Time for a haircut?

A little while ago, I wrote here in statistical terms about a trip to my local supermarket.

1 item every 60 seconds. $5 every minute.

And even a brief browse through Freakonomics or their blog will quickly reveal just how much statistics relate to our everyday lives.

All of which brings me to the fact that I got my hair cut the other day. Not a particularly glamorous or extravagant event, as evidenced by the fact that it was a mere snip at $13.

I entered the barbershop at 8.03am.

I was seated by 8.04am.

And I was on my merry way by 8.17am.

$1 a minute.

Not so long ago, I used to get my hair cut at a salon. And, it used to cost me $47 and take about 45 minutes.

Also, $1 a minute.

And when I think about how long my beautiful wife will tend to spend at the salon when she has her hair done, it's generally a 3-hour exercise at a rough cost of $200.

Close enough to $1 a minute.

I'm sure by now you get my point, or at least my hypothesis. That there is no such thing as a cheap or an expensive haircut, only a long or a short one (at an approximate cost of $1 a minute).

A healthy dose of insight

My wife is currently studying medicine – through Google, it seems.

Whenever she or one of our sons is sick, her first port of call is always to type some pithy description of the symptoms into the search field. That way, she can at least rule out any terminal diseases before preparing herself for discussions with her assistants at the local surgery. It all comes down to access to the right information – not that there's anything wrong with that.

But what I'm finding more and more is that the age-old adage knowledge is power is no longer true.

In fact, it's now more accurate to say that information is power.

And that, I think, is a problem because you'd have to be crazy not to acknowledge the gulf that exists between the two (as does my wife, fortunately).

Knowledge comes through understanding and experience, whereas information simply litters our lives, an often random sequence of data, symbols and other bits and pieces. Knowledge makes sense of information, whereas information on its own can often be senseless, unless of course you know what to do with it.

Which brings me to research.

Focus groups are typically the whipping boy for why research is so often so flawed, but that's too easy and obvious a target – plus, my friend Ingrid over at Aesthetics of Joy (the Christmas trees, remember) already wrote this article a few years ago that perfectly summarises the bigger issues.

But what frustrates me is the seemingly blind proliferation of information churned out by your typical research agency.

They can tell you what was said. In fact, they'll happily write dozens of slides in 8-point type, and even throw in the odd piece of Clipart for a little light relief – if there's space on the slide, they'll be sure to fill it.

But they can rarely tell you what it means.

They'd rather leave that to a mother of two from Castle Hill who you've just paid $80 for 90 minutes of her time to design the pack or write the tagline for you. Easier than making the decision yourself, plus you've now got someone to blame just in case.

Research has its role to play and there can be no doubt that the most successful brands are consumer-informed, but they are never consumer-led. If that was the case, then we'd all be riding faster horses, to paraphrase Henry Ford.

In the case of research, knowledge typically makes sense of information through insight.

But unless more research agencies are able to transform all this information into even the smallest morsel of insight, then my wife may not be the only one turning to Google for the answers.

Can I have a small word?

I've been meaning to write this post for months. In fact, ever since I first read about it last August. And once again, I have The Writer to thank, a specialist writing agency in London.

Here's what they had to say.

Long words make you sound thick. Fact.

We’re always banging on in workshops about picking simple words whenever you can. Occasionally, though, someone will pipe up, ‘But I like using long words. They make me look clever, don’t they?’ No, they don’t. And you don’t just have to take our word for it. It’s been scientifically proven – by psychologist Daniel M Oppenheimer, of Princeton University, no less.

A couple of years ago Oppenheimer designed several experiments to test how people reacted to various styles of writing – some straightforward, some complicated. He was particularly interested in trying to find out which writers sounded the cleverest.

And guess what? The writers of clear and simple words were judged as smart, whereas those who used needlessly long words came across as less intelligent and less confident.

His conclusion is emphatic: ‘Write clearly and simply if you can, and you’ll be more likely to be thought of as intelligent.’

If you fancy reading the study yourself, it’s here. It’s rather splendidly called Consequences of Erudite Vernacular Utilized Irrespective of Necessity: Problems with Using Long Words Needlessly.

