Inside Influence: Live with Dr. Robert Cialdini

Dr. Cialdini's Evolving Thoughts on Influence Yeah, I think it's the authority principle and the recognition that I should not be focusing on being in authority and the influence that that has. I should be focusing exclusively on being an authority and the persuasive consequences of that. Being in authority is about power. But if you're demons, you've demonstrated that you're an authority. They want to follow your lead, even if you're not there anymore to observe them. Speaker 2 That was Doctor Robert Cialdini, and after spending three episodes studying Influence, Richard and I thought we had a pretty good understanding of his work. But this conversation really helped us appreciate that some of his most interesting ideas aren't the ones we've already covered in the last episodes. It's hearing the way Dr. Cialdini has continued to evolve his thinking over time, and that has a big impact on both marketers and business leaders alike. Today's conversation covered many of the back and forth Richard and I were talking about, but it also brought new ideas that we hadn't even thought to ask. Doctor Chialdini is the author of Influence, one of the most important texts on persuasion and behavioral science available today. And with all that said, we're very excited for you to hear our episode. Thanks for listening. Quick Questions, Deep Answers on Persuasion Welcome back to Behavioral Science for Brands, a podcast where we bridge the gap between academics and practical marketing. Every week we sit down and go deep behind the science that powers great marketing. Today, I'm Michael Aaron Flicker. Speaker 3 And I'm Richard Shelton. Speaker 2 And today we're sitting with Doctor Robert Cialdini, author of Influence, widely regarded as the most foundational book on persuasion. Let's get into it. Doctor Chaldini, welcome to Behavioral Science for Brands. We're thrilled to have you here. Speaker 1 Well, thank you, Mike Lehren and Richard. I'm looking forward to our conversation. Speaker 2 We've spent three episodes diving into your book, Influence, breaking down the principles, and Richard and I are excited to test our knowledge with you today, challenge some of our thinking and and you'll tell us how we're doing on this matter. Speaker 1 All right, fair enough. And. Speaker 2 Before we get into that, we have just a few fun rapid fire questions and let me get us kicked off here. What's one thing about your work and influence that you think most people misunderstand? Speaker 1 That I am stressing the ethics of the process, not just the effectiveness of it. And I think by doing so, I increased the effectiveness of those people who follow the the approach of being simultaneously effective and ethical. Speaker 3 Which of the principles do you find hardest to resist yourself? Speaker 1 You know, I don't try to resist them anymore because I think they move me in the right direction unless they're being counterfeited. So what I resist is the counterfeit versions, the, the deception. That's the thing that I, I, I tried to, to recognize. And I think of those, it's liking because liking is not something that's easily recognized cognitively. Speaker 3 And when you say counterfeit, would this be so for example, social proof, this idea that if you appear like you're popular, you become more popular still if it's counterfeit, social proof is that someone making up essentially inventing fictitious stories of. Speaker 1 Popularity. They can. Exaggerate they can. They can invent statistics, they can lie with statistics, they can leave out other evidence that is counter to what they are presenting, which still might be true, but it may not be representative. So take for example, the research that shows that 97% of doctors support vaccines, but you just present the authorities who, who don't believe that and don't present the representativeness of the of the case for authority. I think that's a a a an example of of a counterfeiter. Speaker 2 Brilliant. What's one small change that can make a big difference specifically for how brands or companies influence behavior? Speaker 1 They need to be more human in the way they present their case and recognize the, I would say empathy with their market. You know, Ben Franklin, one of the founding fathers here in the US said should you wish to persuade, speak not to logical argument, speak to self-interest, empathize with your with with your audience. See what the things you can think through or research are, their major challenges, their preferences, their proclivities, their patterns, the things that you can resonate with and provide information to satisfy their their preferences and and choices in in their lives. The Nuance of True Authority in Persuasion Is there any persuasion technique where you've changed your mind on over time? Is there something that you've got very different opinion on from when you started out? Speaker 1 Yeah, I think it's the authority principle and the recognition that I should not be focusing on being in authority and the influence that that has. I should be focusing exclusively on being an authority and the persuasive consequences of that. Being in authority is about power. It really I shouldn't be talking about it as a persuasive approach. That's hierarchical authority that you can, you can get, yes, through coercion or in or, or penalties, sanctions. And some people don't like that. They really don't. But if you're demons, you've demonstrated that you're an authority. They want to follow your lead, even if you're not there anymore to observe them, because it's your idea, not you as a as an enforcer of that idea that's making the difference. Speaker 3 That's that's a nice distinction, so that when you're in authority and enforcing something, it might work whilst you're there and present and can fulfill all these nasty sanctions. But is your argument that that doesn't work? Once people have left, then then you're less likely to. Speaker 1 Then reactants can show itself essentially that you resented, you resent, you resented that coercive push or pressure, and so when that person is not there to observe any longer, that tendency can surface. Speaker 2 Yeah. It also strikes me that becoming an authority is an achievable goal for all people that want to be more persuasive. Being in authority that may that, that, that that's more circumstantial than something that we can all work towards. Speaker 1 Right. And it allows you many, many more recipients to concentrate because you want to be persuasive with your superiors. You want to get them to agree to your budget. You want to be persuasive with your peers. You want to get them online on the same page with a new initiative that you're proposing or something like that. So it's you. There are it's influence without authority. That's being an authority, not being in authority, yeah. Speaker 2 So helpful to hear. So helpful to hear. Cialdini's Unique Methodology for Influence So we have spent a number of episodes, Doctor Chialdini going through the principles in detail. And as Richard and I were getting ready for our conversation today, we were curious, how did you finally arrive at these original 6? We're going to talk about the seventh in a little bit, but what made these 6 stand out versus everything else you could have