Are First Impressions Important?

Posted in Life Coaching, Uncategorized

Do me a huge favor will you please? This post really wont work if you don’t go and read this review of How To Be Rich and Happy first.

Go on, humor me it’ll only take a couple of minutes, but please do NOT read the comments before you pop back here to finish this post.

This is not a pathetic attempt to get you to read about my book because if it were, I’d send you to a review that was a bit more gushing and there are plenty of them (he says in a smug voice).

So off you go to read it and I’ll be waiting for when you get back.

Ok, so I’m trusting you’ve read it. If you haven’t that’s very naughty and you should go to bed without any dinner.

What did you think of the review? More to the point, what did you think Stephen thought of the book?

My first take was it was the most disappointing review we’ve had. I kind of expected it because Stephen is a seasoned self development blogger who has been exposed to some of the greatest material available on the topic over a period of many years.

To blow this guy away was going to be very tough, but I knew he’d critique the book honestly and fairly and with integrity and that is all we can ever ask for.

After reading I noticed the comment by Mark (which you can go and read in a minute so hold fire!) and started to think about the review, was it fair or was it harsh?

I re-read it and noticed there was WAY more positives in the post than there were negatives. He did say that it wasn’t a life changing book for him, but also suggested that may simply because he has read so much brilliant material.

That’s very reasonable. I rarely get blown away these days by books on life coaching and/or self development and I’m sure that’s in large part because I rarely read anything totally new to me.

I read books that are presented differently with the odd tweak here and occasional twist there, but nothing completely new.

I do think How To Be Rich and Happy offers some new material and the values exercise is definitely something I have never seen anywhere else in its format. That alone is worth the cost of the book (ask any of my clients) in my less than humble opinion.

But enough of me getting all defensive, because that’s not the point of this post, the point is, I want to know what you think of the review and then I’m going to throw out a theory.

I went back and read the post for a third time. Not because I’m some egomaniac who loves to read about himself, well not entirely because of that anyway, but because I wanted to see if my first impressions were correct.

They weren’t.

The fact is, the review was very positive without ever being gushing or sycophantic and the author twice said he recommended the book to his readers.

Here are a few of the comments:

There is no reason why you should hesitate to buy it.
I do think the book provides an excellent toolset
Not often will I read something this long all the way through. This one kept my interest.
I loved the Rich and Happy Matrix concept
The Rich and Happy Return was clever.
This book was very well done, make no mistake about that.
You can’t lose with this book.

Imagine I had just shown you those comments in isolation, wouldn’t you have thought the reviewer was really positive, even gushing over the book?

Of course you would

So what caused myself for a moment and also Mark to think it wasn’t very positive?

Anchoring that’s what.

You’ve probably heard me talk about anchoring many times here, in fact here’s a video demo of how you set an anchor should you so wish, but this is a slightly different type of anchor.

What I’ve seldom talked about (I can only remember doing so once in the post How To Avoid Getting Ripped Off) is the way we can be anchored in other ways.

I’m sure you’ve heard the expressions “first impressions are everything” or “you never get a second chance to make a first impression”

Let’s for the sake of argument presume that we agree with conventional wisdom and that first impressions are important, what makes them so?

When we meet somebody for the first time there is lots of rapid unconscious stuff going on in an attempt to work out if we like this person. We’re searching for similarities and/or differences to ourselves (mainly due to values, but other stuff too) and analyzing character traits that will give us either a favorable, or not so favorable, opinion of the other person.

Once we’ve made a decision we then go looking for evidence to prove to ourselves we got it right. If we dislike somebody we will focus on the things we dislike about them remembering them clearly and often filtering out anything that contradicts our initial assessment.

If we really like somebody then we may fail to notice they just tipped the waiter in Peso’s and spat on the valet whilst leaving you with the bill on the way out of the restaurant. Well maybe not something that obvious, but you get the idea.

The reason for this is largely because we don’t like to admit we got something wrong, even amazingly enough to ourselves. But it’s also because we have anchored ourselves to the original belief in our mind and become completely invested in it.

It’s tricky to break an anchor, especially if we don’t know it exists.

Have you ever known anybody that has refused to change an opinion about somebody, even in the face of overwhelming contrary evidence? I’m sure you do, and it can be incredibly weird and frustrating when they refuse to believe what is staring them in the face.

What I think happened with the review was Stephen kicked off by saying he was skeptical and it didn’t in his opinion meet the expectations that the title and tagline would suggest.

After reading the first two or three paragraphs it would have been easy to have believed he thought the book was ok and nothing more, and that’s certainly what I thought. Therefore, as I read the review I was looking for information to back up that belief and not immediately noticing the examples that undermined it.

