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| Subject: Uncertainty & Control Are Incompatible. Help Customers Design Compatible Advantages & Overcome Disadvantages. | |
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Author: Dennis S. Vogel |
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Date Posted: 16:28:55 03/27/25 Thu Note: I'm analogizing this experiment (below), not advocating it. “Monkey” can be a slur. Let’s call them “babies”. We're adding applications to the surrogate analogy from February. Bargain hunters think incomplete, inadequate results are sufficient benefits. Offer certainty of control by explaining dependable quality, so consumers don’t settle for discounters or nothing. Like people’s bargain expectations, experimental effects weren’t necessarily desired. Rhesus babies had two experimental choices: Tolerate surrogates or hunger without physical comfort. With minimal control, babies didn’t regret decisions or neglect benefit creation & maintenance. They were distressed & dissatisfied with limited, inadequate choices. Distress reduces people's energy for concentration & decisions. Insightful explanations can reduce indecision by validating limited choices plus decreasing confusion & stress. Several choices seemingly ensure there’s a best option available. If customers object to limited choices, ask how many options are enough to ensure they won't miss their best opportunity. Review & guide customers' ideas while customizing offers. Step-1 may seem insufficient, so explain it's limited because: "Step-1 does (result) which we’ll check for (effect) before deciding what Step-2 is." You might prevent regrets or offer relief for internal locus-of-control customers. "If your Step-1 result is ABC, choose (options) for Step-2. If Step-1 goes totally off-target, let's __." Explain resources & actions for creating next level benefits while reviewing customers' resources & available methods for incrementally achieving goals. Help customers self-reassure by expecting increments, not quick completion. When feeling controlled externally, people might descend into learned hopelessness/helplessness. People freeze when fight(ing) & flight/fleeing seem impractical. They won’t buy unless you persuade & equip them to overcome internal obstacles (habitual self-disempowerment, discount store shopping & ignoring small stores). Whether confident or hesitant, people are consistently distracted, so don't let your store sink into nebulous inactive “awareness”. Consistently activate awareness by offering advantageous control for decreasing troubles & increasing opportunities. Losing control is stressful. Consistent control requires active decisions because passivity might default to habits. Keep promoting advantages with opportunity & problem awareness, so niche members know you offer control. Regular satisfactory results seemingly justify subconscious habits. To conserve value, specify conscious cues of declining quality. Though babies got consistent results from surrogates, effects deteriorated. If milk quality & quantity were satisfactory, wire surrogates may’ve been OK until wires pressed into bigger, heavier babies' skin. Pain might've become more distressing as remedial repositioning brought less relief. Repetition brings controllable predictability, but habitual results should be monitored. Subconscious, habitual results might decline while people prioritize consciously obtaining, retaining &/or regaining control over other issues. Like these babies, people want advantages of quick control & comfort with minimal effort. Instructions should include establishing & maintaining functionality. Habits require little conscious energy until productivity decreases, problems increase & people wonder about causes. Diagnosing causes requires cognitive labor for remembering, finding & processing knowledge. Cognitive labor seems wasted if people aren't aware of better options. "Now-what?" & "What-if" questions can be laborious endless loops. Cognitive processes can block stress. Help customers identify causes & effects with questions & criteria to evaluate answers based on compatibility with circumstances & goals. Productive cognition combines insightful facts about obtaining resources & maintaining functionality. Scarce Quality, Abundant Stress Scarcity is an often-used advertising appeal, but how could scarce resources help people maintain functionality? Functional hope includes stable supplies & lives. Fear-of-Missing-Out on opportunities can prompt reprioritization. If people endure pain to gain/sustain supplies, resource scarcity might imply efforts are wasted. Babies gained & lost by nursing from wire surrogates. After perceived shortages, discouraged people may give-up. Encourage quick responses with incremental offers of earlier relief to diminish losses, so consumers recognize realistic offers. Humans & animals sense gaps even without biological knowledge about necessities. When surrogates were consistently available, babies might've sensed homeostasis was threatened because of health instabilities. Despite more familiarity from surrogate "interactions", babies appeared more uncertain. How could babies be stressed by unrecognized inadequacies? Substandard results indicated inadequate surrogates/products. Illnesses, discomfort & pains may recur frequently &/or persist. Increasing problems necessitate specific, guided actions for efficient effectiveness in decreasing total stress. You’re Uncertain Because You Haven’t Tried Unfamiliar Products & Methods. (That’s realistic, but unempathetic.) Stressed people don’t always realize/admit reasons. Questions & statements can help niche members parse reasons & conquer concerns. Case studies & testimonials can reveal how successful customers diagnosed & settled issues. Assure callers/shoppers with guidance after clarifying their goals, beliefs, knowledge & skills. Consultation Questions: 'Though you’re interested in (product), which others have you considered from the category? Do you feel (product) fits your needs & skills better than others?' These explore familiarity without implying ego challenges like direct questions about uncertainties. Ask positive questions: 'Have you heard about/seen locally-based tutorials showing how to use (product) to achieve those goals?' This can uncover whether customers are self-confident & assured about products & methods. As performance pressures mount, people might feel but not verbalize uncertainties or self-doubt. Verbalized nebulous feelings may start weighing on people who feel pressured to go forward (despite unpreparedness) or back out (without remedies or opportunities). Positive questions can evoke answers while helping customers confidently explore. Positive questions can open minds to advice. Example: '(Product) is great for beginners. Have you considered (product) for removing mineral residues?' Experimental babies' reactions can be widely interpreted. Despite surrogate consistency, babies were dissatisfied & weren't guided in maximizing results. Like unguided humans, babies might've gotten declining benefits from consistent results. Make Advantage Offers Easier to Accept Than Reject. Consider potential negative experiences: If unfamiliar products & methods cause unnoticed, unexpected course-changes, people might be unsure about causes & reject any new offers. Without guidance, people might scrap preliminary results that don't match expectations. If customers try-out projects, what are reasonable expectations? Could unexpected results be shaped into somebody's benefits & traded so customers don't lose value? Encourage customers to record step-by-step techniques & results for replicating benefits. Customers might stop projects if an intended step-1 result doesn’t fit interpretations of product specifications. For customized kits, instructions should indicate how some steps can be redone without disrupting projects. Unpracticed methods could fit kit instructions, but not customers' expectations. People prepare for known risks without knowledge for identifying or measuring unfamiliar causes & effects. When uncertainty doesn't diminish, people don't know how to confirm step-by-step progress. People might follow instructions but miss unexpected indications of drifting off-course. After misjudging conditions, people may use products "as directed" & assume repairs & preventions are complete. While people attend to other issues, unresolved & unprevented problems erupt. People might miss evidence of gradual deterioration until results fail. People may attribute failures to unfamiliar products & methods because comfortable things are familiar & probably seem efficacious. When people continue what they perceive as "working", familiarity increases. When things don't "work", people change direction if they're willing to disrupt familiarity. Others may stubbornly dig deeper to avoid negative admissions. Practice makes perfect if goals are practically pursued with compatible practices & products plus expectations are updated according to new insightful information & observations. Without clear insightful knowledge & expectations for choosing & using products, people could run out of potential/unexplored directions/options & feel stuck. Is momentum preserved, increased or decreased when people turn? People turn while testing directions & approaches for exploring expectations & goals. Organize tests for learning from results. Without full step-by-step & turn-by-turn awareness, actions may eventually bring good or bad results without people remembering & learning reasons. Mistakes can seem partially, temporarily beneficial until people compare resource costs to "benefits" & contrast potential benefits from better resource investments. Without guidance in creating advantages, people's minimally productive steps can create temporary distance/relief from growing problems. That relief can be like milk from wire surrogates because positive results might not be durable benefits. Explain how you collaborate to make people's desired values achievable. This can preempt "Been There, Done That, Didn't Work” objections. When new interests & curiosities connect with people's desire, explain what makes your offer & changed conditions different. AIDA Explains Why Advantage Offers Are Different & Better. Create Awareness of new experiences. Inspire Attention by presenting experiences as opportunities. Increase Interest with methods for niche members to use products. Prompt Desire with compelling descriptions to ignite familiarity. Urge Action by helping members justify purchases. When people generalize dissatisfaction with other unfamiliar products & methods, familiar problems may feel better than potential risks. Subconsciously, "unfamiliar" seems synonymous with "risk" & "dissatisfaction". As people continue goal journeys & achievement maintenance, correcting small diversions might be cost-effective/efficient. For general instructions, what would indicate emerging disruptions? In consultations, people might not notice or believe they’re on-course to hit obstacles or hazards. Without rethinking choices, people may notice trouble & blame others which fits an external locus-of-control. They might think they’d succeed if they could catch-a-break. If they don’t define “break” or “catch”, they might overlook opportunities & remedies or be unprepared to capitalize. When you learn their criteria or nebulous standards, you can develop functionality & procedures to inspire functional hope. Explain how your advantage offers bring customers control for resisting disadvantages & maximizing their internal locus-of-control by customizing advantages. Copyright 2025 Dennis S. Vogel All rights reserved. When you compete against big businesses with big budgets you need powerful marketing strategies & tactics. You'll find them here- https://thriving-small-businesses.blogspot.com/ https://www.voy.com/31049/ [ Next Thread | Previous Thread | Next Message | Previous Message ] |
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