S2 Ep1 Nudged before you notice

[Music] People think they choose, but often the environment has already chosen for them first. A default, the order of options, the word recommended. The first thing they see on a screen, all of it can quietly shape what they'll say. Familiar or obvious. Today we are unpacking priming, why decisions start before awareness, and how to use cues to guide people without manipulating them. If your work involves helping people make decisions, this one matters. Welcome to ThinkShift, the podcast where neuroscience meets business. [Music] [Music] Alien, good to see you. Hey, can we tell you guys? I'm good. What's has happened since we last spoke. Yes, you had a bit of a rough week. Rough start to the week, missing the tip of my finger. Whoops, the day. That was fun. What a wreck of land. Nicely bandaged though. It was very nice to bandage by a lady I know. I often podcast with. She must be pretty cool. She's alright. But I recommend not peeling oranges in mid-air. Don't do that with an ultra-sharp. No, peel. Absolutely not. When you learn, took me two times to learn though. I did it once before and cut off a fingernail. So, didn't learn the lesson and did it again and that time really, really nailed my finger. Yeah, literally. So it's fun. So it will be your third time. Better not be. I'll tell you. Sharing with a plastic glove on and shaving with that and it's, yeah, I don't recommend it. No, it's healing. Yeah, it is good. But thank you for your assistance during that traumatic period of my life. I haven't gone over it yet, but anyway. You're probably more traumatized than I was. Yeah, okay. Well, good. Happy to help. So today, we're going to talk about the science behind priming first. So before someone clicks by, signs up or says yes, their brain has already been influenced by the environment. So we're going to prime a response. A visual cue can prime trust. A first impression can prime the rest of the decision. So Leanne, what is priming in plain language? So, priming, science that happens to all of us all the time, is basically a stimulus or a cue that subconsciously influences the decision that we make next. So there'll be something that we see. We'll hear. We'll smell some, any of the senses really. And it can actually, yeah, influence or change the way that we make the next decision or see the next bit of information. Right. Okay. So does it work before people notice it? It's subconscious. It's subconsciously. Right. So we actually don't realize, I mean, sometimes you'll think, and you know, and think of a situation where it's like, oh, what did I choose that? Or that was the silly thing for me to do. I wouldn't have done that before. You are primed. Right. So remember, you know, thinking back to Daniel Kahneman's your process theory system, one system, two thinking, where 95% of all decisions are emotional. We create this emotional connection or emotional bond to the priming stimulus. And that's the decision that we make. It's only later that we then think, oh, what did I do that? Or yes, that actually was a really good decision that I made. Oh, no, I could have done that better. That logic comes in and we justify it. But we were primed and we'd, it tilted the way that we made our decision. Okay. So I've got some cues here that can prime people. It's going to run through a few of them. So words, images, colors, order of options, social proof. What about labels like most popular recommended limited? Are they examples? They are, but that also pairs with what we know as, and we've also talked about scarcity bias. So that's creating a sense of urgency or we know all limited in particular or you know, get it soon. That's kinds of things. It is, it is, it's, and most popular where it can prime us in a way. So what is, what are other people doing? But it's more of a scarcity nunch that is, I don't want to miss out or I want to follow the crowd, social norms or I want to fit in with what seems, you know, standard practice and what everyone else is doing. I don't want to be an outlier. And as much as we say, and me inclusive, I want to be an outlier, there's only so far that we will push that. So they are a source of priming, but they are, that these particular words appeared with what we know as scarcity bias. Okay. That makes sense. What about in, in real life, like, clothing, facial expressions, you walk into a room and you're wearing a particular outfit, that's a form of priming, correct? Yeah. I mean, think about, you know, all genders really, but it does tend to be a little bit more with women. And I know even with myself, I mean, I'm not, I'm not sure, but I'm not at all, I'm about five, five, seven. And I'm looking at an outfit that looks gorgeous. And I'm looking at the clothing that looks gorgeous on, say, a model or, you know, whether it's online or I see, I would display a mannequin. And I think, I'm proud. I look at it and go, I want that to look like that on me. I want to, I don't want to, I'm not looking at talking about the shape of the model or talking about the skininess or the size of the model, the way the clothing