A brilliant insight, if you ask me. And I'd expect nothing less than that from The Writer, who seem to take as much time over the long words as they do the fine details.

To show exactly what I mean, here's the email signature from their newsletter (double-click on it to see a larger version).

So many people struggle to describe what makes their business or brand different, but here it is, laid out for all to read in something as basic as an email signature.

No multi-million dollar advertising campaign, exhaustive packaging redesign, or public relations crusade required.

Just a few small words say it all.

Brain freeze

This week, I had the dubious pleasure of listening to one of advertising's self-professed elders parading his special brand of insights into the wired world of web 2.0. However, having left his credibility back in the early 90s, this was no pleasurable task – neither for him nor his audience.

After a shaky start, an in-joke failed to rally the troops, and things quickly went downhill as he struggled to work his way through a selection of video material. By the time he came to reveal his big strategy play, a minor PR disaster had to be narrowly averted as he showed an ad starring a cast of people who were completely naked. If presenting an ad from 2007 under the banner of his latest thoughts wasn't bad enough (or maybe that was when he had his latest thoughts), why he felt this the right forum for full frontal nudity was the only thing left to the imagination. A few sombre shakes of the head from the back of the room brought the presentation to a swift conclusion.

For those who missed out, here was his 3-step strategy for success.

1. Find the funniest videos that other people have already uploaded onto YouTube.

2. Pay the videos' creators makers as much of the client’s money as possible just to have their logo added to the end frame.

3. Upload this brand new video to YouTube.

That was it. I'm not kidding.

The end of the presentation could not have come quick enough, and I soon found myself in the back of a cab, sliding through the city in the mid-morning traffic. I slumped into the seat, and waited hopefully for some feeling to return to my brain.

The art of persuasion

Persuasion is a fine art.

I know this because, like many of us, I spend a large part of my day trying to persuade people. At work, I’m trying to persuade clients to stay true to a particular strategy, even when the going gets tough. At home, I’m hoping to persuade my sons that sliding down the slippery-dip is actually much more fun than hurling themselves off the top.

But the common mistake I often see people make is that they think the art of the persuasion relies solely upon how persuasive you can be. When in fact, it relies largely on how much listening you can do.

And I mean really listening.

With all your senses, skills, faculties, and anything else you can muster to help you understand what people are really telling you – and what they really want you to hear.

Earlier this week, I spent a couple of hours listening to a friend of mine. Now this is a guy I really respect, and I would love to have join the agency. While some of what he said may not have been music to my ears, I did all I could to absorb everything he communicated – physical, emotional, rational, the lot. And to be perfectly honest, I did everything I could to try not to persuade him to do anything. What was I going to say? – I didn't know what he was thinking or how he felt, let alone what he might want.

And I see it happen all too often when someone flies into the discussion straight off the bat, only to discover halfway through their monologue that they have delivered the perfect argument for what they've now realised is in fact a non-existent issue.

It even happened this week on a project we were pitching. While we aimed to persuade the client of our insights, our two competitors pitched their cost-effectiveness. We ultimately won the pitch because the client didn't want to hear about price (cost-effective or otherwise), they only wanted to hear about how we could solve their business problem. And what shaped our response for the pitch was not what we wanted to tell them on presentation day, but what they wanted us to hear when they first issued the brief.

It's also worthwhile making another slight digression to introduce the fable of the North Wind and the Sun.

According to Aesop's fable, the North Wind tried to prove his strength by blowing the traveller’s cloak from his back, however, this only led the traveller to pull his cloak tighter around him. On the other hand, the Sun shone so brightly that the traveller removed his cloak in the heat of his own accord. What the Sun proved was that persuasion is a far stronger ally than brute force when it comes to achieving your ends. Not only is it vital to spend your time listening for what someone really needs, but it's equally important that you allow them to make the decision for themselves.

When it came to winning the pitch I mentioned earlier, it was the client who made the final decision, not us. Our arguments might have been persuasive, but the winning factor was our ability to listen.

And the same is true for the friend whom I hope will become my colleague. Listening for what he needs will get me much further than trying to persuade him of what I want.

So next time you want to persuade someone, don’t do it. Or at least not until you've had a good listen to what they have to tell you first.