we view as being similar to us. Imagine for a moment you’re a part of a dozen people who are trying to get into some club. When you see those ordinary people who appear to be just like you willingly submitting to some form of hazing it would be extremely hard to be the first, or only person to stand up and say no. Mom and dad would have called what you’re experiencing in that moment “peer pressure.” It’s not unlike teens and smoking. They all know it’s bad for them – in addition to being expensive – and yet many do it because their friends are all doing it.

To make matters more difficult, researchers find that consensus is even stronger when people are not sure what the right course of action is. Never having pledged a fraternity or joined the military you can see why pledges and recruits find it that much tougher to say no.

The next principle at play is scarcity. This principle addresses the psychological reality that people tend to want things more when they think they’re less available or harder to get. Groucho Marx was famous for saying, “I wouldn’t want to belong to any club that would have me as a member.” In other words, if any club openly accepted Groucho then maybe that club wasn’t such a great club after all. The harder it is to get in the more people value membership. That’s a big reason some clubs, fraternities and other organizations make it difficult to join.

However, hazing is only one way to make joining a club difficult and thus gaining the benefits of scarcity. Getting into Harvard or Yale is tough because of the grades required. In order to qualify for the Boston Marathon runners need to run certain times to earn the right to run the race. The Marines are famous for saying they’re “The Few, The Proud, The Marines,” implying not everyone can join. In each case, apart from the need for hazing it’s still very, very difficult to be a part of those groups.

Roland Martin is right, only students can end the hazing and that admonition extends to anyone else in positions of power in exclusive or semi-exclusive groups. Exclusivity can be built in through other means and as pledges and recruits see others going through the new, non-hazing, initiation rites they’ll probably fall in line and see them as acceptable and normal. In time, as class after class goes through the new passages perhaps hazing as we know it today, and the tragedies that sometimes result, will become a thing of the past.


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Brian, CMCT 
influencepeople 
Helping You Learn to Hear “Yes”.

The Influential Steve Jobs

I recently read Steve Jobs by Walter Isaacson. It was an interesting book about one of the most influential people of the last 100 years. When I say Jobs was influential I don’t mean in the sense of necessarily using the science of influence. I say Jobs was influential because the products he developed are used by so many people around the world and have set the standard for many communication devices today. Indeed, the iPhone and iPad are the standards when it come to phones and tablet technology.

I found an interesting paradox as I was reading the book, because I enjoyed the book but found myself disliking Jobs the more I got into it. At times I caught myself thinking, “I love my iPhone but can’t stand him.” I almost felt guilty that I enjoy so much what he invented because of the path he took to get there and how he negatively impacted so many people along the way.

There were certain descriptions used of Jobs throughout the book that I found to be nonsensical, particularly his “reality distortion field.” The author and many people he quotes talk about Jobs’ vision – be it for a new product, deadline or something he simply believed – as if he had some magical power to distort reality. He was certainly a visionary and he had a strong will coupled with a bully-like approached that helped get things done. For those reading this who played sports, think of your meanest, toughest coach and multiply that person many times over and you begin to get the picture of the approach Jobs used with people. Nonetheless, if you enjoy Apple products or just biographies of people who shaped history then I encourage you to pick up Steve Jobs because it’s a fascinating look at the man who’s had so much impact on the world we live in.

The following paragraph caught my attention and is the basis for this post because it relates to the science of influence and sales:

“When it came time to announce the price of the new machine, Jobs did what he would often do in product demonstrations: reel off the features, describe them as being ‘worth thousands and thousands of dollars,’ and get the audience to imagine how expensive it really should be. Then he announced what he hoped would seem like a low price.”

Whether or not Jobs understood he was using the science of influence, he was, by tapping into the compare and contrast phenomenon. This is used all the time in sales because the price of a product can neither be high or low unless it’s compared to something else. That something is quite often another price. For example, when I first started running I went to a department store and got a pair of running shoes for about $40. They were much better than anything else I’d ever worn so I was happy until I realized I needed a better shoe after logging lots of miles. Imagine my sticker shock when I saw good running shoes at a real running store sold for $65 - $115! Fortunately for me there were some good salespeople who could clearly explain what I was getting for my money.

Sometimes the comparison point isn’t another price; rather it’s describing everything someone will get. A good description makes them realize they’re getting quite a bit and can soften the blow price might deliver. We see this all the time on infomercials when we hear, “But wait, there’s more!” That’s where the infomercial host goes on to describe all the extra ginsu knives we get for the same low price we were considering buying a single knife for.

Another example comes from my area of expertise, insurance. In your auto insurance policy there’s a coverage called “liability” which protects you in the event that you cause bodily harm to another person or damage their property in an auto accident. The most common amount of coverage people carry to protect themselves is $100,000. The bad news is that really doesn’t go very far in today’s litigious society when some cars are worth nearly that much and even a short hospital stay can easily exceed that amount.

