In 2009, back when Twitter was blowing up, a friend of mine had an idea for a website.
It was called 5 Out Of 6, and it was a kind of “Hot or Not” for ironic fake statistics, all starting with “5 out of 6…” Here are a few examples:
“5 out of 6 bananas aren’t slippery”
“5 out of 6 Elvis songs contain the word ‘well'”
“5 out of 6 U-turns are illegal”
People could vote on which fake statistics they found funny, and they could submit their own fake statistics into the mix.
The plan was to make this website go viral, then take the best fake statistics, put them into a coffee table book, and get Oprah to endorse it. Millions of dollars would follow easily.
Alas. It did not work out.
But there was sound psychology behind the idea.
It turns out that people understand statements such as “5 out of 6 bananas” much better than “83% of bananas.”
I found out about this from Nobel-winning psychologist Daniel Kahneman. Here’s the relevant passage from his book, Thinking, Fast and Slow:
“Why is the question ‘How many of the 100 participants…’ so much easier than ‘What percentage…’? […] The solution to the puzzle appears to be that a question phrased as ‘How many?’ makes you think of individuals, but the same question phrased as ‘What percentage?’ does not.”
In short, this is just one of those quirks of the human brain. Our brains like stories, individual people, and human-scale ideas. We don’t do well with statistics, large numbers, or abstractions.
That’s something to remember the next time you have to present numbers in a sales message.
The thing is, in 5 out of 6 pieces of sales copy, it won’t matter whether you use “how many” or “what percentage.”
It won’t matter if you use “but” instead of “and.”
And it won’t matter whether you call your offer “swoon-worthy” or “dazzling.”
That’s because in 5 out of 6 cases, what you say matters much more than how you say it.
I’ll talk more about this tomorrow. For now, if you want some swoon-worthy copy for your business, then act now, don’t risk delaying, and take me up on this free offer: