Podcast: Play in new window | Download
Master the Art of Persuasion With Expert Christopher Phelps, Us Ceo of Cialdini Institute
Christopher Phelps and Darren Smith dive deep into the psychology of persuasion. Explore the powerful principles that can help anyone improve their persuasion skills.
From understanding Robert Cialdini’s six principles to actionable insights on how to apply persuasion in sales and business, this conversation is a must-watch for anyone looking to influence effectively and ethically.
You Can Read the Full Transcript Below:
Darren A Smith:
Welcome to the World Stickies Learning. I’m Darren Smith, and I’m here with Chris Phelps. Chris, how are you doing?
Christopher Phelps:
Very good, Darren. How you doing?
Darren A Smith:
Hey, I’m good. You’ve just managed to solve a problem for me where I’ve got a stream of light from my light and, and Chris was saying, we’ll put a post-it note sort of here, and you’ve just cracked it. It’s been a problem for two years. We’re off to a great start.
Darren A Smith:
So in this podcast we are talking about persuasion, influence, those types of soft skills. I’d like to start with a question, which is why should we and the people listening and watching listen to you when we talk about persuasion?
Christopher Phelps:
Yeah, that’s a great question. Um, so just to give you a little bit of my background, uh, I was very fortunate, uh, and unfortunate at the same time. So I’m a dentist, uh, by trade. Uh, grew multiple dental practices in Charlotte, North Carolina, where I live on the East coast. And, um, had made this bold move of selling two of my best offices, uh, to free up my partners to be happier elsewhere, as I like to say, and took over my two struggling practices, the worst ones, so I could get back to being me, right? Get back to doing it my way. And I felt like if, if, if I could put my, all my efforts into those two baskets, so to speak, that I could do more with those two offices than what I was being held back with, with the four, right?
Darren A Smith:
Okay.
Christopher Phelps:
And so when I did that and I made that move, I then realised maybe that wasn’t so smart, because now you’re stuck with not the ones that were making money, the ones that are costing you money. , uh, one of which was a brand new dental practice that was costing me 70,000 a month, us in expenses, but only taking in 35,000 a month in revenue. So you don’t have to be a math expert to realise that’s not a good check to write each month, right? So, but what it was was a powerful motivator for me to stop, uh, procrastinating on the problems of these practices or ignoring them, right? And, and deal with them. The problem was I just didn’t know what the root cause of the problems were. Okay. And so your brain is funny in that sense. That’s why it procrastinates, that’s why it ignores the problems, because if it doesn’t understand the root cause or doesn’t feel like you have the capability to solve the problem, that’s what it does to quote unquote protect you.
Christopher Phelps:
Right? Well, at this point, knew I had to do something and dig into it. And I was fortunate that a friend of mine invited me to a business seminar, and the keynote speaker was the, the godfather of influence himself, Dr. Robert c Cini. And, you know, Cini is a professor of emus, of Mark, uh, psychology and marketing at Arizona State University. Uh, he wrote the book, influence of Psychology of Persuasion over 40 years ago, and that’s what he’s built his name and research around is this whole idea. And after he, he gone on stage and talked about those six principles. There was one of them in particular that was like my aha moment that I was like, yeah, that principle right there, that one is the root cause of all of my problems in my practices. Okay? So I knew he was, was in, he was an authority, right?
Christopher Phelps:
This guy had the answer. So I sought him out and, uh, went out to Phoenix, Arizona. Uh, I did a two day training on persuasion and influence with him and his team. And then I found out that they had a certification program so that you could actually go deeper in your knowledge. And they only take, you know, a couple people every few years out of the thousands that apply. And I was fortunate that they accepted me into the family, so to speak. And so I actually got to train under Dr. Cini directly for over a year and basically went and took these principles and this behavioural science research that I’ve been studying with him. And I went back to my practices and kind of use them as my laboratory, if you will, experimenting, right? Hey, if I kind of worked in this study in this scenario, maybe it might work with my patients in this scenario. Lemme try it. Well come to find out not only did we have some significant results that year, but each of those practices grew by a million dollars each three years in a row. Okay?
Darren A Smith:
Wow.
