Introduction to The Brainy Business Podcast and Priming
Melina Palmer: Welcome to episode 18 of The Brainy Business, understanding the psychology of why people buy. This Behavioral Economics Foundation’s episode is focused on priming. Ready? Let’s get started.
Announcer: You are listening to The Brainy Business podcast where we dig into the psychology of why people buy and help you incorporate behavioral economics into your business, making it more brainy friendly. Now here’s your host, Melina Palmer.
Recent Happenings and Podcast Milestones
Melina Palmer: Hello, everyone. My name is Melina Palmer and I want to welcome you to The Brainy Business podcast. Before we jump right into the episode, I want to talk about some of the exciting things that have been happening recently. First, I just got back from Maine, and it was my first time visiting the state, which was really exciting. Thank you to Evergreen Credit Union for having me out to facilitate your training day and speak on why consumers are weird as well as innovation and question storming, and how to incorporate behavioral economics and neuroscience into your credit union at all levels. It was a great day. I enjoyed meeting your fantastic team. For anyone who’s curious about what question storming is, by the way, check out episode four, “Questions or Answers.” And if you happen to be in the Maine area, I guess if you’re in the Portland area of Maine, look up Evergreen Credit Union. They are fantastic and doing some really great things out there.
Speaking of states, the top states in listenership of the podcast are my home state of Washington, of course, followed by California, Texas, New York, and Illinois. So thank you all for listening, and of course, thank you to everyone who’s been listening around the world. We’re up to about 65 countries now as well, and there have been downloads now in every state except Wyoming. If you know someone who lives in Wyoming, please encourage them to listen and then let me know that you did. And I’m going to add you onto my prize list. You may have seen on social media while I was in Maine that I took a picture with Baby Brain because Brain opted to stay home this time. Baby Brain is a much smaller brain and is also squishy, but not in a gross, realistic brain kind of way. I realize that’s sort of a weird analogy when it comes to brains. So, I should clarify that Baby Brain is a stress ball, so you should check it out on social, and that’s why she makes a great companion on long trips or to hang out in your office. Anyway, I am considering a Baby Brain giveaway, and I immediately had some people raise their hands to say they wanted their very own Baby Brain, including Business Bros podcast. And Wendy, who is the host of the Tax Tribe podcast, because you were the first to shout out loud that you wanted your Baby Brain, I wanted to give you both a shout out on the podcast. There are links to both of their podcasts in the show notes, so you can check them out. And as I said, if you know someone in Wyoming and refer them to listen to the podcast, please let me know and I will add you to the list of free Baby Brain recipients for when that all gets started here soon. I also need help choosing a color. If you saw on social media, the Baby Brain I have is blue. I’m also looking into, of course, purple, like full size Brain, but they have gold and hot pink, all sorts of colors. So let me know what you think via social media and you can find me there on Instagram, Facebook and Twitter as @thebrainybiz. And that’s B I Z. Unlike the website and everything else, when you search for the podcast is The Brainy Business. Speaking of which, I just recently had a question from someone who was trying to find the podcast in an Android app and was searching for, I believe, just Brainy Business instead of The Brainy Business. So if you have had an issue or you know someone who has, just to make sure that, you know, it’s The Brainy Business, and then on social media, it’s @thebrainybiz.
One last note on downloads. We are now well over 6000 downloads at the time of this recording, which is super awesome and on track to end the monthly at over 8000 downloads, which is just crazy awesome. So thank you all for listening, subscribing, sharing, rating, and leaving reviews. I appreciate everyone, every single one of you, thank you for listening. Everything that you’ve done, it just means the world to me. So thank you.
Show Notes and Free Worksheet Reminder
Melina Palmer: And, one last reminder before we dig into priming is on show notes. I’ve already mentioned episode four and a couple of other podcasts, so I want you to know that you can find the links for those, as well as any relevant articles, studies, or anything else interesting I mentioned, and there are a lot of really great ones in this episode. You can find those in the show notes. I will probably not mention them again, but know that anytime you think, ooh, let me make a note of that so I can look it up later. Check the show notes first, because I’ve probably already done that heavy lifting for you. You can find the show notes within the podcast app you’re listening to or by visiting thebrainybusiness.com/18. Because this is episode 18, and because it’s a foundational episode, there is a free worksheet for you to download on that same page of the website, thebrainybusiness.com/18, and clicking on the image near the top of the page. You can follow along with that as you listen to the episode or use it after. Either way, it’s just really helpful so you can apply that concept into your business and everything. I’m going to talk about about priming on the episode.
