There’s a particular kind of defeat that only happens to people who did their homework.

When the sloppy pitch gets dismissed, everyone understands why.

But the rigorous one, the one where every number checks out and every box is ticked, sometimes gets dismissed too, and that one hits us differently. If it’s ever made you doubt whether facts still count for anything, this issue is for you. Facts count. They’re just not doing the job you think they're doing.

Table of Contents

1. ​Essay​
2. ​PDF Version​
3. ​Real reasons in real life​
4. ​Action Guide​

Essay:

If the facts are on your side, why did they say no?

Shoppers in a supermarket were asked to participate in a market research study. Two flavors of jam were presented to them and they had to decide which one tasted better. After they tasted their favorite flavor a second time, they were asked why they liked it better.

The catch: In the meantime, the two flavors had been exchanged so that they, in fact, tasted the less favored choice a second time. The surprising outcome was that more than half of the participants didn’t even notice and still found reasons why the flavor that they tasted the second time tasted, well, better.

Don’t believe me? Watch this 2 minute documentary about a phenomenon called decision blindness:

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And this is not at all related to taste. The same experimental setup was repeated multiple times in different contexts. Men should choose among two images of women and were asked which one they liked better (and vice versa). Shoppers had to reason why they preferred a laptop configuration over another and when they had to justify their choice they found themselves arguing for the configuration they didn’t choose.

It turns out that, as humans, we’re pretty good at finding reasons for the things we do.

Rather than doing the things that we find good reasons for.

How much are we blinded by our choices?

This broader phenomenon is called choice blindness. Once we have decided upon something, we tend to look for (and find) good reasons for why this was a good decision, no matter how we came to that decision.

This line, often attributed to J.P. Morgan, describes it crisply:

If you’re honest with yourself, you’re no exception. I’m certainly not. More importantly, neither is your audience.

And that’s how they can dismiss a perfectly reasonable case and it makes absolutely no sense to you.

They say …

“We tried something like this in 2019. It didn't work.” (Yeah, but it’s not 2019 and this is actually different, didn’t I just demonstrate this?)

“I'm not sure the timing is right.” (Even though you literally just showed them it would work now under the current conditions.)

“The integration risk is too high at this stage.” (What? The risk of not integrating is much higher.)

“Interesting. How does this fit with what Marketing is doing?” (How does this even matter?)

And just like that you find yourself in an argument of good reasons with someone who has already made a decision based on their real reason but won’t say so. Worse, they might not even know it themselves.

When you catch yourself in an argument of good reasons, stop arguing, because every point you win hardens the decision you’re arguing against. Arguing with the good reasons is like arguing with the jam.

Here’s the thing: The real reason may have nothing to do with what you just said. That’s why sometimes, it feels like an argument comes right out of left field. For reasons you’ll never know or understand.

The reasons behind the reasons

Let’s look at a couple of reasons why we really decide for something:

Loyalty: we always buy from this brand
​Fingers burnt: we tried something like this before and it didn’t work
​Recommendation: a friend who we trust recommended it to us
​Ethics: we refuse to buy from this sort of business
​Sympathy: I don’t like you
​Identity: People like me choose like this
​Budget constraints: my boss won’t approve the budget so I need something cheaper (and won’t say so)
​Status: this thing will boost my status
​Belonging: my friends own this, too
​Aesthetics: it looks gorgeous
… and many more

To make matters worse, your real reasons are not mine. Which is why we may come to completely different conclusions while looking at the exact same facts.

That’s what makes this so hard to understand for smart thinkers. We don’t disagree on the facts. The facts are real and undisputed. They just don’t lead us to the same conclusion. We weigh and use them differently.

And this is why, it’s a waste of resources to build a case unless you’ve uncovered the real reason why someone would agree with you. Not should, would.

Your good reasons are not going to change a decision that was already made elsewhere.

How we buy cars

Let’s look at cars as an example. There are at least a hundred good reasons why a Porsche would be a better car than either a Mitsubishi or a Nissan. The opposite is true as well, of course. I believe that never even once has a Porsche been sold for any of these reasons. As this ad beautifully proves:

One reason for buying a Porsche is “because you now can”. You are now in a position that you can make your youth dreams come true. And that’s what some people do when they buy a Porsche. At least this is what Porsche’s ad suggests.

