16 May 2006

Lessons from Suicide

535 words

April was rougher than usual in our crazy country, wasn�t it? A police sergeant wiped out seven people and got himself shot in the process. Almost a week later another policeman took out someone close to him.

Have you noticed that bad things seem to happen in threes?

Even with our national sport (no, it�s not soccer) � a number of high profile members of our community were accused of rape � Jacob Zuma, Benedict Vilakazi, another soccer star whose name escapes me and a diplomat in Saudi Arabia. Even cash-in-transit robberies seem to happen right after one another. Not to speak about highly publicised acts of violence that causes the copycats to slither from under their rocks.

Why do we have copycat suicides, homicides and the like?

Professor David Phillips of the University of California found the answer and called it the �Werther effect.�

Johann von Goethe wrote a book called The Sorrows of Young Werther. In the book, Werther commits suicide. This fictional suicide caused a wave of copycat suicides across Europe. The suicide rate got so bad that the novel was banned in several countries.

Professor Phillips found that following a front-page suicide story the suicide rate increased dramatically in those geographical areas where the story had been highly publicised.

He undertook a study of suicides in the United States between 1947 and 1968. He discovered that within 2 months of every front-page suicide story, an average of 58 more people than usual killed themselves. And that�s not taking into account the one�s that look like accidents (car accidents, plane crashes), but are actually suicides (to protect their reputations, to allow their family to collect the insurance and so on).

Incidents are at their acme on day three and seven. I�m certainly going to be more careful on the road or delay my flight three days after a suicide has been publicised. I�ll take out more insurance seven days after the story and will start to breathe a sigh of relief and continue as normal by day 11 when the Werther effect disappears.

So, how does this macabre information I�ve shared with you Jacques , help you increase your sales?

Quite simply, 95% of us are copycats. We need to be shown the way. When we�re unsure, we�ll try and find certainty by what others have done.

That�s why it may be an idea to actively get testimonials from your existing clients saying that they have used you and that they have found you superb. Your prospect has the following conversation in her head, �If they�re good enough for Mary, they must be good enough for me.� This makes her feel safe.

It�s the human condition to escape from uncertainty to the safety net of certainty.

It�s our jobs as persuaders to make our clients feel safe and �certain� so that they will buy our proposed solution. So, go out and get those testimonial letters from your happy clients so that you can give your prospect certainty that you are the real deal.

Next week I'll talk about the Jonestown mass suicide (910 deaths) and how you can use the one technique used by Jim Jones to increase your sales.

 Copyright 2006 by Jacques de Villiers 

This article may be copied or republished with the following credit:

"By Jacques de Villiers, Inspirational Speaker, Johannesburg, South Africa.
+27 (0) 82 906 3693   www.jacquesdevilliers.com "