Posts in Consumer Behavior

Amazing negotiation and persuasion tricks to try right now

Book Reviews Consumer Behavior Sales skills Self development September 20, 2019 3 Comments

One of the top needed skills for the job market in 2019 is negotiation skills, persuasion, and influence.

LinkedIn: The Most In-Demand Hard and Soft Skills of 2019

Forbes: The Skills You Need To Succeed In 2020

… and what a better way to tackle this, than making the best of my favorite subject of consumer behavior?
Consumer behavior is the study of how consumers search for, choose, buy, and use your products or services.

Consumers are people. Whether you influence them to buy your products or services or influence them to buy into your ideas, you can more or less follow the same concepts.

Persuasion and influence could be one of the hardest tasks anyone can be assigned to. Some people are skilled, while others are left dazzled, not sure what could be the next step they can take to improve in that area.

I know. I know because I bet you are a bit like me and face this situation every single day — at work or in social settings. After all, I am a nerd, and well, I did study software engineering. This is quite far from negotiation skills if you ask me.

Read: Learn how consulting changed my life

The good news is negotiation skills, persuasion and influence can be taught. Yes. Some people think that only the born talented are the ones who can exceed in that area, but I beg to differ.

Clever consumer behavior tricks to build trust and close a sale

Consumer Behavior Sales skills Spending money September 16, 2019 1 Comment

Before a consumer grabs her wallet to pull out her credit card, she needs to trust you. She thinks…

Are you credible? Will I regret this?

There are multiple ways to build trust, and showcase your credibility. Today, I will be discussing two techniques, powered by consumer behavior studies.

So, how can you build trust?

Demonstrate that you can fulfill her need.

5 Easy tips to simplify your writing

Consumer Behavior Copywriting Self development September 13, 2019

Use the ‘simplicity’ consumer behavior tip to influence others.

In one of my previous posts, I mentioned the power of simplicity, and how it can boost your business.

Read: 3 Reasons simplicity will boost your business

In fact, it can boost way more than your business. It can help you in every aspect of your life.

Simplicity, especially, when applied in your communication, whether it’s spoken or written, makes others understand you.

When consumers understand what you are trying to say, you are able to influence their thoughts, emotions and ultimately their behavior. If they don’t understand you, then just forget about it.

“Write to the chimpanzee brain. Simply. Directly.” - Eugene Schwartz

… And while it’s always great to know what influences consumer behavior, if you don’t know how to do it, you might as well be as good as those who don’t know anything about the subject.

4 Consumer behavior reasons to hold off an important decision until you feel “better”

Consumer Behavior Self development September 10, 2019

If you are like me, when it comes to making decisions, you would tend to overthink.

Should I choose this or that? Which one is better for me? Do it now or later? Is it the right thing to do? What does my gut feeling tell me? OK, let’s not be emotional here, what do the facts say? What is the probability of X happening? What happens if it didn’t work out? What happens if it did work out?

Too many questions… and not as many answers.

If you are not like me, then lucky you! I am a little jealous.

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Got an important decision to make?

There are two types of decisions.

1. Life-changing decisions

2. Non-life-changing decisions

So, here is the thing. When it comes to non-life-changing decisions, it’s fine if you slipped. I mean life will go on.

However, when it comes to a life-changing decision, the consequences of a bad decision would hit you hard. Recovery could cost you a lot of time, money and energy. You might want to take your time and hold it off if you are…

A crucial ingredient for building trust with your customers

Consumer Behavior Sales skills Self development September 7, 2019

A crucial ingredient to building trust with your customers

Are you asking the right questions?

Whichever your job is, you are interacting with customers. You are interacting with customers unless you sit behind the screen all day and speak to no one -and I mean, speak to one via any means of communication.

Customers could be internal or external. In both cases, you work to gain their trust.

If you haven’t established and gained your customers’ trust, your day-to-day job wouldn’t be so much fun.

3 Reasons simplicity will boost your business

Consumer Behavior Self development September 4, 2019 1 Comment

Simple Language. Simple Name. Simple Font.

Simple Language.

