Heath & Heath SUCCESs (Made to Stick 2007) — Simple/Concrete/Credible load-bearing; Unexpected double-edged; Stories require recognizable protagonist

Claim: Chip and Dan Heath's Made to Stick (2007) framework: Simple, Unexpected, Concrete, Credible, Emotional, Stories. Mapped to this audience:

• 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.
• 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.
• Emotional must be calibrated. Appeals to pride, autonomy, or peer-comparison status work. Appeals to abstract values (mission, brand purpose) read as category mismatch.
• 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]].)

Source: Heath, C., & Heath, D. (2007). Made to Stick. Random House. https://heathbrothers.com/made-to-stick-introduction/

Confidence: Industry-consensus framework; applied audit for this audience.

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.