Conspicuous Cognition - the superiority game

Dan William in his Substack article Status, Class, and Crisis of Expertise points out that Thorstein Veblem identified that people often consume products not for their direct ‘utility’ but to flaunt their status and social class. He called this behaviour ‘Conspicuous Consumption’. Wealthy people frequently waste time and money on expensive luxury goods and hobbies to signal to others that they have the wealth to afford these pointless things. They are part of the elite.

He posits that there is now a new elite - professionals with degrees and certificates - who have what he calls Conspicuous Cognition. These are highly educated professionals who ‘enjoy farmers markets, organic coffee, and literary nonfiction’. They seem to be informed, cultured and woke. They make extraordinary sacrifices to get their children into elite universities and professions because that gets them into this elite class.

But with every elite class there is always a group of people who denigrate them as fake, or as Trump once put it ‘The Experts are Terrible’ and has attacked Harvard and other elite universities. The problem with denigrating the experts, is to ignore the fact that in the complex world in which we live we need experts of all types to navigate our way through the rules and regulations to ensure we know ‘How to Keep Your Money'.

The problem is multi-faceted. The professional adviser has spent years achieving academic superiority, certificates and awards, and just as the wealthy business owner wants to show off their wealth through conspicuous consumption the highly educated professional adviser is tempted to show off their superior knowledge through acronyms, detailed facts and references.

I have on several occasions accompanied a client to an introductory meeting with a professional adviser for services I am unable to provide. Following the meeting, I have asked my client what he understood from the meeting. In nearly all situations the client has said they understood not one word of what was being said.

Will Storr argues in ‘The Status Game’ that humiliation is the ‘nuclear bomb of the emotions’. When ignited, it can fuel everything from genocide to suicide, mass atrocities to self immolation. It is then hardly surprising that those who need to take professional advice, would prefer to do so through their ‘Family Office’, or Finance Director, or some similarly qualified professional adviser who speaks the same language as the professional advisers they seek to engage to avoid the humiliation of being made to feel stupid personally.

At the end of this article Dan Williams says we need to ‘rethink how knowledge is offered: in ways that respect people’s pride and minimise the humiliations’. Too true.

From my psychological research which I set out in my Executive Briefing I point out that we all have a resistance to being sold something, whether it is meat, shoes or bread. I then identify 4-5 ways how to side-step this resistance with proven psychological methods, such as repetition, reciprocity, aggregation, education and case studies, which are incorporated into my award-winning methodology to winning good quality business. But given the temptation of the professional advisers to flaunt their elitism, expertise and superior knowledge the experience of the client is made worse.

It is hardly therefore surprising that clients express their dissatisfaction with the service provided by paying their fees late, or to demand a discount.

Through our Caroline’s Club methodology and our training program I want to convey what it feels like to be a client, and if professional advisers want to seek an improved return they need to take some proactive steps to improve the experience for the client. Decisions of clients are made primarily on feelings not facts. Feelings come from benefits - how does a client benefit from the advice given. A fact about a tax is that planning may can save money - this is a fact, knowing you will have more to spend on a luxury holiday and feeling safe knowing that the tax man won’t come knocking on your door are benefits.

Most professionals are of the opinion that taking advice is a ‘distressed sale’, clients don’t want to have to take advice. But is it really a distressed sale or do professionals not know how to give advice so that it feels good and cannot resist showing off their cognitive elitism?

The professionals who pioneer the way to a better client experience may find that just like some wealthy people like to flaunt their wealth through conspicuous consumption, some people may like to take advice and pay more for the pleasure. The first step toward this eutopia is to learn the difference between facts and benefits and the second is to ask your client for feedback. When we asked clients what they wanted most from their advisers 100% said more feedback which they could understand. After three months not one professional advisers had increased the amount or quality of the feedback even if the client was prepared to pay more for the service.

If you would like to find out more about how to win good quality work using our award winning Client Mapping techniques and how to provide a more client focussed service contact Caroline for more information.