To help web analytics practitioners get management buy-in

1. Influence and Persuasion
To help web analytics practitioners get management buy-in
Alban Gérôme
@albangerome
10 Digital Ladies & Datagirls UK
25 October 2018

2. Emotions and
decision-making
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3. No emotion Too much emotion
Decision
Just enough emotion
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4. No emotion Too much emotion
Benefit
Loss
Persuasion
power x2
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5. Coping with loss
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6. Coping with loss
• Denial
• Bargaining
• Anger
• Depression
• Acceptance
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7. Coping with loss
• Denial
• Bargaining
• Anger
• Depression
• Acceptance
Elizabeth Kübler-Ross
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8. Social
intelligence
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Ignaz Semmelweis

9. Social
intelligence
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Ignaz Semmelweis Louis Pasteur

10. Social
intelligence
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Ignaz Semmelweis Louis PasteurR. Buckminster Fuller

11. Do not become the issue
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12. No credit for easy goals
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13. No credit for easy goals
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14. Persuasion and needs
• Social Proof
• Scarcity
• Likeability
• Consistency
• Reciprocity
• Authority
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15. Persuasion and needs
• Social Proof
• Scarcity
• Likeability
• Consistency
• Reciprocity
• Authority
• Self-actualisation
• Esteem
• Love and belonging
• Safety needs
• Physiological needs
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16. Fear of missing out
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17. Fear of missing out
• Need to belong
• Loss aversion
• Bargaining
• Social Proof
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18. Fear of missing out
• Need to belong
• Loss aversion
• Bargaining
• Social Proof
When all 4 emotions are
combined people will consider
every option to maintain their
station in the hierarchy but…
@albangerome

19. Use FOMO responsibly
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20. Random closing ideas
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21. Random closing ideas
• Making a stakeholder addicted to analytics
• Letting the stakeholder reach the recommendations you had in
mind all along
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22. Thank you!
http://www.albangerome.com
@albangerome

23. References
Plato
one must control their emotions or emotions eventually control you
René Descartes
“I think therefore I am”, i.e. rational thoughts are preferable to emotions
Antonio Damasio
emotions can make decision making difficult to be sure but without emotions
decision-making is very difficult so just enough emotion seems right. This suggests
that people make decisions on an emotional level and then use facts and hard-data
to justify their choices and appear more rational than they really are. So are we, as
web analysts, putting the cart before the horse?
Amos Tversky and Daniel Kahneman
Framing potential as a loss works twice better than framing as a benefit. People have
loss aversion, probably the result of evolution where erring on the side of caution
gave you a better chance of survival
Nancy Duarte
Storytelling will infuse emotions into your recommendations. The “I have a dream”
speech by Martin Luther King and the iPhone launch by Steve Jobs followed exactly
the same storytelling structure, both great successes. Two major brain centres, the
hypothalamus and the amygdala are located close to each other and there is a strong
synergy between both. The former deals with memory, triggered by a strong story,
and the latter is one of the main brain areas dealing with decision-making
Elizabeth Kübler-Ross
People will dealing with loss will go through denial, bargaining, anger, depression
and acceptance. While at the bargaining stage, people are receptive to anything that
will help them avoid that loss
Leon Festinger
People will hold certain beliefs and when faced with evidence contradicting these
beliefs, they will do anything they can to reduce the gap between both. That’s called
cognitive dissonance and it causes discomfort and people facing this will do anything
they can to eliminate the gap. When the stakeholders are at the bargaining stage,
convince them that are veering off trajectory, you two can still correct it if they
consider your recommendations and take action fast or it will be too little too late
Ignaz Semmelweis
A Hungarian doctor of the 19th century. As he was working at hospital in Vienna,
Austria, he discovered that when the doctors and mid-wives cleaned their hands
between operations the mortality rate the hospital dropped massively. Instead of
publishing research, many younger doctors presented this discovery around Europe
but Semmelweis leverage it instead against the medical establishment, his boss
mostly. As Semmelweis’ attitude became a real issue, his supporters abandoned him,
his boss fired him, Semmelweis was then interned and died as the result of the
beating of the wardens, he was 47
@albangerome

24. References
Louis Pasteur
French biologist also of the 19th century. He started researching how alcohol forms.
The previous theory was that alcohol formed as the result of decay. He found that
microscopic germs transformed sugar into alcohol instead. He did not fight the
medical establishment, made many more discoveries and became a household
name.
R. Buckminster Fuller
American architect with a famous quote summarising the Semmelweis-Pasteur
paradox. “You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change
something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete.”
Burleigh Gardner, Ernest Dichter and, to a lower extent, Edward Bernays
All three worked on the Betty Crocker cake mix and found that by replacing the
powdered eggs from the cake mix and asking the housewives to add an egg the cake
mix suddenly started selling a whole lot better. This suggests that people need
challenging goals from which they then can claim credit. Nobody is interested in
passing exams that almost no one can flunk. People want to stand out. Perhaps by
making recommendations that are practically ready to implement, we are leaving
too little for our stakeholders to take credit for and see our recommendations like a
cake that’s just got too easy to bake. Edward Bernays is credited for being the father
of Public Relations, he is the grandson of Sigmund Freud. He also convinced women
to start smoking by approaching the film producers of the Hollywood area and get
their leading actresses to smoke on film. Eggs and bacon for breakfast, that’s him too
Robert Cialdini
You can persuade using the following five principles: social proof, scarcity, authority
reciprocity, likeability and consistency. Antoine-Augustin Parmentier promoted the
introduction of potatoes to the French diet and also the rest of Europe in the 17th
century. First, he started serving potatoes at the tables of the royal families and the
aristocracy. Then he had a field of potatoes planted outside Paris which was only
guarded by day. The poorer neighbours started stealing the potatoes from the field
at night. Some had a small plot of land, planted them and started selling them at
markets and so became potatoes a stable of the French and European diet. That’s
social proof and scarcity in action. If we gave the c-suite exclusive access to analytics
data, the incumbent managers would try anything they can to get some of that data
too. If the c-suite fails to lead by example with analytics, this sends the message that
managers do not need to know analytics to get a shot at the c-suite
Abraham Maslow
People are social creatures who try to climb up a hierarchy. There are 5 stages to
Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs: self-actualisation, esteem, love and belonging, safety
needs, physiological needs. Once at the belonging stage they will start feeling afraid
of losing their station in the hierarchy. If you present them with a recommendation
framed as a loss, they might equate that loss to a personal loss of status, reach a
stage of bargaining which you can leverage to get your recommendation
implemented and help them maintain their rank in the group hierarchy
@albangerome