Chapter 9. - Psychological leverage List Flashcards
(54 cards)
Reward super-response tendency
The main driver of human behaviour is incentive. An incentive exists as a force of motivation or encouragement for someone to do something, typically for their own interest. As Warren Buffet says, “the ants go where the sugar lies”. People rarely do things without incentive.
Example: your business’s offer is the initial incentive that drives humans towards making decisions to become a client. The better the offer, the stronger the incentive, the more action you will get.
Punishment super-response tendency
Humans don’t like doing things that result in punishment. They avoid making decisions to take action to do things that will lead to them being punished (by a form of authority or not).
Example: someone might not book an appointment with you because your offer doesn’t contain enough risk reversal & they think by buying it, they will be punished with lost capital.
Influence from mere association tendency
Humans are easily biased and influenced by association.
Example: if you charge below all your competition, your prospect might associate your product with lower quality (since price is often associated with quality). Or, if your product is used by an authority in your niche, people will associate their success with your product.
Liking loving tendency
Humans are more likely to act on something if they like or love the person asking them to act. They can also form their opinions and beliefs about reality based on who they look up to and like.
Example: you’re more likely to take advice from your parents than someone else’s parents. Or, people will be more likely to buy from you if they like you or love you.
Disliking hating tendency
Humans are less likely to act on something if they dislike or hate the person asking them to act. They can also form their opinions and beliefs about reality based on who they look down on and dislike.
Example: if you hate Donald Trump, everything he says will be filtered through this hate, so even if he says something objectively true, you won’t see it that way. Or, if someone hates your approach, they won’t schedule to talk to you, even if you can change their life.
Doubt avoidance tendency
Humans hate sitting with doubt, so make decisions to escape it. They will decide and act irrationality just to remove doubt and get out of a doubtful state.
Example: if a prospect has doubts your service is worth their time, they will make the decision to not speak with you.
Inconsistency avoidance tendency
Humans are biased towards not being inconsistent with identities, beliefs and paradigms. They are reluctant to act in a way that is misaligned with their worldview or self image.
Example: if you get a prospect to intentionally schedule a call and remind them a few times of their decision to schedule, they’re likely to show up as to not seem inconsistent with their prior action to schedule.
Commitment consistency (confirmation) bias
Humans seek to confirm what they already believe to be true. They are biased towards seeking information that confirms their existing perception of reality, and reject that which doesn’t align with their sense of reality.
Example: prospects who think Facebook ads are best for their business will naturally seek Facebook ads as a solution to their problems, even if YouTube ads are better objectively. Or, if you get someone who wants to think about it to pay a deposit, you skew them to buy later.
Curiosity tendency
Humans are curious and this drives their actions and decisions. They hate having half the picture and like to complete things (in cognitive and intellectual terms), so will typically act in accordance with this.
Example: if you have a website with every piece of information under the sun about your product, you sap most prospects of the natural curious motivation to schedule a call.
Kantian fairness tendency
Humans expect to be treated fairly and are extremely sensitive to a perceived lack of fairness in the world, especially if it concerns them or someone they love.
Example: if you have a prospect who works hard but doesn’t make money, you can appeal to their Kantian fairness tendency by telling them they don’t deserve to suffer like this ,that it’s not fair they don’t have more and that you want to bring this fairness with your offer.
Excessive self regard
There is a strong tendency in the human condition to believe that one is better than others. They overestimate their abilities, skills, decision making abilities and objectivity.
Example: you have a prospect who says they’ve already tried everything that works. Because they tried it (and they are gods gift to the world), and it didn’t work, it was the thing that didn’t work, not their involvement in it.
Pain avoiding denial
Humans hate pain. To offset the feeling of pain, they often enter states of denial to warp their worldview to make things more bearable. This influences their ability to make rational decisions.
Example: someone overestimates their ability to run their own Facebook ads, and the ads flop. But they declare the problem was with Facebook, not them.
Overoptimism tendency
A lot of humans have a tendency to be overly optimistic with life. They expect better outcomes than are likely or rational, and overestimate how quickly they can get things they want.
Example: prospects will expect results to be amazing as this is a natural tendency in human nature, so don’t be afraid to write ‘too good to be true’ statements.
Deprival super-reaction tendency
Humans are loss averse. This means they react badly to losing things they have, and the negative emotional weight carried loss is net stronger than the positive emotional weight carried by gain.
Example: people don’t like losing opportunities to grow their business. If you position your offer as a get-it-or-lose-it-now type deal, you can leverage loss aversion.
Social proof tendency
Humans have a tendency to base their actions and decisions on other humans’ decisions and actions. If they see lots of people doing something, they’re more likely to do it. Monkey see, monkey do.
Example: on our website results page I wrote “340+ happy clients can’t be wrong”
Contrast misreaction tendency
People perceive things on a scale of contrast, always comparing something to its opposite to form a judgement.
Example: $1,000 seems expensive to pay for something when compared to $45, but seems cheap when compared to $1,000,000.
Authority misinfluence tendency
People assign believability to authority, meaning they’re more likely to make decisions, judgements and take actions because a figure of authority said it was the right thing to do.
Example: I have a YouTube channel for this very reason. It gives me authority & makes my word carry more weight and influence. Alex Hormozi could tell his audience to eat a bowl of honey for breakfast for no reason, and they’d be inclined to do it because he has authority.
Cognitive closure
Humans like closure. They like things to be in their place and proper, making decisions and taking actions sometimes just for the sake of closure, often preemptively without the right information.
Example: someone makes a decision on a sales call before speaking with their business partner, because they wanted closure on the decision.
Cognitive drift
It’s common for people’s belief systems to change over time and gradually. It can require a lot of evidence and persistent exposure to an idea for someone to adopt it as their own.
Example: someone can believe a 1 call close isn’t possible, but after enough exposure to the idea and evidence it works, their mind will change.
Cognitive dissonance
Humans struggle with contradiction. They find it difficult and cognitively uncomfortable to hold two opposing viewpoints or beliefs in their mind. Decision and polarisation is a way to deal with this discomfort.
Example: prospects seldom purchase from two vendors offering the same solution. Or, you might only want to run cold email or cold calling, not considering both at the same time is best.
Familiarity bias
Humans are more likely to like, trust, love and believe things just because they are familiar. Familiarity is simply repeated exposure to something.
Example: most of your cold email replies will come from follow-up 6+, because at that point, people have typically been exposed to you enough to feel familiar.. ‘I kinda like this guy’
The Ikea effect
People love things they build themselves, or ideas they arrive at on their own.
Example: it’s easy to fall in love with the stimuli and systems you create. You should only love what works in practice, not what you’ve developed in theory.
Reciprocation tendency
People feel naturally obligated to other people who have previously done them a favour, or helped them. They’re hardwired to give back, reciprocate & respond in kind to others.
Example: you open up a payment plan to a prospect because ‘you like them and it’s a good fit’. They respond in kind by agreeing, feeling obliged to return the favour. By the way: this is why I never accept gifts from salespeople.
Ben Franklin effect
We are more likely to like people who we have done favours for, and are more likely to do further favours for people we have done favours for before. We like helping people we’ve already helped.
Example: you could email prospects the day before asking for a simple favour such as “can you do me a big favour and confirm this is the right email address?” to build this effect into your process, or you can remind people of the favours they’ve done prior to buying to get them to buy.
