Newsletter Week 23 | 2020

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Hey there!

It's Sunday, which means that it's time for an email packed with some great content, just for you.

Beware the Weapons of Influence

I just finished reading

Influence by Robert Cialdini

.

It was a great book. I highly recommend it.

It's about how we take mental shortcuts to avoid overanalyzing everything, and how people are exploiting this.

I wanted to share one of the things that I've learned from the book.

You know those advertisements in which someone who is supposedly a recent customer of the company is giving a testimonial? The ones where it's supposedly someone not in affiliation with the company. Someone

just like you and me

, who just wants to share what an awesome product is is.

Well, it's all about that '

just like you and me

' part. This is because of something called Social Proofing. The principle says that we look to others to determine which behavior is correct when we are uncertain. And this is especially the case when those people are similar to us.

So these companies realized that we're more likely to purchase their product when we think that we are getting the recommendation from someone like us.

This is just one example of Social Proofing. You'd be surprised how we're being influenced (even to do things that we wouldn't otherwise). I highly recommend you read the book - especially to help defend yourself against these 'weapons'.

Quote

"

Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler.

" — Albert Einstein

I'm a strong believer in simplicity. There's too much unnecessary complexity. I see too many people adding fancy words to describe simple ideas. You should be doing the opposite.

To your success. Regards,

Christian Bager Bach Houmann