Outliers are Interesting, But They Rarely Matter

Outliers are interesting, but they rarely matter.

Does that statement trouble you?

Are you already thinking of exceptions that would disprove it?

Thank you for continuing to read.

When we hear an unexpected statement such as, “Outliers are interesting, but they rarely matter,” there is something within each of us that immediately tries to think of exceptions to it. 

But the statement is true, nonetheless.

Allow me to make another true statement. “If there were no outliers, there would be no new inventions, no innovations, no progress. We would be trapped forever in the status quo.”

Outliers rarely matter, but I also believe that there would be no progress without them.

I am an ad writer.

When I was in my 20s, I was told,

“People never change their mind. If you give a person the same information they were given in the past, they will make the same decisions they made in the past. When a person appears to have ‘changed their mind,’ what they have really done is made a new decision based on new information.”

By the time I was in my 40’s, I had realized that people don’t trust new information when it disagrees with their belief system.

New information may allow you to win an argument, but it rarely wins the heart.

A person convinced against their will remains unconvinced, still.

Bertrand Russell was a mathematician and a logician. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature eight years before I was born.

Russell observed,

“If a man is offered a fact which goes against his instincts, he will scrutinize it closely, and unless the evidence is overwhelming, he will refuse to believe it. If, on the other hand, he is offered something which affords a reason for acting in accordance with his instincts, he will accept it even on the slenderest evidence.”

This is the important part of what Russell said. “Give a man a reason for acting in accordance with his instincts, and he will accept it even on the slenderest evidence.”

When your goal is persuasion, don’t begin with new information. Begin by agreeing with what people already believe. Meet them where they are. Only then can you hope to lead them to where you want them to go.

Abraham Lincoln knew that persuasion is easier when you begin at a point of mutual agreement.

“If you would win a man to your cause, first convince him that you are his sincere friend. Therein is a drop of honey that catches his heart, which, say what you will, is the greatest high-road to his reason, and which, when once gained, you will find but little trouble in convincing his judgment of the justice of your cause.” – Abraham Lincoln

Abraham Lincoln knew that if you win the heart, the mind will follow. The mind will always create logic to justify what the heart has already decided.

Lincoln understood relational marketing, which is the art of changing the beliefs of a person by shifting their perspective a little, rather than by introducing new facts.

Ad writer, always agree with an existing belief whenever you can. You will find it far more effective than trying to convince your customer to accept information that contradicts what they believe. When you ask your customer to embrace contradictory information, you are asking them to admit that they have been a fool.

Ignore the outlier who tells you that people will not be persuaded by your ad. When an outlier says “people,” what they really mean is “me and all my friends.” Outliers do not speak for the majority. That is why they are called “outliers.”

“Outliers are interesting, but they rarely matter,” is the perspective of a relational ad writer.

Most ads are not written to persuade; they are written not to offend. Effective ads will always move some people in the opposite direction than you desired. 

You don’t need to win the hearts of everyone.

You only need to win the hearts of the majority.

Roy H. Williams