Sales & Persuasive Techniques: Persuade Yourself: Using Timing To Become A Better Persuader – Part 14/15

A lot of times when we’re trying to be effective, we focus very much on what we’re going to do, and how we’re going to do it. But we often give short shrift to the when of those decisions. And it turns out that when we do things can have a big effect. Timing might not be everything but it’s a big thing. Focusing on the time you’re doing it, on the sequence of what you’re doing, whether you’re operating in the beginning, whether you’re operating in the middle, whether you’re operating at an end. If we bring that when factor into our decision-making and into our persuasive encounters, we’re going to be better at it.

When You Pitch Matters

Many times as a persuader, we find ourselves in a serial competition, that’s serial with an s. What that means is that you have a series of competitors who are doing things one after the other. They are pitching for a new business. They are a series of job interview candidates coming in one after another, and after another. So there’s some interesting research on where you want to be in that sequence. And it distills to some I think really useful guidelines for when you go first and when you don’t you want to go first. So there are three instances when you want to go first.

If you are not the default candidate, you want to go first. What does that mean? Let’s say that you are running an advertising agency and one of the clients is considering getting rid of their existing ad agency. And they are possibly thinking of a new one. The other agency, their current agency, is the default choice. If you are not the default, you want to go first because you’re more likely to get a fresh look.

The second area where you want to go first is when there are relatively few other candidates. A small number of candidates, going first gives you the advantage of what’s called the primary effect. People who go first are taken a little bit more seriously. The third area where you want to go first is if a lot of your competitors, whether it’s another business, whether it’s other job candidates, are very strong. Because if people see a number of strong candidates one after another, when they get to the later ones, they are going to say, nobody – everybody can’t be this good. And they’ll start more aggressively looking for the flaws. So those are the three areas where you want to go first.

Now, there are also three situations where you don’t want to go first, you want to go toward the end. If you are the default candidate you don’t want to go first. Second, if there are a lot of competitors, you don’t want to go first, you want to go toward the end. And there’s some super cool research on this from idol competitions, figure skating competitions, from wine tastings, showing that when there are a huge number of competitors the people who come toward the end are actually evaluated more highly. So there are a lot of competitors, go toward the end.

Finally, the third area where you want to go toward the end is this, if the criteria for selection are not super clear. They are not sure what kind of firm they want to hire. They are not sure exactly what they’re looking for in a candidate. Let the other people who go first figure it out for them. When they get to you, they said, oh this is exactly what we need.

When To Give Bad News

Think about the phrase, I’ve got some good news and some bad news. I always wondered, do you give the good news first or the bad news first? Now, in my own life, I always gave the good news first. And here’s why. It’s uncomfortable giving bad news so I wanted to ease into it. I also believed that if I started with bad news, people would just shut down. They wouldn’t even listen to the rest of it. Third, I also felt that if I gave bad news first, I might endanger the relationship. So I always gave the good news first. But when I look at the research, I discovered, as in many areas, I was doing it wrong.

Let me ask you a question. If you are on the receiving end of this famous phrase, if I say to you, hey, I’ve got some good news and some bad news, and I ask you, what do you want to hear first? Four to five people prefer to get the bad news first. And here’s the funny thing, I prefer to get the bad news first. I was just too stupid to think that other people would share my preferences. And so what the research tells us is that, in general, you’re better off starting with the bad news and going to the bad news. That’s what people want to hear. And it shows a preference for rising sequences at the end rather than declining sequences at the end.

So for me, I guess it was some good news and some bad news. The bad news is that for most of my life, I was doing it wrong. The good news is that now I know how to do it better.

Schedule Tough Requests After Breaks

So how can we use timing to be a better persuader? Here’s an idea. When people make decisions, particularly when they’re confronted with a decision, they have in their back pocket a default decision. And that default decision is almost always no. So you ask your boss for a raise, and the default decision is no. If you are trying to get someone to buy something, the default decision is no. You’re asking somebody out on a date, the default decision is no, or at least it always was in my case.

And so what do we know about when people are more likely to overcome the default? There is some evidence in the literature that people are more likely to overcome the default early in the day and immediately after breaks. If you have a tough prospect and you know the default answer is no, you might have a marginally better chance if you approach that person early in the day or immediately after that person has taken a break. In fact, you can even go and say, hey, let’s take a walk first before we go and do this.

Now, I don’t want to overstate the effectiveness of this. It’s going to give you a tiny edge. But small edges can be meaningful. Let’s say in an ordinary circumstance, I have a 5% chance of getting you to say yes. If I pick the right time, maybe I can bump that up to say, a 7% chance. What does that mean? It means that I still have a 93% chance of getting a no. But that increment from 5% to 7% is meaningful if it’s something I’m doing over and over and over again. The odds are ultimately going to work in my favor. So, if you are dealing with a default no, you can up your odds a little bit to pick the right time.