Understanding Priming: The Toast Experiment and Anchoring
Melina Palmer: Now, let’s get into the topic at hand, which is priming. As you know, one of my favorite ways to start a foundation show is with a game or a series of questions to help you see how the concept works before I start explaining it. And today’s episode is no different. So I want you to listen closely to what I’m saying and get ready to answer when I get to the question. Ready? Okay. Of The Brainy Business podcast, I am the host, you are the audience I love the very most. Tonight for dinner, we’ll be having roast. It might be rude if you were to boast, drive out to the shore so you can see the coast. What do you put in a toaster? If you said or thought toast, you were wrong. Of course. You do not put toast into a toaster. You put bread in a toaster, and you know that. So why did you say toast? It’s because I primed you and your brain with a lot of words that rhymed with toast to make you give that answer quickly. And if you had the willpower to say bread or pop tarts or Eggo waffles or whatever you choose to put in your toaster, congratulations. Even if you were not tricked this time, which could be because I primed you on the prime in this priming episode, you can likely still appreciate how the concept works. Of course, it’s not just about rhyming. It’s a lot more than that, as I’m going to be talking about on this episode. Remember back to episode eleven, the Behavioral Economics Foundation’s episode on anchoring and adjustment, how your brain hears a number and then adjusts up or down from there when it’s making a guess. That is a form of priming, especially when it’s done intentionally, like I did. When asking you questions about penguin populations or the number of countries in the world, it’s important to remember that your brain is lazy and incredibly busy. So it takes these shortcuts, like priming all the time. After all, with your subconscious brain evaluating 11 million bits of information per second, it needs to make snap decisions, and a whole lot of them, like throwing out the rhyming word toast instead of bread when primed, your subconscious remembers it recently heard a number or a statistic or something that influences the next assumptions it makes, even if they’re not remotely related. I’m going to tell the necklace story again because it relates here. About a year ago, I was giving a presentation to a group of female entrepreneurs, something I do a lot. I asked everyone
to think of the last two digits of their Social Security number. Then I asked them to look at my necklace, which was particularly blingy, and I asked them to think about how much they thought the necklace was worth, what I had paid for it. And do you know what happened as I explained this to the audience, I said, studies have shown someone with a higher last two digits, like eight nine, will value the item higher than someone with a lower last two digits, like one two. One woman raised her hand and said, the last two digits of my Social Security number actually are 89. And when you asked me about the value, I thought $89. And then I thought, no, that’s stupid. I’ll say 65. This is the power of priming, the root of anchoring and adjustment. For the record, the woman with the lowest last two digits, which were zero, zero. So, definitely the lowest. She valued the necklace at only $35 compared to 65 from the other woman. As a reminder, the effects wear off quickly as our brains are quickly churning through information. So it’s not like your Social Security number is tied to your account balances. But primes are everywhere. And it’s not just about anchoring and adjustment, though. My favorite Snickers Advertisement example, revisit episode eleven to hear about it in detail, which increased the sales of Snickers bars by 38% simply by using the number 18 instead of the word them is all about the prime. In this case, the number 18 is the prime, which becomes the anchor your brain adjusts from. And this is why ten for ten sells more than $1 each. Or even limiting the number of cans of soup someone can buy primes them to think higher. Now, I’m guessing you can see why this was a later foundations episode. Easy to relate back to some of these things I’ve talked about already.