Christopher Phelps:
So, and this is doing, uh, the timeframe of this, by the way, is 2008 to 2010 when in the United States that was during our housing crisis, right? Which a similar economic turmoil like we’re experiencing now with inflation and whatnot. So a time period when more dentists went bankrupt in the states than in the history of dentistry, we’re growing millions of dollars a year. Okay? Okay. So automatically, because of that experience and the training with him, I drank the Kool-Aid , right? I saw the benefit of this stuff and the power of it.
Christopher Phelps:
When you stop making your strategies around the excuses people give you after they’ve said no , and you back it up and you start making your strategies around what they’re really using to make the majority of their decisions. So that’s what child Dini’s principles tap into, right? That’s at the heart of what they speak to. So why take this for me? Well, because number one, I’ve studied this from the man himself. Uh, number two, I’ve lived it, okay. Uh, I’ve used it in my own businesses. And then number three, I’ve helped countless other dentists, dental practices, as well as large corporations outside of dentistry and other industries tap into the power of these principles as well. Uh, so I’ve helped others see the same kind of benefits and result I have.
Darren A Smith:
Wow. Okay. I’m hooked . Now, before we come to the questions, ’cause you and I talked, um, let’s ask top 10 questions I’d really like to know. Just gimme an example of one thing you changed in your practice that made the growth through this.
Christopher Phelps:
Yeah. Well, here’s a simple one, right? So when we normally present an options, uh, treatment options to a patient, uh, we were actually treating them and I was trained in dental school to take them what I call up the stairs, right? So the options start low and go high, right? Mm-hmm . So for instance, if somebody was missing a single tooth, uh, the options would be do nothing, right? Leave the tooth gone, uh, do something we call a removable partial denture. So have a fake tooth that comes in and out, plastic tooth do a bridge, which is something that stays in place and kind of connects the teeth around the space. So it looks like the tooth is there. Um, and something called a dental implant, right? So we replace the single tooth that way without hurting the neighboring teeth, right? So in the past, we would present something to that effect. We’d say, Hey, do nothing, do this partial, do this bridge or do this implant. Okay?
Darren A Smith:
Yeah. Got it.
Christopher Phelps:
Well, one of the things we learned in persuasion is this thing called contrast and how, uh, what you say first sets the stage for how people perceive the next thing you talk about, and then the next thing you talk about and the next thing. So when my financial team would come in and go over those options, let’s say it was, uh, $2,000 for the first option. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Uh, $4,000 for the next option, or $6,000 for the, for the high-end implant option. Okay? Each number they hear sounds worse and worse and worse in contrast when you take them up the stairs. Yeah. So one simple thing you can do is just flip the order, don’t end with your most expensive item, start with that in your presentation and take people down the stairs as well. Right? There’s a reason they say nature likes to take the path, at least resistance.
Christopher Phelps:
We want to take the path of least that takes less energy, right? So going down actually means that more people are automatically slated to say yes to not only your ideal option, but every other option underneath. So they actually did this in, in a study in dentistry where, uh, doctors were taking people up the stairs in this scenario, and then they ha half the time that’s what they did. And then the other half of the time they flipped the coin and started high and took them down low. And we would all agree that if price was the sole motivating factor of why people said yes, then it doesn’t matter what order you presented in right?
Christopher Phelps:
Up or down, you either have the money or you don’t. Okay? Well, they ask these doctors, well, how much of an increase in sales of your most expensive, in this case $8,000, uh, product needs to occur for you to think this was a really good experiment? And they were thinking, man, if we had a 20% increase in sales of our most expensive product, that would be great for this year. And so I usually ask the people that same question, think about you and your industry. How many of you would love a 20% increase in your most expensive product that you sell? Right? Well, by starting high and going low, just that one little move, 540% increase in sales of the $8,000 treatment option.
Darren A Smith:
Wow.
Christopher Phelps:
One 20.
Darren A Smith:
And I love that it’s so simple from going downstairs. I’ve just written it down. That’s what I’m writing from downstairs to up the stairs or up stairs to down the stairs, I mean
Christopher Phelps:
Mm-hmm . Wow. Wow. So think of it this way, when you’re trying to build value Yeah. About your products or options, you take them up the stairs. Yeah. Right? Think of it like Christmas gifts. You know, you don’t start giving gifts to your, your kids or whoever. You don’t start them out with the best gift and then go down and gifts from there. You start with the small gifts and work your way up to the big gifts so that you build value by the end. This is like impressive, right? So when you’re presenting the options and the features of it, you go up. But when it comes to presenting the price of them, now you start high and take them back down.
