
People Judge You First, Then Your Idea - ColinWright
http://maxmckeown.tumblr.com/post/8817383624/people-judge-you-first-then-your-idea
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jcc80
It's the same as anything - how you look, your body language, the way you
speak, the volume you speak at - it all matters and always will whether we
like it or not.

In undergrad I did some retail electronics sales. When I first started if I
didn't know the answer to something I would find out and be back to the
customer within 30-60 seconds. That's all it took for them to not buy over and
over.

Meanwhile, the best selling reps would say, "Absolutely!" to questions they
had no idea what the answer was. Even if they were wrong the customer likely
wouldn't come back and if they did they could usually be pacified enough.

Interesting lessons back then. I solved the problem by learning everything so
I too could say, "Absolutely!" Took awhile though opposed to faking it.

~~~
Gustomaximus
I think this depends on who your customers are. For most people that have some
knowledge the most annoying rep is someone that tries to answer what they
don't know. If I come across these people I wont tell them I know they are
full of shit so they probably think I bought their blustering but they aren't
having my sale. But if it got you better sales in your experience it seems
this is the minority of people.

~~~
jcc80
It definitely depends on customers - for example the normal HN crowd is not
the normal retail crowd. Most people are not informed consumers. But, even
those guys I worked with back in undergrad have moved on and used the same
techniques to sell $100k+ deals. Though it's kind of unfair to call them
techniques - it's just their personality. They just get people excited and get
them to say yes, whether it's for a DVD player or a $50k project. There's a
science to it, but I'm guessing everyone here probably already knows that.

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a5seo
I hate to say this, but this isn't saying, "HOW you deliver your idea" is
being judged. YOU are being judged.

As in... how prestigious your school and prior work was; how you speak and
what it says about your intelligence; what social class you're in based on
clothes, grooming, material possessions, where you vacation, who your friends
are; how you look; how you speak.

I absolutely detest this idea because I feel like it lets too many inferior
ideas dressed in the right packaging get investment and get built (see
Startup.com documentary for a prime example of this), depriving the world of
better solutions.

But the more I'm around the world of investors, entrepreneurs, and B2B buyers,
the more I realize it's reality and it's not going away, so you're best bet is
to adapt to it without selling your soul.

~~~
mmatants
Devil's advocate: there are _some_ conclusions to be made from someone's level
of personal grooming, etc. Grooming = sign of mindfulness. If you're willing
to make that - token, mind you - investment, folks get a message that you are
interested in others' opinion, and that your wonderful solution was built with
someone's specific problem in mind.

The general underlying point is that there is a deluge of ideas, features and
suggestions, and folks put up filters like the above to sort them out. The
unfortunate flipside is that some filters are more arbitrary - like the
prestigious school prejudice.

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dazzawazza
I kind of agree with this. I feel people judge your idea by how YOU deliver
it. So for example if you come across as uncomfortable while delivering your
idea then often your idea looses merit quite quickly. This isn't always true
and obviously if your idea is mind glowingly good then as long as you get the
idea across people will work with you.

I don't think it's true (anymore) that people judge you by your ethnicity,
social status, clothes, gender etc as I feel this article may imply without
stating explicitly.

At the end of the day people are drawn to (not too) confident people with (not
too) strong direction who are reliable and have a good idea.

~~~
polymatter
> I don't think it's true (anymore) that people judge you by your ethnicity,
> social status, clothes, gender etc as I feel this article may imply without
> stating explicitly.

Perhaps less pertinent than before, but I suggest its still extremely
important.

I can't think of a better link, but OKCupid shows how peoples (by default
private) expressed beliefs in questions were significantly different from
their actual actions ([http://blog.okcupid.com/index.php/your-race-affects-
whether-...](http://blog.okcupid.com/index.php/your-race-affects-whether-
people-write-you-back/))

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lylejohnson
I was trying to figure out how to navigate to the rest of the article, but
then I realized that it's just those three paragraphs. I wish the author had
developed this a bit more.

~~~
mahadri
You might like this 18 minute TED talk that parallels the article's idea.
"People don't buy what you do; they buy why you do it."

[http://www.ted.com/talks/simon_sinek_how_great_leaders_inspi...](http://www.ted.com/talks/simon_sinek_how_great_leaders_inspire_action.html)

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mathattack
The core premise is sound. It is also consistent with research popularized in
Blink, which shows how quickly people make up their mind.

In practical terms, most times the proposer knows his subject more than the
proposed. It takes the receiver of the information time and attention (both of
which are scarce in decision makers) to deeply understand the pros and cons.
So they fall back on heuristics: "Did this programmer meet their deadline last
time?" "Are they wearing a suit?" "Did they go to a school I respect?"

Early in my career, I thought, "It's only the content that matters. Anyone who
disagrees is an idiot." It took a while to realize there are sound
psychological reasons behind the other heuristics people use to choose. It
took even longer to learn the game theory behind why some of the "Who you are"
matters more than the quality of the idea in question. That's much too long a
post for a writer who hasn't had their first coffee.

One last thought... The Karma factor in part is a signal to judging people.
(Or rewarding) Of course most of read the articles first, before looking up
the credibility of the poster. :-)

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jcfrei
I agree and it also makes sense. frankly, just judging a (business) idea based
on the messenger might give you a better accurracy on the likeliness of
success than listening to the idea itself ( unless your insight is >= than
that of the messenger). it's one of the principles behind pg's funding
strategy. anyway, it's easy to get misleading feedback depending on whether
you're good at presenting your ideas or not. always keep in mind that most
people won't be able to make accurate predictions on your business idea (heck,
not even you can!). the only way to find out if something actually works is by
building it.

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robjohnson
Not sure I agree with this. I believe that some people have the ability and
desire to objectively analyze an idea without considering the source. In fact,
considering the source before the object (in this case, the idea) is an ad
hominem logical fallacy.

Also "Only about 1% of proposed ideas are ever accepted.": I would love to see
the empirical testing that led to this conclusion.

~~~
mattgreenrocks
Even on the Internet, where speech is highly disconnected from the speaker, we
still see plenty of groupthink, ad hominems, and pre-judgment taking place. If
we can't accomplish it here, then it certainly can't take place in the real
world on a consistent basis.

That said, there's too much benefit to these 'irrational' heuristics to
discard them.

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jmacd
Fuck this. Feeling judged is a crutch.

And he says things like "Only about 1% of proposed ideas are ever accepted."
-- That means he knows how many ideas get proposed in the world and whether or
not they are accepted.

He's full of shit.

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larrys
While this is true I've also found something a little counter intuitive. If
you dress and look like a schlep but what comes out of your mouth sounds
intelligent, fast paced and impressive (note I said "sounds") then the
contrast between what the person thinks you are and what you sound like can
actually be an advantage in many cases. Same thing happens when people stumble
on the hole in the wall restaurant that has "great food you have to try this
place". While the food might be great many times the contrast also helps.

~~~
pratikpatel
I agree, it's all about the contrast. Similarly, letting others recognize your
accomplishments without pointing them out gives them ownership over the
realization and makes it that much more meaningful.

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sjogirl
Does anyone wonder whether airbnb has actually DONE anything about EJ or for
her? Talk is cheap. I wonder if they have done more than phone calls and PR
promises.....