fits. And I look at it and that's generally what we do. We look at it and go, oh, that's nice. And I want it to look like that on me. And of course, you go into the change room or you get a deliver, you ride online, you get a deliver and you show it on and you look and go hang on a minute. Yeah. That's it. That's not, oh, God, where's the return slip or I have to go at you? And it doesn't. And it's because we've primed ourselves to look at, you know, hoping and looking at. And a lot of people do. We do get influenced by the way things look on others. I mean, that's the whole influencer market, right? Yeah. Influencer, you know, marketing campaigns that they have out there. But what's really interesting is there are a lot of brands now. And in a way, there've been nudged to do this as well as it's a bit more of a social justice thing where they will have larger models or larger mannequins. And I know one thing that I have noticed, especially overseas is with sporting brands. I know, Aloe does it. You know, Nike, Adass and all the types of brands where you walk into the front of the store and you'll see, say, these, you know, female mannequins that are quite athletic and lean, but then you'll also see, you know, a bit more of a larger, all a plus size mannequin as well. So we can use what we call self reference by. So what represents me in that clothing? So we're being primed in the right way, rather than being primed with something that is unrealistic and that we're never going to achieve. So you just mentioned something in the change room there before and something I noticed when I change, change into clothing in a store in real life, which is not very often, I have to say everyone. Everyone's buying online these days. So it's, I don't know if it's the women's change room. For men, it's heavy down lighting, which is great if you're, if you've got a physique and you can look broader and more muscular and things with down lighting. It's a very common, you know, fitness technique with photo shoots in particular, because it creates shadowing and it creates definition and all those things. But I've noticed though it can, it can make you look great. Some, in some instances, but you get home, you don't have the same lighting and you put the clothes on, you're like, oh, it looked great on in store. What happened? Is that an example of priming? An impunity for priming. And impunity for priming. So yeah, one thing I have noticed and it doesn't, well people, it doesn't tend to happen as much anymore because they got caught out, but you used to have slimming mirrors. Yeah, that's right. So, it's like, that's right. So, it's women, yeah, and probably men as well. Yeah. Yeah. So, light, but slimming mirrors, it's like all of a sudden I've lost, you know, a couple of pounds or, well, you know, maybe a kilo or two, at least. No, that's right. But a couple of kilos, you know, one or two, you know, that's significant in the way close fit and look. Yeah. And then you go home and go hang on a minute. Yes. Oh, don't look, but not only what happens is that we're not only looking at the clothing that we bought and go, geez, the clothing looks different, but we look, start critiquing ourselves, going, hang on, I actually look larger than what I did in that clothing. So, it's then has, yeah, a negative effect. So, not only is the clothing not fit, we start having some self-doubt around our own image, which is dangerous. Very dangerous. I know we're going down a mirror rabbit hole here, but in the gym as well, I noticed the mirrors widen you slightly. Really? Just because, and it's two reasons, obviously. One is that. Do you make it a little buff? A little buff. And maybe a little overweight if you are already overweight, you would look slightly more over and therefore come back more often. Isn't that? Wow. A double-bronged benefit for a gym. For them? For them? For the business. Yeah. Wow. It's very subtle and it's, I think it's the style of mirror though. It's not deliberate. It's just some mirrors have a more narrowing or a widening effect and I'm not a mirror expert obviously, but I have noticed that. Let us know. Yeah. It's a message or write in the chat. If it's something that you've known, I mean, there's one particular store which I'm not going to name, but it happens every time. And it's got to the point now where I actually won't go in. Yeah, for sure. Funnily enough, the next topic we're still going to move on to is priming manipulation. Yeah. Generally with manipulative priming, it is intentional as the examples that we've just given. It's to get a coercive or manipulative outcome that will benefit. We talk about nudging and ethical influence. I mean, those of you that know me are probably giggling right now because a whole branding and our ethos is around ethically influencing. But this is, we influence for the good intentions of the customer or the consumer, not for you. Those examples that we just gave are not for the consumer. It's the benefit of the business. Yeah, there's still negative effects. Yeah, negative effect of this kind of priming. So let's move on to what to look out for as a consumer. It's a nice little segue into that. So you're not weak because Q's affect you. It's a human thing. We kind of scape that. The point is not to become paranoid. The point is the spot when the environment is steering harder than it should. So I've got some common primary cues that consumers experience. And we're going to move back into online now. We've had our go at in real life. We're going to go back to the online world. So things that are common primary cues are pre-selected options, default plans, suggested products, social proof, nearby buttons, images that set mood before offers a peer, anything else that you can add to that mix? I think the pre-selected and the defaults is an interesting one. And that is where it's technically to reduce effort. We've established that we take the path of least resistance and the brain will take short cuts because it needs to because there are 35,000 decisions essentially that we make each day. So the defaults and the presets, we tend to just go with it. Well it's there for a reason. And we won't often change those. And so an example to that, and I might talk about the Microsoft example that we were discussing with you since we're talking about presets and defaults. So Microsoft has, when you subscribe and get your software and you then set it up and as you're using it, what there's a whole set of presets and defaults. 95% of people do not change those because, and this was in a study because their reasoning was that it's Microsoft. So if this is set as a default or it's pre-selected, it's got to be right because why would Microsoft pre-select or default? Surely it's the recommended option. Recommended button, but it isn't. Microsoft will set it up and they're not doing anything bad, but they're not setting it in good faith of how you're going to use it. It's just what's easiest for them. But one in particular is the autosave is not default. And I know, number of times I have cursed Microsoft because I have lost documents and pages of information, really good information to, by the way, because thinking, well, this is technically pre-selected or is a default because it's so important, but it's not. And if you go into your products, now you have a look, so you're going into Word, you'll see, oh no, it's not. Is that common still now? It's so changed. It hasn't changed. It hasn't changed. It hasn't changed. It hasn't changed. Yeah. Okay. So, 95%. Yeah, 95%. 95% and that's what they found. People said, well, it's Microsoft and it's reputable brand, which it is. They've got good products, which they do. And so we'll just let the defaults as is. We're primed to keep things easy. But unfortunately, there are some crucial tools that we need that actually we should be looking and making it effort and changing. So priming doesn't always have a positive outlook. Right. So now everybody out there is going to start looking at the software. I'm not in a minute. The setup that default isn't always in your best interest. It is not. Yeah. And I often isn't. Okay. It often isn't now not saying that what is set is going to work against you. But there may be a fit. Look at how you manage your work and your workflow and your business and your environment. And it's okay to make a couple of tweaks and people think, well, if I switched this on or toggle this on or toggle this off, I'm going against the D for all the recommended no, you're just setting up the presets that suit you the best for your business. Makes sense. Yeah. Okay. So let the even though you're primed to keep it, now you know we're just we're explaining to you what happens with priming. Use that as a powerful source for you not against. 100%. All right. So I'm just going to talk about something here around something that I've noticed and quite often we'll be talking about something in real world, you know, having a conversation about a product or service. And the next thing you know, you jump online and there's 50 ads regarding that product or service because your phones listened, even they say they don't, they definitely listen. And then ads are coming up everywhere and you're like, okay, wow, yeah, I do want that. And is that a form of priming? Absolutely. Yes. Okay. Exclamation mark. Exclamation mark. Or the depending on who's expected. Yeah. And that's right. And the algorithm knows this. So the algorithm, yeah, it will catch on and you're right. I mean, there are microphones in our all our devices where they switch them on or look, they are permanently on, even if you switch that it has to be. And also we don't switch off our microphones because they're things that we need. Yeah. Like hey Amazon, do this. Yeah. Hey Siri. Hey Siri. And I even notice that we're. With Netflix and online streaming services, you'll be talking about a movie with someone. Yes. Then you log on and suddenly that movie is in the carousel. Yes. That's a little bit convenient. Yes. It happened once, it happens five times and you're like, okay, that is not a coincidence anymore. I actually defried a fun facts around Netflix. Okay. Around this topic, but also around the priming