Tips to Market in a Millisecond

I'd like to try something out with you. It's real simple. It's the blink test. What I want you to do right now is blink your normal speed. Don't, don't hold it down, but blink your normal speed. The average normal blink takes 1/10th of a second. That's 100 milliseconds. Our consideration for a stimuli, if it's relevant or not, and relevancy is, is it a threat, is it an opportunity, or is it something that has to be qualified or categorized, happens faster than 1/10th of a second. It happens faster than the blink. What we need to do is set up our marketing that catches attention like this. And once you have attention, you gotta retain it. I'm not gonna devote this reel or this episode to the retention. We're just gonna be talking about that blink test, what garners attention. And I'm gonna be digging into the brain again. Here's my model. It fell apart during the last video I was making, so hopefully it doesn't do it again, but I have a suspicion it will. And let's split the brain. There we go. Carefully and selectively. And what we're focusing in on is the amygdala. The reminder is this, that information flows up through the spinal column and all the different inputs come in through this feed of the nerves. It comes up here. There's a thing called the reticular formation that blocks out irrelevant information. It's a net, if you will, neural network. Among the reticular formation is things like the reticular activating system. Perhaps you've heard of that. The concept of the reticular activating system is if you have purchased a new car, for example, you'll notice that car is everywhere, in the same color that you purchased. But the day prior to purchasing the car, you didn't even notice it. Why is it? Well, that is our reticular formation allowing the information through and it hits our prefrontal cortex and other parts of our brain. The reticular formation, its job is to determine relevancy, threats, opportunities, and something that's different. Something that is of significance to you, like that car, that's considered an opportunity. So our brain puts significance in it. Reticular formation with the reticular activating system brings that information in. So you spot things that are relevant. A common training among motivational speakers and stuff, they'll talk about the power of activating or training almost, if you will, your reticular activating system, part of the reticular formation. And the idea or the concept behind this is that you will notice what is of significance. So they'll say, you know, think about $1 million, think about having $1 million. Always think about a million dollars. And the more you think about that million dollars, the more you're going to spot it in the scenery around you. It absolutely works. It's how our brain is programmed. So there's absolute value in it. Now, when it comes to our prospects, they may not necessarily be looking for you, but you can still get into the brain. It's that, it's that blank. And what we need to do is do something that is different, unexpected in the environment. When you do something that's unexpected, it accesses the brain. What you can do is— I bet you, by the way, when I zoomed out, I wouldn't be surprised your eyes immediately were drawn to the markers here. Why? Because it's a disruption for the pattern. There's this wood grain color, which is the desk. There is the, the pad itself. I bet your eye saw this right away. You may have noticed when it comes to artwork, often an artist will put in a specific distinct color. We have a piece of art at home that my father-in-law created, and it's a picture of our home, and my wife is outside throwing a frisbee. It's the only use of the color red, and the idea is to keep drawing the eye back in because we notice something that is distinct in its environment. That's why I think when you saw me cut over to this, you probably saw this right away because it's a distinct color pattern outside of the environment of what we expect. So here's my, my brain drawings are not the best, but there's my brain, spinal column, inputs go here, reticular formation blocks things out, and we want to get past the RF. And we're going to do it by being distinct and different. Now what most business owners do is they repeat the common approach of everyone else. We market the way everyone else markets. And then the question is, you know, why do we do that? Well, there's a fear of standing out. There is a fear of being different. We may not be accepted and it may fail, and we have a fear of failure. So doing different terrifies us. So what most people do is they do the common fare of the competition. And when it's not working, a response may be to give up— that's not good— or to amplify. Sometimes amplifying works. Why? Because that can trigger enough of a unique stimuli that the consumer sees it. So if I mail you a letter, you know, solicitation to your house, junk mail, once a year, probably never even notice you had it, throw it right out. Once every 6 months, probably not notice it. Once a month, probably not notice it. Every day, you may notice it 'cause of the heightened frequency. If every hour another piece of mail is being delivered, remember that Harry Potter scene when the mail's coming in? If I deliver it like that, you'll absolutely notice. So even though it's the same kind of campaign, it's mail, it's the frequency that breaks through. But that is very costly in perhaps money, perhaps energy, time, and it can even frustrate the customer because it's overwhelming. So while that can work, just like in a vehicle with a siren, if you amplify the siren higher and higher, there's a certain point where it's deafening. People have to pay attention even if they've become habituated to it. So you can amplify the signal, but I don't think that's the best way when it comes to marketing. We have to do different. And again, different goes through multiple stages. The goal for this video is to talk about the first stage, which is