The #1 Most Efficient Way to Increase Your Likeability

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This video is about the number one thing you can do to increase your likeability. We know from research from Jerry Burger at Santa Clara University that likeability matters. He found that people spend more money with those that they like. In one study, participants were 2.4 times more likely to purchase from somebody when they were likable and when they showed commonality between each other.

Therefore, what is the number one way you can increase your likeability? The answer is to have more touch points. This is based on research called the mere exposure effect. According to this, the mere exposure to something makes us like it more. The more exposure we have, the more we like it, which of course, according to Burger, correlates to more purchases, larger purchases, and similar benefits.

The mere exposure effect was first studied in 1876. Since then, it has seen three centuries of research, with countless studies observing how it works and how to use it. Here is how you can use it in business development.

Turn the default switch to you interacting with your clients on as opposed to off. Typically, our default switch with interacting with our clients is off. When it is off, we have to set reminders to call our clients in two months, putting something on our calendar to say, "Touch base with Tim in July”.

What happens when your defaults are on? You automatically are creating a mere exposure effect with the person. Here are three examples. One is the beer of the month club (I think this is funny). One time I did some non-profit work for my good friend Doug and we really helped his non-profit grow their donations using our methodology. And to thank me, instead of buying me a bottle of wine, or a book, or something like that, where would get maybe two touch points, such as receiving and drinking the wine, he bought the beer of the month club. It was brilliant.

As a receiver of the beer of the month club, I thought of Doug ten, twenty times a month for six months. I thought of him when the email came that the beer was shipped. I thought of him when the beer arrived at work. I thought of him when I trucked the beer home and un-boxed it in front of my wife Becky. I thought of him when I opened up the fridge in the garage and looked at the beer. I thought of him when I would have a beer. I thought of Doug all the time for those six months.

A second level, that I think is really fun, is a fantastic non-profit that I have been involved with called Big League Impact. Big League Impact, which was started by Adam Wainwright of the St Louis Cardinals, enters you in a fantasy football league with a major league baseball player and you go through the draft in person. But then you play everybody in the league over the course of the football season, which goes on for months

When I took clients to Big League Impact, it was fantastic because we not only had that one experience. After the draft, we were giving each other grief during the week when someone’s quarterback does not perform well on Monday Night Football. I was interacting with the entire set of clients for over four or five months. It was fantastic.

And if you do well enough, you can be conference champion in your league and really poke your clients a lot, maybe even Adam Wainright.

The third example I want to give you is this one. Set up an ongoing meeting with your clients to add value. You can think of the theme and build it with your client. Maybe you are going to bring them new ideas, or you are going to talk about a particular project you are working on.

The big deal with this is that it can be really hard to set up one meeting with a client. It is not that much harder to set up a series of meetings that last forever, or a series of touch points that last a long time. So if you can find ways to turn your default switch on, where you are not just asking for one meeting, but are asking for a series of them, or designing an experience that will impact somebody dozens or even a hundred times instead of one, you are dialing up the mere exposure effect. You are dialing up the number of times they think about you, dialing up likeability, creating more demand for your products and more interactions with clients.

As with all these videos, we hope this one helps you help your clients succeed.