Happy New Year! Over the holidays, I have been working on a new presentation, combining my research experience with that of other experts to uncover what all marketers want to know: how to change minds. Whether we want people to move from another brand to ours, try a new product, or even make a positive behavior change (e.g., save water or donate to a charity), marketing is all about changing minds.
If you’d like the full presentation, feel free to contact me and we can set up a time. In this Tidbit, though, I thought I’d focus on one book I read as part of my research for the presentation: “How to Change Minds: The Art of Influence Without Manipulation,” by Rob Jolles.
The book is targeted at salespeople, but I realized that we in the marketing and market research worlds can adapt the advice to create more effective marketing. The book’s main point: everything we try to sell or market is basically solving a problem for our prospect. Before people will buy what we want to sell, they have to admit they have a problem. That’s the first step, but in order to create the urgency for them to actually make a change, they have to understand the consequences of not addressing the problem.
Jolles gives an example of a financial advisor with a prospect who is investing on his own and is considering using the advisor’s services. He has had two meetings, and both have ended with “let me think about it.” The prospect is hesitant to change. To get him over that barrier, Jolles suggests getting the prospect to acknowledge that he needs help, with questions about the challenges he has been facing in trying to handle his investments on his own. But the financial advisor will need to do more than that. He not only needs to convince the prospect to hire him, he needs to instill urgency so the prospect will stop postponing the decision. Jolles recommends asking questions about the impact of not doing a good job with the investments. What if a risky investment goes down and he loses money? What will that mean for his future plans? While that may seem aggressive, questions like that can get the prospect to realize the importance of making a change and doing it now.
That’s a great approach for salespeople, but it can also provide great fodder for marketing. When conducting market research, we should look to uncover what we need to do to get our prospects to conclude that they indeed have a problem to solve as well as understand the potential impact of that problem if it doesn’t get handled.
As I mentioned, the advice in the book is just part of what I’ll be discussing in my new presentation, “Influence: How to Change Minds for Positive Outcomes.” I’d be happy to give the presentation – just give me a call at 818-752-7210 or email info at bureauwest.com.
Source: “How to Change Minds: The Art of Influence Without Manipulation,” Rob Jolles, 2013