5-Reps: It hertz

It Hertz

My roommate moved out and took his TV with him. I had one requirement for a new one: it needed to have pictures that moved, ideally in color.

In an attempt to learn about television technology, I typed in ‘how to buy a TV’ into Google and got 3.82 billion results in 0.62 seconds. That number doesn’t make sense. So, here’s a nonsense analogy: If every search was an ant, I’d have 21,000 pounds of ants.

I clicked on the first link and read the advice. Then I clicked on the next and it gave me some of the same advice but also contradicted the first in a few places. It took about five minutes for me to reach the ‘ain’t nobody got time for this shit’ phase of my search.

Next stop: the electronics store. There were dozens of TV’s. Every single one had colored pictures that moved. What an amazing world we live in!

A salesman, I’ll call him Todd for no reason, asked me if I wanted to buy a TV. I said yes.

“What do you like to watch?” Todd asked.

“Sports.” I said.

Not sure why I said that. I don’t watch much TV. These days my family doesn’t own one. Not that I don’t like TV. I LOVE TV… which is kind of the point. I have a personal life philosophy to keep the special things special.

Whenever I’m at a friends’ house and the TV is on I’m amazed at the experience. “Look at how big it is! And the colors! Wait, so you get how many channels?” They laugh at me. I deserve it.

Television’s captivating technology. There’s a lot of everyday magic in our world that stops being special if we make the mistake of making it normal.

Anyway, back then I said sports. Todd told me to optimize for a hertz refresh rate. He said it makes moving images appear sharper.

Hertz refresh rate sounds made up. To this day I don’t know if it’s a real thing. I never looked it up. OK… I finally looked it up just now… It does exist. According to the internet “a higher refresh rate provides smoother motion for everything from movies and shows, to live sports and gaming.” Supposedly 60hz is good and 120hz is great, whatever that means.

I walked in wanting a TV; Todd sold me one. In a matter of minutes and with a single question he built trust via specificity, making one of the TV’s in the store the Obvious Choice.

Todd’s job was to sell me a TV that day––to provide me with the permission I needed to buy a moving pictures box. He asked a single question that allowed him to make a recommendation specific to me.

If Todd was flawed at his job I would have hemmed and hawed. (Oh look, a Dr. Seuss rhyme.) An unconfident salesman would have tried to impress me with his knowledge about television technology.

The ‘lazy mind” model, identified by the Nobel prize winning psychologists, Daniel Kahnamen and Amos Tversky suggest that “thinking is to humans as swimming is to cats––we only do it if we have to.”

Confused people don’t buy. Overwhelming customers with features and specs in a vain attempt to convince them your thing is better doesn’t solve their problem––it gives them more things to think about. Which causes delays.

The only part about what you do that matters is what matters to other people who aren’t you.

Once you know what they want, highlight it and tell them why you’re suited to solve their problem. The easier you make their decision, the more obvious the choice their purchase will be.

It starts with curiosity. Counterintuitively, the more questions you ask a customer, the more confident you appear.

Most everybody needs a good enough solution. And most solutions are good enough. Humans don’t want to admit they didn’t do their research though. A good rule of thumb is that if they feel like they can justify to their spouse why they bought the thing based off of one fact, figure, spec, credential, or aspect of your background, they’ll buy. Just one.

I wanted a TV. It needed pictures that moved, ideally in color.

But if Todd didn’t ask me about sports, which allowed him to make a specific recommendation, I probably would’ve had to “think about it” and left because the store had like 50 TV’s and they all had pictures in color that moved. Todd’s question built trust through specificity, giving me permission to buy.

I don’t remember ever watching sports on the TV.

Soon after, however, I did invite a beautiful young woman with legs that scream ’I squat’ named Alison back to my apartment to watch a terrible movie we’d both already seen. The pictures on the screen moved, I think. I wasn’t paying attention; neither was she.

I guess what I’m saying is that if I didn’t have a TV with moving pictures I would’ve never invited Alison over with a cheesy line. Now she’s my wife. And we have a wonderful family. Thank you for the hertz, Todd.