Jona Burger, a marketing professor at Wharton School, advises Google, Nike, Apple and Coca-Cola, among other major companies, on the difference between success and success for customers and partners. The same applies to any individual, whether it’s when you’re looking to influence the people around us in your workplace, business or personal life.
“We all use language whenever we write emails, present, or talk to clients and team members,” Berger said Wednesday at CNBC’s Small Business Playbook Virtual Event.
“We think a lot about the ideas we want to convey, but we don’t really think about the specific words we use when communicating. Unfortunately, that’s a mistake,” he said in an interview with CNBC’s Kate Rogers at the Small Business event. “The small changes in the language we use can have a big impact,” he said.
In fact, according to Berger, it adds one word to your request – recommended like “I recommend”, but it’s about 50% more likely to say yes to listeners.
Berger’s research, described in his book Magic Words, shows that when it comes to everything from office conversations to loan applications, language choices can break everything, but we are often not prepared to choose the right words to get what we want. Berger, along with a larger team, analyzed customer calls, sales pitch, and the language of tens of thousands of written content to analyse how they could increase the odds of success.
“In the core, what we found is that it’s not random, not luck, not opportunity. There’s the science of whether we try to board a colleague, say yes, or someone in our personal life tries to agree or support what we’re doing,” he said.
Berger provided three examples of how to make small changes to the words used to get the results you need in your “Small Business Playbook” audience.
1. Don’t ask for “help.” Seeking a “helper”
One simple change is that it is based on research made between preschool children. Burgers say it applies to adults as well.
Researchers used classroom cleaning duties as a laboratory, wanting to know how to increase their influence over others and help others support their initiatives. What they found was that when children were asked to “help” rather than become “helpers”, they were unlikely to be willing to chase their work.
According to Berger, that “infinite difference in letters” simply adds “ER” to the end of the word, making it more likely that a third of children say yes.
The study was supported among adults who were later asked to “vote” or be “voteers.”
According to Berger, “there is less one-letter difference” and “the motivation increased by 12%.”
He says what the research reveals is that people are more likely to respond to the identity they want, not the behavior they are being asked to take. “We all know we should take certain actions…but we are busy. What we care more about is that we have a desirable identity. We all want to see ourselves as smart and enthusiastic citizens,” he said.
When actions become a way of asserting a desired identity through the shift from action language to identity language, according to Berger, we are more likely to follow suit.
I will use “you” but only in appropriate circumstances
While working for a large electronics company analyzing the language of social media, and in a competitive world that attracts attention through cold calls, emails and social, research says that “you, you, you, you, you, your” – all second-time pronouns can make a huge difference. “It behaves like a stop sign,” he said. “Imagine reading the email headline “Five Tips to Save Money.” But if you say, “Five Tips to Save Money,” you’ll pay more attention,” he said.
It doesn’t matter if you’re trying to reach one person or more, he said. “It acts like a stop sign to dial in and pay attention and gives you more engagement,” he added.
Burger said there is one important caveat. In some circumstances, the use of two pronouns can be condemned and can work against the intended goal.
Personal life is just an example, he said. “Did you cook dinner? Did you walk the dog?”
In Burger’s analysis, this is not a way to frame such a question. They guide people who are asked to think, “Why my job?”
And in the office world there is a parallel difference: “Did you give that report?” And “Did you take care of that report?”
“We can propose responsibility in an unintended way,” he said. “You need to be careful to blame it.”
Berger said it doesn’t work even in the context of the customer support page. “Yes, ‘You’ is good at attracting attention, but if you’re a customer support page that you’re already paying attention to, the profit isn’t there,” he said. In fact, Burger says this is another use case that can lead people to think of a product issue as being blamed, and that is the last thing customers want to feel when they are seeking help.
Throw away hedge words like “probably” and “potentially”
A survey of investment research on Financial Advisors found that the more certain the language the advisor uses for investments with clients is, the more likely the client will take recommendations and maintain their business. 95% of advisors are sure the stock will go up more than a 65% sure advisor, even if the recommendations are proven both are correct.
This may seem obvious. A more specific language, a word that clearly suggests something specific is going to happen, is something others want to hear. But, according to Berger, the problem is that this approach is in contrast to how most of us talk about it. Inevitably “probably” and “potentially” use will undermine its impact on listeners, Burger said.
“I’m going to throw away the hedge,” he said. “We hedge because it’s convenient and fills the space in the conversation. You need to pause instead. It’s beneficial to pause. It shows people thinking about what they might have asked.
Burger says it’s beneficial to record yourself, hear the frequency of hedging, and how often you use filler words like “err” or “vike” if it’s painful.
“I’ve done it myself before, and that’s a stubborn thing,” Berger said, but he added that it’s important to understand the difference between practical pauses that show you that you’re paying attention and thinking, and filler’s words that guide listeners to doubt your certainty and knowledge.
This does not mean that communicating uncertainty is not a good idea. There may be a range of variables that can affect the outcome, such as in the Financial Advisor example. But Burger said there’s a good way to say, “Hey, I don’t really know” like this:
“I think this is a great action, but for this to work, these three things need to happen. I’m confident, but I can’t predict the future.”
Or, as Berger said, “Be clear about where the uncertainty is and where it’s not.”