Darren A Smith:
Brilliant.
Christopher Phelps:
But what’s not only do they sell more of the the $8,000 option, those that really couldn’t afford 8,000 more bought the next level down than in the other group. And those that couldn’t afford that more bought in the next level down than any other group, and even more bought in the last group than in the other group. So more people said yes to something overall. So overall sales skyrocketed.
Darren A Smith:
That’s brilliant. And I’ve done it, I mean, instinctively, I, I’ve either presented it or I’ve bought that way. And you’re right, the first step on the stairs, you’re thinking, let’s say it’s a thousand pounds for training. Everything is referenced from there, and everything after that is just so much more expensive. And you think, oh, did I do it that way, ?
Christopher Phelps:
Yeah. Well, it just goes to show you with persuasion and influence, not only what we say to people is important, but the order and the sequence in which we say it can actually make or break your presentation with no merit to what you’re even talking about. Just the way our brain processes the options can work for you or against you. So
Darren A Smith:
I’m loving that so much. I’m tempted to ask for another example. Uh, I dunno if you have one or if you wanna move to the questions, but I’m fascinated now. Um, is there a second example you’ve got of where you,
Christopher Phelps:
Something there’s a million, we call these, uh, small bigs, uh, small little things you can do to change, tweak, um, that can lead to a significant, uh, impact or result, right? Nice.
Darren A Smith:
Yep.
Christopher Phelps:
Um, so using that same example, what I always say, another way you can modify that is before you talk about what you wanna talk about, you need to anchor them to something else first.
Darren A Smith:
Okay?
Christopher Phelps:
Usually that anchor has to be, uh, something of a higher value, so to speak. So, for instance, and also provide choices for people, what you don’t wanna do is tell them you need this. Yeah. Right? We all learned as children, we don’t like to be told. Yes. So when you, and it kind of highlights the difference between influence and persuasion and coercion, intimidation, manipulation. Right? These are two different spectrums, if you will, okay. Of influence. Yeah. And, uh, persuasion is not coercion. It’s not manipulation. Right? And, and here’s why. When you tell somebody to do something, in essence, you’ve taken away their control, okay? They don’t really feel like they have a choice.
Darren A Smith:
Yep.
Christopher Phelps:
But their instinct is when you take something away, they wanna take it back. So if I tell you as your dentist, Hey, by the way, you need a crown for your tooth, you’re thinking, well, who are you to tell me I need a crown? It’s not hurting. I’ll decide when I need that crown. Thank you very much. In essence, in your mind, you’re taking the control back. Okay? Yep. Now, I don’t hear that conversation, right? And all you’re doing to me is smiling and waving at me at the chair. Cool doc. Yeah, I get it. Oh yeah, I’ll schedule. Yeah. Lemme check my calendar. Lemme talk to my wife, , lemme do anything but say yes to you right now. Yes, sure. Sense of what’s going on. Okay? So you, you don’t want that. So instead of telling, let’s back it up, let’s anchor them with an option. So in this case, I’ll say, instead of you need a crown, I’ll say, Hey, well Darren, look, option one is do nothing.
Darren A Smith:
Yep.
Christopher Phelps:
But here’s what’s gonna happen. You know, this little bacteria in the tooth here doesn’t just disappear. It’s gonna go deeper. It’s gonna get to the center of the tooth. It’s gonna cause an infection. It’s gonna cause pain, probably time off of work. And if I gotta fix this later, over multiple visits, we’re looking at probably a root canal build up in a crown for $3,600. Mm-hmm . But the good news is we’re not there yet. If I get to today, it’s only a crown. Oh, you’re posting notes falling on you. ,
Darren A Smith:
That was supposed to note we talked about brilliant. Uh, was working.
Christopher Phelps:
I was like, I was like, that’s our cue and we’re done. , ,
Darren A Smith:
I sitting hooked the stage. Alright, so I get that. So it’s 3,600, you’re anchoring them with something bigger, right? Something
Christopher Phelps:
Bigger. Right. And, uh, I call this the ethical consequences of what happens if they choose to do nothing.
Darren A Smith:
Yeah.
