What does brain science really teach us about LinkedIn marketing for B2B marketers?

In this episode of Social Media for B2B Growth, LinkedIn expert Michelle J Raymond is joined by marketing behavioural science specialist Nancy Harhut to break down how emotion, relevance, repetition, and buyer psychology shape decision-making on LinkedIn.

You’ll learn why B2B buyers are never purely rational, why niche LinkedIn content outperforms broad thought leadership, and how to create LinkedIn marketing that drives trust, engagement, and sales — without sounding salesy.

If you’re a B2B marketer using LinkedIn as a growth channel, this episode will change how you plan, write, and prioritise your LinkedIn content.

Key moments in this episode -

00:00 LinkedIn Marketing Myths in B2B

02:50 Emotion and Decision-Making in LinkedIn Marketing

05:45 Fear, FOMO, and Loss Aversion on LinkedIn

08:20 Repetition and Trust in LinkedIn Marketing

11:35 LinkedIn’s Shift from Reach to Relevance

14:50 Niche LinkedIn Marketing for B2B Growth

18:15 Reducing Friction in LinkedIn Marketing Content

22:25 Why Your Product Shouldn’t Be the Hero on LinkedIn

25:45 One LinkedIn Marketing Change B2B Marketers Should Make

29:10 The Future of LinkedIn Marketing for B2B Brands

CONNECT WITH MICHELLE J RAYMOND

1. Michelle J Raymond on LinkedIn
2. Book a free intro call
3. https://socialmediaforb2bgrowthpodcast.com/
4. B2B Growth Co newsletter

Today's episode is sponsored by Metricool. Make sure to register for a FREE Metricool account today. Use Code MICHELLE30 to try any Premium Plan FREE for 30 days. https://metricool.com/michellejraymond/?utm_source=podcast&utm_medium=influencer&utm_campaign=20260106_michelle-raymond_jan-sm-study_en&utm_content=audio&utm_term=q1

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G'Day everyone.

It's Coach Michelle J Raymond, your trusted guide for building your

brand and your business on LinkedIn.

And listeners, we've been doing a series of having my guests who are experts

who also happen to be my friends, and I am so lucky to have this person

coming on the show for the second time.

Nancy Harhut, welcome back to the show.

Oh my gosh.

I am so excited to be here.

Michelle, thank you so much for calling me a friend and for

having me on the show again.

Really appreciate it.

Look, I am so glad that we got to actually cross paths at Social Media

Marketing World earlier this year, and unfortunately we won't get to do it next

year, but it was one of those sessions that when I was sitting in the room,

I just watched people around me as you were speaking, scribbling so many notes,

like they were going mad, like, don't forget this tip that Nancy's giving them.

And for people that weren't in the room.

You should go and buy Nancy's book, which is called Using behavioural

Science in Marketing, and I'll put all those details in the show notes so

that people can go and check it out.

It is just jam packed full of so much goodness.

And you said you are gonna share a little bit about that today in "How Brain Science

Can Teach Us About LinkedIn Marketing".

Are you ready?

Nancy?

Are you ready?

I am ready.

Yes, let's do it.

Alright, let's do it right after this short word about

our podcast sponsors Metricool.

Okay, Nancy, we are back and we are going to get into this one.

And unlike Jay Schwedelson, there are no weird things that you need to

eat or hot wings challenges coming.

This is straight into it.

Your best tips and I wanna ask the first question because my audience

are B2B marketers and they're often responsible for all kinds of things.

But one of the problems that I see keep popping up that I learned from

you is that I think most B2B marketers out there still think that B2B

buyers just make rational decisions.

I'd like to know from a brain science point of view.

Why is that such a dangerous marketing assumption, especially when it

comes to their LinkedIn marketing?

Sure.

I mean, it is absolutely a very common misconception, no question about it,

and there is an element of truth to it.

Certainly B2B buyers make decisions for the good of the company.

So they're thinking about things that, you know, in, in rational terms.

Absolutely.

But it doesn't stop there.

Right?

At the end of the day, people are people, whether they're at home, whether

they're at work, people are people, and behavioural scientists have found that

we all need to access the emotional parts of our brain in order to make decisions.

