Here are 6 psychological research studies that are bound to put more money in your pocket… even though they may be counter-intuitive and most of us have been doing them backwards! Gregory Ciotti of SparringMind put together the research synopsis and you’ll see my two bits on how to use the info to bring in more business:
- Be the Devil’s Advocate—A recent study showed that by playing the Devil’s Advocate and voicing all of your clients objections and concerns for them (instead of waiting for your client to bring them up) increased salespeople’s closing ratio significantly!
- You Have to Give them Step-by Step Instructions—A study by Howard Leventhal gave two different groups brochures about the dangers of tetanus, encouraging people to get vaccinated. One pamphlet did not tell the readers how to take action… the other just gave very rudimentary instructions on how to take action. The people that received even rudimentary instructions were MUCH more likely to take action than those that received no instructions. You have to tell your clients exactly what to do!
- Talk about Your Mistakes—Most of us avoid speaking about our mistakes… especially to our clients, but it ends up doing so is a very good thing! By admitting your faults and how you corrected them… instead of blaming outside forces—you show your clients that you are able to both understand and control future adverse situations.
- Call Your Clients Names—It ends up that labeling your clients is a really good thing. People love to belong to groups, especially when those are groups with special standing. A recent study showed that just labeling people as “politically active” increased the percentage of voters among the group significantly. How can you use this? How about calling your clients, “The Smart 10% of Investors” or “World Dominating Stock Investors”. Either one could be a great way to make a client a long term investor instead of an investor that is calling your office at every market hiccup.
- Immediate Gratification—A multitude of research has shown that people want immediate pleasure and delayed pain. What are you doing to capitalize on this phenomenon? You should be using words like “instantly”, “immediately”, and “over-night”… now I know you can’t talk about returns that way but there are many ways you could refer to service, information and communication with your clients with those words.
- If You Don’t Have an Enemy You are Doing Something Wrong—You need to have a named enemy… it creates a sense of loyalty and “us against them” mentality among your client base. History is filled with examples of how well this works (unfortunately)… but business has many great success stories as well—think of the Miller beer commercials making fun of “unmanly” guys trying to drink Miller. You need to find something that you and your clients can stand against! Weird but true!
It’s things like these 6 psychological principles that I constantly help the advisors I work with to leverage. It’s amazing how a little change in phraseology or twist in your main thrust can accelerate your business almost overnight.
