WHY IS 'BECAUSE'? SUCH A POWERFUL WORD?

WHY IS 'BECAUSE' SUCH A POWERFUL WORD?

Prompted by the following testimonial about my book, Stand Up and Sell , I'm sharing this extract to help you #win more #business from your #presentations and pitches.

"The congruency chapter in the book is such a useful chapter because it describes mind tricks, embedded commands, and I love the research on photocopier queues and the power of the word 'BECAUSE'.

CONGRUENCY

From the moment you take centre stage, rise from your seat to speak, or make a presentation to the Board, a judgment will be made about you. Even before you open your mouth an assessment. of whether it is worth listening to you has been made.

Your currency with your audience, if they have never met you before, is pretty much zero.

It doesn’t matter how good your products and services are. It doesn’t matter how well you do what you do. And it doesn’t matter how highly your clients think of you. If your audience doesn’t buy into you, they won’t buy into your business or ideas. After all, as the old saying goes, ‘people buy people first’.

YOU MUST BE CONGRUENT.

What does that mean? The dictionary defines congruency as the ‘state achieved by coming together, the state of agreement, harmony; compatibility’. From the Latin congru, meaning “I meet together, I agree”. What does that mean to you?

What you say, how you say it and how you look when you say it must be congruent

Congruency Tricks That Gain Buy-In from Your Audience

‘Because’.

‘Because’ is a #magic word when you want to get people to do something.

The following is old research, but certainly is worth revisiting as it has absolute relevance for you to effectively #influence and #persuade others.

It is taken from an article written by Susan Weinschenk, PhD and relates to research conducted in 1978 by Ellen Langer (Professor of Psychology at Harvard), who published a research study about the power of the word ‘because’.

Langer had people request to break in on a queue of people waiting to use a busy copy machine on a college campus. (Remember that this is in the 1970s—there weren’t computers and printers.

People did a lot more copying at that time, so there were often queues waiting to use a copy machine.)

The researchers had the people use three different, carefully worded requests to jump the queue:

? “Excuse me, I have 5 pages. May I use the photocopier?”

? “Excuse me, I have 5 pages. May I use the photocopier, because I have to make copies?”

? “Excuse me, I have 5 pages. May I use the photocopier, because I’m in a rush?”

Did the wording effect whether people let them jump the queue? Here are the results:

? “Excuse me, I have 5 pages. May I use the photocopier?” (60% compliance)

? “Excuse me, I have 5 pages. May I use the photocopier because I have to make copies?”

(93% compliance)

? “Excuse me, I have 5 pages. May I use the photocopier because I’m in a rush?”

?(94% compliance)

Using the word ‘because’ and giving a reason resulted in significantly more compliance. This was true even when the reason was not very compelling (“because I have to make copies”).

The researchers hypothesise that people go on ‘automatic’ behaviour or ‘mindlessness’ as a form of a short-cut. Hearing the word ‘because’ followed by a reason (no matter how poor the reason is), causes us to comply.

They also repeated the experiment for a request to copy 20 pages rather than five. In that case, only the “because I’m in a rush” reason resulted in compliance.

What does this mean for you?

When you are asking people to try new ideas, accept your propositions or you’re offering and you feel there may be a level of resistance, use the word ‘because’. Follow this with a compelling reason and you will be amazed how readily they accept.

Extract from my Book Stand Up and Sell?-?For Audible book sample like HERE

Gary Brown

Empowering Business Owners to Realise Their Dreams | Fractional CFO/FD | Strategic Guidance | Growth Planning | Exit Strategy Formulation | Cultivating Business Expansion | Business Advisory Partner | Growth Mentorship

1 年

Very interesting research on the use of the word BECAUSE Dexter Moscow.

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CHESTER SWANSON SR.

Next Trend Realty LLC./wwwHar.com/Chester-Swanson/agent_cbswan

1 年

Thanks for Sharing.

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