Convincing your prospects is easier than you think

We’re all suggestible. So go on – suggest.

Just last week, I was in a public toilet. Or restroom, if you prefer (I don’t – it’s just about the last place I’d want to rest). And there, above the urinal, was a sign that said Now wash your hands. The thing is, I was going to anyway – because that’s what you do when you’ve done what you had to do. So I did it – but this time, it was with more conviction. And above the washbasin, there was another notice, as bossy and hectoring as the first, that told me to use soap. So I did. Now normally, I kick against the system, and resent being told what to do. It was only afterwards, as I emerged from the ammonia-soaked air of the public convenience, blinking into the light of a sun-filled day, that I realised just how powerful a simple suggestion is. The mere fact of suggesting something increases the chance that we’ll do it.

No sooner said than done

“They’ll never go for that,” said a client of mine recently. We were discussing whether readers would do something specific, simply because we asked them to. Or put another way, whether they’d heed a call to action – the cornerstone of marketing. We weren’t asking them to do anything too ambitious. It wasn’t deceptive, or dishonest, or unrealistic. It was simply chivvying them along the sales cycle, and asking them to take the next step. It’s just that my client thought people needed more evidence. She said they wouldn’t take action without more convincing arguments. But often, arguments and evidence confuse us. We want simple choices. We want people to tell us what to do. So some will take that step, I countered, just to put an end to the information phase and move to the action phase. And some won’t. But one thing is certain: if you don’t say it, none will. So we did. And they did. And frankly, we were both surprised.

Another one bites the dirt

You’re in your kitchen. There’s a half-eaten chocolate-chip cookie on the plate, started but not finished by your brother/sister/mother/father/girlfriend/boyfriend/best friend. They’ve gone off to watch TV, by the way, and they’re unlikely to be back anytime soon. Would you consider finishing it? Chances are, you probably would. Now you’re in Starbucks. Same scenario: cookie, plate, nobody around. Would you consider polishing off this one? Probably not. And yet you can’t catch anything from a cookie. Apart from few extra kilos, that is. It’s that the power of suggestion (What if it’s not clean? What if they come back? What if I get caught? What if somebody sees me? What if it’s off?) that stops you.

Flushed with success

Once the suggestion is there, it’s very difficult to dislodge it. It’s something that Brent Haddad of the University of California at Santa Cruz discovered when he looked a people’s attitudes to recycled water. In particular, recycled sewage water. See? You’re already thinking yuck. As I was – it’s the Starbucks-choc-chip-cookie syndrome. And yet it’s not true. Recycled sewage water is perfectly drinkable. In fact, it’s cleaner than some spring water (you think animals and fish don’t need to answer nature’s call?) and most river water. And yet, that’s not what people tell themselves. If recycled water is subsequently passed through an aquifer (an underground layer of water-bearing rock) then in their minds, it’s cleaner. Except it’s not. In fact, that process makes it more impure. But the suggestion – in this case the auto-suggestion – outweighs the evidence. It’s what one psychologist calls ‘cognitive sewage’ i.e. it’s all in the mind. All in the mind – just like product differentiation, marketing promises, and aspirational claims. Either they suggest it to themselves, or you do. So get suggesting. (But make sure it’s grounded in fact, backed up by evidence and carried through with service.) It always, always works – trust me. Now wash your hands. Find out more:

Stream of consciousness: Why Cleaned Wastewater Stays Dirty In Our Minds at NPR.org.

Kevin Ideas, Marketing.