Christopher Phelps:
Consequences in the additional services or treatment that’s gonna be needed later. Okay. Products, whatever, uh, a consequence in their value. Like they value not being in pain or time or what, multiple visits, whatever, uh, and a consequence in additional money they’re gonna have to spend down the road. Yeah. But the good news is, if we get to it today, it’s only a crown and it’s only $1,200. Yeah. And after your insurance pays its part, it’s only 800. So what would you prefer?
Darren A Smith:
Yeah. Yeah.
Christopher Phelps:
Nice. Do nothing or do the crown. Now present it with a choice. It’s a lot easier to go. Yeah. I probably don’t want that thing happening, so, all right, I’ll do the crown. Yeah. But when you present choices to people, this or that, okay. You get more compliance. That’s persuasion is all about giving people choices.
Darren A Smith:
Yeah. Love it. Okay. Fabulous. I’ve just written those down, so I’m loving those. They’re, they’re brand new to me. And just coming back to when you were in the conference, um, which of the six persuasions, uh, uh, laws of persuasion was the one that got you, was the epiphany moment?
Christopher Phelps:
Yeah. So let me run through ’em for those that don’t know them, right? So we’ve got reciprocity. Uh, reciprocity means that if someone gives you a gift of value, of significance to you, an obligation is not created inside of you that you feel the need to give back to them. Yeah. Example, somebody, uh, does you a favor, you’re gonna feel the need to do them a favor, give one back kind of thing. Um, liking, uh, we like to do business with people we like. Right? Um, if I don’t like you, then I’m not likely to do business with you kinda thing. Sure. Um, social proof, uh, we looked at the evidence of what many others are doing, right. To show us what we should do. If the crowd’s moving a certain direction, oftentimes that tells us we should seriously consider it as well. Okay? Yep.
Christopher Phelps:
Uh, we’ve got, got, uh, authority. Uh, many times we looked a credible, trustworthy experts to tell us what we should do. For instance, if a plumber comes to my house and tells me I need a new toilet, well, I don’t know anything about plumbing, so I guess I’m buying a new toilet, right? So somebody who has more expertise and knowledge and is trustworthy gives you advice. We lean on those people for that because the truth is we don’t have time to be an expert in everything. We need trustworthy experts to tell us what we should do in this case. ’cause we don’t know. Okay?
Darren A Smith:
And that’s also why we can see your certificate back there.
Christopher Phelps:
Exactly. So we got scarcity, right? A lot of people heard of scarcity. And scarcity is about loss, right? If resources are dwindling or about to become rare or, or disappear, it Uber motivates you to suddenly want that thing more than ever and do more to get it right. So if I told people, if you’re listening to this or watching this wherever you are right now, that the oxygen was about to run out of your room, how many of you would prefer to know before it runs out versus when it runs out? I think everybody would agree. They wanna know before it runs out, because what’s that gonna now motivate them to do?
Christopher Phelps:
Alright, let’s get the heck outta here and go find some oxygen. Right? So that’s where the, where the pull comes from. Okay? But it, our brain hasn’t been able to discern true life or death resources running out versus toilet paper running out because there’s a run on it at the store, . You know what I mean? Yeah. Or there’s less of the, what I normally order at the bakery. There’s, they’re down to one and suddenly now I want it more than ever. Right?
Darren A Smith:
And, and it so true. British Airways, Concord, when they stock Concord, I think it was the most booked week in Concord’s history.
Christopher Phelps:
It was, it was record sales for Concord, because this is the last time you’ll ever be able to get on it. Yeah. Suddenly. ’cause you know, scarcity kind of motivates action, right? So when people think they always have access to it, then they think they’re gonna get to it down the road. They think they’ve got time, so they put it off. But suddenly when they realise, no, if you really seriously wanted to ride on this thing, and this is your last chance, that’s who it motivates and it motivates action quickly. So scarcity is a big one. Um, the newest principle is called unity. Uh, unity is a little different than liking. Liking is that you are like me. We have similarities, commonalities, unity is, we are the same. Like we’re united under a category. This could be a certain religion, it could be a favorite sports team, a soccer team or a football team.
Christopher Phelps:
Uh, it could be, uh, a geographic region, uh, culture. Like, there’s all kinds of things that unite us, so to speak. Um, but so it’s not a you versus me situation. It’s a, we you identify yourself with that unit, if you will. But the principle that got me my highlight was consistency. I’m not gonna say, you know, I’d say of all the principles I’d, in my opinion, this definitely one of the, if not the most powerful, it is one of the most powerful because it’s actually influences you in two different ways. So consistency is, think about it as commitments. If you get a commitment out of somebody, there’s a lot of external and internal influence on them to follow through and do the commitment that they said they were gonna do.