Right?

There's a researcher named Antonio Demasio.

And he conducted research among people whose, uh, brains had been damaged

and it was the part of the brain that was damaged that controls emotion.

And what he found was they were virtually incapable of making a decision,

even a very simple decision like, what would you like for lunch today?

They couldn't decide.

They go back and forth and back and forth.

They couldn't land.

And he found that we, people, humans, need to access the emotional parts of

our brain in order to make decisions.

So if you are, a B2B marketer.

And you're thinking, oh, it's all about facts and figures and speeds and feeds,

and let's just keep this very rational.

You are going to leave money on the table.

Some of your messages will connect.

Sometimes they'll just happen to land right in front of someone who's really

interested in that topic or ready to buy.

But you are not gonna reach as many people.

You're not gonna build the connection with as many people, and you're

not gonna convert as many people.

Even the, The B2B Institute has found that emotion in B2B messages drives seven

times the sales, the revenue, and the profitability of the marketing messages.

So, you know, it really, it's, it's proven.

In market, it's proven by behavioural science.

We really want to have some of that emotion.

We don't wanna walk away from the rational sales points, but we want both.

We, we know that people make decisions for emotional reasons and then quickly

justify those decisions to themselves and to other people with the rational reasons.

So what we want is that nice balance of both of them.

Are we better off speaking to the fear side of those emotions or the

positive side, like are people.

Looking for confidence boosters or, uh oh, don't let me make that bad decision.

So I look like I've made the wrong one to my peers.

Uh, you know, it depends.

People are looking for a little of both.

Very often we wanna be reassured, uh, we don't wanna look bad to the boss.

We don't wanna look bad to our peers, we don't wanna look bad to the board.

We don't wanna make a, a decision and then find, oh my gosh, getting this up the

food chain is just an enormous amount of work, or onboarding people is, is keeping

me here nights and weekends, you know?

We're looking for reassurance.

But we also, don't wanna miss out on things.

And behavioural science has shown us that people are actually twice as

motivated to avoid the pain of loss as they are to achieve the pleasure of gain.

And in marketing, we usually focus on the gains, the advantages to benefits, all

the wonderful things that will happen if you just choose me, become my company,

my customer sign up for, uh, my service.

Right?

And I, I don't think we need to walk away from that.

In fact, I know we don't want need to walk away from benefits, but there

are times when a little well-placed loss aversion can go a long way.

And so maybe what you wanna do is you wanna point out the pain someone will

be in if they don't do what you're asking them to, or point out the

pain they can avoid if they in fact do what you're asking them to do.

So sometimes people need that reassurance.

They wanna feel like, okay, I'm making a, a good decision and

there's not gonna be a problem.

Other times they need that little extra nudge of, you know, being faced with the

pain of loss that they're likely going to encounter if they don't make the move.

If they don't, click the button if they don't, uh, become a customer.

You wanna judge the, the context and the market and have a little bit of both.

The FOMO is real.

You guys have had Thanksgiving offers, we've had Black Friday offers,

we've got the Christmas offers, soon we'll have the new year offers, like

there are offers coming like left, right, and centre every which way.

And I'm a sucker for when it is, you know, we're down to the last few available, the

time's running out, these kinds of things.

That's when I am going, uh oh.

If I don't do this, I'm gonna miss out on this deal.

And it may not come around.

Knowing full well that the game is, it's gonna come round in about

another five minutes if I just wait.

But patience isn't my virtue, my friend.

Shout out to all the marketers who prey on people like me, poor, innocent

people like me, who can't wait.

But you know what, Michelle, it's not your fault because human

beings are actually hardwired to want that instant gratification.

behavioural scientists talk about something called present focused bias,

and we want what we want and we want it now, and we don't like to wait and

we will discount, uh, later rewards.

So we'll take a smaller but sooner reward.

Over a larger but later one.

Experiment after experiment after experiment has proven that.

So you're not alone.

You know, we want what we want, we want it now.

And uh, and if we think that we are, we're about to lose it,

that's when we're gonna grab it.

