How To Change Anyone's Mind
As entrepreneurs, were always selling, selling employees on the company culture and benefit, selling customers on the products and services, selling investors on the core business and the moats. Now, when we're selling, most of the times we push. "If I can just provide more facts, figures, and reasons why, people will come to the realization that I am right." But Jonah Berger's research confirms what we already know anecdotally. Pushing people to change their mind isn't effective. In his new book, Jonah Berger provides a new framework is called, "REDUCE."
The R in REDUCE is for Reactance. In social psychology reactance occurs when a person feels that someone or something is taking away their choices and autonomy. When you go into the sales mode, people put their guard up because they know they’re being sold to and want to avoid being taken advantage of. Skepticism sets in and the more they’re pushed the greater the reactance. Even when they end up buying because of pressure sales tactics and intimidation, they’ll resent you for it.
The E in REDUCE is endowment. In behavioral economics, the endowment effect is an emotional bias that causes people to overvalue the stuff they own, regardless of its objective market value. In other words, they are more concerned with not losing instead of looking for opportunities to gain.
The D in REDUCE is distance. If someone has strongly held, deep beliefs, you can't get them to do a complete 180 over night. Imagine you are in a football game on your own 1 yard line with one play to score. That’s highly unlikely because the distance is too great. In business, if what the client wants to pay is too far from your offer, there is a distance barrier.
The U in REDUCE is Uncertainty. When people are uncertain about what to do, guess what they do? Nothing. Uncertainty paralyzes you.
The CE in REDUCE is a packaged deal. It stands for corroborating evidence. Sometimes people just need to hear from others about your product or service works as well as you say that it does. This is why testimonials, reviews, and signals of success work so why.
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