If you decide to study cognitive biases, you’ll see they are literally EVERYWHERE. 🌍

They affect the way we act, consume information, forge our opinions, and of course, the way we run our trade shows.

If you’ve been a consultant or a trainer for a while, you might have figured out that there are different mindsets between a buyer and a non-buyer of your expertise, different “profiles.” 📊🤔

If on the other side you’ve decided NOT to hire an expert in any field, you know the mindset you had when you did.

But did you know this mindset, the ones that prevents people from seeking advice, can stem from cognitive biases?

We’ll just focus on one today… the Dunning Kruger effect (I call it the Nike effect, you’ll see why in a minute). ✔️

The dunning Kruger Effect

It basically is an overconfidence in one’s capacities when one doesn’t have much experience. I see that all the time with companies that start with trade shows and think, “What could be so complicated about it? Let’s “just do it”, it will be a GREAAAT success (high five).” 🚀

Many first-time exhibitors will be disappointed and there won’t be any Barry White “satisfaction guaranteed” 🎵.played in the background. It sucks, I know. But did you know the Dunning Kruger effect sucks even more than making you miss sound advice and good results on a trade show?

Because this bias does not only affects beginners at trade shows… it affects the level of expertise and confidence of most of us in many, many, endeavours like being drivers 🚗 or parents! 👨‍👩‍👧‍👦

Did I say parents? Yes I did. SPOILER ALERT –> YOU MIGHT GET OFFENDED 🔫

You’re with your kids, in a crowd of parents with theirs. One person asks the crowd, “who thinks their kid is dumber than average in this group?” I bet you not many parents will raise their hands, though according to logic, there should be half of them doing so. 🙋‍♂️ That too is the Dunning Kruger effect…

The remedy? For working with me: Life/Business Experience/Maturity (priceless) and a bunch of cognitive biases that, if triggered, will take your brain in the opposite direction. 💡

How to work around it

First, experience.

CEOs who have lost time and money by trying it out by themselves, at their own expense, understand the value of hiring a pro to save time and costly mistakes.

If you ever started to fix your pipes before you made a mess and called out a plumber, then you know what I mean. 🛠️💰

Second, the cognitive biases that make your brain swim against this current: Appeal to novelty, bandwagon effect, illusory correlation, and even conjunction fallacy, to name a few. 🔄

I’ll address them in future posts because I wouldn’t want to trigger a cognitive bias we’ve talked about (check my previous posts). Oh, and for the parents thing… well, maybe an ego check, that too is experience/maturity. 🧠

So? What field or endeavor did you start as a newbie thinking it will be “finger in the nose” to end up calling a pro to fix your mess? 🤔🚀