If you belong to the group of people who resonate with this kind of message, what this ad does for you is that, from now on, whenever you see a Porsche, you’ll see someone having made their youth dream a reality. And Porsche hopes that you go on to ask yourself: “Why didn’t I?”

The reasons why we choose a product, approve a project or spread an idea are quite diverse. And they might be totally different from the reason we had for developing it.

Yet, people aren’t choosing it to do us a favor. They are choosing it because it resonates with them in a rather personal way. In particular, it’s often not the technical details or the features that makes them choose it (although it can be).

A few years back, I stumbled upon this image of a car:

I’m pretty sure that no other promise would have sold that car better than this short shoutout: “Runs great!”

Whoever is going to buy this car is looking for a car that brings them from here to there. A car that just runs, preferably great. No professional photo shooting by a star photographer would have resonated better. Neither any elaborate statistics about the car’s technical details, such as energy efficiency, fuel consumption etc.

The story “runs great” just resonates with the people who it’s for. It attaches to what that person already believes in. It doesn’t persuade them to buy something they don’t want. It sells them precisely the thing they do want and frames the offer in these terms using their language.

John Caples, the copywriter who wrote this famous ad, once framed it like this:

“Runs great!” is a perfectly valid reason to buy a car. As is “I deserve my youth dream to come true”.

The good reasons are almost never the problem

Caples later said:

“Appeal” is his word for the “real reason.” The thing is that the good reasons are almost never the problem. If you’ve done your homework, if your point is genuinely worth your audience’s attention, you’ll always have enough good reasons to support your point.

The ROI hits 23% against a 15% hurdle rate. Three of the five customers you interviewed used the word "finally." The pilot ran for six weeks and nobody asked to go back. Your biggest competitor announced the same thing at their user conference in March. Legal already signed off. Twice, because you asked twice.

Every number checks out. Every box is ticked.

They will only matter if you’ve built them into a story based on their real reason.

Don’t get me wrong. This is not to dismiss the good reasons and the rational arguments. Quite the opposite. They are absolutely necessary to justify the real reason. Your audience will need them (and possibly a lot of them) to argue why their decision for your product is a good one.

They need to argue towards their boss, their partner, and even themselves.

But …

Not to make the decision. To justify it.

Even if you guard against this bias yourself. Even if you've set up systems to reach your conclusions on a purely (or mostly) rational basis. Your audience might not go to the same extremes. They might not even be aware of their bias.

This can ruin your whole talk before you even say a word. They might hear your good reasons completely differently than you intended them.

You’ve made a perfect case. But it was your case, not theirs.

The good news is that if you’ve invested the metaphorical 11 months to find the appeal first, then all the good reasons to support the argument will usually be there. You just need to stack them up.

And that’s how your case becomes their case.

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Prefer to read offline?

→ What the Best Leaders Say – Issue 18.pdf​

Real reasons in real life

There are many good reasons to choose a flexible plan for your insurance, SwissLife chose to advertise this real reason:

One of the most influential political campaigns in German history, lobbying for the 5-day work week. Roughly translates to “On Saturday, daddy’s mine.”

No one has ever bought a Moleskine for its features. Their marketing bets on their customers’ identity as creatives. And creatives buy notebooks for creative people.

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Action Guide

→ Download a full resolution version​

Closing Thoughts

I’ve saved the bad news for last, but I’d rather you hear it from me than discover it the hard way.

Everything in this essay applies to you too. You’ve already decided that your case is strong, likely weeks ago. And ever since, you’ve been doing exactly what the shoppers in the supermarket did: finding good reasons for a decision that effectively was already made. The difference between you and your audience isn’t that they’re biased and you’re not. It’s that you’ve had more time to stack up justifications.

Which means the one question that matters most, why would they say yes, is precisely the question you’re least equipped to answer alone. Not because you lack the intelligence. Because you’re standing inside your own case. From in there, every reason looks like a real reason. The jam always tastes right when it’s your jam.

The leaders I work with don’t struggle to build arguments. They struggle to see which argument was theirs all along and what will actually make the audience listen up. That distinction is very difficult to make from the inside, but it’s the entire game.

You could get lucky. Sometimes your reasons and their real reason happen to line up. But the moments this newsletter is about, the board decision, the strategy announcement, the pitch that only comes around once, are not the moments to bet on luck.

Caples gave the appeal eleven months. Your next big moment probably gives you a few weeks.

​Reach out if you want my help.

Keep lighting the path,
Michael