{"id":1116,"slug":"heath-brothers-success-framework-gc-fit","title":"Heath & Heath SUCCESs (Made to Stick 2007) — Simple/Concrete/Credible load-bearing; Unexpected double-edged; Stories require recognizable protagonist","kind":"reference","scope":"business","status":"current","audiences":["kevin","candid-team"],"topics":["psychology-aversion","persuasion-design"],"reference_body":"**Claim:** Chip and Dan Heath's *Made to Stick* (2007) framework: Simple, Unexpected, Concrete, Credible, Emotional, Stories. Mapped to this audience:\n\n- **Simple, Concrete, Credible** are the load-bearing dimensions. A risk-averse buyer evaluating an opaque proposition defaults to no. Concreteness — specific deliverables, specific timelines, specific named precedents — is the single highest-leverage drafting choice.\n- **Unexpected** is double-edged. Surprise that confirms competence (an industry insight the GC didn't know but immediately recognizes as correct) is effective. Surprise that violates expectations (a flashy creative concept for a quiet, traditional business) reads as risk-amplifying.\n- **Emotional** must be calibrated. Appeals to pride, autonomy, or peer-comparison status work. Appeals to abstract values (mission, brand purpose) read as category mismatch.\n- **Stories** work, but the protagonist must be recognizably the same as the buyer. Stories from outside the trades read as inapplicable. (Empirical anchor: [[goldstein-cialdini-griskevicius-2008-provincial-norms-hotel-towel]].)\n\n**Source:** Heath, C., & Heath, D. (2007). *Made to Stick*. Random House. https://heathbrothers.com/made-to-stick-introduction/\n\n**Confidence:** Industry-consensus framework; applied audit for this audience.\n\n**For Candid:** Concreteness is the dimension most worth over-investing in. Every claim in Candid copy that can be made specific (vs general) should be. This is also why [[rule-lead-with-certain-deliverable-not-probable-outcome]] is high-leverage — it is a concreteness move and a certainty-effect move simultaneously.","rationale_body":null,"metadata":null,"links":{"outgoing":[{"slug":"research-brief-risk-aversion-post-failure-may-2026","title":"Research brief: risk aversion, loss aversion, and post-failure decision patterns in GC and trades-business decision-makers (May 2026)","kind":"reference","scope":"business","link_type":"relates-to"}],"incoming":[{"slug":"rule-lead-with-certain-deliverable-not-probable-outcome","title":"R3 — Lead with the certain deliverable, not the probable outcome; anchor on what is guaranteed, then layer probable results above","kind":"rule","scope":"business","link_type":"depends-on"}]},"created_at":"2026-05-25T13:13:31.060Z","updated_at":"2026-05-25T13:13:31.060Z"}