the blink test. That 100 milliseconds, that 1/10 of a second. How do you garner attention? And then we're gonna talk in other videos about how to retain it. So here's the brain. Our goal is get past the reticular formation. We're gonna do it by using things like what's called the attentional blink and referencing the novelty preference hypothesis. First, I wanna show you something, a piece of paper. Tell me in seconds if you recognize this product. What product is that? It was big. It was huge. It was a major marketing fail. It was the Microsoft Zune. I know you remember that product. The Zoom, 'cause it took off like a balloon. Not. Microsoft Zoom, it came out to compete with Apple's products, arguably in some ways a superior product, but the marketing was boop, brr, brr, lackluster, and therefore it failed. The point I'm making here is even if you have a superior product or service, if the world doesn't notice, the world doesn't notice. So how do we get the customer base to notice? Well, we're gonna use a couple things, You have to understand some behavioral principles first. I'm going to read this from my notes because I want to be very specific about this. As I was doing the research for this kind of blink test, we'll call it, I found research by George Loewenstein. It's called the Novelty Preference Hypothesis and how we, you and I, humanity, get an intrinsic enjoyment out of unique things. So here's a core finding. Loewenstein's study explored the idea that people have an intrinsic preference for novelty and that novel stimuli are more likely to capture attention. I'm going to share a little trick with you and what we're doing as we create this video. The reason we we are changing— I'm doing it with a device here, I'm changing cameras and we'll add in some effects— is we have to keep that novelty going. If you see the same thing over and over again, you start to lose attention. So we have to keep on changing things so that you get a different perspective and keeps your mind engaged. He said that we have an intrinsic preference for novelty and that novel stimuli are more likely to capture attention. Research found that individuals showed a heightened response level to novel stimuli compared to familiar stuff. You see the same thing over and over again, wah, wah. As measured by psychological arousal and self-reported enjoyment, this suggests that novelty plays a significant role in directing attention and eliciting positive responses, underlying positive, from individuals. So it provides evidence for the novelty preference hypothesis. So my point here is if you're doing the marketing like everyone else, it's not novel, it's not getting past the reticular formation because of habituation. It's the same signal. But if we do something that's unique and different, hits the amygdala, hits the prefrontal cortex, illuminates the brain, but it actually gets a degree of engagement because it's novel itself. And that's the key. Just being novel itself will increase engagement. People will be more interested in it. And I can prove it right now. Just by changing the look, it guarantees me attention. We like the novelty and it keeps us engaged for a period of time. Now, if I keep going like this, it's going to wane very quickly. So I need to change the scene again. That's the lesson. But there's more to it. There's another component. This beautiful machine of ours, this brain of ours has only so many resources. So there was a study conducted by R.D. Potter, G. Wickens, and D.A. Donchin. This is back in 1988. It's called The Attentional Blink and Resource Allocation. And the core finding was this, that the resources allocated to the crucial role of perception are limited, which indicates that we must use our resources efficiently. Do you know if you want to burn calories, the best way to burn calories It's the brain. It's the big consumer of calories. The number one job of the brain, not the number one job, but a primary responsibility is the conservation of energy. Otherwise, it's constantly burning. It's the big energy burn is your mind. So the way we divide up our attention is very important. And so that's why we prioritize, as I shared earlier, threats, opportunities, and different. One last study I want to share with you, it's the rapid detection of threat. And this was conducted by Smith, Jenkins, and Schmidt back in 2017. This study demonstrated that threatening stimuli, such as fearful face or images of danger are prioritized during the attentional blink, suggesting that our attention is biased toward detecting potential threats. Right? And we already talked about this. You know this now, that threats get prioritized, opportunities next. But the problem when it comes to marketing is if you lead with a threat, you may get attention. That's what we're focused on this episode, but this residual retention may go away. You present an opportunity, may trigger suspicion, but it's a much more positive experience. Different causes engagement where you have an opportunity for positioning. So that's our goal here is to be different. People notice different facts. When I was in the computer industry back in the day, I was fighting it out with my competition. I would argue our company was better. We had more certifications, more skill, more experience, and my competition and I would say the same things and we were fighting it out. I say I'm better than them. They say they're better than me. Then one company came in and kicked our ass till Sunday. It was Geek Squad. And what did Geek Squad do? They simply dressed differently. They didn't have more certifications, more experience. They likely weren't better. I'd argue they weren't. But you notice them. You probably know who Geek Squad is. Probably can't name the other thousands of computer companies out there, maybe one or two, but you can't name all of them. Definitely can't name mine. But Geek Squad, almost everyone recognizes. Why is that? Because they got the attentional blink. They got us in that first