In short, I was anchored to that first impression and only careful consideration and analysis allowed me to see my first impression was hopelessly wrong.

The reason why first impressions are important (even if they shouldn’t be) is because we’re nearly all quick to make up our minds and slow to change them back. If others think you’re an idiot from the get-go then you’ll have your work cut out persuading them otherwise. It also works in reverse. If somebody immediately thinks you’re brilliant you can probably act like an ass clown for quite some while before they realize they were gravely mistaken.

I would love to hear what you thought of the review on first reading and if your impression was the same or different to mine. Let me know in the comments field.

This is the first video review we’ve had of How To Be Rich and Happy, so I thought I’d drop a link in and you can check it out if you so wish.

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23 Comments So Far.

Comment by steve on 16 November 2009:

I got a positive impression from the review but perhaps Mark didn’t read it through.
Comment by Tracy on 16 November 2009:

How funny, I read Stephen’s review last night when it came in on email but I was already in bed and too tired to comment or click over to read what comments were already there. I did get that Stephen was saying that it was a good book, but I also came away with an overall negative feeling.

You know, my first thought that I was being defensive because I did give a rather gushy review and I had that just because I liked everything doesn’t mean I’m a big fat faker feeling. You know, because I’m rather gushy in everything I do. But then I realized I was tired and grouchy and reading too much into a review that wasn’t even about me.

I do see what you mean, and I’m wondering if different people’s personalities play into how they anchor things. For example, as I said, I do tend to be enthusiastic, gushy, bouncy and so on and could see that setting off very different first impressions. Likewise, Stephen tends to be more gruff and matter of fact (and lovable), which might lead to different first impressions.

Is that how it works? Or is it more universal, that certain phrases or gestures set off pretty much the same anchors in most people?
Comment by Lori on 16 November 2009:

This was an interesting little exercise–thanks Tim! I’ve often talked about this idea without ever realizing there’s an official term for it (anchoring). And I actually dealt with anchoring in MY experience of receiving your book. (My thoughts about the price; no one and nothing was changing my mind).

I have three other takes on what may make this review seem so negative:

-Our minds love black-and-white thinking
-We’re a perfectionist society
-When someone exposes an inconsistency, it implies judgment

BLACK AND WHITE THINKING: If you say a book isn’t revolutionary, my mind may automatically assume it’s the opposite.

PERFECTIONIST: If it’s not revolutionary, than is it good enough? (Not saying it’s not; just that the mind may work that way).

INCONSISTENCY: the title and description ARE slightly bold–which makes them near impossible to live up to. In making this observation, it may appear he was implying you lied. (Not saying you did; just that it IS a bold claim, and calling it that carries an implication).

So there are my thoughts on the matter. Although I am not as seasoned a personal development writer as Stephen, I can understand the feeling of having read the ideas before.

Let’s face it: there are very few new ideas on most subjects! People have been working with their minds for a very long time. What makes a book useful to me now isn’t so much earth-shattering, new information; it’s a combination of:

-How much I trust the source.
-How s/he shades it with his/her life experiences.
-Whether or not I feel emotionally moved to take action after reading it.

And there are my 2 (more like 53) cents.

I rarely comment on blog posts, because when I do it turns into this!

Lori
Comment by M on 17 November 2009:

Well, I read his post, but have to finish reading yours.

Just want to say:

I had downloaded the first three chapters, but didn’t buy the book because I wasn’t sure of the value (yes, I know of the money-back guarantee, but I generally don’t like asking for it unless I am really excited about buying something and am severely disappointed.).

However, the review gave me a better perspective of what the book is about. It is much more appealing to me to read something like that than a bunch of quotes about how “this book changed my life.”

And now I am much more interested in buying the book.
Comment by R4i 软件 on 17 November 2009:

You have to make good impression at any place at first time because that’s famous sentence that”First impression is last impression”.The impression you making on the mind of person at first time that is remain in mind at every time so you have to make good first impression.
Comment by Moonpie on 17 November 2009:

Timmy:

I think you’re either on crack, or your supply has run low and you to go fetch some more: That reads like a very good review to me….maybe he didn’t get his rocks off (notice the crack / rocks connection: I’m really quite funny, even in this grief-stricken state I find myself). The man even claims HE’LL pony up on the money back guarantee, should you change your mind.

It’s not unlike proofreading one’s own writing, maybe, you’re too close to it (besides your mind knows what you wrote, and that’s what your eyes see, regardless of what’s actually on the paper/screen); or, maybe that’s a bad example. In any event, I think it’s an inside the park homerun review, when maybe you would’ve prefered an outta the park grand slam review, which, as we all know, has little to nothing to do with smoking crack, at least as far as I know.

