In this short segment of the "Honor Roll" series, host Mike Michalowicz explains how to make a sales proposal feel less intimidating for customers. He advises framing the price as an "investment" rather than a "cost" to shift the buyer’s perception from a simple expense to a value‑generating purchase. He also recommends omitting dollar signs and decimal points from price figures, citing neuroscience research that suggests these symbols can trigger threat responses. By presenting numbers plainly (e.g., "1,000" instead of "$1,000.00"), the proposal feels safer and more inviting. The segment blends practical sales language tips with brief, informal banter about art, illustrating the broader point that language and visual cues can significantly influence buying decisions.
Chapters
Welcome to Honor 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 going to share with you how to make purchasing something not scary for your customers. First swagster is today's from Secret Entourage. Sounds so secret they call it arte. Entrepreneurship is not a science, it's an art. And re tells you how to do it. It's written by the Secret Entourage. 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 going to spend and we're not going to 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 you. 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 in period 00. Just put the number 1,000. High end restaurants do it. You'll see it in their menus. It's only just the number. 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 Tappy, I heard you are quite an artist. Oh, I see you did some work here. He's quite an artist himself. What is. What is this? Well, it's a study of newts I did at the local art school. I reckon it's pretty swell.