second by being different. Then they positioned their brand. What can you do that's different? One thing I heard from Robert Stevens, he shared in his story that he had his team wear sneakers with the logo reverse printed on the bottom of the sneaker because in Minnesota, I think that's where it started, when they were walking through the snow, it would leave their logo behind them. What happens when you look, walk through the snow? Usually to see snow, slosh. But now you're seeing a logo. Intentional use of the attention, a smart intentional use of the attentional blink. Another study I want to reference that will serve you deeply, I believe, is a concept of goal relevance when it comes to the attentional blink. This was studied by A.K. Vogel, R.M. O'Reilly, and E.K. Miller. This was published in 2008. Subtitle was Evidence from behavioral and electrophysiological measures. Complex stuff. The study identified this, that stimuli that are relevant to the current goals and tasks are more likely to be prioritized during the attentional blink, as evidenced through this different research. Here's the simple thing we talked about already. The reticular formation's job is to block out the irrelevant. The reticular activating system that's part of the reticular formation prioritizes what's important. That's why the motivational speakers say, I'm a millionaire, I'm a millionaire. It's prioritizing it well. When you have a goal that you're prioritizing in your life or business, things that are relevant will pop up much clearer. You ever need to, I don't know, mow your lawn? I'm picking something random here. It's like, gosh, I need to mow my lawn. And then you notice all the landscapers, or you can buy a mower or something like that. You notice it much more quickly when you have a need, you see it. Therefore, it's important for us when it comes to marketing your business is to know what your avatar, your target customer wants. And I'll give you the ultimate hack. The more Refined you are in a community, meaning the more niche specialized you are, the more common their needs are, so the more you can speak to it. Then you simply present in a unique way to that need, trigger stimuli, right? It's that attentional blink. People notice it and they say it's for me and they have a higher level of engagement. So make sure you leverage that. And there's one more study I want to point to before we wrap it up. I got to read it off the screen here. It's the reward insensitivity around the attentional blink. This was studied by Pessoa, Pine, and Botvinnik. I hope I said that correctly. And this goes back to 2012. Subtitle is Behavioral and Neuroimaging Evidence Around Reward Sensitivity and the Attentional Blink. Identify in this study that there's evidence that stimuli associated with rewards or positive outcomes are prioritized during the blink. So can I get their attention and do they engage? Does the reticular activator allow it through? And now is there some engagement? You can get through by being different and The amygdala here is going to prioritize where this information goes. We want to show reward very quickly, and there's different stimuli for award or reward, but I'll just use money as an example. I don't know if you're ever walking down the street, do that double take, like, what, what was that? And maybe you look on the ground and you see some money floating by. Well, that double take was something different in the scenery, something floating by, so that caught your attention. Then there's a positive association. Oh, there's some money there, and you move toward it and grab it. There's other countless positive associations you can have, but does the person feel a positive experience? Comedians use this. A joke, a really well-produced joke, will set a stage expecting one outcome. You have something different, which triggers a shock, and then it's humorous, meaning it's an exaggeration, or it's totally contrary to what you expected, or it's an expression to an extreme of a reality, and that lands as a positive experience, and we're laughing away. We want to hear the next joke. So jokes work the same way. I want to remind you that people become desensitized because of this reticular formation, this magnificent element in the spinal column and going into the brain that's designed to reduce the caloric intake for this thing that's falling apart here. But it's reducing the caloric intake. Therefore, our job is to make sure that we get through that. And habituation is that desensitization. If someone experienced it once and it wasn't of value, when they experience the next time, they won't see as much value. I'll conclude by sharing one final story. In your life, do you remember ever receiving an email, the first one that said, hey friend, it started off by saying, hey friend. I remember the first one I got that ever said that. I never had received it before. It started off and said, hey friend. I'm like, huh, went through reticular formation, amygdala hit, prefrontal cortex, brain illuminated. I'm engaged. I'm like, hey friend. Oh my God. Who's this friend of mine? I haven't heard from and they're calling me friend. Oh my gosh. I start reading it. I'm like, oh, this is really cheesy marketing. They're not a friend of mine. They're a frenemy. So what happened to the next hey friend email? Habituation sets in. I saw it and I was like, mm, I remember the last one, no, no value. And I read it very briefly and said, no, same thing, marketing. I've never read a hey friend email since. That's how desensitization happens, and it happens that quickly. The first one catches our attention. It's a positive association, future ones will. But if it's negative, it gets disregarded. That's why your competition, who's marketing the same way every time, if you clone them They've already built that negative association, the irrelevance, and the consumer's mind's blocking it out. Your job is to break through. You have 1/10 of a second to do it. You do it by doing different.