Steve Jobs' 3 Powerful Persuasion Tactics, and How You Can Use Them to Win Customers Steve Jobs, the iconic co-founder of Apple, was a master of persuasion. His ability to convince billions of people to buy his products at premium prices was no coincidence. While technical innovations and relentless advertising played a role, the true secret to his success lay in the persuasive techniques that he employed. Techniques that anyone can learn and adopt. In this post, I share how Steve Jobs managed to sway the world using simple, yet powerful persuasion strategies that you can apply in your own life. Leveraging the Labor Illusion Effect One of the most effective tactics Steve Jobs used to instill confidence in Apple products was to emphasize the amount of work and effort he put into their development. Take his first keynote back at Apple recorded in 1998. He’s been re-hired as interim CEO. While he was away the company started to fail, revenue fell, and profits dwindled. It was vital for Steve to rebuild confidence in Apple. Here’s what he chose to say. By highlighting the countless hours, weekends, and years dedicated to perfecting Apple devices, he invoked a psychological principle known as the labor illusion. The labor illusion suggests that when people witness the effort and labor put into a task, they tend to value the end product more. This principle has been...

How Neuromarketing Can Revolutionize the Marketing Industry Traditional metrics (like clicks, shares, and scroll times) can tell you a lot about campaign performance, but they can’t measure how customers feel about your brand. That’s where neuromarketing comes in. As a supplement to more standard marketing performance metrics, neuromarketing can help you analyze the emotional response to your campaigns. Neuromarketing tells us what colors, pictures, music, or messages resonate the most with audiences. Your team can use this data to identify customers’ ad preferences. Take a deep dive into how neuromarketing works for popular brands. Let’s turn to P&G for a real-world example of neuromarketing at work. In partnership with marketing firm Dentsu Data Labs, P&G designed an experiment to find mobile ads that emotionally resonated with their audience. During testing, the company worked with Sticky, a webcam eye-tracking tool by Tobii Pro, to measure engagement of on-the-go users. What they found was intriguing — the time spent watching video ads on social media was not equal to the time they spent focusing on the ads. Social platforms’ impressions and watch rates did not correlate with real customers’ engagement. Moreover, Sticky detected which video ad details triggered a desire to interact with the brand. Eye tracking data became actionable insights, highlighting content P&G should change to retain audience attention. The big takeaway: Knowing what the brain actually resonates with is more important than knowing what people say they like or how much time they spend watching ads....

16 Common Logical Fallacies and How to Spot Them Logical fallacies — those logical gaps that invalidate arguments — aren't always easy to spot. While some come in the form of loud, glaring inconsistencies, others can easily fly under the radar, sneaking into everyday meetings and conversations undetected. Our guide on logical fallacies will help you build better arguments and identify logical missteps. Jump to: What a logical fallacy is Formal vs. informal fallacies Straw man fallacy Correlation/causation fallacy Ad hominem fallacy What is a logical fallacy? Logical fallacies are deceptive or false arguments that may seem stronger than they actually are due to psychological persuasion, but are proven wrong with reasoning and further examination. These mistakes in reasoning typically consist of an argument and a premise that does not support the conclusion. There are two types of fallacies: formal and informal. Formal: Formal fallacies are arguments that have invalid structure, form, or context errors. Informal: Informal fallacies are arguments that have irrelevant or incorrect premises. Having an understanding of basic logical fallacies can help you more confidently parse the arguments and claims you participate in and witness on a daily basis — separating fact from sharply dressed fiction. 15 Common Logical Fallacies 1. The Straw Man Fallacy This fallacy occurs when your opponent over-simplifies or misrepresents your argument (i.e., setting up a "straw man") to make it easier to attack or refute. Instead of...

14 Free Personality Tests You Can Take Online Today Personality tests are a great way to explore different aspects of who you are, and uncover layers you perhaps hadn't recognized about yourself before. Being truly self-aware is hard — while they might not be always 100% accurate, personality tests work well as a starting point for self-discovery by providing results you might not have concluded on your own. These insights are invaluable for personal and professional growth. When you've got some downtime and want to explore aspects of who you are, why you make certain decisions, who you work well with, or get some guidance on potential career paths, take a look at the best free online personality tests we've compiled.  Free Myers-Brigg Personality Tests Myers-Briggs is a widely respected and popular personality assessment tool -- first used in the 1940s, the test was developed by Katharine Cook Briggs and her daughter, Isabel Briggs Myers. Initially inspired by Jung’s personality theory, the Myers-Briggs test conveniently separates people into 16 categories of personalities, providing each person with a four-letter acronym. The following four tests are broad-stroke indicators of who you are, using inspiration from Myers-Briggs. Among other things, the tests cover your communication styles, your strengths and weaknesses, your desires and ambitions, how you see the world, and how people perceive you. If you’ve never taken a test based off Carl Gustav Jung’s psychological traits, or Myers-Briggs’ 16 categories of personalities, I’d suggest you take at least one of these....

How to Predict and Analyze Your Customers’ Buying Patterns Buyers don't think like marketers or salespeople. Anyone who works in these departments can admit that. More importantly, buyers don't think like each other either. Each consumer follows their own set of buying patterns, whether they recognize it or not. For instance, someone who walks to work every morning may grab a coffee from the Starbucks on the corner — to them, that's part of their routine. To Starbucks, that's an established buying pattern. But if this person happened to move neighborhoods, they’d likely establish a new routine (and buying pattern). Buying patterns are important to recognize, analyze, and measure because they help businesses better understand and potentially expand their target audience. Buying patterns also fall in step with the customer journey, although they connect more with the psychology and motivations behind each stage. In this post, we are going to discuss buying patterns and how to predict those of your customers. What are buying patterns? Buying patterns refer to the why and how behind consumer purchase decisions. They are habits and routines that consumers establish through the products and services they buy. Buying patterns are defined by the frequency, timing, quantity, etc. of said purchases. These patterns are determined by factors such as: Where someone lives Where they work How much money they make What they enjoy and prefer What their friends and family recommend What their goals and motivations are The...