Wharton School marketing professor Jonah Berger has advised Google, Nike, Apple and Coca-Cola, among other major firms, on how small language choices can be the difference between failure and success with customers and partners. The same is true for any individual, he says, whether it be at work, in business, or when seeking to influence those who surround us in personal life.
“We all use language all the time, when writing emails, making presentations, talking to clients and team members,” Berger said at CNBC’s Small Business Playbook virtual event on Wednesday.
“We think a lot about ideas we want to communicate, but we think a lot less about specific words we use when we communicate, and unfortunately, that’s a mistake,” he said in an interview with CNBC’s Kate Rogers at the small business event. “Small shifts in language we use can have a big impact,” he said.
In fact, according to Berger, adding one word to a request — recommend, as in “I recommend” — can make the listener about 50% more likely to say yes.
Berger’s research, covered in his book “Magic Words,” shows that language choices can be make-or-break when it comes to everything from office conversations to applying for loans, but we are often under-prepared to choose the right words to get what we want. Berger, along with a larger team, has analyzed the language of customer calls, sales pitches, and tens of thousands of written content pieces to analyze how to increase the odds of success.
“At core, what we find is that it is not random, it’s not luck, not chance. There is a science of how language works, whether trying to get a colleague on board or a client to say ‘yes’ or someone in our personal life to agree or support what we are going after,” he said.
Berger provided three examples of how to make small changes in the words we use to get the results we want with the “Small Business Playbook” audience.
1. Don’t ask for ‘help.’ Ask for ‘helpers’
One easy change to make is based on research conducted years ago among pre-school children, which Berger says applies equally to adults.
Researchers wanted to know how to increase influence over others and get others to support initiatives, and used classroom cleanup duties as the laboratory. What they found was that when children were asked to “help” rather than to be “helpers,” they were less likely to willingly follow through on the task.
That “infinitesimal difference in letters,” according to Berger, just adding the “er” to the end of the word, made one-third of children more likely to say yes.
That research was later corroborated among adults who were either asked to “vote” or be a “voter.”
“A small one-letter difference,” according to Berger, “led to a 12% increase in willingness to turn out.”
He explained that what the research reveals is that people are more likely to respond to an identity they desire to be known for rather than an action they are asked to take. “We all know we should take certain actions … but we are busy. What we care a lot more about is holding desired identities. We all want to see ourselves as smart, engaged citizens,” he said.
When actions become a way to claim a desired identity, through a shift from action language to identity language, we are more likely to follow through, he said.
Use ‘you,’ but only use it in the right situations
While doing work for a large consumer electronics firm analyzing social media language and what got attention in a world where competition for attention is intense across cold calls, emails and social, Berger says research showed that use of “you, you’ll, your” — all the second-person pronouns — can make a big difference. “It acts like a stop sign,” he said. “Imagine reading the headline of an email ‘5 tips to save money,’ but if it says ‘5 tips to save you money,’ you pay more attention,” he said.
It doesn’t matter whether you are trying to reach one person or many, he said. “It acts like a stop sign to dial in and pay attention and it gets more engagement,” he added.
Berger said there is one important caveat. In some situations, the use of the second-person pronouns can become accusatory and work against the intended goal.
Personal life is one example, he said. “Did you make dinner? Did you walk the dog?”
In Berger’s analysis, this is not the way to frame such questions, as they will lead the person being asked to think (if not also say) “Why is it my job?”
And there is a parallel in the office world, the difference between “Did you do that report?” and “Did that report get taken care of?”
“You can suggest blame in ways you don’t intend,” he said. “You need to be careful of accusatory use of it.”
Berger said it also doesn’t work in the context of customer support pages. “Yes, ‘you’ is good at getting attention, but for the customer support page, where you already have given your attention, the benefit is not there,” he said. In fact, Berger says that this is one more use case that can lead people to think they are being blamed.
Ditch the hedge words like ‘probably’ and ‘potentially’
Research on the way financial advisors discuss investments with clients found that the more certain an advisor is in the language they use, the more likely a client is to take their recommendations and stay in business with them. An advisor who is 95% sure a stock will go up is preferred to an advisor who is 65% sure, even if both are proven correct with their recommendations in the end.
This may seem obvious: more certain language, words that clearly suggest something particular will happen, are what others want to hear. But according to Berger, the issue is that this approach is in direct contrast to how most of us speak. When we inevitably use “probably” and “potentially,” we undermine our impact on listeners, Berger said.
“Ditch the hedges,” he said. “We hedge because it’s convenient, filling conversational space. What we need to do is pause instead. Pausing can be beneficial. It shows people we are thinking about what they might have asked,” he added. “People talk about being overconfident, but there is also the danger of being under-confident.”
Berger says it can be instructive, if painful, to record yourself and listen to how often you hedge, and also how often you use filler words like “err” and “like.”
“I’ve done it before with myself and it’s cringeworthy,” Berger said, but he added it is important to understand the difference between a practiced pause that shows you are paying attention and thinking, and a filler word that leads a listener to doubt your certainty and knowledge.
This doesn’t mean it’s never a good idea to communicate uncertainty. As in the financial advisor example, there are times when a range of variables exists that could influence outcomes. But Berger said there are good ways to say “Hey, I am not sure.”
“I think this is a great course of action, but for this to work, these three things need to happen. I’m confident, but I can’t predict the future.”
Or as Berger put it, “Be clear about where the uncertainty is and where it isn’t.”