Absolutely.

Oh my God.

I'm gonna take this clip and I'm gonna play it for Lil every time

I'm doing my online shopping.

So thank you for this clip if nothing else.

The other thing that I think comes up, Nancy, in a lot of conversations,

so I'm helping people say with their LinkedIn company pages, we are writing

content, putting it out there and obviously that frequency piece comes up.

What happens is we come back to the conversation around, we've already

said that we've said it before.

Oh, do we have to, you know, show up that often?

Why does repeated exposure matter so much in B2B and how should marketers think

about that when we are using LinkedIn?

Because this is another clip that I'm gonna want to use with my clients and

say, we can't just post once and then expect that message to get across.

But I know you and you always come and bring the receipts of why this

is gonna be worth it for people.

One of the reasons is the effect that repetition has on the human brain.

So when we hear something often, it becomes familiar.

And when something becomes familiar, it feels more truthful, it feels

more real, it feels more trusted.

And as a result, we're much more likely to accept it.

We're gonna remember that name, we're gonna remember that company.

We're gonna remember that product or that service.

It's gonna feel familiar and it's gonna feel right.

It's easy for us to recall something.

And when it's easy for the brain to recall something, easy for the brain to process

something, it feels right and it's not a big leap to assume that it is, right?

So suddenly this, this is the right choice.

And then I think, the other reason simply is people are scattered.

Their attention is, you know, divided across so many different things.

You post something once, if it doesn't happen to pop up when somebody is

scrolling at that particular moment, they're just not gonna see it.

And you're like, well, I've, I put it out there.

It's like, well, good for you.

Repeating our message, it, it reinforces it for those who have seen it.

And we know that that's good.

And it also widens the chance that we're gonna reach our market and

we're gonna at least get some of our messages in front of them.

It might feel like a little bit more work on our part, but

we absolutely need to do it.

The wonderful brain science benefit is the more someone hears our name, our product,

our, you know, our benefit, our value proposition, the more real it becomes,

the more likely they are to believe it.

And that's a good thing.

I have a question for you.

'cause there's some stats that get thrown around from time to time on LinkedIn and

I don't even know where they started, so I'm just putting it out there.

I can't quote it.

But once upon a time, it used to be, you know, people need to hear something

seven times before they remember it.

And then someone would say a year later, it's 14 times and

then it was like 32 times.

Like have we gotten worse at being able to remember and recall stuff as a human race?

Or is there something that we can do that's like, no, this

is the number or frequency.

What are your brain science things?

Tell us about this.

Yeah, that's an interesting question.

And I have seen those varying stats, whether it's seven or 14 or 21 or 30,

there's definitely some truth to them because we're not completely focused.

We're cruising along on autopilot and we may or may not engage.

There is some research that shows that even if you remember something,

if it's not relevant to you, it kind of doesn't make a difference.

If I can recall the message in the brand, but that brand didn't make

an emotional connection with me, it's not really gonna be helpful to

me, and as a result to the brand.

And there's some research that also shows that even if you can't immediately

recall something, but it's more something that you notice subconsciously, it

still can impact your behaviour.

Again, going back to repetition, this is a very good thing, right?

So it's, it's hard to say, you know, what that magic number

is, but what we do know is.

We wanna be out there with our message.

We wanna be out there with our message, but it, it's gotta be the right message.

It's gotta be a message that connects with people that has some emotion

that maybe has a good story, so that people feel that the relevance is

there, and if the relevance is there, our brain encodes that message.

Because we know we're going to need it for the future.

It's like, oh, this is gonna be important to me.

This is something I'm interested in.

This is something that can help me either achieve something or avoid something

painful, but it's relevant to me.

And so it gets kind of tucked away in our brains, and it's

there for us when we need it.

Relevance is something Nancy, that is definitely I'm gonna say the

topic de jour on LinkedIn right now.

So if we rewind the clock a little bit back to June, the

world changed on LinkedIn.

So once upon a time we could rely on certain reach ie our content being

shown to as many people as possible that, LinkedIn determined and then

they shifted everything and they were moving it towards relevance.

