Because.
I did some work from Starbucks today after my haircut.
There was a guy in the corner with a large coffee and small can of Coke. The whole time I was there, he alternated between sleeping and SCREAMING into his phone at someone in what sounded like Italian.
Ahh, the general population.
Still, I find it useful sometimes to work from a different location. If not to avoid distractions, then at least to have a different set of distractions.
And I got a lot of groundwork on something I’ll be announcing here soon. But that’s not what this email is about.
Instead, it’s about a sign in the Starbucks parking lot, and a basic psychological principle that you should be using more in your business.
“Starbucks parking only, because of small lot.”
You don’t see this very often.
Signs are usually very authoritarian. NO PARKING. BRIDGE CLOSED. SPEED LIMIT 85.
This makes sense at highway speed due to limited time to read it. And it just sort of carried over to parking and other static signs.
The difference here is the word Because.
They gave a reason.
Maybe you’ve heard this before. Psychologists studied this back in the 70s.
They found that simply adding the word “because” to a request made people much more likely to go along with it.
The classic example:
“Excuse me, I have 5 pages. May I use the xerox machine?”
vs.
“Excuse me, I have 5 pages. May I use the xerox machine, because I have to make copies?”
They found that the word because made a big difference, even in cases like the above, when the reason provided doesn’t make sense or is obvious.
The business and customer service applications of this are obvious.
When you tell a customer something, give them a reason. Even if it’s not a “good” reason.
And don’t be afraid to use the magic word Because.
This isn’t witchcraft. Don’t expect mind control miracles here.
But do try it out and see what it can do for you.
Because it might make all the difference.
— Mark
P.S. I wrote The 80/20 Service Guide because I saw a problem in customer service.
Because a lot of people get this stuff wrong.
Because when I started out, there was no good information out there.
Because the same old conventional platitudes weren’t helping.
And because you’re on this list, you can get it half price here: https://gumroad.com/l/rkbth/VIP
