In this episode of the On a Roll podcast, host Mike Michalowicz explains how to make purchasing less intimidating for customers by altering the language used in proposals. He advises sellers to replace the word “cost” with “investment,” emphasizing the potential return for the buyer, and to avoid displaying dollar signs and decimal points because neuro‑psychological research shows they trigger threat responses. Mike illustrates these tactics with examples, cites high‑end restaurant menus as a model, and offers a brief, light‑hearted exchange with guest Teppy, who showcases his artwork.
Welcome to On a Roll, and now here's your host, Mike Michalowicz.
When it comes to making purchases, it gets awfully scary for your customers. So in today's episode of On a Roll, I'm gonna share with you how to make purchasing something not scary for your customers. First, Swagster is today's From Secret Entourage. Oh, sounds so secret. They're called Art-E. Entrepreneurship is not a science, it's an art, and Art E tells you how to do it. It's written by The Secret Entranche. They're French, I think. I don't know. So let's show you how to make it less scary for customers to buy from you. Here's the secret trick. Use the word investment instead of cost. So instead of saying, oh, here's our service, the cost is, or here's the product we have, the cost is, say here's the service or here's the product and this is what the investment is. We as consumers distinguish cost as something that we're gonna spend and we're not gonna ever get a return for. But an investment is something that we spend and we anticipate to get a big valuable return, possibly more than we spent for it. So, next time you're pitching your product or service, explain to the customer how it is an investment, and on your proposal, write investment, not the word cost. By the way, I got a little bonus secret tip for ya. Don't use dollar signs or decimal points. There's been neuro studies and people find the dollar sign and the decimal point threatening. So next time you have a proposal for $1,000, don't put the dollar sign and period zero zero, just put the number 1,000. High-end restaurants do it, you'll see it in their menus, it's only just the number. And that is a lot safer at a neuro level for us, and we buy it. I don't know, it's kind of crazy stuff, but it works. So try that one too. So, uh, Teppy, I heard you are quite an artist— oh! I see you did some work here. He's quite an artist himself.
What is, uh, what is this? Well, it's a study of nudes I did at the local art school. I reckon it's pretty swell. Heh heh.
