Research Scientists Who Study Your Customers' Brains

Nick Lee, PhD

Warwick Business
School


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Dr. Carmen Simon

Cognitive Neuroscientist
Chief Science Officer


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Leff Bonney, PhD

Florida State University
Sales Institute


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Bryan Hochstein, PhD

Culverhouse
College of Business


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Corporate Visions’ solutions integrate findings from several Decision Science disciplines, including neuroscience, behavioral economics, and social psychology.

We leverage principles from these fields and our ongoing research to appeal to the decision-making part of the brain, helping B2B organizations tell persuasive, visually compelling, and memorable stories in their conversations with prospects and customers.

best practices are not always the best practice

There’s a lot that’s been written about the “best practices” approach to research. But that means you’re starting with a built-in bias around what the “right” answer is. One thing that’s clear from our research is that the right answer is often the most counterintuitive answer. Starting with an ideal of what a best practice is will skew that perspective.

Best practices also are inherently “lagging practices.” It can take years to identify something as a best practice, and by that time, it’s a common practice. Best practices also suffer from being inherently company-centric and regional. Decision Science, on the other hand, is completely focused on the buyers and their behavior. It’s also timeless and globally applicable.

our research methodology

Like a true science lab, Corporate Visions uses a variety of tools to test hypotheses. These ongoing research studies are meant to either confirm or debunk conventional wisdom and the industry’s so-called “best practices.”

Sometimes the research results confirm what was expected. Other times, the results are completely counterintuitive. But in every case, all of Corporate Visions’ training and consulting solutions are guided by rigorous research, neuroscience, and Decision Science principles.

Below are just some of the specific research methodologies we use.

eeg technology

Using EEG (electroencephalogram) technology, we record the electrical activity of people’s brains as they take in information from business presentations. This allows us to accurately monitor and learn how people pay attention and remember information.

EEG technology captures the brain’s cognitive processes at the exact moment they happen. Processing an idea can occur within tens to hundreds of milliseconds, and it may span a sequence that takes hundreds of milliseconds to a few seconds. Based on these studies, we can understand precisely what kind of stimuli will get people’s attention, keep them engaged, and help them to remember the information you share with them.

Most academic research is, well, academic. Researchers tend to study the most readily available subjects, which might include graduate students, gamblers, and convicts. But what’s the use of doing B2B research if you’re not tapping a B2B research subject pool?

That’s why our research studies report on simulations conducted with actual businesspeople, including executive buyers. Which means all of our solutions are based on the buying motivations of B2B decision-makers.

b2b simulations

industry surveys

Although Corporate Visions uses some industry surveys in our research, we don’t rely on those surveys to generate results. Surveys are simply one window into the customer’s current thinking. In fact, there’s often a gap between what people say they believe (“declared preferences”) and what they actually do (“revealed preferences”).

Within that gap is where some of the most startling, counterintuitive results originate—and that’s what our scientific research and simulations aim to uncover.