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What Are 'Dark Patterns'? When we browse the Internet we don't read every word, we tend to skim over the page and make assumptions. Alan Coote and Josh Alex uncover how companies can take advantage of this by using the design of their website to coerce us into taking a course of action we wouldn't normally want to take. Why You Should Make Your Smartphone Less Smart Over 2.5 billion people have smartphones. Most of us have a hard time putting them down. The problem is they're designed to be addictive. If we understand the tricks smartphone and App designers use to hook us in, we can have a healthier relationship with our phones. Alan Coote and Josh Alex why you should make your phone less smart. Who Is Using 'Dark Patterns'? You may think companies design their websites to help customers find the information they're looking for, this isn't always true. In Part 2 of our investigation into 'Dark Patterns' Alan Coote and Josh Alex reveal how well-known companies are using these 'Dark Patterns' to hinder rather than help customers.

Why You Often Regret What You Buy Are you a 'Satisficer' or a 'Maximiser'. The answer to this question will reveal a lot about your personality. In fact understanding this will help you avoid buying things you later regret - so called buyer's remorse. Alan Coote and Josh Alex help you uncover which of these two types of people you are. Why Companies Now Don't Need Your Personal Information Researchers have discovered that companies don't need vast amounts of data to successfully target adverts at you. In fact, a couple of bits of information is all that's required. This is remarkable because companies are collecting vast amounts of data about us and spending millions doing so. Alan Coote and Josh Alex reveal a new dawn for our personal data. How Honesty Boxes Encourage Us To Be Less Honest Would you pay the right amount for your coffee if the baristas weren't there to check? Instead would you be honest enough to place your money into a box on the counter? It seems an unlikely system to operate a business on, but that's just what's happened in Indonesia where they have opened 1000s of honesty cafes. Yet as Alan Coote and Josh Alex reveal, encouraging us to be more honest could have the opposite effect.

Why Some People Can't Help Buying On Impulse? Have you caught yourself making an impulse buy at the supermarket? Retailers often put chocolates and snacks at the checkout to tempt us. However, Alan Coote and Josh Alex reveal that a certain type of person is impervious to these tactics; are you one of them? Creating Incentives and Offers That Really Work Incentivising customers can be really difficult. You want them to do one thing but they often do another. Alan Coote and Josh Alex reveal that there is a way to make incentives really work by asking yourself 4 simple questions. Why Some People Prefer Brands Like Dominos, Tesco and Costa? There are a lot of businesses essentially offering the same thing; Dominos and Papa Johns supply pizza, Asda and Tesco are excellent supermarkets and Starbucks and Costa offer great coffee. Alan Coote and Josh Alex uncover why we prefer one brand over another, even when they are essentially the same?

How McDonald's Mind Hack Boosted Its Customers In 2015 McDonald's was struggling with sales taking a nosedive. A few years later shares are up 50%. What's amazing is, this dramatic turnaround was helped by adopting psychological tricks in their restaurants. How To Get Heathy By Tricking Your Brain According to a recent study 68% of men and 58% of women are overweight or obese. It's well known being overweight causes health problems, but we just can't seem to resist eating unhealthy food. Alan Coote and Josh Alex show how we can trick ourselves into avoiding the bad food and eating the right amount of the good food. Why Try Before You Buy Is Good For Businesses & Consumers It's been proven that if companies can make you feel like you own their product before you buy it, then you'll value it more when you do make the purchase. This is vital for business for building long-term relationships and getting you coming back time and again. Alan Coote and Josh Alex explore how businesses and consumers actually benefit.

Why Taxing What's Bad For Us Doesn't Work Alcohol consumption is at a record high with 7.8 million people having 'binged' on alcohol at least once last year. The government's tactic to reduce our alcohol consumption is to increase the tax on it. But is there a simpler idea that might also be much more effective? Josh Alex and Alan Coote may have the answer the government missed. Special Guest: Making Big Businesses More Nimble Large companies are forever trying to be as nimble as small ones. In a race to get their products to market, small companies win every time. Special guest Dr Tendayi Viki is the author of a new book called The Corporate Startup, which aims to solve this problem. A Zero Cost Way To Make The Railways Safer Despite rail travel being one of the safest forms of public transport, hundreds of accidents and fatalities still occur each year. If you were given a pot of money and told to make the railway safer what would you do? Alan Coote and Josh Alex explore an incredibly clever solution.