Priming with Words: Elderly and Polite/Rude Stereotypes
Melina Palmer: Okay, so let’s talk about some more priming studies and examples that you have not yet heard about on other episodes. As I said, priming is about more than just numbers. It can also be done with words. For example, one very famous study had participants who were students at a university. As is often the case in these studies, they all performed a scrambled sentence test, which they were told was to test their language ability. Each person was tested one at a time, and they were given a set of 30 sentences to unscramble and did not know. They were divided into two groups. One was given neutral sentences that did not include any primes. The other group was primed with words that would be considered stereotypes of elderly people, including Florida, old, gray, careful, sentimental, wise, bingo, forgetful, retired, wrinkle, ancient, helpless, and cautious. When they completed the test, the facilitator told them how to get to the elevator to leave. Another person happened to be sitting in the hall. It looked like they were waiting to speak to another professor, but actually they were part of the experiment and had a hidden stopwatch. It was their job to time the participant from the moment they stepped out of the door until they got to a specific spot on the floor about 10 meters away. And guess what they found? Those primed with the elderly stereotype took longer than the neutral group to get down the hallway. They actually walked slower leaving the room. And remember, of course, these are all university students who were not. Nobody was actually elderly or old. Of course, after they made it to the end of the hallway, someone caught up with them and did a more complete debrief. They were asked if they had noticed any stereotyping type of words or made any connection to the elderly. They said no. They were asked if they thought the study influenced them in any way, and of course, they said no. As we can see, they were wrong.
This research study also did a test with rude and polite priming words compared to a control group. Each person was told to do their word scrambles, then to come down the hall and find a professor when they were done to be given their next task. When they got there, the professor was having a conversation with another student who, again, was actually part of the experiment and had a stopwatch going, and they waited to see how long people would wait before interrupting to get their next task. After ten minutes of waiting, it was presumed they would essentially wait forever without interrupting. So the professor just went ahead and gave them the next task. It was a meaningless task, after which they were debriefed and asked if they thought the first test had any impact on them. They, of course, said no. But the study showed that people were much more likely to interrupt in the rude condition than neutral or polite. In fact, it actually came out in a linear fashion. The least likely to interrupt were the polite group, and it was about double that to get to the neutral group, and it nearly doubled again to be in the rude group. Crazy, right?
The Impact of Stereotype Priming on Performance and Visualization
Melina Palmer: Okay, before I tell you about this next one, I think it’s important to put out a disclaimer. Me sharing the study results does not mean I agree with the negative stereotypes presented. I’m merely the messenger of the information. Okay. In this one, they tested two competing stereotypes that would live within the same person. All the participants were Asian American female undergraduates. They were asked to fill out a pre questionnaire which had the priming words on it. One group was primed with female terms like questions about if the floor of their dorm was co-ed or single sex, and the other group was primed with terms about being Asian American, like whether their parents or grandparents spoke languages other than English. These groups were both compared against a control group. All three groups were then given 20 minutes to complete a series of twelve difficult math problems. After their time was up, each individual completed a final set of questions indicating, among other things, their scores on the math section of the SATs, how much they enjoyed participating in the experiment, how talented they were at mathematics, and their thoughts about the goals of the research. Participants were then paid and debriefed. All the participants were good at math. Their average SAT score was 750. But what happened? Those who were primed in the Asian identity group did the best. They answered an average of 54% of the questions they attempted correctly. This was better than the control group, which was at 49%. And the female identity primed group did the worst, an average of only 43% being answered correctly, 11% less than the Asian identity group. And unfortunately, this is not the only study on gender priming. Other studies have found that women have more stereotypical beliefs about women being better at the arts and worse at math. In studies where they’ve been primed with those sorts of terms, the lesson here, prime yourself and psych yourself up before you take any test. For sure. And for any of you that are doubters of, visualization or manifesting the life you want, or vision boards, or any of that, I challenge you to consider how easily the brain can be primed. I’ve linked to an article from Forbes and another from Business Insider about the power of visualization, but of course, there are tons of books and articles out there, so I’m not going to get too deep into this. What I will say is there’s a reason Olympians train their brains as well as their bodies. The Business Insider article talked about a study which compared four groups of Olympic athletes. Group one did 100% physical training and no mental training. Group two did 75% physical training and 25% mental training.
Group three was a 50 50 split, and group four was only 25% physical training and 75% mental. Guess which group did best in the Olympics? That’s right, group four. That was the one that only did 25% physical training. And three quarters of their training was mental. Amazing. And if you want steps on how to use visualization in your life and business, the article from Forbes laid it out really nicely. The link is, of course, in the show notes, but here are the steps. Number one, know what you want to do this. They say to ask yourself, if I had nothing holding me back, what would I want to see in my life? Step two, describe your vision in detail. Ask yourself, if I had a magic wand to make anything happen, what would my life look like? Step three, start visualizing and create the emotions. What would I feel if all my visualizations came true? Step four, take daily actions. Pretty sure you’ve heard me say that before. To do this, ask yourself, what is one thing I could do today that would help me get closer to the life I want? And finally, step five, have grit and persevere. Ask what would help me persevere when I’m faced with a challenge? If you need any more convincing, Oprah swears by visualization.
