What can creative agency account managers learn from an account manager in the software industry?, with James Aldrich

Transcript:
So today's episode is a solo episode. And I want to talk to you about presenting new ideas to your clients with behavioural science in mind. Now, what I'm going to be talking about is the idea that when you present new ideas to a client, that for them represents a change in what they're doing already, it's useful for us to put ourselves in the shoes of the client. So why is that important? Well, our clients are often working for companies. So they are measured on their performance and the decisions that they make. So if we are presenting an idea, which might seem a bit of a bold idea, so maybe it's a new campaign concept, or perhaps a new content marketing strategy, or even a new channel that we're proposing, like doing some kind of app, this for the client represents a change. And it's therefore useful to understand the psychology of making a decision to change so that we can present our ideas accordingly. Now, the background to this is twofold. One, I am really studying for writing a book, and I'm doing lots of research. And I've got quite deep into behavioural economics, which I'm loving. And secondly, I'm reading some research that came out in December 2020. So behavioural economics is the study of psychology, if you're not familiar with it, as it relates to how we make economic decisions, and they use experiments to develop theories about how we make those decisions. And for many of you listening, you'll be very familiar with Rory Sutherland, who is the vice chairman of Ogilvy, and is probably the most well known person to have popularised this field of study in the advertising industry. I'm also, as I said, reading some research that came out in December 2020, conducted by a company called Corporate Visions, and it was provided in a book called The Expansion Sale by Eric Peterson and Tim Riesterer, and basically a range of biases have been identified in behavioural science and economics as a result of the way people think and feel. And one of those biases that I want to talk about today is called status quo bias. And no, it's not the band, if anyone's that old, they remember like me, the very popular band, but it means that people prefer essentially things to stay the same, even if staying the same isn't the best decision. So if we are thinking about our clients, and we're presenting new ideas to the client, that might mean that they need to make a change of what they're doing currently. So it's useful to address these different points. So a simple example, if you shop around for car insurance, for example, you'll probably get a better deal but not everybody shops around, which would be the rational thing to do. So why does that happen? According to some research, and the research psychologist, Christopher Anderson, in his paper, The Psychology of Doing Nothing, there are four main causes of status quo bias. The first one is called 'preference stability'. And this essentially means that people naturally dislike uncertainty. So a previous decision they made becomes their preference. And if someone tries to challenge that decision, by bringing them some new information to the contrary, they want to quickly resolve that insecurity and uncertainty to default to their original preference. Second thing about status quo bias is anticipated regret and blame. So people think, what if it goes wrong? Will they regret it? And will they be blamed. And if you think about our clients for a moment, their career success could be riding on this big decision they make to either go with an idea that you present or not, or their colleagues might ridicule them or point the finger. So you can see why making that decision to change could be affected by this element of status quo bias, the anticipated regret and blame. The third thing is the perceived cost of change. So people naturally think that if you're presenting an idea to them, that that's going to be costly. And if they stay the same and do nothing, it's not going to cost them anything. And we're going to go through these and see how you can overcome each one. The fourth one is selection difficulty. And what that means is that we usually are presented with an overwhelming amount of information to make a decision. And the decision making part of the brain is just simple. And it needs a clear contrast between what you're doing now, and what that change promises to do. So that element also needs to be addressed when you're thinking about presenting new ideas to the client. So for our existing clients, there are a number of things that we need to make sure that we do during that presentation of this new idea to allay their fears and to make them feel comfortable about making the decision to change. And similarly, if we are prospecting for new business and talking to completely new potential clients, we want to be disrupting their status quo to challenge what they're currently doing. And maybe we are challenging what they're doing with a current agency....