Switch: How to Change Things When Change Is Hard

by Chip Heath

to get a free car wash—but they were given a “head start.” When they received their cards, two stamps had already been added. The “goal” was the same for both sets of customers: Buy eight additional car washes, get a reward. But the psychology was different: In one case, you’re 20 percent of the way toward a goal, and in the other case, you’re starting from scratch. A few months later, only 19 percent of the eight-stamp customers had earned a free wash, versus 34 percent of the head-start group. (And the head-start group earned the free wash faster.) People find it more motivating to be partly finished with a longer journey than to be at the starting gate of a shorter one. That’s why the conventional wisdom in development circles is that you don’t publicly announce a fundraising campaign for a charity until you’ve already got 50 percent of the money in the bag. (After all, who wants to give the first $100 to a $1 million fund-raising campaign?) One way to motivate action, then, is to make people feel as though they’re already closer to the finish line than they might have thought.