Priming with Physical Objects and Environmental Cues
Melina Palmer: So, okay, moving on to the next type of priming. We have talked about numbers and words. Now we’re moving into physical objects. In this first study, when participants were on their way to the study, they unexpectedly bumped into the lab assistant with very full hands, books, a clipboard, papers, and one item. The participant was asked to hold for just a second either a cup of hot or iced coffee. That was it. They had no idea this was part of the experiment. They held the cup, and after giving it back, they went on to the study where they read a story about a person and gave feedback and ratings on the person they read about. Are you ready for this? It’s seriously crazy. So if you are able to sit down, you might want to. Either way, listen to this. Students who held the cup of iced coffee rated a hypothetical person they read about as being, quote, much colder, less social, and more selfish than the students who held the hot coffee. What? Seriously, this blows my mind. I guess the lesson here is to always drink hot tea or coffee and get hot drinks for people you want to make a good impression on. But seriously, is that crazy or what? In another study, participants were three times as likely to clean away crumbs after a snack, which was intentionally crumbly when there was a faint scent of cleaning products in the air than when there wasn’t. And other studies have shown that people in restaurants are more likely to order seafood when they can smell lemon in the air. Oh, and participants that were asked to recall an action like betraying a friend were twice as likely to choose to take an antiseptic wipe for their hands than those who remembered times they did a good deed. According to the researchers, this was the subconscious brain wanting to take any action to cleanse itself of these bad deeds, these bad memories. And the really crazy thing was, after wiping their hands, they were then less likely to agree to volunteer their time because they had wiped their hands clean and were no longer burdened by the guilt. I guess the brain is pretty quick to move along, right? Another really crazy study found that when people were in a room that had a briefcase on the table, they were more likely to be confrontational than when there was a backpack instead.
In that case, they were much more cooperative. And again, as with all of these, no one recalled it being there or called it out or thought it influenced their behavior in any way. So here is the thing to take from this. Everything you do and say matters. And similarly, whatever was said or done right before, everything you do or say matters. I always had concern about doing radio or TV commercials because I didn’t know what was going to come on right before my advertisement. And this is obviously why. Maybe I would know what was in the show, but not everything that could trigger the subconscious and definitely not all the commercials that were going to be included. How would they influence the likelihood that someone would be in a buying mood or converting mood when it came to my commercial? While you can’t control everything, it is worth looking at the things you can control. For example, when I bought billboards, I always looked at every option to choose which ones I wanted and which ones I didn’t. And speaking with the people who sold the billboards, they let me know that most people don’t do that. They just take the recommendations that they’re given. So take the extra step to evaluate if you’re spending the money and buying things for me, ones that were in stressful intersections or by a shady store or area of town, no thanks. Don’t need that kind of negative priming. And if you’re an avid listener of the show, you’ve heard me say many, many, many times in conversations about pricing, that what comes first matters much more than the price itself, right? Well, now you really know why. It’s the priming. You’re either priming someone to be ready to buy, or you’re priming them to be overwhelmed or uncomfortable or rude or bored or concerned about budget. Do me a favor. Take a look at your website and be honest. Is it priming people to have confidence in what you’re offering? Is it simple? Is it clear what you want them to do? Or is it cluttered and confusing? Before getting to the pricing or conversion question, what about your sales conversations? Are you priming people to feel confident in your services and take action, or are you priming them to go? Think about it. As you’ve seen in these priming examples, small things, just a few simple words can make a huge difference. And of course, use the freebie worksheet at thebrainybusiness.com/18 to help you work through some of these things. If you find people are always rude when they talk to you or treat you like you’re cold and distant, it could be a bad prime. Something as simple as drinking a cold drink can make a difference. So take a look at what’s going on around you and in your interactions and see what you might be able to change and test if it makes a difference. And if you manage to have, like, if you switch from cold drinks to hot drinks and people start being warmer toward you, please let me know. I can’t wait to hear how you use priming in your everyday interactions.