What An Asian Cat Can Tell Us About Business At £200 per 100g Kopi Luwak is the world's most expensive coffee. But why are so many customers willing to pay that huge price tag? Alan Coote and Josh Alex discover that a very unique story and an Asian cat, and not simply the way it tastes, contributes to its enormous price tag. Why Paying Causes Us Actual Pain Research has shown that we feel physiological pain every time we pay for something. This pain can put us off purchasing products entirely and cause businesses to lose out on millions of pounds. Alan Coote and Josh Alex uncover just how some of the world's leading companies are battling this pain and getting us to spend more. Poorly Designed Products Are Everywhere Badly designed products plague us all day long, handles on 'push' doors, lamps that have a switch on the cord not the base and glass condiment bottles to name just a few. Alan Coote and Josh Alex explore how some innovative businesses are redesigning everyday objects to work with us rather than against us.

Netflix & Museums Have More In Common Than You Think We think of companies like Netflix as revolutionary, full of innovative ideas and transforming traditional industries. Of course, some of that is true, but surprisingly Netflix has more in common with museums than you think. Alan Coote and Josh Alex reveal all. Special Guest: The Three Steps To Become A Sales Guru You have a cracking business idea but it’s no good unless someone is going to buy it. As the saying goes, without sales you don’t have a business. Guest Rupert Honywood shows how anyone can achieve super sales with his simple 3-step process. The Genius Upside Of Making Customers Queue No one likes queuing, not even us British. At the coffee shop, on the phone and especially at theme parks. We each wait in a queue of some sort for over 5 hours every month. Alan Coote and Josh Alex uncover ingenious tricks businesses can use to remove the pain of queuing while increasing their income.

Businesses Are Making Products They Don’t Intend You To Buy It’s expensive making and marketing a new product, especially when you don’t expect people to buy it. Alan Coote and Josh Alex reveal why some businesses are going to all that trouble. A New Trend In Clothing: Wear Once And Return Label Intact Over half of us will return at least one item of clothing back to the shop this year. And nearly a third of 18 to 25 year olds admit to wearing an item out, with the label attached, before returning it. Alan Coote talks to consumer psychologist Kate Nightingale to discover more about this growing trend. How Much Exercise Is Needed To Burn Off A Cream Cake? Do you know how much exercise you need to burn off excess calories or how much money you’d save a year by buying a more economical freezer? What about the saving you can make by paying more than the minimum monthly amount off your credit card? The information is available but isn’t easy for us to make sense of. Alan Coote and Josh Alex show how companies can do much more.

Why The Boomtown Rats Were Wrong, We Do Like Mondays It has been discovered that the Boomtown Rats were wrong, we do like Mondays. In fact tasks started on a Monday are more likely to be finished than on any other day of the week. Alan Coote and Josh Alex discover why and, which is the worst day of the week to start something new. Why Offering Customers Free Coffee Is Bad For Business High Street shops are always looking for new ways to keep their customers in the store for longer. In the first of a new series, Alan Coote and Josh Alex go out and about in the search of the shops offering free coffee, then discover why this ploy can be bad for business. Restaurants’ Top Psychology Tricks To Help You Spend More From the moment you walk in to the time you walk out, restaurants are using a plethora of subtle psychological tactics, to ‘help’ you spend and eat more. Alan Coote and Josh Alex reveal restaurants’ top tricks.

