Patience vs. Instantaneous Gratification

Patience, endurance, tolerance, staying power, fortitude, serenity: however you want to say it, it comes down to being able to wait for something.

In considering applying for Stanford last week I was somehow directed to an article about the Stanford Marshmallow Experiment.

In the Stanford Marshmallow Experiment, young children were offered a choice. They could have one marshmallow now, or they could have two marshmallows if they would wait for the experimenter to return from an errand. Some of the children elected to eat the marshmallow immediately, while others were willing to wait for something more. The experimenter followed the children up until when they took their college entrance exam, and found something remarkable.

The group of students who were the most impulsive at four years scored an average of 524 verbal and 528 math on the SAT. The impulse controlled students scored an average of 610 verbal and 652 math. This single observation at four years provided a larger differentiation in the SAT score than whether they were:

• Economically advantaged vs. disadvantaged
• Children from families with graduate degrees vs. children whose parents did not finish high school
• Black or white
• Male or female
• Of a standard deviation of higher IQ or a standard deviation of lower IQ.

Sociology: 0 — Will Power: 1

“But Austen, this is a business, entrepreneurship and marketing blog, what does this have to do with business, entrepreneurship or marketing?”

I find that the principles found in everyday life apply to business consistently, and the notion that someone who is willing to wait is more successful (for lack of tipifying we will say an SAT score is a measure of success) than someone who isn’t. The same thing goes in the business world.

One of the most obvious ways this occurs is through spam/junk messages/mail/email/classifieds/etc. I have one email address I use primarily to direct spam messages to, and one (personal) email address I actually read. On this post for the sake of argument I’ll focus on email spam. Since e-mail is so cheap to send, a tiny number of spammers can saturate the Internet with junk mail. Although only a tiny percentage of their targets are motivated to purchase their products (or fall victim to their scams), the low cost may provide a sufficient conversion rate to keep the spamming alive. Furthermore, even though spam appears not to be economically viable as a way for a reputable company to do business, it suffices for professional spammers to convince a tiny proportion of gullible advertisers that it is viable for those spammers to stay in business. Finally, new spammers go into business every day, and the low costs allow a single spammer to do a lot of harm before finally realizing that the business is not profitable. Companies like Spamhaus and Spamcop compile lists of companies that use spam as part of their marketing and advertising campaigns, and the companies receive such amounts of promotional blowback (my term) it becomes difficult for them to stay in business. At times they are even legally prosecuted

Spam is easy, it doesn’t take long, it doesn’t require any patience. But in the long run, your score will be lower.

But Spam is just one extreme. There are all kinds of “get-it-done-quick” ways to do business. Sending a customer a form email from blackhole@yourcompany.com (quick marketing tip – if you have an address that can send email, it should be able to receive email. I don’t care if you’re eBay, Microsoft, or McDonalds). You can write off displeasing a customer as “company policy,” or when someone calls to ask about something, direct them to your FAQ page.

People like people, they don’t like forms, or pages, or things. Personalized attention is the best marketing around. I have my theories on advertising and how to reach the consumer, but more will come soon. (Ironically the youtube video I just linked to was made by Microsoft and in my opinion pretty much describes Microsoft’s promotial campaign).

Good things take time. Don’t rush it, put the work in, results will come. If you read my blog. Just kidding. Kind of.