Christopher Phelps:
Okay? Yep. So let’s think about it this way. Well, how do we know this is true? Well, what do you call people who are not consistent in their thoughts, actions, and beliefs who don’t do what they say they’re gonna do routinely? Well, there’s no positive word in the English language to describe this person, right? Wishy-washy flakes, liars. Okay? So that’s the external influence. We don’t want others to look at us in that way as being inconsistent in our thoughts, actions, and beliefs. At the same time, there’s an internal influence in that you don’t wanna perceive yourself in that way either.
Darren A Smith:
Yeah. Yep.
Christopher Phelps:
So
Darren A Smith:
You, you yourself. Yep.
Christopher Phelps:
Most of the other principles are an external influence on us. This is has internal as well. So you actually get outside and inside. So two sources of pull. So for me, what I heard was, if you get a commitment, then they do. Well, suddenly it became apparent. Why weren’t my patients returning for treatment? Why were, why do I have to keep telling my team to do stuff and do their job instead of them just doing their job? Right? Why do I have to micromanage them? Why? When the cat was away, the mice would play, as they say, right? Why my associate doctors, when I paid for them to go get education, they wouldn’t return and use that education with their patients and provide new services and stuff for the practice, right?
Christopher Phelps:
So suddenly I realised what I was missing. I wasn’t getting a commitment out of any of them to do any of those things. Okay? That was the secret. I was not getting the commitment. I thought I was, but I wasn’t. So once I went back and made strategies around getting better commitments from people, that’s what changed everything.
Darren A Smith:
And, and can you bring that, bring that to life for us with an example? Because I’ve, I’ve got the concept, but I’m thinking, what did you go and do? You asked them for the commitment and they went, yeah, but
Christopher Phelps:
Simple. So for instance, we’re making a phone reservation. Let’s say you’re, you’re calling a restaurant to make a reservation, or you’re making an appointment at a medical dental office are the normal way we’d end. The phone call would be great. I got you down for this Wednesday. Please call us if you can’t make your appointment. Click. Yeah. It’s a statement, right? So just by changing that and making this into now what we call an active verbal commitment. So instead of using the statement, please call us If you can’t make it, we ask the commitment question, Hey, before you go, will you please call us if you cannot make this appointment?
Christopher Phelps:
And we waited for them to say, yes, I will. Okay, great. Then we’re looking forward to seeing you. So in a, a study at a popular restaurant in Chicago, Illinois, they had a 30% no-show rate on reservations. And this was a popular, famous place. Okay? Just by adding that one little phrase, will you please call us? At the end of their reservations, it dropped their no-show rate from 30% to 10.
Darren A Smith:
Geez. 2020 point difference. Wow.
Christopher Phelps:
With one verbal commitment. Okay? So verbal. That’s an example of getting a verbal commitment. Uh, a written commitment is even more powerful. So instead of us writing down our patient’s next appointment times, we hand them the card and they write it down. We watch them as they put it into their phone. That’s the same as a written commitment. Yeah. Right? If we’re having trouble getting people to show on certain days, then we get them to prepay. ’cause the highest act of commitment is called effort. When you put time or money skin in the game into it, so to speak, you’re gonna follow through with the commitment that you made.
Darren A Smith:
And, and so come coming back to your leaders or your doctors who went and got more education, how did you change that up?
Christopher Phelps:
Yeah. So in the past, I would just pay for it, right? So in this case, I needed a better, two better commitments from them. So I went to them, I said, look, I’m all about education. So if there’s something that you wanna go take a class on, great. You pay for it. You put your money in F first, right? And if it’s a service or product, procedure, whatever, that you could come back and provide to our patients, I’m happy to pay for the equipment, supplies, whatever you need the tools to do this thing, procedure, I’ll do that. You pay for it upfront. And then when you come back, every time you do that procedure, I will pay you more than what your standard pay is until I paid you back for the course. So now they have to do it to get paid back. So at the end of this, I paid for the course, but they had to do two powerful commitments first. Put up their own money initially and do it.