How To Make The Correct Decision Quickly Every day at work or at home we need to make quick decisions. It has been discovered that our brain has evolved to take mental shortcuts when it needs to act quickly and can very easily be influenced. Alan Coote and Josh Alex reveal how businesses are now using this human quirk. How Businesses Can Influence The Price You’re Willing To Pay Many businesses price their products based on what it cost to produce plus what customers are prepared to pay. However, this seemly logical approach doesn’t take into account that us humans are far from logical. Alan Coote and Josh Alex demonstrate how companies could double or triple their profits. Wearing A White Coat Will Make You Smarter We all know that what we wear at work makes other people act differently towards us. However, just the act of wearing some types of clothing actually makes us smarter and has a positive effect on our wellbeing. Alan Coote and Josh Alex uncover how to actually make yourself smarter and more attractive

UK To Make A Simple Change To Save Thousands of Lives Most people in the UK aren’t on the Organ Donor Register, not because they object it’s because they just haven’t got around to it. This has not been the case in Wales where since 2015 everyone is by default an organ donor. Alan Coote and Josh Alex reveal the psychology behind this simple idea. Listeners’ Questions: What Is The Next Big Idea? The big tech’ firms have been updating their plans to take advantage of the latest advances in AI technology. While they can afford to be wrong sometimes, small businesses can’t, so Alan Coote and Josh Alex risk their reputation on predicting the next big idea. How To Turn Your Old Stuff Into Money In a day and age where household budgets are tight people are looking for extra sources of income. Many are turning to up-cycling for that extra cash. Alan Coote and Josh Alex uncover the fascinating psychology behind why people pay thousands for other people’s rubbish.

Why We Only Remember The Exceptionally Good And Bad A recent study has discovered why we only remember the exceptionally good and bad experiences. Alan Coote and Josh Alex reveal why this could be worth £millions and the huge implications this has for businesses large and small. Special Guest: How Hypnosis Helps People at Work Think hypnotist and the chances are you’ll immediately remember those third-rate stage acts. But hypnosis can be used in a much more constructive way. Special guest Lynn Mitcham reveals how your health issues could be solved using hypnotherapy. How To Set Your Business Apart From The Crowd We all like to think our business and the products we sell are unique, but in reality, they seldom are. That is of course unless you understand Anchoring. No, this has nothing to do with sailing. Alan Coote and Josh Alex uncover how to use a simple, but little-known mind trick to boost your profits.

How Does Blank Page Advertising Work? To grab our attention, advertisers are using a new trick. They’re taking whole page adverts in daily newspapers and magazines and then printing nothing on them. Does it work or is it a waste of money? Alan Coote and Josh Alex reveal why millions are being spent on blank page advertising. Special Guest: How To Get Thrown Out Of TV’s Dragons’ Den In the hothouse of a TV studio while persuading dragon investors to give your idea the tens of thousands it needs to survive, isn’t the time to reveal you haven’t a clue about the running costs. However, that happens all too often in the business reality show Dragons Den. It’s shocking as every business owner should ‘know their numbers’. Special guest Rupert Honywood has a simple technique to better understand your business. How To Create World-Beating Ideas Most great ideas are actually very simple. They also often make life better for millions of people. But how do you come up with world-beating ideas? Alan Coote and Josh Alex uncover how understanding some illogical human traits could be the secret to finding your next big idea.

How You Are Easily Influenced You may think you are a logical person and not easily persuaded into making decisions which are irrational. This is not the case however. What Have Salisbury in Wiltshire and Honolulu in Common? Both have an issue with people causing accidents while texting. With over 8 trillion text messages sent each day, it’s surprising accidents aren’t more common. But Alan Coote and Josh Alex reveal that the number of text messages sent could significantly rise when businesses realise they are missing a trick. Why You’d Better Get Vlogging More often than not customers will watch a company’s videos before purchasing. Even if you’re not in business you’d better get Vlogging as Alan Coote and Josh Alex discover that online video is becoming the most effective means of communication for everyone.