So not as many people, but hopefully the right people and

it's been an interesting year.

I am gonna put it out there that I've really struggled with this

change because I was addicted to the impressions just like everybody else.

But tell me from a behavioural science point of view, why might niche and

specific messages outperform kind of more broad thought leadership that used

to, you know, hit a wider audience.

Will I be seeing results from this relevance play that

LinkedIn tells me I will?

One can never say for sure if what LinkedIn says is actually going to, you

know, perhaps, you know, let's hope.

But what I can say is that brain scientists talk about something called

self-concept and that is this idea that people will seek out, products and brands

that reflect well on them that either reflect how they see themselves or how

they would like the world to see them.

And so when we stop casting that really wide net and we get a little

bit more niche and a little bit more specific, it gives us the opportunity

to build that community, to have people say, yes, that's the company

for me, that's the brand for me.

That's the the one that I wanna be associated with.

That's the community that I wanna be part of.

And that can be a very good thing because.

Once you can make that connection with a, a customer or a prospective customer,

uh, it becomes really sticky, right?

You get that emotional bond and people are kind of wed to you.

If you can get that customer, you're gonna keep that customer.

So having that more specific, more niche content helps build those smaller

communities, where people are attracted by this is the brand that reflects

who I am, or this is the brand that reflects the way I'd like to be seen.

So it builds that exclusivity, which is another thing that

behavioural scientists talk about.

If everybody can have something, well we may or may not be interested, but

if it's only for certain people and we wanna be part of that exclusive group,

that can be very, very, very motivating.

So when you start to craft your content set up those guardrails that you're

not trying to be every, everything to everyone, but you're for a very specific

kind of person or group of people, that kind of adds to that exclusivity

and, that makes people feel good.

It is one of those things that I would have to say over the last few months for

myself and my own business right now that I've been reflecting on, because I think

it's easy when we're creating content and often on the fly, we start off with great

strategies and then life happens and then we move into just get the post done or

something grabs our attention, and then all of a sudden you drift off course.

That tightness in your message of who you're speaking to all of

a sudden dissipates over time.

And I think that's what I've noticed with my own content is that it starts

off small and it's just like just one post here, and then it's one post

there, and then all of a sudden those posts get a little bit closer together.

And we're at the end of the year and I'm thinking.

I love my audience of B2B marketers like they are my target.

And if I go back and specifically look at some of the content that I've been

putting out, and whether that's the podcast, whether it's videos, whether

it's LinkedIn posts, I realise that I've probably become a little more

everything to everyone as you said.

And that is where the power is lost.

When I was the Company Page Queen and that's all people knew me for, like

the opportunities come flooding in, whether it's speaking, whether it's

clients, it was really clear in that clarity I think is just what sells.

And you know, me.

I'm here for how can marketing help me sell more?

I make no apologies for that, but I, I think I've just noticed it for myself.

Do you do check-ins with your clients?

Like how do we get people back on track?

Yeah, that, that's a good question.

I've had this conversation with a couple of clients actually,

where I used to phrase like, you want that steady drumbeat, right?

You've decided what it is you wanna be known for what your,

you know, your message is, your value proposition, your promise.

Call it what you will, but you know what you wanna be known for

and you just need to stick to it.

And it's tempting to say, but I couldn't do other things.

Or I have a perspective on, other issues and, you know, why not expand?

The problem is you start to dilute the message, and that's not gonna

serve you well in the long run.

You know, you might pick up another person here or another person there, but

it really does start to dilute things.

And if you have that, that, that focus, that steady drumbeat where this is

who I am and this is what I stand for.

And, uh, you know, every piece of content that you put out there,

every post that you comment on.

, comes through that lens with that perspective.

That just keeps reinforcing who you are, that adds to how you're gonna

be thought of, how you're gonna be remembered, and it actually makes

you more likely to be remembered.

As tempting as it can be to broaden that tight focus, that steady

drumbeat is what's gonna pay off.

Because, you know, again, we were talking about this earlier, but.

People have a lot on their minds.

There's a lot, trying to, uh, compete for their attention and they're not

spending nearly as much time consuming our content as we are creating it.