using, they have a very elaborate and creative way of creating their thumbnails that prime you to watch certain things. So that might be something that we can talk about at a later date as well. Okay. Yes. I like the sound of that. But yes. So that's right. We're being primed. And also the touch points is, you know, the more often you hear something, I can't annoy you as well understand that, but the more, if it's relevant to you, the more often you hear something or see something and it does have you end up with endowment effect. That emotional connection to it, the more chances are that you will say yes, you will purchase, you'll sign up, you'll be a member. So there's evidence around that, which is why this happens. Yes. So just moving into some positivity around priming now. What does it feel like when priming is working for the consumer? Like a positive prime, if you like. Yeah. Optimus prime? Yeah, Optimus. Absolutely. Is it a pessimist? Is it a pessimist? A subtle transformers reference. No one would have got that. That's one. Oh, yeah. No, no. No, no, no, no. No, you're thinking. No. Optimus prime. You don't know who that is. Child of the A. No, no. That's in my area. That's okay. Back to you. No, stick to Thunderbirds. Okay. So what was the question? The question. When does it feel like priming is working? It's talking about working. Working consumer. So there's going to be a positive outcome. And when an option comes up that we've been looking for or we did something that we hadn't thought of and we get nudged or primed to think of something differently or a different skill or a different ingredient in a recipe or a different product that you're going to benefit from. That's technically an Optimus prime. Optimistic. Hold on. Yep. That in there. Very good. Is there a way for a consumer though to pause and check at any time? Or does it happen? They just don't know. No. Oh no. Yeah. I don't know. Not really. It. I mean, even with me, and I know this stuff back to front, you know this stuff back to front. Both of us do. And we are human. Our brains operate in a certain way. We can't change that. I get primed doing things all the time. It's just afterwards I know what I've what's happened. It is really hard. It is a subconscious stimulus or a subconscious cue that drives us to make a certain decision. He's very, very hard to stop that and pause because it generally is working in our favor. Because we generally gravitate towards the primes that we want. So we're bit biased in our primes. Because my next question is going to be post purchase, if you like, when there's a bit of euphoria. If you have subtly noticed that you were primed in a negative way to make that purchase, surely that would have a bad and long lasting negative impact or for you in that brand that you just put purchase from, right? You would just suddenly go, they've deceived me. I don't want to buy from them again. So you're saying though, but generally the prime is positive that won't happen. It's probably the prime is positive, but you can be primed negatively as well. And that's where the peak end rule comes in. So the peak end rule is where, yeah, and this is a really good bias to get an understanding of for your own businesses as well. So the peak engine will, there has to be a high peak initially for a customer or consumer for the next step to happen. Obviously, if it's a low peak and they don't, not having a good experience, that doesn't go any further. That's pretty obvious. So you've got a high peak, they're having a great time and then they will continue doing business, they'll continue looking at a product, they'll continue engaging with you. And then it comes towards the end of the journey or end of the experience. If it is a positive experience, fabulous, you've had a great peak and a great end. If it is a negative end or as you just explained that it wasn't great at the end, the brain can't differentiate the high peak to the lower end. It doesn't look at and extrapolate the entire feeling of the journey. It will only look at the end. So even at the bad bit. So obviously the peak was great because you then continued on, but the end was bad, the entire experience was bad. So we start thinking there was no point in that experience where I had a good time. I need an hour of my time back or I need that day back. What made me pursue this? What made me, but actually the experience it had was great until you got to the end. So we're going to talk about business in a minute, but TripAdvisor reviews. Is that because there was one bad experience within that holiday and that's created a peak end situation or is it different? No, that's exactly that is that because you're seeing either really good or really bad. There's never, well, there's a couple of in between. Yeah, there is. It's generally very polarizing. Yeah, it is. And I mean, think about yourself and our listeners. Think about where someone has then said, like I'm not doing that again or that was terrible. I mean, I've had Chris say that to me. I think I've had you. Clint say that to me. Yeah, but think of all the good things