It Works for Me, It Will Work for You
We can be super choosy. With so many people selling us tools and methods and apps that (they say) we absolutely MUST have for our business or our life, let’s use a solid criterion for selecting. If their proof of results consists of “it worked for me so it will work for you”, then hide your wallet. If the proof is based on independent empirical data and is couched in the solid research of others, then it may be a good choice.
I frequently talk about bad mindsets that we have that are brought on by these experts and gurus that teach us things that simply won’t work. One that’s come up more and more often that I see is buying something from a guru because they say
“Hey, it works for me. It’s going to work for you.”
I am going to put this in a perspective here…
Imagine that you are sick. You’ve got some condition then you go to your doctor and explain what you have and the doctor says “I know just the cure. I’m going to prescribe this medicine. Take this twice a day, you’ll be all set.”
You take the medicine and get the prescription filled. You come home, you pull into your driveway and your neighbor is standing there. You tell your neighbor “I got this condition, I went to the doctor who prescribed this medicine.”
…and he laughed.
He says “You have just wasted your time. I had that same illness that you did and I experimented around in my kitchen for a long time. Through my own experience mixing things, trying things and I have discovered after long research that if I mix together goat’s milk and jalapeno and a banana, a dash of cinnamon and I put it into a blender, whirled it up really good and I drank two of those in a day, it just knock that right out.”
My question for you is: Would you listen to your neighbor and drink the milkshakes or would you take the medicine?
Most of us will take the medicine, right? You wouldn’t listen to your neighbor; but what if the neighbor went on and said “You know, this worked for me. It’s going to work for you. In fact, it worked for three of my buddies. I told them about the jalapeno banana milkshake and they tried it and it worked for them too. All three of them got immediately healthy. It’s going to save you a ton of money. It worked for me, it’s going to work for you.”
Now I ask you, what if it worked for your neighbor and three of his buddies?
Now you have testimonials that the milkshake worked. I imagine most of you will still take the medicine, but I am amazed how many people will drink the milkshake when they see it online. They’re told about these methods and techniques and platforms that will bring in more customers and make them lose weight and solve all their problems. The whole basis of it is “It worked for me, it’s going to work for you”.
What I’m telling you is that when you hear that, keep an eye on your wallet because you don’t want the milkshake, you want the medicine. Many of these techniques and methods exist out there and they’re firmly rooted in psychology.
They’re rooted in the research that works.
This is frustrating to me in a couple of levels because there are some out there that are trying to sell you techniques and methods and platforms that simply won’t do the research.
They simply will just say “Hey it worked for me, it’s going to work for you”.
That’s the whole basis.
Well, it might have worked for them. That is, even stuff that does not work, works 3 or 4% of the time.
How can that be?
Imagine, you drank the Jalapeno Cinnamon milkshake and you started feeling better. Maybe you were starting to feel better anyway and the timing was just right. You took milkshakes and started to feel better or maybe you drank too many of those milkshakes, it filled you up and you weren’t hungry anymore. There was probably something else you were eating that was causing the problem and because you were full, you did not eat it.
There’s many ways that something that totally cannot work, work for some people and this is where the testimonials will come from.
Many people sell you products and services. It might work for 3% of the people just by chance –just by randomness, and those people will write their testimonials and the rest of us, 97% will say…
“How come this didn’t work for me? I guess I didn’t follow the steps carefully enough”.
It’s so frustrating to watch this knowing that these techniques do not work and they don’t work for your friend or your colleague; and they’re like “Wow, I must have missed something. Maybe I should reread the lessons. Maybe I should follow the steps more carefully.”
It doesn’t matter. It won’t work. It worked by chance.
It doesn’t have anything to do with you. It had to do with a platform, a method, an idea that is not firmly rooted in anything.
It’s sad because the research is out there and a lot of folks will borrow some from psychology. I think the most popular thing you’ll see folks borrow from psychology are the scary or negative stuff. They borrow it form compliance, from conformity studies, obedience studies, and influence.
They’ll borrow those things that scare people into buying –the sense of urgency, the sense of scarcity. It does work, that’s why it’s borrowed; but there’s so much more from psychology that could be borrowed that works –decades and decades of research.
Take the medicine. Don’t listen to your neighbor who says “It works for me, it will work for you”.
There is so much out there. I myself teach The 9 Principles of Customer Feedback that’s based on not only my own research, but those of my colleagues and many others that went before me.
I have written and created about 7,000 surveys and gathered about 6 million data points, which I think is somewhat significant. That actually pales in comparison to the massive amount of data and results out there. There’s so much psychology out there that works, you just need to tap into it.
When you apply that, you’ll get that kind of engagement and retention of customers that you’re looking for.
My challenge for you this week is look for experts and gurus who have the data and the research and the findings to back it up; that they’re not just saying “Well, here’s my evidence: it worked for me and my three buddies, it will work for you”, but they can point to all those that came before them. That this is built in something solid in psychology.
Psychology is the study of human behavior.
Why people buy, why people do what they do, why they say the things that they say.
There’s lots of research out there. You can find folks who can give you results that are firmly rooted in the research. If you’re going to spend your time and your money on these practices and templates and techniques, they have to be as solid as that medicine your doctor gives you.
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