The psychology of (SaaS) giving
The renounced Wharton professor, Adam Grant, has singled out three types of mindsets, that are commonly seen in organisations. They are either givers, takers or matchers, that work in a balanced structure, if the teams are well composed. It’s all a somewhat bias result of communication, stating a position and self-centered focus — but we can see a game-changer, that shapes our societies in a new and more group-thinking way.
What’s more than sure, givers way of communicating makes more sense, in the nowadays approach to marketing. But, as research shows, givers are not only at the top of making a high revenue out of their work, but also tend to be at the very bottom — they want to help, not push — and for that reason, it’s more difficult for them to refuse a return or sell a fault product. But, in the culture of rather having more emphatical approach, and group thinking seen as a reward. Why? Because our moral and social systems are based on two pillars, being fairness and compassion. We teach ourselves cooperation, and a huge amount of that lesson is giving, fairness and understanding needs of other people. Even primates have this concept of collaboration, and there’s been a lot of research done by scientists, such as Frans de Waal on the concept of justice in monkeys or elephants. In one of them monkeys had experienced an unequal pay for the same task — one has been payed with cucumbers for giving a rock, and the other received a delicious, sweet grape for the same action. When the first monkey realised what’s going on, it has refused to take any more cucumbers. In further research on chimpanzees, the experiment was repeated, and the outcome was almost the same, except the fact, that the monkey that did get grapes instead of cucumbers, refused the payment too. We’re getting closer to our human moral systems — does that mean that our social justice is imprinted by nature?
Prosocial tendencies are seen in our biology and the way our brain reacts to giving — our mesolimbic reward system is activated. That’s why givers in society are not only seen as good people in general, but also have some satisfaction coming from their attitude. Personal interviews with CEO’s that when tested, turned out to be givers, have shown that they have been through the good and the worse, and they really “know what it’s like” to be in someone’s shoes, so they share a true empathy towards others. Their communication line, turns out to be better as well, as givers tend to have a group approach, rather than egocentric. We also tend to like more people, that can easily say “thanks” or “I’m sorry” for no good reason — submissive position is expected to sell more, taken up as a policy in most of large, global companies all around the world. If you’ve heard of the pratfall effect, you probably know, that likability grows, when people observed are imperfect. The people we are attracted to, are those that are competent, but make occasional mistakes. There was a Yale experiment, that was asking surveyed students to decide (based on audio only), who is more attractive quiz attendant — is it the mediocre person, or the super-competent person, that has scored more than 90% points in the test. Logically, it’s gonna be the competent person, but the results vary, when another aspect is added to the test — at the end of the recording, we hear the competent participant saying: “oh shut, I have spilled coffee on my new suit!”. What happened to the results on attractiveness? We tend to like the competent person even more, if they made a mistake (and the mediocre person is likable even less). Can this come to any conclusion, when it comes to marketing?
We tend to like mistakes, weaker people, apologizing approach? Is it a further extended evolutional safety towards others? There’s no one thesis behind kindness, and we should not force ourselves into one perspective. We can build longer relationships based on those theories, provide better customer service & invest in SaaS. Monthly small payments, trials and basic free services seem to be the right approach behind the art of giving. You give at the starting point — or a basic version of a mobile game (Hatoful Boyfriend), or free trial for two weeks (DreamCommerce), maybe a monthly subscription for free (Netflix). Giving something for free pays back off, as your clients are more likely to place small amounts of money, when trust is build in the first place. The lesson learned from either professor Grant or Yale research is to not be afraid to give something in advance in order to build confidence in your potential client’s mind.