Right then,

moonpie
Comment by Stephen – Rat Race Trap on 17 November 2009:

Hi Tim, this whole thing was rather fascinating to me. In general my personality is not “gushy” like Tracy’s. I am much more cranky and matter of fact. I’m a skeptical person by nature. When I wrote the review, I just tried to be honest. I thought I wrote a fairly positive review. I was both surprised and a little miffed that it was thought negative by Mark. If you would have asked me I would have said I thought it was quite positive.

I think Lori might be on to something as well. Things have to be either all good or all bad. A book has to be revolutionary or worthless. Life isn’t that simple. When I say something general in a blog post it has to apply to everybody in every situation or it is wrong.

I think your point about anchoring is correct. What did I say in my second paragraph? “In a word, no.” I think people anchored on that and missed the rest. These were my last two sentences:

“Maybe, just maybe for you, How To Be Rich and Happy will be that life-changing or WOW book. Or maybe it will just be a nice no-risk investment in a little better life.”

What is negative about that?

I didn’t over-hype your book because I want people to trust what I say and not think I’m out to sell books. I did like it and I hope it does very well for you.
Comment by Tim Brownson on 17 November 2009:

@ Stephen – Maybe, or maybe he was already anchored.

@ Tracy – I’m sure personalities do play a part, although I’ll have to give it some more thought on how that would tie in. All people can be anchored by prices when marketers use a false higher price at the top of an advertisement.

However, when it comes to somrthing like this maybe it depends on whether somebody has a general upbeat persona and is always looking for the good or vice versa.

Thanks because I’d got nothing to do today ;-)

@ moonpie – Well you did a bang up job of proving my point for me because thats what I said.

You kinda did with my post what I was talking about. My original opinion that was never worse than “Ok that wasn’t bad” changed to “that was good” in about 10 minutes when I re-read.

4 people in the comments said what I had thought, so it’s not like I was in a minority of 1.

@ M – So get really excited and if we don’t meet your expectations I’ll be HAPPY to return your money, honest! If you read here regularly you’ll know I’m being genuine about this and want be pissed off at all.

@ Lori – Very good points and I agree with them all, thanks.

@ Stephen – It’s fascinating to me too and you confirmed what I pretty much thought. I’m really pleased with the review, but it’s weird that some people have talked about the ‘tone’ when they are just reading words!

And in answer to your question, nothing was negative about that.
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Comment by Jason on 17 November 2009:

Very interesting post. I believe you are dead on, Tim. The only reason one would think that this is a negative review is the fact that Stephen started with the negatives instead of the positives. Upon reading the review, I had a negative feeling that carried through the entire post, even though I knew consciously the review was mostly positive.
Comment by Ryan on 17 November 2009:

Tim,

Stephen should have made the second half of the post the first half, and vice-versa. I mean first impressions, right?

Overall it was a positive review. I don’t see the negative. One of my anchoring issues which I continue to release is the habit of putting people on a pedestal. To agree with someone who disagree with my work, when in fact many other experienced people might agree with me.

I’m getting at the idea of every person’s critique, no matter a world-renowned expert or the guy on the street, as just an opinion. Filtered through their own prejudices, viewpoints, judgements. So it’s not gospel.

In the same respect it’s important to remove the ego and look at things objectively.

OK, perhaps I was tangential, but it seemed like his review weighed on you somewhat.

First impressions are important because most people are judgers. The look, filter, and react. Few take the time to think, to respond. If more people thought when taking in something for the first time first impressions wouldn’t be as important. But most people don’t really think, they don’t dig deep, and they aren’t discerning.
Comment by Tim Brownson on 17 November 2009:

@ Jason – Excatly that!

@ Ryan – Your comment made me think about giving feedback. Most people know of the feedback sandwich in which you say something good,m slip in the areas to improve and finish with something good.

Stephens review didn’t weigh on me at all, although I knew there was a risk it may look that way when I wrote the post. I was more curious to get what other people thought and it seemed about half of those that commented got the same opinion.

But as I said in the post my initial opinion in this case was wrong.
Comment by Florin on 18 November 2009:

simply cool :)
Comment by Moonpie on 18 November 2009:

Well now then you’ve confused the bejeebers out of me and I needed to refer to your post in order to say to you, “No sir, I did not directly prove your point,” or however it was you replied in the comments, because in your post you claim to have reread the review three (3) times before deciding there was plenty o’ good and positive stuff said in the instant review. Me, on the other hand, I saw the good saw RIGHT off the bat: Right off the homerun review bat, as it were. Again, apart from the other positive stuff written, the man offered to refund money HIMSELF. And that was just one really cool thing he said, but a way cool thing no matter how you look at it. The FIRST time. 8~)

In other news, I saw a cool bumper sticker on a car (of all places) this afternoon: “Non-Judgmental Day Is Coming! Are You Ready?” Is has nothing to do with any of this, but what a great forum in which to share it!

