“Kindness is the best form of humanity.” – Doris Lee, Painter
The First Sip
Advisorist has been a virtual company since the beginning.
If you’ve been following me for any time, you know that I’m a major advocate for virtual advisory for a variety of reasons.
One of the top ones is that it empowers you to connect with people you’d otherwise never have had the opportunity to engage with.
And the more I think about it, the more I realize how true that is of society in general today.
Whether it’s email or social media, you have direct access to almost anyone in the world.
The latest example of that is this story from Rolling Stone, in which 10-year-old Nandi Bushell delivered a perfect performance of the Foo Fighers’ song “Everlong.”
Then she challenged the band’s drummer and frontman, Dave Grohl, to top her performance.
Grohl played five minutes of tunes for Nandi – thanking his daughter for letting him “borrow” her drum set – and then sent the challenge right back.
I love stories like these.
They remind me that the world isn’t as big or divided as we think.
So here’s to more humanity and kindness in the coming weeks!
1 Caffeinated Neurohack
As you know, the human brain is ruled by biases and heuristics.
These are basically “mental shortcuts” that eliminate the need to spend excessive energy on making simple decisions.
The Commitment & Consistency Bias is one such shortcut.
It’s basically a person’s desire to be (and appear) consistent with what they’ve already said and done.
Once a person makes a commitment, stakes a claim, or does something, they feel both internal and external pressure to behave consistently with the original choice.
Obviously, someone’s first choice or commitment isn’t always right/best.
As an advisor, you shouldn’t accept a simple “no” from a prospect or client if you feel like it’s not rooted in logical reasoning or reality.
But how do you get them to snap out of it?
It’s really quite simple…
Ask, “What’s holding you back?”
This forces the prospect to explain and justify their reasoning.
And if they dig in too deep, they may realize that their reasoning is actually flawed.
At the very least, it gives you an opportunity to see what they’re thinking and file it away for future reference.
Marketing Psychology Quick Hit
It’s Week 4 in our Marketing Psychology “Mini Class” exploring the Gestalt Laws.
As a refresher, these six laws are basically design principles that explain how people see things – such as your website or digital ads.
This week we’re discussing the Law of Continuity.
It says that points which are connected by a straight or curving line are seen in such a way that the viewer’s eyes follow the smoothest path.
In other words, rather than seeing a bunch of discombobulated dots or angles, the human brain forms them into a one continuous line or arc.
While there are some obvious ways to use this principle in design, I think there’s also some relevance in terms of social media content strategy.
Rather than just pushing random, fragmented posts every few days, why not develop a cohesive strategy where a string of posts over multiple days or weeks paints a continuous arc.
By creating common threads between your content – or repeating themes (like “Financial Fridays”) – you ease your audience’s mind and help them see the bigger picture.
Do This First Thing Monday AM
For all of my American advisors, tomorrow is Labor Day.
And I’d encourage everyone – American, Canadian, or otherwise – to use tomorrow as an opportunity to hit the RESET button.
The last six months have been a rollercoaster of emotions.
There have been market ups and market downs.
Panicked clients.
New clients.
Confusion. Uncertainty. Overwhelm.
And sometimes you just need to throttle it back a bit.
This is one Monday where you shouldn’t feel guilty about sleeping in an extra hour, dusting off the golf clubs, or watching Netflix with your kids.
Take it easy…
There’s always next Monday.
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Let’s talk soon,
Jeremiah