Having more than 25 years in the insurance industry I’d never recommend selling someone less than $300,000 in liability coverage. Of course the natural objection from a customer would be paying three times more for all of the extra coverage. But the good news is it doesn’t cost three times more! A good salesperson would use a similar approach to Steve Jobs and might say, “If you’re like most people you’re expecting to pay three times more for three times more coverage. While that’s a reasonable assumption I have some great news, it will only cost $X more, not even close to three times as much.”

The value of this approach is that it lets a customer see there’s clearly a need for the extra coverage (they hear about lawsuits in the media almost daily), and their satisfaction level will go up when they realize they're getting triple the coverage for a fraction of what they expected to pay.

No matter whether you’re a salesperson, involved in marketing, work with advertising or just trying to convince your spouse to spend some money on something you want, look for legitimate comparisons that will make your request look like the best, most reasonable choice. You may not have as much success as Jobs did with Apple but science tells us the odds of you hearing “Yes” will go up rather dramatically.

Brian, CMCT 
influencepeople 
Helping You Learn to Hear “Yes”.

Influencers from Around the World - How to Present Price Effectively

Marco Germani is our guest writer to start the New Year. Marco has been sharing posts with readers for a couple of years now and has written a book on persuasion in Italian, I Meccanismi della Persuasione. Marco always brings his unique perspective to his posts so I’m sure you’ll enjoy reading his views on How to Present Price Effectively. You can connect with Marco on Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter.

Brian, CMCT 
influencepeople 
Helping You Learn to Hear “Yes”.

How to Present Price Effectively

As we all know, in a negotiation price is almost never the only factor that determines the good or bad outcome. There is always at least one other factor along with the price which decisively influences the final outcome; in other words, if the only obstacle to the successful conclusion of the negotiation is price, in most cases the two sides can find agreement. Let's look at three ways to best present the price of our product or service and maximize our ability to successfully conclude the sale.

1) Never talk about price until you have explained value.

Jeffery Gitomer is renowned for saying that people hate to be sold but they love to buy. Therefore there is a great proliferation of shopping malls in our cities in Italy; places we feel we can freely choose what to buy without the pressure of a seller perhaps using some subtle technique to manipulate us. In addition, each article has a price tag on it so we can immediately attach an economic value to what we see and evaluate immediately whether we prefer to keep that amount of money in our pocket (or bank) or exchange it for the pleasure or utility that the product can produce in our lives.

In the case of a direct sale, which requires the knowledge and skill of a professional vendor, the price has completely different role. The potential customer, as we begin to introduce our product, often has in mind one question, “How much is it?” To unveil the price too early in the presentation is a very common mistake of inexperienced salesmen. The priority, in fact, must always be to communicate and explain the value of the product before communicating its cost. For example, if a customer asks me too soon the price of a product I am presenting, my response is, “Dear customer, the price is the best part of this product and I will cover this subject shortly, but first I want to explain why this product could solve that problem of yours you mentioned earlier, improve your life, etc..”

2) Break-down the price as much as possible

The same price can be communicated in different ways and have a completely different impact on the buyer. If I am presenting a nutrition program based on food supplements, which cost 100 USD per month, it will be my duty, when I go to communicate this price to the prospect, to affirm that the program costs “only 3 USD a day.” In this way the potential customer’s mind is focused on the daily price, comparing it with how much they already spend each day for food, rather than focusing on total spending of 100 USD. I'm not lying or trying to manipulate the prospect, I am just presenting the same information from a different angle, which, after all, is exactly the object of the study of persuasion.

3) Explain the price in relative terms

If I have to sell a training course worth 1,000 USD, I will address the issue of price as follows, “The COST of this course, which is what is necessary to the company that organizes it to cover the costs of educational materials, rent the hall, pay the people who work the event and the speaker, is 1,000 USD, but its VALUE is at least 100 times higher. If we were to charge for the value of this course, we would have a price so high that very few people could afford it.

And, in the case of a book, “The price written on the cover is just what the publisher needs to cover the printing costs, the supply chain to bring it to the library and ensure a minimum profit to the people involved, but its value is also much higher. If the prospects objects, stating 1,000 USD for a training course is too much, I can put the price in relative terms with the following reasoning, “Let’s say you make with your job 1,000 USD per month. You probably earn more than this, but let us make this conservative assumption. If a person you completely trust in these matters, suggested you to invest in a stock, which can give you a sure income, would you be willing to invest each month 10% of what you are earning now? Now, if you are not aware of this, I inform you that investing in yourself can give you, in time, a return infinitely superior to the best stock today on the market. How many training courses and seminar do you attend each year? (If the person did me the objection of the price, the answer is almost always zero). If you decide to invest only 10% of your monthly income on yourself, in less than a year, you put aside the amount you need for this course.”

By adapting these three factors to your product or service, you can greatly increase your chances of closing a sale, provided always that you are proposing a valuable product at a fair and competitive price and assuming your primary goal is always to help people, rather than simply to earn a commission!

Marco