Darren A Smith:
Hmm. Wow. Wow, wow, wow. Okay. Loving that. Great examples. I’m just gonna do a time check. We three o’clock, we are not going to get through all our questions. Yeah. . Um, so I thought we’d try a couple, and then I’m going to try and persuade you at the end to do a part two
Christopher Phelps:
I like it.
Darren A Smith:
Um, so on Google, the top 10 questions that people are asking around persuasion. The first one is, what is persuasion?
Christopher Phelps:
Yeah, that’s a good one. Um, persuasion is this, right? You as the recipient receive a message in some format. So you hear it, you see it, um, you read it, right? But you receive a message in some format, something about that message changes your perspective. Okay? Yeah. And when you change your perspective, in essence, you’re changing your mindset. And when you change your mindset, you’re changing your thinking. And when you change your thinking, that’s what changes your behaviour. Okay? So it’s all about something about a message influence you to change the way you thought about that thing. Okay? That’s persuasion by definition.
Darren A Smith:
Okay? Okay. And, and, uh, it’s not on the question list, but persuasion, influence. Are they cousins? Are they father and son? How do they fit together?
Christopher Phelps:
Yeah. So influence is kind of the, the master category, right? And there’s all kinds of things that fall under how do you influence someone. Persuasion is just one of those subcategories, right? Uh, just like intimidation, coercion is on one of those subcategories. I mean, you can get people to do stuff by putting a gun to their head, that will influence them, right? Um, you’ve got, uh, money you can pay people to get, you know, monetary, monetary incentives is a way to influence people, right? So persuasion is just one of the subcategories under the master category of influence.
Darren A Smith:
Okay. That’s clear. That’s clear. Alright. Um, and is it a hard skill or a soft skill? Now, I think I could answer this, but you are the expert hard skill or soft skill? Persuasion.
Christopher Phelps:
Yeah, that’s a good question. You know, obviously a hard skill is something that, um, is kind of, uh, speaks to a technical ability. Um, something that can be taught, like if you’re in data analysis, right? It’s measurable, if you will. A soft skill is less tangible and a little harder to measure. So pro like pro we were talking about problem solving earlier is one of those soft skills, right? I mean, yeah, I’m really good at problem solving. But how do you measure that? I don’t know. There’s no, I’m, there’s no scale that I know of, right? So communication is another one of those soft skills and persuasion falls under communication.
Christopher Phelps:
So it’s definitely a, a soft skill. But what’s interesting, the people tapping into it or see the, the ones that are seeking information in this, or your people, you would imagine people, those in sales marketing, right? But believe it or not, p everybody influences and persuades whether they realise or not, right? Uh, even if, if you’re not in sales or marketing. So there was a big study here done by a guy named Daniel Pink with 7,000 US workers. These are people that are not in sales at all, right? Not in marketing, so to speak, just, you know, everyday people in a company. And what they found was they spent up to 41% of their hour trying to persuade others to do something. Okay? Oh,
Darren A Smith:
Wow. Didn’t know that. Okay.
Christopher Phelps:
Right? So you’re talking about three hours a day. Yeah. On salespeople or, or need to learn how to persuade. So we all are using this and tapping into this stuff, um, and it is a soft skill. Um, but the good news for us is it’s a soft skill that can be taught. It. You can be, you can learn how to improve your persuasion skills.
Darren A Smith:
And, and people who are watching and listening, they’re thinking, I’d like to improve my persuasion skills. Is there a a gentle next step they can take somewhere to go? What can they do?
Christopher Phelps:
Yeah. I mean, obviously the foundational piece is, you can read Dr. Choi’s book, uh, influence the Psychology of Persuasion. Um, it’s kind of interesting being the book’s 40 years old. I can’t think of too many books that are that old, that are still this relevant today. like that book in, I,
Darren A Smith:
I think it’s up there somewhere, but I won’t be able to put my hands on it straight away.
Christopher Phelps:
Yeah. Um, but that just tells you how it speaks to what people use to make their decisions. This is why it’ll never go away. So the book is a great starting point, but for those that want to go above and beyond what the book talks about, ’cause the book is just a start, it’s just scratching the surface of these things. Uh, then we, that’s why we built the Cialdini Institute, right? To invite people to come. And in an online on demand product, you can learn these things. Like I had to learn them from cini directly. You can now learn it from him with over 10 hours of video content that you can do self-paced, which is kind of cool. And you can learn what activates these things, what turns them on in a moment, and how to amplify their power, right? And then learn specifically how to apply these things to your business, your profession. So,
Darren A Smith:
Okay. Okay. And to get to that, we would go on the Cialdini website and find it there. Yeah.
