Two days ago I was in Barajas, an outskirt of Madrid where the airport lies.
Next to my hotel, on a wall separating the parking lot from a dirt field, was a very fancy mural.
It showed a life-sized football player dribbling a ball… and the logo of the local club, Club Deportivo Barajas.
Here’s what got to me:
CD Barajas is not a major Spanish football club. They are not very good at all, and they would probabaly lose if they had to play with the under-16 squad of a La Liga team.
And yet, some patriotic Barajas resident was willing to put in the time and effort to make this mural on an ugly and dirty wall next to an airport hotel.
This connects to an idea that weaves through much of persuasion… but that few places talk about explicitly.
You’ve probably heard of WIIFM, what’s in it for me. That’s the mental radio station that’s playing whenever your prospects hear your sales pitch.
But WIIFM is part of a broader ownership instinct we all have. Because we all have a special receiver that’s tuned into frequencies that report on things that belong to us.
Victor Schwab wrote that given a fountain pen, 96% of college women wrote their own names. Shown a map of the USA, 447 men out of 500 looked first for the location of their home towns.
Think about the music you listened to as a teenager… towns you lived in in the past… the breed of dog you had as a kid… your own birthday… the year you were born.
If you hear these mentioned somewhere, odds are your ears perk up, and you tune in your mental receiver to hear more.
The same is true for your prospect. So start broadcasting on a frequency where your prospect feels some ownership. He will listen, and pay attention. Which is a huge part of what you need to sell him anything.
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