In the US, people celebrate St. Patrick’s day. Most people wear some form of green clothing and you should wear green too. Here’s why. If you don’t wear green clothing on St. Patrick’s day, you’ll get pinched.
Believe it or not, there is a lesson in sales psychology at play here. Sales is all about persuasion. One of the best ways to persuade someone to do something is to give them a reason why. People like reasons, for whatever reason. If you simply tell someone to wear green, they probably wouldn’t listen to you. But if you tell them to wear green and give them a reason, whatever reason will do, you will increase your persuasiveness by a factor of two.
A few years ago, there was a study that was conducted at an airport. The researchers wanted to see how many people would be allowed to cut in line. They created two groups. Group A asked to cut in line by saying, “Can I get in front of you.” Group B asked by saying, “Can I get in front of you because I need to catch my flight.” Guess which group was more persuasive? You got it. Group B got more cuts in line.
Was the result earth-shattering? Probably not. But consider the next part of the experiment.
Group B asked their question and gave the same reason why as described above. Group C asked for cuts by say, “Can I get in front of you, my cat isn’t eating well today.” Actually, the reason was different but the point was that the reason was not related to the business of being at the airport. So what do you think the result was? Group B and Group C got roughly the same amount of cuts in line.
People just need a reason, any reason will do. You should use this sales psychology the next time you try to persuade someone to do something. Here’s why. It works according to researchers.