They don't spend as much time thinking about it as we spend thinking about it.

And so by coming back to the same essential message, you know, just

over and over and over again, that's what serves us well.

I found with a few clients recently, and these are multinational global brands.

And when I say to them, okay, tell me about this particular product

that they're offering and where is it most likely to be sold into?

And it is always everyone, everywhere we can sell this thing and asking them to

narrow things down would mean saying to somebody else in a different department,

actually, we're focusing on this, not that because we know it will work.

And trying to get people to understand that this will help them sell more, not

less, is a really tricky concept to get across the line because they're like, no,

Michelle, we can sell it to this industry, that industry, this country, that country,

you know, everyone, senior people, junior people, like there's everyone involved.

It's when I start rocking in the corner because I intuitively

know that that's not the case.

And I'm really thankful for one of my clients 'cause they're entering

into a, a new industry where there's two key players already established,

been in the market 25 years.

They're the new kid on the block, have an amazing product.

I'm like, if you try and compete with them on same, same, I know

that you're gonna do it because your content's gonna look the same.

You're gonna sound the same.

You're gonna talk about exactly the same stuff.

And why would I choose the new person over the two existing players in the business

that have those long term relationships and have built a brand in that industry.

And thankfully we found a little niche that we're gonna carve out.

They trusted me on that and very quickly where they haven't been able to get

traction over a, you know, a year or so.

Now they're starting to see it.

Their sales team are now connected to this is the campaign that we are doing.

Because before they were like.

It's all a bit blah, you know, like it was their kind of words.

We don't wanna share it with our audience.

They were reluctant to sell the story.

They didn't want to put the content out on their company

page or their personal profiles.

And so it was just this whole stagnant, they got stuck.

And so I, I think there really is so much power in what you've just shared here.

That I want people to know that I know intuitively that your gut is gonna

tell you, but I can sell anything to everyone and especially at a time

where it's probably tough for a lot of people out there and it makes your

brain see the bigger the pond, the more chance of catching the fish.

Actually, no, let's go fishing in a really small pond, because you've just got such

a bigger chance of actually winning.

So thank you for my personal reminder again, uh, this is a clip I'll play

to myself, just so you know listeners.

Thanks Nancy as always.

As you were saying that, I was thinking of this one client I had where we

literally went to them with data.

Data saying this is who's buying and this is who's not.

So let's save money by only focusing on these people and Yep, yep, yep, yep, yep.

They're nodding through the whole presentation.

Yeah, that makes perfect sense.

And then at the end they said, but you know what?

Just in case someone over there decides to buy, we should just keep

doing it the way we've been doing it.

And it was, it was like, oh my gosh, you know, we just spent an hour.

With all of the data, but you know what you're saying, good for you

for convincing your client to, to do what you know, what the what's right.

Um, but people get nervous that they either are overconfident and

think, yes, I can do it, or they're afraid that they might lose that one.

One person, that one company, that one sale, and it's like,

oh, it's not gonna happen.

You know, it's gonna be a much more efficient, much more effective

sell to narrow things down.

But it's hard.

We're human and we're either, like I said, either over overconfident or

fearful, we're gonna lose someone.

So, good for you for, uh, getting your client on the right track.

I did not succeed with that particular one for, for me, but hey.

Yeah.

'cause we're humans like, and I have so much empathy for people out there

because this is something that, like I said, goes on in my own business.

Like my head knows what I should be doing in this circumstance.

So if anyone out there is listening to this and you're struggling having

that conversation with your managers or your team about going narrow.

I feel for you because this really is something that is so

powerful if you can nail it.

But at the same time, getting everyone in line to think that

going narrow is going to give you a higher chance of increasing sales.

That's a tough call.

So hopefully what Nancy shared today is gonna help people out there.

But Nancy, I wanna move on to something else that you talk about, which is, mental

friction and you talk about trying to reduce that rather than persuade people.

What is that exactly?

And what might that look like on LinkedIn for a post or a campaign?

So when you think about it I wanna persuade people.

What does that mean?

That means I'm gonna try to sell someone and no one really wants to be sold.