that happen. But if someone, it took someone with an external lens to say to me, Leanne, look at all the great things that happened on the trip or the great things that happened in this experience. And it's like, oh, but I had to actually be queued, had to be primed to think of it because the experience was so bad in the end, that's all I remember right now. And that's all that is significant to me right now. But it takes an external source to say, but it was great. Yeah. I'm sure that's happened to you too. Many times. Yeah, all the time. Yeah. Before we continue, don't forget to like and subscribe to ThinkShift on all the social channels so you don't miss out on the next shift that's coming up. All right. Leanne, let's talk about where priming shows up in business. It's not just an advertising thing. It shows up in pricing pages and onboarding forms, checkouts, proposals, even internal team communications. But where do businesses use it without even realizing it? So testimonials is a good one. I mean, we primed with a positive system. You're not going to prime with a negative. You've got one star. Yeah. What was that? Yeah. No. And it's the reason why authority and social proof is such influential principles. I mean, part of Robert Coutini, seven principles of influence you've got both, social proof and authority. And that's because we are primed to take the next step. We're primed that this product or this business is safe. Because remember, the first thing the brain is going to do is make sure you're in a safe space, safe environment. You're going to be making safe decisions. That's the job of it. The brain has a very important job, is to keep it safe. Regardless of what context that we're in. So having a review that's one star, obviously, is risky. To mitigate that risk, we use reviews and testimonials with five stars. Yeah, we don't show. Wasn't there research though done on the star system, though, showing that if it's all five stars, there's trust issues. Lost. Correct. Interesting. I had reviews then. Do no way. No, no, no, no. It's not bad reviews. What the study was is if you had all fives. Yeah. So it was all fives. But also if you've got, you know, ten reviews and they're all fives, fabulous. If you've got a thousand reviews and they're all fives, come on. Like that seems, you know, really what are you, are you perfect? What about 24 reviews, Liam, that are all fives? Is that okay? Is that what you have? Yeah. But you get that. No. I think it's because, you know, in some of these bad reviews, I threaten them. Yeah. So again, authenticity is it fabricated? Is it flawed? Yeah. And there's ways to extract reviews that aren't real. And we know that now. And so that then becomes, well, sure, you've got all five. And you know what? This poor business might actually have, you know, all five stars. But yeah, no, that's what that study was. So they say that there needs to be a couple of 4.5s in there. So it still needs to be in the high fours, but not all fives. So when I asked for reviews from clients next, I have to say to them, do you mind just like making a four and a half? A four point eight. Yeah, just a four point eight. Just bring it down a peg because I don't want to be. But you know what? That will happen there. You'll prime them. I'll prime, yeah, I will. To start looking at things that went wrong in the project, maybe. Maybe. That. But also prime them to give you a lower score. So you might say, I don't give me. Obviously, you're not going to do this, but you might say, look, don't want to five. You know, a four point five would be good. Chances are that you will be lucky to get a four. You will prime them to. Down. Down. Well, mental mode. Don't do that. Don't do that. Okay. Showing awards, that's a good one. Because having awards is great. Can they please be real awards? No buying of awards or purchasing awards? What about when wine. Labels get their own awards. They come up with an award and they create the award award. And then they have that, you know, gold medal in Shiraz in, you know, Barossa Valley. And you see it on the layman. You look into it deep and it's like, oh, they've invented that award. That. Is that. Well, you were primed initially to look at it and go, oh, this must be good. When I see multiple gold stars, I jump for that wine. That job is done. Yeah. Their job is done. So, if you then take the time, we'll have the time to actually look into it. And that's what consumers and businesses bank on, that you're not going to look into. They just see the stars or the shininess of whatever the award is or the logo is that's on the website without actually looking into what the award actually is. Because he's got time for that. Yeah. Well, now, hopefully you guys will start looking into it because I know a number of people and a number of businesses you do too that have purchased awards. And the one thing I can proudly say and same with you, Clint, is if I don't deserve an award, I don't want it. The award goes to the best person of the job. Sure. It is. Yeah. If you don't deserve it, you don't get it. You don't get it. You don't