Art Of Persuasion : The Money Stereotype

The Money Stereotype is a fairly simple principle. It basically goes by the rule that our human minds try to take “short cuts” in the decision making process to determine what is good and what is not. One of these “short cuts” is called the Money Stereotype, which in it’s essence is “expensive = good”

Here’s an interesting true life story i believe would assist you in your understanding of this principle. There was this woman who called me once seeking an answer to this phenomenon she experienced. Basically, she owns a tourist shop in Singapore, she has tried time and time again to sell these jade merlions to tourists, from placing them at the most prominent location in the shop to making her sales assistants push the sale for it, but nothing worked. In the end, she gave up and just before she went off for the weekend, she told her assistant to cut the price down to 1/2. When she returned after the weekend, unsurprisingly, all the jade merlions were snatched up already. However, what surprised her was that her assistant placed the price at 2 instead of 1/2, yet all the jade merlions were snatched up, why is this so? Well to that, after consulting a few of my psychologist friends, brought me to one conclusion, the “expensive = good” theory. As most tourists are unfamiliar to the price of various souvenirs in Singapore or any other country, their brain cuts down the work of analyzing and researching into every single souvenir’s worth by allowing it’s subconscience to play the “expensive = good” principle or rather the idea of the higher the price, the higher the quality. The human mind works in this certain way, since all our life we’ve been trained to believe that we get what we pay for, it is subconsciously instilled in us that the more we pay for a certain item, the better it has to be. That is the explanation behind the tourists strange behaviour. When they are searching for a good quality souvenir to buy but have little knowledge on what is good and what is not, their subconscience helped them make the decision by following the “expensive = good” theory, and as the price of the souvenir has been accidentaly multiplied by 2, it meant that it’s value seemed much more in their mind and in an attempt to avoid the hassle of searching through every single souvenir shop for the best valued souvenir, their minds took the shortcut and decided that since it’s expensive, it must be good!

Now, given our understanding of this principle, how do we go about using it to maximum effect? The following paragraphs would be discussing this.

Firstly, of course, if you specialize in souvenirs and have a certain unique item your other souvenir shops don’t have, don’t hesitate to increase the price and earn a healthier profit. For all you know, the new perceived value could be all that product needs to push through the sale.

Secondly, if you’re competing for the big fishes in the ocean (basically the bigger companies) where you have to realize a few dollars cheaper ain’t gonna sway their decision majorly in any direction, don’t hesitate to test run a separate offer page offering your services / products for much more than your competitors. As the big fishes mainly look for quality, that might be the decisive factor in them perceving (rightfully or wrongfully) that your service / product is superior in quality and value to your competitors for them to choose your product.

Lastly, it’s also a really good point to have those “price before discount” banners where your former price may be $500 and the current price got ‘slashed’ down to $250. The previous price being shown there is usually more than enough to convince the prospect that your product / service is really good because of it’s former price. Needless to say, such a tactic is priceless.

Here’s a just-for-laugh true story of the tactic of a certain suit company in the past. They would position two shop keepers, one at the front of the shop and one behind. When a customer comes and requests for the price of a unpriced suit (actual price thirty), the shop keeper at the front of the store would shout to the shop keeper at the back and ask how much the suit cost. The shop keeper at the back would shout back “fifty!”. The shop keeper at the front would pretend to be hard of hearing and keep asking “thirty?” and the shop keeper at the back would keep shouting “fifty!”. Then, the shop keeper at the front would tell the customer “he says it’s thirty dollars”, and upon hearing this, the customer would jump at the chance to buy the suit thinking he got it at a much cheaper price when in actual fact he just bought it for the actual price. Smart tactic eh?

The author is the writer of the E-Book : Subconscience Attack! For All Businesses Learn more persuasion techniques at www.SubconscienceAttack.comArticle Source:http://www.articlesbase.com/business-articles/art-of-persuasion-the-money-stereotype-1562565.html