Right.

When we push too hard, uh, what happens is something called

psychological reactance, right?

We're pushing someone so hard that they turn around and they push back.

And if I really am trying to sell you this, they're really not gonna buy it.

So we're much better off taking the approach where we allow people

to come to their own conclusion.

And what's wonderful about that is, you know, people may argue with what you

or I tell them to do, but they rarely argue with their own conclusions.

So if we can, create our posts, set up our content so that people

start to go through it and they're nodding and they're coming to their

own, oh, this would be good for me.

This is, oh, this is what I should do.

You know, we're not telling them to do it.

They're thinking it on their own.

And that's what is so valuable.

So instead of coming on strong, and I, I get it, we all wanna sell.

I mean, that's how we stay in business.

We all want to, but instead of coming on with this idea of, I need to

persuade you, what we wanna do is we wanna just present the information

in an interesting, informative, educational, entertaining way.

We wanna have a lead that pulls people right in.

Maybe we wanna tell a story because stories allow the reader, the listener,

to put themselves in the shoes of the main character, which of course

means that the main character should not be the company or the product,

but it should be the customer.

The customer succeeds because of the product, but the

product itself isn't the hero.

We wanna create content like that where people can place themselves in the

shoes of the customer and come to the conclusion on their own that, yeah,

this is something that I should do.

And it, it's not easy because the temptation, of course, is I wanna sell,

I have numbers I need to hit, I've got all this great stuff I wanna say.

So we're very tempted to just lead with that, shove it out there.

But, it really doesn't work because nobody wants to be sold to.

And if we, if we push too hard, they're gonna push right back.

I just read an article, this morning actually it was published

on the, new Newor Marketing Blog, which comes out of the Netherlands.

And they were citing some 2025 research, this year's research that said that if

your social platform gets too salesy.

What happens is, ironically, you make fewer sales, right?

People go on and they want, you know, information and

they, they want the community.

And if the balance starts to to tip over towards too salesy.

What happens is they pull back and they'll comment here and there, but the engagement

isn't as strong and the sales drop off.

That's another reason why, you know, not only do I have to be careful about

which particular platform we choose and what's going on, and keep our eye on

that, 'cause context is important, but it's another reason why we don't want

to get too salesy, because that's just gonna not only ruin it for us, but for

everyone else on the platform, right?

If everyone on LinkedIn is sell, sell, sell.

Based on this research, you know, people are gonna be pulling back

saying, eh, you know, I, I don't, I don't have that same feeling.

I don't have that same trust that I used to have.

When I would go here.

I don't feel like I'm exchanging information with my peers or with

the people that I respect and follow.

I feel like somebody's trying to sell me.

Someone's trying to persuade me, and I don't like that.

It's a very natural human feeling, and so we have to be careful about that.

There was something that you slipped in there that I wanted to go Yes, yes, Nancy.

That is it.

You made a, a comment, I won't quote you, but it was like,

literally, if your product or service is the hero of your post.

I think you've missed the point, and I would agree with that.

I think that's why LinkedIn Company Pages get such a bad rep and the

content doesn't really travel as far.

'cause too often the company or the product or the service

are the hero of the post.

And everybody else is like, eh, who cares?

That's got nothing to do with me.

That's not helping me get closer to my goals.

And I think when you have the ability to take that out and make your customer

or your customer's customers all of a sudden be the focus on how they

got there so that they're the hero.

You're right.

That is so much more relatable and the kind of content that resonates.

And that is when brands get trusted and that's when brands can create community.

And it doesn't have to be all on the personal pages like people

would have you believe, but if you just talk about yourself.

Yeah, it's like when you're at a party and someone just does that and what do you do?

Excuse me, I gotta go grab a drink.

You don't want to be that person when it comes to your LinkedIn content.

I like to give people actionable tips.

You know me, Nancy.

That's how I roll.

And if you had the opportunity to speak directly to B2B marketers, which we do

on this podcast, and you could change just one thing that about how they either

write their content or structure their LinkedIn content to work the brain instead

of against it, what would you recommend?