Christopher Phelps:
You just go to cini.com, uh, and book a time with, uh, myself or one of our other colleagues at the institute and we’ll, we’ll go dig into your specific situation. ’cause we have a couple of different product offerings. We do, obviously we do onsite trainings, we work for companies, we do consulting and stuff. Uh, we do the, the personal development, which is just learn it yourself. Um, we have application help. So we, we will just dig in that with you and figure out what’s your best, what are your needs, right? What are you looking for? And then we will have and present the solutions accordingly.
Darren A Smith:
Okay. Okay. Fabulous. All right. We’ll put a link at the bottom of, uh, this, uh, video and podcast so people can get to that quickly. Uh, I think I’m gonna ask you one last question ’cause we won’t get through them all. I’d love to do a part two. So how does Robert come into the persuasion picture?
Christopher Phelps:
Yeah, it was kind of interesting. So, you know, when he came to Arizona State University, um, originally he was looking for a research project, right? Something to dig his teeth into and whatnot. And, um, he had had some examples, uh, of how he was persuaded that got him interested in this topic. But it was really when he was sitting at his desk and he was, he had bought a box of chocolate bars. So these were individually wrapped, sold individually kind of thing. And he had bought the whole box. And what was interesting was is that, that he doesn’t like chocolate . So he’s sitting there looking at this thing going, why in the heck did I buy this whole box of stuff I don’t eat? Right? Yeah. There was something there that was intriguing him. So he decided to, to seek out, well, what are the best of the best businesses, companies, organisations, what are they doing to persuade us to want or get their products right?
Christopher Phelps:
So he left the lab, which is kind of interesting, the research, uh, facility on campus. And he went out into the field for over two and a half years and he would change his name, he would change his hair color, uh, change his outfits, and he would pretend to be a potential sales trainee right? In that company. And he went through all of these different organisations, sales training processes, everything down from door to door sales, um, to, uh, working in, uh, used car lots, uh, new car industry, uh, working in marketing, uh, agencies in New York and la um, interviewing cult church leaders to figure out what are they doing to influence people to do what others might think of as a unusual behaviour, right?
Christopher Phelps:
Uh, all studying how the best of the best are influencing us to see was there a pattern there or was there something that they were all tapping into, whether they realised it or not. And that’s what he discovered was six things that stood out to him that he saw amongst all of these different trainings. None that anybody had defined at the time, but he saw them, he recognised that they were there. So that’s when he went back to a SU and that’s what he did his research on. And that’s what we know is the six principles of persuasion.
Darren A Smith:
Wow. Fabulous. And there’s a wonderful video. Um, or it’s black and white and it’s drawn. It’s a YouTube video. It’s had about 40 million views, isn’t it?
Christopher Phelps:
Yes. Yeah,
Darren A Smith:
That one’s, uh, that’s good. Explains it very, very well. Okay, I’m gonna ask you one last question. It’s a selfish question, but I’m sure the people won’t mind. This is a product we, we sell, right? It’s coaching cards. So in here are cards where a line manager can become a coach and they can ask some questions.
Christopher Phelps:
Nice. Okay.
Darren A Smith:
So they go through here and it’s based on the grow model. So John Whitmore’s Grow model, it could be any product. What can we learn about persuasion that would help us to sell more of these? Would we change something on pack or the way it’s written or what would we do?
Christopher Phelps:
Yeah, well, you know, so there’s persuasion and then there’s persuasion, right? So persuasion is about leveraging the principles and the seven of them if they’re available in that situation, in that moment. Okay? When you’re with that person, uh, Pre-Suasion is another one. A child in these books that they did his research on is about what do you do to get them into the right mindset? To want to say yes to buying this thing, let’s say, but creating that mindset before they get to you, right? Okay.
Darren A Smith:
Yep.
Christopher Phelps:
So that’s one of the big reasons why people say no to you, is they’re coming into the moment and their mindset is someplace else. And if their mindset is not refocused back on what you’re about to talk about with this product, service procedure, then usually their mindset is distracting them from your conversation or is directly competing with your conversation. So if I just get off the phone with my wife and she told me to book this family of four vacation this summer, and I’m coming into that and the next thing I talk to you and you’re trying to show me this product, now I’m contrasting, I gotta pay 10 grand for this vacation. Is there anything left for this thing?
