Outliers are Interesting, But They Rarely Matter

Let me say that again: outliers are interesting, but they rarely matter.

If you disagree with that statement and have already begun to think of specific examples that would disprove it, thank you for continuing to read.

When we hear a surprising, declarative statement such as, “Outliers are interesting, but they rarely matter,” there is something within each of us that begins to think of exceptions to it. Am I right?

Allow me to make two more bold, declarative statements. “If there were no outliers, there would be no new inventions, no innovations, no progress. We would be forever trapped in the status quo.”

I believe that 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.

You can win the argument without winning 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.”

Here is what I learned from Bertrand Russell. “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 they already believe. Meet people where they are at. 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.

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

As an ad writer, I don’t need to win the hearts of everyone.

I only need to win the hearts of the majority.

Roy H. Williams