Suppose your presentation is in the form of a sales pitch (AKA a Beauty Pageant) where there are a few of you all pitching for the same contract. Should you try and pitch first, last or in the middle? Or doesn’t it matter?
Instinctively, you might suggest you want to go first or last, right? And you’d be (mainly) right. There’s some recent research* I’ve just seen that looked at the effect of order. The authors observed experienced decision-makers and looked at their final decisions. The results were interesting.
- If you’re precieved as a market leader you’ll do better if you’re first or last.
- If you’re an also-ran, you’ll improve your chances if you pitch last.
- Either way, you don’t do yourself any favours if you’re in the middle.
Perhaps that’s an argument for making sure your presentation has as much impact as possible? Particularly if you’re a middle-man!
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* Wagner J and Klein N M (2007): ‘Who wants to go first? Order effects within a series of competitive sales presentations’, Journal of Personal Selling and Sales Management, Vol 27, No 3, pages 259-276.
– one of the downsides of 24 years research in University is that I even read things like this!:)
Hi Simon
Do you think that this first or last effect would be due to the primacy and recency effects? Does the research discuss that?
Olivia
Hi Olivia – my understanding is that it’s largely down to the simple effects of people’s concentration patterns – just like for presentations, the stuff in the middle often gets lost :)
S