Og NOTES (AUG-2018)
Prime Time
More coming on using anchors and negotiation but for now, let’s look at the second key component of choice influence… Priming
Just like anchoring, I’m going to start off with an example…
Priming STUDY/TEST #1 - 2 Groups (conducted separately)
Slide 1: General terms associated with EAT (i.e. food, warm, meal, fork, hungry, diet, cooking, homemade etc) and WASH (bath, shower, clean, tub, etc)
Group 1: All the EAT terms bold/larger font
Group 2: All the WASH terms bold/larger font
Slide 2: SO_P
Have them write down what word comes to mind. The majority in group 1 should say SOUP and group 2 should respond with SOAP.
This is an example of the priming effect…
Priming Effect: the implicit memory effect when exposure to a stimulus influences a response to a later stimulus.
For group 1, I showed you a variety of words associated with EAT and group 2 I showed you words related to wash.
Priming refers to the somewhat mysterious workings of the automatic system of the brain.
Research shows that subtle influences can increase the ease with which certain information comes to mind.
We’re primed when exposure to a word, concept, or event, causes us to summon related words and concepts.
Priming not only affects the way we think, but also the way we act.
There was a study similar to what we just did, but they replaced the words with ones associated with speed. One group had words related to slow (i.e. sluggish, old, snail etc) and the other had words related to fast (i.e. speed, lightning bolt, sprint etc)
The studies were conducted separately and following the word association, the researcher casually asked an individual from each group to get him a glass of water. While they were gone, he timed them.
The person from the group who was shown the words associated with fast, got back to the room in nearly half the time as the person who was exposed to the words associated with slow. This caused them to expand the study to confirm accuracy and the results were almost always the same.
**What priming therefore shows is that despite what many argue, we are not always in conscious control of our actions, judgements and choices. We are instead being constantly primed by certain social and cultural conditions.
(AJ: Tony Robbins does a ton of work surrounded with priming. The value of visualizing what you want, how to get it, and putting yourself in the mental space of having already achieved it. Can be quite powerful when done regularly. He regularly refers to how we see what we are thinking of (a car we want, a watch we want, a goal we are focused on).
I found that the use of priming techniques during a sales interaction can be the most effective way to influence decisions.
Social scientists have also discovered an odd fact: when they measure people’s intentions, they affect people’s conduct.
Mere-measurement effect: refers to the finding that when people are asked what they intend to do, they become more likely to act in accordance with their answers.
With respect to health-related behavior, significant changes have been produced by measuring people’s intentions.
If people are asked how often they expect to floss their teeth in the next week, they floss more.
If people are asked whether they intend to consume fatty foods in the next week, they consume less in the way of fatty foods.
The nudge provided by asking people what they intend to do can also be heightened by asking them when and how they plan to do it.
Example: If I’m trying to sell my training services, I could (and do) use it strategically to play into this nudge. I ask something like…
Do you intend on taking steps to help improve your sales team’s performance?
What steps and when?
This can even be taken one step further…
Who can give me an example of incorporating an anchor with your priming technique?
**Would you be willing to pay X: throwing in a number for them to consider makes the effect even stronger.
In my example, I might ask something along the lines of… “would you be willing to pay $10,000 to improve the overall performance of your sales team?”
Starting with a high number gives them a starting point and while I know that number is aggressively high, then they would adjust from there, resulting in them ending at a higher number opposed to asking if they’d spend $1,000.
Channel Factors
This insight falls into the category of what a renowned psychologist (Kurt Lewin) called “channel factors,” a term he used for small influences that could either facilitate or inhibit certain behaviors.
For humans, Lewin argued that similarly tiny factors can create surprisingly strong inhibitors to behavior that people “want” to take.
Often we can do more to facilitate good behavior by removing some small obstacle than by trying to shove people in a certain direction
Take this example, which is a study conducted at Yale back in the mid-60’s…
Example: Yale students getting vaccines (Leventhal, Singer, and Jones (1965)
The subjects were Yale seniors who were given some persuasive education about the risks of tetanus and the importance of going to the health center to receive an inoculation.
Group 1: Most of the students were convinced by the lecture and said that they planned to go get the shot, but these good intentions did not lead to much action. Only 3 percent actually went and got the shot.
Group 2: The other subjects were given the same lecture but were also given a copy of a campus map with the location of the health center circled.
On top of that, they were then asked to look at their weekly schedules, make a plan for when they would go and get the shot, and look at the map and decide what route they would take.
With these nudges, 28 percent of the students managed to show up and get their tetanus shot.
*The manipulation was subtle as it was all standard information the students would have already known (ie where the clinic is) and the extra instruction didn’t really take up too much more of their time. Even still, it produced results that were 9x more favorable for what they were trying to accomplish.
This illustrates the potential power you can have with the use of priming and channel factors.
Key Sales Takeaways
This example plays right into one of the main pillars of my selling framework…removing all reasons for them to say no.
The key is to think of/acknowledge what areas might illicit a “no” then prime them with information that combats it. You’re essentially removing the objections before they even occur.
In the previous example, group 2 was given the same lecture as group 1, but they were also…
Given campus map and asked to look at what route would be best to take: removes excuse that they didn’t know how to get there.
Had them check schedule and make a plan for when they would go: removes the excuse of them thinking they are too busy.
Does that all make sense?
I used these subtle statements in many facets of selling, especially when it comes to strategic questioning. These techniques can be absolute game-changers and we’ll go through more specific examples in the final section.
For now, we will move on to the third component of choice influence… Framing