Here’s something I find useful quite frequently. When you present information, the first thing you show or discuss is going to be the anchor. For example, if I show you the most striking album first, all of the rest look crappy by comparison, even if they’re well done. On the other hand, if I show you the worst one first, people will still enjoy it. By nature, we tend evaluate relative to the first thing we see.
The same applies for pricing. Imagine I were to say an engagement session is $1,200, but if you do it on a weekday, I’ll make it $800. That $400 difference is now an incentive. It’s a benefit associated with weekday sessions. It’s not that your weekend engagement sessions are overpriced. It’s that your weekday ones are a good value. On the other hand, if you start out presenting your weekday engagement session as $800, and proceed to mention that weekend engagement sessions are $1,200, you’ve now devalued your weekend sessions. The $400 is no longer an incentive. It’s a penalty.
Let’s take another example. Suppose I want to show you how fantastic my timing is. I start off with an amazing picture. Then I show you a strong, but less inspired version of the same taken seconds earlier. Guess what happens? That’s right, the second one looks worthless. I’ve made the first image the baseline, diminishing the value of the second one in comparison. Unfortunately, I’ve also lost an opportunity with the first image. Without an anchor, there was nothing to judge the first image against. In these cases, you want to show the inferior image first, which will create a solid impression on its own. Then you can really wow them with the second image because they’ll see the amount of improvement. It goes from solid to remarkable now. Of course, we all know this effect. We see it most frequently in the before and after images for the makeovers, diet plans, and fitness regimens we all know and love. On a spreadsheet, numbers and raw information might all add up the same, but in real life, it’s all all about positioning. Position well, and you get people in your court. Do it improperly, and you call attention to all the wrong things.
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