The Subliminal Power of Logos and Brand Priming
Melina Palmer: Okay, the final prime I am going to talk to you about today gets into logos. In this study, students were watching a video and had a very brief exposure to a logo. It was only 30 milliseconds, so no way the conscious brain would pick it up. This is what you could almost call subliminal messaging. Half were shown the Apple logo and the other half were shown the IBM logo. The result? Those who saw the Apple logo were much more creative in a subsequent task than those who had the subliminal prime of the IBM logo. And of course, as far as they are concerned, they didn’t see any logo at all. Similarly, those who saw a Disney logo were much more honest in the subsequent tests than those who saw the logo for E. Have you ever heard people say you become like
those you spend the most time with or that you should dress for the job you want or you should fake it till you make it or anything like that? It seems there really is some truth to that. You’re priming your brain to take on the traits of those outside influences. I also really like, I’ve read articles and seen where people do. They say if you stand in a superhero pose, you’re more likely to be confident in your actions for the day. And again, it’s just priming your brain in the way that you want to be approaching your day and your life. If there are brands you admire, consider putting their logos up around your office. Even if you don’t think you’re noticing them, your subconscious clearly is. And also note just how quickly a brand, a really strong one, is recognized and categorized. What are the traits of your brand? If someone saw your logo for 30 milliseconds, would it influence that person’s behavior? How? Would it be positive or negative? Or would it be too jumbled and complex to have any impact at all? This is a lesson in the benefits of boiling down your message to its most refined point. Can someone get what you are and what makes your brand different in a second or less? I think a lot of us probably have some work to do. Lastly, I want you to remember this as well. In all these studies, people said they were not influenced by the items or words or numbers or whatever it had to be, or that they didn’t even see them. It’s like when people say they do not notice Facebook ads or billboards or the radio. It may not register on a conscious level, but it’s getting in there and it can have an impact even if people don’t realize it. Many other studies have shown that if people are presented with advertisements, say they’re flipping through a magazine in the waiting room, that’s actually a fake, with advertisements for made up companies mixed in to prime their behavior, the people who flipped through and saw the fake ad, even for just a second, are more likely to recognize or choose that brand. In the studies that followed, marketing and advertising takes dedication and focus, consistent presence and messaging to break through the clutter and making sure you are using the right primes to keep things moving in the proper direction instead of derailing the whole thing. Know who you are and what your brand is about in its simplest form. It takes effort to get it this simple. But you can do it. I know you can. If you can’t say what you’re about in just a few words, your customers can’t either. Use the freebie worksheet at thebrainybusiness.com/18 to help you work through some of these priming concepts and refine even further who you are and what you’re about.
Maximizing Your Business Goals with Behavioral Economics
Melina Palmer: After listening to this episode, I’m guessing your mind is a little blown, and I get it. But don’t let this hold you back, don’t let this make you freeze like a deer in the headlights worried about making any little wrong move, now is the time to ask for help. The end of the year is approaching. Don’t you want to wrap it up with a bang? One last big push to really supercharge past your goals? Maybe you’re looking to do a Facebook advertisement and would like an extra set of eyes to help ensure it’s priming people to click. Or maybe you want a review of your website with tips of how to make it more impactful and helping to drive people to the pages you want them on. And, once they get to the pricing packages, are they presented properly? Now that they’ve been primed to take action, I can help you incorporate behavioral economics concepts like priming, anchoring and adjustment, relativity, loss aversion, framing, and more so you can confidently know you have these setup to end 2018 even better than you imagined was possible. Go to my website right now, thebrainybusiness.com and click on “work with me” to book your strategy session. We’ll start with a free consult call to set a plan of action, and then I’ll help you tackle those tasks one by one. One person implemented my suggestions and made free changes to the way her products were structured and
immediately sold back to back $20,000 packages. What successes will you have? I can’t wait to work with you and find out again. Go to thebrainybusiness.com and click on “work with me” to get started.
Conclusion and Next Episode Preview
Melina Palmer: All right, that officially wraps up this episode dedicated to priming. I hope you found it to be enlightening and eye opening. Next week on episode 19, I’m going to dig into the foundations of herding, so get ready for some more amazing studies. Until then, thanks again for listening and learning with me, and remember to be thoughtful.
Announcer: Thank you for listening to The Brainy Business podcast. Melina Palmer offers virtual strategy sessions, workshops, and other services to help businesses be more brain friendly. For more free resources, visit thebrainybusiness.com.