Well, I mean this, this is a perfect segue actually, um, because what I

would say is, uh, as you're developing your content, the one thing you need

to do is you need to be more customer focused and less company focused, right?

There's plenty of things that you want to say, wonderful things about your company

and your product, and you are excited about it, and you wanna share all that.

But we need to think about not what we, we wanna say, but what our

customers and prospects wanna hear.

And if we start to filter things through that lens.

So we get a very different kind of content.

We'll find ourselves using the words I, we insert company name right?

Far less.

We'll find ourselves using the word you far more often.

We just need to start to see things through our customer's eyes.

And even though there are 20 million things we wanna say about our product,

because it's so wonderful, we need to restrain ourselves and zero in on the

two or three things that are really gonna resonate with our customers and

prospects that are really gonna make a difference for them, that are gonna be

the, information that they're looking for.

Because that's, that's when they're gonna engage.

And so again, less company focused, way more customer focused.

You are not gonna get anything but a huge ditto for me on this one as well.

No surprises there.

You're the expert in this space, but I just see it happen all

too often where it is just all about company, company, company.

You can still talk about the same topics, but you can flip that angle and really

get into the shoes of the person on the other side, and that's what I'm trying

to teach my clients when I'm working with them, especially for company pages, is why

does the person on the other side care?

How are you helping them make more confident buying decisions

or get them closer to their goals?

What are you doing that's helping them, rather than just talk about yourself?

And it can be talking about exactly the same topic, but flipping the script.

Everybody wins.

And you know what?

I'm a fan where everybody wins.

Absolutely.

I mean, it could be, this is a bad example, but it could be as simple as

instead of saying, we're so excited to tell you about our whatever, it's like

you'll be really interested to know that our whatever can help you in this way.

Again, bad example, but it does represent the, the two different ways to get into

something, and our, our temptation is because we're so excited, we, we, I wanna

tell you about this, you know, and it's like, no, no, you might be interested

in this and it's like, oh, I might, why?

Let me find out more.

Why might I be interested?

Right.

It's all about the customer.

In fact, we can even list a couple of bullets about why our particular

product or service is so good, but there's been scientific research that

shows three is the optimum number, not four, not five, not six, not the 10 or

20 that you have on your sales sheet.

Zero in on the three.

Three has critical mass.

One, two, it's a little watery where like, I don't know, maybe

not, not, you know, hasn't really, jelled three is where you wanna be.

4, 5, 6. It starts to just be too much and the scientific research shows

that, people start to just tune out.

But, so you can talk about your product and service, you can have

those three key points and they could be different from, one segment to

another, from one product to another.

You know, zero in on what is gonna be most relevant to your target.

But again, always through the target's eyes.

It's not about what you wanna say, it's about what they wanna hear.

I think we should just leave that there, because I know you said it's not a

great example, but if we could just get our listeners of this podcast to make

that change and shift that language.

One, it doesn't cost anyone anything, so there's no reason we can't do it.

It is such a simple and effective change that you could implement that I absolutely

concur with everything Nancy's saying that it would make such a big difference.

And I'm, you know, I spent 20 years in sales.

I love selling.

But we don't need to always punch people in the face with everything that's so

amazing about our products and services.

And if three's the magic number, I'm on board with that one.

But Nancy, like, you know, I just wanna sit here and nerd out on all of this

behavioural science stuff with you.

I can't do that 'cause I have to wrap the podcast up.

But I am going to encourage everybody to go across to your profile,

connect with you on LinkedIn, and definitely grab a copy of your book.

So many simple, small changes that would be so effective to really help

people get better results from their marketing efforts in 2026 and beyond.

And I think I am calling 2026 the year that we need to get

back to foundations of marketing.

The year that we have to stop being distracted by all the shiny toys that are

out there and build that solid foundation.

So Nancy, you've helped us a lot here.

I wish you every success in 2026, and thanks for coming back on the show.

Oh my goodness.

Thank you so much, Michelle.

It's always a joy to speak with you and, and by extension to your listeners.

So thank you, thank you, thank you.

And I wish everybody wonderful success in 2026.

Amazing.

So until next week, cheers.