What is the Most Influential Book of the Last 100 Years? Dale Carnegie is considered by many to be the Godfather of business etiquette. Alan Coote and Josh Alex reveal how his classic book is still as relevant today as it was in the 1930s. Special Guest: How Not to Start a Business Many businesses fail not because they are bad ideas, but because they don’t have enough customers. Rupert Honeywood specialises in helping companies solve this problem by using what he calls the ‘40, 7, 3 rule’. Alan Coote discovers more. Mail Sack: Why We Fall for Shopping Channel Gimmicks? We spend millions of pounds every year with shopping channels. Their sales patter clearly works. Alan Coote and Josh Alex dissect the techniques and why we fall for it.

The Benefit of Spending Almost 6 Hours a Month Queuing Often waiting in a queue or for a company to send an order is inevitable and very difficult to avoid. In fact, sometimes if there were no waiting, like in a restaurant, we would question the quality of our meal. Alan Coote and Josh Alex reveal how companies can use the wait a customer has to endure to their advantage. Why Every Company Should Innovate For Fun Not Profit Very few companies innovate for fun without being motivated by profit. Alan Coote and Josh Alex discover Mercedes’ approach to innovation and why all companies should be innovating for fun rather than for profit. How To Build a Subscription Business Like Netflix Netflix made $6Billion last year. With statistics like that it’s no wonder subscription based businesses are a growing trend. Alan Coote and Josh Alex uncover why not all subscriptions business are the same.

A Businesses Trick To Charge Premium Prices Setting the right price is often an art not a science. After a business covers its cost the rest is profit. Alan Coote and Josh Alex reveal how companies can maximise their profit and set the highest price a customer will pay. What Is The Biggest Mistake a Start Up Can Make? Every start up makes the same mistake believing everyone wants their new invention. Alan Coote talks to business marketing expert Rupert Honywood who says instead companies must focus on their ideal customer. How Businesses Can Avoid Cultural Gaffs Post Brexit Britain’s businesses will need to ready themselves for doing business with new countries. This is made more difficult when unfamiliar customs and cultures must be taken into account. Alan Coote and Josh Alex discover companies are now hiring anthropologists to make sure they avoid creating international incidents.

Why Do Older People Need Fewer Choices? As we get older we want fewer choices of what to buy. By the time people reach retirement age they often reject any product which is unfamiliar. Alan Coote and Josh Alex reveal why businesses targeting the elderly should stock fewer products. Why We Buy On Instinct The received wisdom is that the older the more thought goes into our purchases. Alan Coote and Josh Alex uncover new information which suggests this isn’t the case. How Positive Advertising Messages Affect Older Buyers Older buyers often misinterpret even simple facts and figures, instead they are more likely to focus on the advertising slogan, especially if it appears worthy and positive. Alan Coote and Josh Alex reveal why this is.

Every Email Interruption Wastes 23 Minutes Being distracted by emails at work is something we all have to deal with but cripples our productivity. Alan Coote and Josh Alex find out what can be done about it and how we can regain that wasted time without switch emails off. Special Guest: How To Reach Millions of People In One Day Rachael Taplin reached millions of people to promote her start up business. She did it by being invited to appear as a guest on the media. Rachael says, if she can do it anyone who also runs a business, charity or has a good cause to promote can do it too. Alan Coote finds out how. What Difference Does Using A Person’s Name Make? Every man, woman and child on the planet receives the equivalent of 28 emails, most of which are never opened. Alan Coote and Josh Alex discover how companies are using personal information to boost the chances of their emails getting read.

Why Are We Not As Individual As We Think? We all like to think we’re unique, but this isn’t the case. We often follow the crowd even when we consciously attempt not to. Alan Coote and Josh Alex uncover how businesses can use this to their advantage. Special Guest: An Emerging Science Needs People Dr David Halpern from the UK Government’s Behavioural Insights Team explains why businesses need more scientists to follow in the footsteps of recent Nobel prize winner Richard Thaler. What Have Beef Burgers & Running A Business Got In Common? There’s not much in common between a beef burger and running a business, on the surface at least. Alan Coote and Josh Alex discover however that marketing beef burgers and practically any other product can be surprisingly similar.