You know you’re old when……

The story you’re wanting to repeat can’t be found in Google!  he he heee…

Seriously, the story about the Telephone Booth Dime is one that I was told at a sales seminar back in the late 70′s.  That’s back when telephone booths really existed everywhere … and they truly did cost a dime.

The story went something like this….

A University Psychology department’s students ran a test.  The object of the test was to see if “totally unrelated” events trigger a different response in human behavior.

The students set themselves up to watch a busy telephone booth in a city. They videotaped dozens of people that used that particular booth on this particular day.  As I remember, it was a respectable number of people that were studied.

Now remember, just like you see in the picture above, there usually was a certain amount of tension around telephone booths back then.  The people in them that paid their dime had the right to make their call.. while quite often someone else waiting to use the phone was getting annoyed.  How stressful!  So think about that typical mood around a phone booth as the study took place….

So here’s what the students did:

They planted a dime in the phone booth some of the time.  Then they observed the booth closely to see if the patron had found the planted dime.  Some found it, some did not.

The second part of the “set up” was that there was a woman outside of the booth with a heavy load of books and a purse.   When the subject would leave the booth, the woman would bump into the subject causing her books to fall and purse to dump.

So here’s the interesting thing:  The people that had just scored a little joy by finding a dime were twice as likely to stop and help the woman pick up her belongings.

Now think… obviously the dime in the phone booth had nothing to do directly with the choice to help the clumsy woman pick up her stuff.  But… the “upper” of finding a lousy dime changed their behavior!

So let’s bring this down to our businesses.

If unrelated events like finding a dime could cause change in the response of people to a situation – just think of how much more likely it is to have people respond to YOU more favorably if you just take a little geniune interest in them…  or do a little something special for them.

We all have heard the stories about the bad consultants or distributors in direct sales companies.  The kind that pack up and can’t get out of a party quick enough… or the kind that dive in for the kill when they meet someone new without thinking of the prospect’s needs, wants or desires first.

In another post, I talked about giving out a full size Hershey bar to help stimulate excitement for Chocolate Fountain Parties.   We’re talking a 30c candy bar that could bring you $1,000 in sales.   Really.

I hope you enjoy this story… I’ve enjoyed this one for 30 years.

Now if only I could find the source for the people that did this one to give them proper credit…..