fabricate it all by one instead. Yeah. But the reason why people do it and the reason why the option is there is because of priming. So, another example of that is showing company logos of those that you've worked with. Yeah. And the number of them on sites that are and often these are completely hallucinated, things like appeared on Channel 9. You know, I was on Channel 7, these kinds of things. So you look into the deeper and it's like, that one is actually on there. So never, never believe me. So it's easy to fake that. It's easy. It's easy. It's easy. It's like, okay, so you won't. Yeah. And he's going to look into it. He's going to look into it. Yeah. It's the deception trade off if everything else looks great and that's the one thing that doesn't maybe look into it. But, you know, I mean, again, though, I've seen this with the testimonials that you mentioned earlier. Quite often in the past, you would find that the photos with those testimonials, you could do a reverse image search in Google. So throw that image into Google search and you would find that that photo was a stock photo. Really? Yeah. And so it was just a fake testimonial. Like it's a fake testimonial fake image. Wow. Right. But now with AI that allows you to create portraits. Have it an avatars. You're not going to find those. Actually, like image-based, like actual, yeah. So it's adding fire to the deception game, really. Unfortunately. But the reason why these options are there or people create these services, ethical or not is because they're used as a nunch. Yeah. They're used to prime the consumer. And they work. That's right. If it gets to a conversion, it's down its job. Right. So the other thing I was going to talk about here was that I see it all the time in proposals as well. So before someone even gets to the price, so I'm talking about proposals for in terms of scopes of work or products and service proposals. So they've all been primed by the order of information in the proposal, right? So if the proposal starts with the scope, it includes in the cost. Suddenly the buyer's thinking, it's just like, that's a quote, right? But if you start with a problem, the risk of not doing anything, the commercial opportunity, then suddenly the price land in a very different frame. So that's a form of priming too, right? 100%. Yeah. And that's exactly what I do in my proposal. Yeah, that makes sense. And that's what I teach. In the accreditation course, we actually go through redesigning and creating proposals in a way that positively prime. ethically obviously, for conversions. - Yeah. - I mean, you've got a great conversion rate with your proposals. - And my clients have one with theirs who I've helped with create their proposals again. And it's funny, it just takes a few small tweaks and the conversion rate goes through the roof. It's interesting. So we're now talked about, we've already talked about how it affects trusts. Helpful priming reduces uncertainty, of course. Consistent cues, making experience feel coherent. This leading cues though, create suspicion and we've just gone through a whole bunch of those. And if people feel push, trust drops really quickly. So you've got to be careful with the push. So I'm imagining with particular priming examples, do you have some of those that feel more of a push? - It's hard to actually really push a prime because if you push too much, the person will walk away. - Right. They see through it. - It's easy to it. It's it's Iki, it's that really salesy. - It just feels manipulative, that way. - It feels manipulative. One thing people do get wrong though is talking about themselves a lot. So we forget back to proposals. - Yeah. - And I see, oh my God. Look at us. It's about us, meet the team. Look what we've done. Who cares? As a consumer, I have a problem that I need solving. Talk about me. - What is it that you do? And so that's one thing within proposals that I always change. And I would say probably 99.9% of proposals and that I see and clients that I work with, I will see this and we move. The about us or the about me or the team to the end. Before the terms of conditions, but to the end, that's fine that you are highly skilled and tell what you do. And yes, the customer does want that, but they need to have an emotional connection first. Can you solve my problem or not? As long as you can solve my problem that I'm happy to see how good you are. - That's right. - And that's great. But also it primes in the other way. If you then have the, basically the problem that they've got and how you can commercially solve it, what the outcomes are. And they're going through this going, yes, that's what it is. Yes, that's what I would like to see. Yes, that's a way that we can solve it. You say you can help me. Then you have your about us at the end. You've actually primed them to see you in a much better light than you would at the beginning. So it's a win-win situation. - We've just talked a little bit about how priming shows up in sales and proposals. Tell me a little bit more about pricing though. How it affects pricing. - Yeah, so numbers is a huge thing