Scientifically speaking, it is not only more likely that you will be pitching to a pessimist, but people are motivated twice as much by the fear of loss than by the promise of reward. You are more likely to make a sale or close a deal if you understand this and pitch accordingly.
Approximately 66% of the population tends more towards pessimism than optimism. We are far more averse to loss than the promise of reward. Where this can be a strength for the salesman, however, is that when confronted with the threat of loss we have a significant propensity for risk.
According to behavioural scientists Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky, people are much more sensitive to negative than to positive stimuli. Their experiments show how participants will accept the same mathematical risk when confronted with the threat of loss which they had previously declined when there was merely the promise of reward.
It is not so much that people hate uncertainty, it is that they hate losing.
“Think about how well you feel today, and then try to imagine how much better you could feel… there are a few things that will make you feel better, but the number of things that would make you feel worse is unbounded,” Tversky argues. Tap into this emotion and a deal becomes imminent.
The best example of this simple psychology lies in our own recent history. When, in the advent of a democratic South Africa, Nobel Peace Laureate, FW de Klerk, experienced resistance from within the white community, he called for a referendum in 1993.
The campaign was run along the following leitmotif: “If we remain as we are, we will lose everything we have. If you take the risk of voting ‘yes,’ I am optimistic that we will lose much less in the long run.” The result is history. De Klerk got a resounding victory.
It is naive to think that you can move people by simply being optimistic.
Take these two examples from direct marketing: Option A says: “Please remember to enter this competition and win the holiday of a lifetime.” Option B rewords this same idea to read: “Don’t miss the holiday of a lifetime, please remember to enter!” The pull of option B is substantially stronger because it threatens loss – even though the holiday was never ours to lose.
The secret lies in threatening loss, followed by great reward. That’s how to make a deal.