When I joined consulting, one of the very first Directors I worked with used to say the word “pragmatic” a lot. “We need to be pragmatic”, he says. When I heard it, I was OK, interesting, and thought, “Are you just trying to say be practical?”

If you have ever been in a business meeting and heard people throwing in some complex words trying to sound smart or read a business report where they were also trying to seem clever, you might relate to the below.
“The following communication sent out by a manager to his team, as reported in the New York Post in October 2006: ‘We’re leveraging our assets and establishing strategic alliances to create a robust knowledge center - one with a customer-ruled business structure using market-leading technologies to maximize our human systems.'” - Yes! 50 Secrets from the Science of Persuasion by Noah Goldstein ,Robert B. Professor Cialdini, Steve J. Martin

6 Psychology dimensions to make sure your website is culturally fit

Book Reviews Consumer Behavior Consumer Marketing August 31, 2019 1 Comment

Consumer behavior varies from one culture to another — both offline and online.

Learning about different cultures is usually associated with travel, but also, the more you interact with people from different cultures, regardless of whether you have actually visited their country, the more exposure you get.

People introduce you to their culture.

Culture is the study of social behavior and norms.

Culture is not just a different language. It’s not just about the location on the map or the music they like to listen to. It’s not just about whether they prefer to have tea or coffee in the morning.

Got an upcoming workshop? This trick will increase your attendance rate ;)

Consumer Behavior Consumer Marketing Sales skills August 27, 2019

Whether it’s an event, a workshop or a training session, having no shows is a challenge to many entrepreneurs, event organizers, and trainers.

They put in the effort. They carefully craft the messaging for their advertised content. They write implicit descriptions. They educate their customers. They even confirm their attendance on the phone, and still, a big percentage of those customers wouldn’t show up. They wouldn’t show up. They wouldn’t even send a message apologizing for not coming.

Those event organizers get frustrated, they get disappointed… and then ask themselves…

How can I make my customers commit?

I have some good news… and an answer to that question, of course using the principles of those consumer behavior studies that I am in love with.

Easy! 5 Steps to handle customer service agents

Consumer Behavior Customer experience Self development August 24, 2019 1 Comment

Let’s talk a little bit about customer service.

While it’s a very well-known trend to companies and service providers that now is the era on which they compete on customer experience, some of them still go out of their way to disappoint us, customers.

I wouldn’t say that this is the company’s strategy per se, but it’s more about the customer service agent that you end up dealing with.
I don’t know about you, but I personally like to avoid interactions with customer service as much as I can… and if I absolutely have to do it, I opt for the e-mail, online chat, etc. I don’t want to do the phone conversation. Maybe it’s because I am a millennial. Maybe not. It’ doesn’t matter. What matters is that the mere thought of having to repeat my story more than once turns me off. I had times on which I had to repeat the same complaint, like 5–10 times to different people, just to get my issue resolved.

That kind of interaction gets to you. It definitely gets to me. In fact, I resort to my mom in some situations because she has more patience than me when it comes to those customer service conversations. God bless her. Most of the time though I have to do it myself.

If I am lucky, I would be dealing with a professional who understands how to handle disappointed customers. For the most part, you call customer service either because 1. you have a complaint or 2. you are asking about some information.

… And here comes the challenge, if I end up with someone from customer service who practically doesn’t give a damn, then, I am screwed. I bet most of you could relate to that.

So, then comes a question.

How can you ensure the customer service agent would be cooperative and help you without driving you insane?

I recently learned a trick. Thanks to consumer behavior studies… and I am going to share it with you.

Surprising fact on how giving away ‘Bonuses’ could harm your business

Consumer Behavior Consumer Marketing August 20, 2019

Giving away free ‘bonuses’ could backfire.

A couple of weeks ago, I wrote a blog post, 4 Words that will bring your sales to the next level. One of the words was the word “bonus”, which personally drives me insane. However, now, that I know about it, it might not work that well on me… or maybe not? I am not too sure about that.

In my post, I promised, that if I learn anything scientific about the word ‘bonus’, I would share it. I am not really sure why it works better on me than the word ‘free’, but here is an interesting find if you are a business owner and give away ‘bonuses’ to increase your sales.

It could backfire.