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It’s easy to be patient when you have a lot of time.

It’s easy to be generous when there’s nothing on the line.

It’s easy to pick up rubbish when you know a bin’s nearby.

It’s easy to follow others without really knowing why.

It’s harder to stand up and out, and risk attracting hate.

It’s harder to define yourself and not believe in fate.

It’s harder to say less, not more. To listen, and really hear.

It’s harder to put down your arms, and love the ones you fear.

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It's natural to b...

Why did I even start?!

I’ve been having a bit of a clean out recently and noticed it gets messier before it gets cleaner.

That’s why it can feel daunting. Easy to put off.

You usually reach a midpoint where you regret starting, feel overwhelmed and resent having to push on.

👉 I guess change can be like that, can’t it?

We create more work for ourselves in the short term, but goodness, once we’re through and looking back, why on earth did we wait so long? 

Let's get into it.

I end my email newsletter with the following:

“When you know how to change behaviour, you can change your world.”

Your was deliberate.

I could have said the world, but that seemed grandiose.

By your I mean whatever you define your world to be. 

That could be your community, your business, your family.

Because it’s your behaviour and the behaviour of those around you that you can influence.

How well you influence, that’s entirely a question of technique.

If you found this interestin...

Let’s say you are promoting a skin care line. Should you say your ingredients:

A. “Increase the skin cell cycle to reduce the appearance of fine lines “, or 

B. “Increase the skin cell cycle to increase the appearance of fullness”?

The difference is how directionally consistent your causal chains are, and as revealed in new research, this matters. What’s a causal chain? Let me explain.

Causal chains

Casual chains are statements where you say “doing x leads to y”. In business we often ...

Did you know the V-Notch in a jumper isn’t just for decoration? In fact, it was originally designed to allow a sweatshirt to stretch over a football helmet.

As I learnt from a TikToker, the V-Notch was invented by Benjamin Russell in 1926 to do two things - soak up sweat and reinforce the collar.

But these days it’s often there for purely aesthetic reasons because, over time, its functional purpose has been forgotten.

The ‘what’ has been passed down, but not the ‘why’. (And no, this isn’t ...

Feelings for me, facts for them.

That seems to be most people's approach to decisions.

We ask ourselves, does this feel right? Does what I’m hearing make sense? 

Then, to convince others, we turn to facts. We think logic will persuade.

After all, that’s what people say they want, especially in B2B. Facts. Reason. Logic. 

But it’s not the facts that persuade. 

👉 It’s feelings about facts.

That’s what you need to influence.

Want to know how?

Haptics is the information we seek and gain through touch.

It’s why we reach out and feel the fabric of a garment, or run our hand over a piece of furniture. 

We see haptics put to use in the film What Women Want, where the marketing team are given a box of products to play with, spurring their imagination.

But does touching a product actually work?

Yes.

It does two things: 

1. Increases ownership, making your customer feel it’s theirs.
2. Fuels imagination, helping them imagine using it.
...

^{In short: Research reveals how customers use a mix of prior knowledge and guesswork to determine whether your prices are fair. Here's how to help them make a positive assessment.}

How do customers determine whether your price is fair?

There are two scenarios when it comes to how your prices are perceived. The first is when your customer has no concept of whether your price is fair, and the second is when they have preconceived expectations.

Let’s look at how to manage both.

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The gap between

who you are and

what you’re doing

is the cause of angst on bad days

and aspiration on good ones.

When you know how to change behaviour, you can change your world.

There’s only one reason why your customers aren’t buying.

Status Quo Bias.

Which means I have some good news and bad news for you.

The bad news? For them, doing nothing is better than doing something. Choosing not to proceed is better than proceeding.

The good news? Now that you know that we can do something about it.

Take this ad from Apothecary, for example. They’re trying to replace using wine to wind down with their herbal remedy.

So, what are they doing well, and what should they...