Darren A Smith:
Okay.
Christopher Phelps:
Does that make sense?
Darren A Smith:
Yeah, it does.
Christopher Phelps:
So both of the time people drop the ball is they don’t refocus that person’s mindset and get them recommitted to what do they value. So for in essence, you would think about it this way, somebody who’s gonna say yes to this product, what mindset are they in? And how do you then create this? So example from the book, they surveyed random people at a grocery store, uh, and they asked them, they’re like, Hey, we’re with this uh, soft drink company. We’ve got this soda pop, whatever, you know, Coke, whatever you call it based on in the states, it’s based on the region and what we call that stuff, but a soft drink, right? A soda. And they said, we’ve got this new soda we’d love for you to try, uh, just share your personal information with us. So your name, email address, home address, whatever phone number, we’ll send you a free case.
Christopher Phelps:
And all we ask is that you evaluate it and let us know your feedback. So in essence, they were asking them for their personal information in exchange for sending them this free Soto. Well, not shocking, in this day of cybersecurity and protecting your information, only 17% of the people said, sure, take my personal information. So 83% were like, no thanks, right? So they got to think to themselves, well, what mindset is there with somebody who would try this new thing? So then it hit ’em. So in the second part of the study, what they would do is have a different group of researchers at the front of the store and they would ask one persuasive commitment question as the people entered, Hey, sorry to bother you, I know you’re going shopping. Just real quick question, I’m doing a survey of our customers. Do you consider yourself to be an adventurous person?
Christopher Phelps:
Yes or no? Right? Would it shock you that a hundred percent of the people said yes. Okay, well now they’re in a mindset of being adventurous. And what do adventurous people like to do? Try new things, right? At the same time, if you’re not adventurous, what’s the opposite of that? Why did everybody say yes? ’cause they did not want to be perceived as boring. Okay,
Darren A Smith:
That’s boring. I don’t wanna do it. Yeah. Oh, I love
Christopher Phelps:
It. Yeah. So I’m adventurous. Okay, well great. Thanks for letting us know. So about 10 or 15 minutes later, a different group of researchers found those people and asked them the same question they did. The first group, Hey, we’re the soft drink company. We’d love for you to try this. Share us your information and we’ll send it to you. Right? So how many more said yes coming into the mindset of being adventurous? It went from 17% to 76%.
Darren A Smith:
Yeah.
Christopher Phelps:
Well, so one tool you could do is figure that out. What mindset do I want somebody to be in? Who’s gonna say yes to this product? So for me, let’s say in my patients, because I’m using scarcity, I’m anchoring them to the consequences of doing nothing, right? Yeah. Okay. Well I know that the mindset I want them in before they hear the scarcity messages, someone who wants to avoid consequences and things getting worse. So the question I ask of them is, Hey, when it comes to your oral health, which do you prefer? Do you prefer to be reactive and you’re okay letting it go, costing you more time, money and pain because you waited? Or do you prefer to be proactive, someone who wants to avoid complications and it costing you more time, money and pain because you waited, choose.
Darren A Smith:
I love that. I love that example. Whoa, Chris, you’re almost a scary man. I wonder if I sit here and I’ll probably hand over my house. , time we finish. Oh,
Christopher Phelps:
Well that’s a good point. And next time in part two we’re gonna talk about, just because we know we can persuade people, should we, we’ll talk about the ethics of this, right? Because there is a big ethical component that we teach and that you have to understand because like most things, it could be used for good or evil. You always wanna make sure you’re on the side of, of good .
Darren A Smith:
Of course, my top three takeaways, I love the piece, particularly about going from up the stairs to downstairs. That was my big takeaway. I love that. Um, the second part I particularly liked was about allowing them to have the choice. You are not controlling them, you’re not telling them it’s their choice. And then the third part I liked was pre-suasion. I think I’ve read the book, but it might be a while ago. Uh, I love the idea of persuasion as well. Cool.
Christopher Phelps:
Yeah. Change the mindset. You change the behaviour.
Darren A Smith:
Yes. Yeah. Well, I’m loving it. I’m loving it. We’ve got about five other questions we’d love to ask you in part two. Uh, for now, a big thank you to you.
Christopher Phelps:
You’re welcome. Thank you.