Peace Out, you squirrely, well-reviewed book author.

Mo
Comment by M on 18 November 2009:

Well Tim, I’m excited. And I just ordered the book :)

And yes, I’ve been following your blog for around a month now (came over from Johnny Truant’s blog), and since I am already familiar with NLP (used in other settings), I added you to my RSS feeds.
Comment by Christian on 18 November 2009:

Hello Tim,

I did you exercise, and actually I thought it was a pretty good review by the end. (Although I might have been a bit more on my toes than usual from your opening of “go read this first, then I’ll talk about it and ask you a question”.) I can understand though why it’s not the kind of review you might want to print out on the back cover of the second edition of your Rich and Happy book, even though the review is very positive overall.

In my honest opinion though, you are setting yourself up a bit for these kinds of reviews – or at least first impressions – by giving your book a title like “How to be Rich and Happy”. I remember my first impression after learning of the title being somewhat similar to that of said review. Don’t get me wrong, because I did buy a copy of the book, so I must have moved beyond that first impression. But for the first second, what was going through my mind was “Yeah right, like everyone who uses this book is going to become a multimillionaire and get the perfect happy life!” (Although maybe I’m in the minority.) On the other hand, once I learned what you guys mean by that, and once my brain adds what I know from you from reading your blog for a while, it starts to make sense in a more sensible way. And from reading your blog, I must say that I find the title of the book, if I may say so, very Brownsonesque. And I mean that in a good way. I guess said title is meant to be read in a slightly sarcastic, Queen’s English accent. (Readers are referred to pretty much any good BBC comedy show for live examples of said slight sarcasm, and accent. :-) )

I hope that was useful (and not taken in a wrong way).
Comment by Tim Brownson on 19 November 2009:

@ moonpie – The actual comment I left was after the first read and I went back and re-read to understand why I had a ‘feeling’ that it wasn’t as great as the words may have suggested.

It seems there is a split very much down the middle from people, so there is a case to be made to think people were ‘anchored’

And anyway, I said and have said I was wrong so many times now even my wife is fed up with hearing something that is normally music to her ears ;-)

@ m – Thanks very much and I’m sure you’ll get lots from it.

@ Christian – Some excellent points, especially about me ‘priming’ people.

We know we’re setting ourselves up, I really resisted both the pricing and name to begin with, but I’m comfortable with both now.

The name was actually Johns idea so I guess it must be Sterleckyesque too ;-)
Comment by Doug on 19 November 2009:

My initial impression of the review was that I was about to be marketed to. In other words, I had the sense that he was setting a (perhaps) unexpectedly downward tone at the beginning that he was somehow going to turn around into a gushing lovefest. In other words, an elaborate version of something like “I don’t like this book. I LOVE IT!”

In the end, it was a positive review, but suffice to say I wouldn’t want this gentleman writing my sales copy.
Comment by Flo on 20 November 2009:

Hi guys. Tim, the review was positive but not over the top. But I think it’s all relative; there’s no “right” or “wrong” – it’s just about changing perspectives. And, yes, I agree with Lori: our Aristotelian mind is “programmed” too much to judge things in terms of good or bad / right or wrong (or black and white). It’s not easy to deal with the shades of gray. Cheers!
Comment by Laurie on 22 November 2009:

I totally agree with you Tim. When I read it, I thought wow this guy is starting off negative. It did discount the positives he spoke about later in the post. I ended up by devaluing his positives because I heard the negatives first I felt like his negatives carried more weight.

Having the book myself, his review confused me since I think it’s the best thing since buttered bread. Knowing you, and knowing your book, I ended up not valuing his review.
Comment by Tim Brownson on 22 November 2009:

@ Doug – I laughed my ass off at your last comment, thanks fir that!

@ Flo – Yeh I pretty much agree with that assessment.

@ Laurie I honestly do value the review. I think it was fair and honest and people can only tell it how they see it. There was lots of positives to be taken from it and I’m grateful to Stephen.
Comment by Vlad Dolezal on 24 November 2009:

Nice way to demonstrate first impressions with an example… while sneakily getting us to read yet another review of your book :p

I’ve got an idea though – maybe we’re simply so used to over-the-top gushing-with-excitement sales letters that a reasonably calm, slightly positive one seems like a negative one by comparison?

You know, like that optical illusion ( http://jpdery.com/images/size-balls.jpg ).
Comment by Tim Brownson on 24 November 2009:

@ Vlad – So cynical for one so young ;-)