When we are sick, we think that a pill will make us feel better, and so it does. Its the famous placebo effect.
This effect goes beyond medicine, and right through your businesses door everyday.
You enter a company’s lobby and think, This must be a great place to work. And so it is. You meet a prospective candidate for your department and decide that she seems smart. And so she is.
We are surrounded by placebo effects, constantly working their alchemy. We have the experiences we expect to have, based on our perceptions that preceded those experiences. Our perceptions create our expectations, and those expectations so influence our experience that we can say this.
Our expectations, change our experiences.
Social scientists call this Expectancy Theory .
People experience what they expect to experience and see what they expect to see. Our challenge in marketing , especially invisibles, is to shape those expectations.
We need to manage placebo effects.
Do you create the expectation that you will be skilled, reliable, trustworthy? Does your business card? The people who answer your phones?
Does your marketing distinguish you? Do you look better, smarted, more successful. Does your lobby beat your competitors? What does your brief case say? Are your materials made with better materials?
Is your website/blog/social media platform smart, quick and clear?
In this world of placebo effects, how are yours?
Study everything that can affect peoples perceptions of your quality, and make each excellent.
Watch and manage your placebo effects.
[relatedPosts]