Raise your Heuristic Anchor

(Possibly my worst blog post title / picture pun ever...?)

I have been reading a fantastic book recently, that’s not at all about sales, however it brought my attention to the phenomenon of “Heuristic Anchoring” – a phrase guaranteed to make you sound either incredibly smart or pretentious, depending on which way you look at it.

This example from the Wikipedia entry on heuristic anchoring explains best: “An audience is first asked to write the last 2 digits of their social security number, and, second, to submit mock bids on items such as wine and chocolate. The half of the audience with higher two-digit numbers would submit bids that were between 60 percent and 120 percent more, far higher than a chance outcome; the simple act of thinking of the first number strongly influences the second, even though there is no logical connection between them.” I’m currently experimenting with this in a (highly unscientific) sales environment, mentioning lots of high figures before a (relatively) low number price. “The service has 1,000,000 users per month, with our highest ever monthly figures coming in at 6,000,000 user per month…. ….the approximate investment required by is £15,000.” Does it work? I’ve no idea, but it’s fascinating psychology that may contribute to the entire sales effort. If anyone has experimented in this area or knows of any material on this subject, please let me and the community know.