Selling "New" Items

Being currently enrolled in a class called Consumer Behavior, I'm starting to realize the different ways that the golf course that I work at utilizes the behavior of our members to its advantage. One way that I have noticed this is by selling "new" items. The reason I say new like that is because they aren't actually new, we just make them seem new. How we do this is by rearranging our merchandise in a way that items, that may not have been seen often, are now front and center. This causes our customers to believe that we just received these pieces when in fact we have had them for a while. Even though we don't do much by moving items around, we find ourselves selling more merchandise than if we left everything where it is. Consumer behavior is fun!

How often are you wrong?

Recently I was asked the question, "How often would you say you are wrong?" The question kind of caught me off guard and when I thought a little bit about how often I think I'm wrong I answered with, "Probably about 30% of the time." As the day went on, I continued thinking about my answer of 30% and began thinking that I'm probably wrong much more often than that. How often do you think that you're wrong? I then began trying to think of times that I was clearly wrong and it was more difficult that I thought it would be. Because of our arrogance and our unwillingness to admit that we were wrong, I think that people don't even consider the fact that they may be wrong.

Thinking back to last semester I can recall in instance where me being wrong not only hindered myself but three of my classmates. One day I received a group text message from the members of a group project that I was a part of. The message simply asked when the next part of the project was due. None of them knew the exact date and evidently neither did I, but i thought I was right when I told them the date. We showed up to class the day before the date that I thought and that is when we found out that that I was wrong about the date. Needless to say I felt extremely bad and i was afraid that I ruined everyone's chance to get a good grade on the project. 

After class, I approached the professor and told him the situation and asked him to not count us having it in late against the others for it was my fault that it was late. He thanked me for coming to him to talk about it and said that he wouldn't dock the others but dock me 5 points of the total if we could get the assignment in by the next class period..He seemed to be very forgiving about the situation but I still felt extremely bad for letting the group down. After he told me that he wouldn't dock the others i felt a little better but I still hated knowing I was wrong. When I informed the rest of the group of the news they were all extremely relieved and thanked me for talking to the professor.

Admitting to being wrong is never a fun task but it is one that can fix situations. I was glad that I talked to the professor and admitted my wrong doing and that it did not affect my class mates. Can you think of a time in the recent days where you were wrong?

Nudge

Have any of you experienced a nudge? Not someone physically pushing you but the psychological nudge? Before I started reading the book Nudge by Cass Sunstein, I had no idea what a nudge was. It is very similar to the verb of nudging someone, but instead of the physical act, it is something where you are pushed to do something that someone wants you to do. I know this may sound kin of confusing but I have an example of a nudge that many of you have probably seen. 

The example that I want to use can be seen in the picture above. At first sight it just looks like an escalator running along side steps that look like a piano. While the piano steps are very arty, they serve a different purpose. Not only do they look like piano keys, but they also sound like piano keys when stepped on. This is an example of a nudge where the purpose is to get people to not go right to the escalator and instead  use the steps. As you can see in the video below, most everyone walked right to the escalator, but as soon as they installed the piano steps, the "nudged" people to take the steps. 

There are nudges all around us where ever we go. Colorful recycle bins nudge us to recycle. Smaller plates at a buffet or restaurant nudges us to eat less. Before reading this book and discussing this topic in my consumer behavior class, I had no idea that all of these things are nudges and that others can almost control what we do by strategically placing nudges in different aspects of our everyday life.

Welcome to The Rocky Mountain Golfer! A blog for the avid golfer who loves mountains, fresh air and the links! My name is Brian Morse and I am currently an employee at Black Bull; a private golf community located in beautiful Bozeman, Montana. I have worked my way up the line of command and this winter I will be one of the assistant golf professionals. The game of golf has done so much for me over the years and I want to expand my golfing horizons by starting this blog and communicating with other golfers from around the Rocky Mountains and the world!

If you all haven't seen this challenge yet, check it out and challenge your friends!