with priming. And pricing in particular, we can prime it positively and negatively. So an example that I often use is, let's just say we go into, you know, Bunnings or a hardware store to purchase say a hundred dollar voucher. So that's a hundred dollars. We then go into a Harvey Norman or, you know, electronic store because we're looking at a TV and there's a wonderful TV on the wall, the exact dimensions that we want, it's $5,000. Even though the pricing differential between the $100 and the $5,000 is large, we are primed with a low number. So when we look at that TV, we go, "Woo, chees!" That's expensive. That's expensive. So forget that scenario. Same person, whether it's me, whether it's you, you go into Apple instead and you look at and browse and purchase an Apple Mac. And it might be say $3,000. You then go back to Harvey Norman. Back to Harvey Norman. Remember no discounting. They keep you pants up, keep pants up. So the Apple Mac's $3,000, we then go back to the same store, Harvey Norman, same electronic store. We look at that same TV on the wall, same dimensions, same everything it is $5,000. Again, the pricing differential is smaller, but because we are primed at a larger number, we look at that and go, "Oh, that's not too bad." It's the same TV. It's the same store. It's the same everything, but we are primed to a different price. Interesting, isn't it? So often, and especially with builders and in building and construction, trade too, I'll say to clients, if there is a build that's going to be in the millions, which often happens, but it's going to be a lot. They'll say to me, "How do we prime someone?" To then, then they get a quote that might be, let's just say 1.8 million or 2.8 million. And I'll say, "What you do is within a conversation or as part of your proposal, you will actually quote what, say, some equipment would be or what the materials cost." Or in the conversation, you will say, "Yeah, labor for this or materials around this." And you're not in flight, but you'll start using numbers that are big. So then when they get the proposal, that is at 1.8 million, they're already primed to a large number, so they actually, it seems more reasonable. Interesting. Now, you're not being deceptive. It's still the same cost. You're not inflating the cost. You're just buttering them up if you like. You're priming. You're up priming someone for their brain to feel, for that number to feel acceptable. And especially if it's in the best, it has to be in the best interest of the consumer or the client. And you know that that's what they're going to have to pay. That's what the cost is. There are ways that you can deliver that information, to present that information to a customer, to prime them in a way that is more palatable. So again, it is done in a positive way, not a negative way. Yeah. Okay. So priming for pricing is very powerful if you do it right. Interesting. So what are some of the common mistakes that businesses make with priming? Making things all too hard. So maybe identifying or doing some pre-selection or options or defaults that are not in the best interest, it has to be relative. So the prime itself needs to be relative. So if it's something that is insignificant to the customer, you're not going to be out of prime them. Something they're not interested in or it's not going to solve their problem. It has to be relevant. And we're going back to this choice paradox. We're going to be able to do that in a positive way. And we're going to be able to do that in a positive way. So we're going to be able to do that in a positive way. Or you've changed the scope. Or you've changed the price. And they're stuck. Here's a good example of it, for me. That goes already. Agencies in the past would often pitch and sell in the idea that a client's going to get this big team. Here's a creative idea that we've come up with, et cetera, et cetera. And then they win the business. And then suddenly they hand it over to Junior Berger, like a junior, to manage the account. And so that business is no longer getting what was presented to them in the room. I'd say that's a pretty-- It's actually happened to me. Right. Boy, I wasn't happy. No. And I let them know. Yeah. OK. So that's a-- A hundred bad examples. That's manipulative prime. A manipulative prime. Yeah. All right. Here's the shift. Choice starts before awareness. Before someone clicks, buys, signs up or agrees. The environment has already shaped what feels familiar. That easy, safe or normal. That doesn't make priming bad. It makes it powerful. Use it to reduce effort. Use it to create clarity. Use it to help people make better decisions. But if your cues are removed control, hide intent or make one option feel unavoidable, you'll under a longer guiding. You are manipulating. And that's ThinkShift. I'm Clint. I'm Leanne. One idea won't shift in 30 minutes. If this episode changes how you think, share it with someone who makes decisions or a living. And don't forget to follow ThinkShift on all the socials. So you don't miss what shift is coming up next. See you in the next episode. Bye for now. Bye.