included? We're we're interested in the back story that you have to get to this. Speaker 1 To get to that, I had to change my methodology. I moved out of my laboratory and became a participant observer. That is, I infiltrated the training programs of as many influence professions as I could get access to. I would answer ads and I would take the training in sales, marketing, advertising, public relations, recruiting and to see what they were teaching their aspiring professionals to do to increase their profits because they had learned that these approaches worked. So what was the thing that set them out apart? If I found evidence of them being recommended in each of those professional domains, there were only six that they all said worked and then I so it was a double step process. I then looked into the behavioral science research to see if they had been validated. It wasn't just speculations or hunches or No, no, these had been proven to be causal influences on increasing the likelihood of ascent to a request or a proposal or a recommendation. And if I had those two together, then they made the that made the grade. Those principles made the grade. And there were just six. I was surprised. That was the biggest surprise I had. How small the footprint was. Only six. Yeah, at that point. Speaker 3 There's a methodology I love this idea of being a participant observer, and I wonder if there's a bigger application or a more broader application in both academia and in the professional world because it's the overlap that's super interesting. There's a danger that in the real world people can adopt behaviours that aren't evidence based, but I think there's a danger in the academic world that it can focus on maybe impractical solutions. Do you think this could be a broader technique for more confused? Speaker 1 I I do. In fact, I'm very taken by the approach of certain executives of CE, OS and so on who spend time in the roles of the people that they supervise. So they recognize what might be conceivable, but not. Speaker 2 Practicable. Speaker 1 It's, it's you, you, you can, you can claim that this is a route to go, but you get into the situation you see that's just not feasible to do it that way, right? So you get that instruction from the side rather than from the top from from above as to what's likely to be workable. Speaker 2 Doctor Jill, Danny, did I read that you did this type of field work? Was it over 3 1/2 years that you were on the ground? Am am I right in that? Speaker 1 It was 2 1/2 years, nearly three, but it was 2 1/2 years of doing that one full year. I was on sabbatical, so I could do nothing but that. I could. I didn't have university responsibilities. I could do that. And but here's what I learned in the first five months. I knew the principles. I didn't, I knew the principles that were going to work. They were the ones that I could identify in every one of these professions. And I just had some interesting, I think, validation. I, I had AI got a e-mail from a university professor at Saint Andrews University in in Scot, Scotland. And he's a expert on ancient texts and he's an expert on the Dead Sea Scrolls. And he wrote to me and he said I found all 7 principles being recommended in the Dead Sea Scrolls. So these are the universal principles, the features of the human condition that usually steer us correctly if they are inherently there in the situation, if there is true authority, if there's true scarcity, if there's true social proof, you want to follow those because they steer you most of the time in the right direction. And people have recognized that for a long time. It would just took a while to put them all into one place. Let my my book influence, which has been very good to me. I have to say that book has been very good to me. I put one per chapter. And I have a a colleague in Poland, Professor Vilhemina Vosinska, She said. Bob, you know, your book Influence is so famous in Poland, my students think you're dead. Speaker 2 What a compliment. Speaker 1 But yeah, affirming at the same time. Speaker 2 I think so many listeners are going to be so excited to hear the methodology that led to these. And of course, we're going to go much deeper on on some of the things that we've learned from all of this. What do you think was your approach when you were in those training situations when you were on the ground that allowed you to be open to hearing these principles come through? Obviously there was lots of training and there was lots of information coming towards you. If those that are listening want to be open to perceiving the underlying currents of what are happening, they want to learn in their roles, what do you think was happening so that you were able to hear these things so clearly? Speaker 1 Two things. One was I took scrupulous notes. I was recording everything. I had AI even had a tape recorder. I was making sure I didn't miss anything. And then the, the big difference, I think, was to focus away from tactics and on to concepts, to principles, which were the principles, the categories of influence that could capture as much as many of those tactics as possible. And if you did that, then you you reduce the number of of things to have to know about from hundreds to 6. That was the key. Go away from tactics to principles. Understanding the Power of 'We-ness' in Influence We've. Speaker 3 Been discussing 6 so far and in the original book from 1984 there were the six key principles. Then 40 years later 5 million copy is sold. Later you do a revised version and you add a 7th principle in about Unity. Now when we were preparing the episode, we put a post out on LinkedIn and Twitter to ask people what questions they'd like us to ask you. And one of the most popular one that came from Tom Elmer was Why add a 7th principle? Speaker 1 It had to do with what I saw around me 30 years after the publication of Influence, and that was the power of weeness, of oneness causing people to decide who to favor and who to follow. And certainly once again, when you check it with the behavioral science literature, there's there's identity theory there that makes this case that the, the reason we say yes to a request, it is very often first deciding is that person, one of us is that is that communicator of me not just similar to is that person in the category that I share with a social or personal identity? And it, and I would seeing it all around us, political identities, being willing to follow the lead of politicians or candidates who were of the same party. And there's this very alarming evidence that if you see a politician who has committed a crime, you're less likely to report it if that person is of your party, right. Then you can go to religious categories. We're, we're fighting wars now between countries that have warring world religious world views, right? You can go to nationality, right? I'm an, I'm an American, I'm a Brit. I'm, I'm a, a, a, an Iranian. What, what those things dominate, even to the point of locality. My colleague Steven Martin there in the UK did, did a study with the the Tax Bureau, the Tax Office, His Majesty's Tax Office, and showed that he could significantly increase the likelihood that people would pay their taxes on time if he gave them a message that said the majority of UK residents do pay their taxes on time. It went from 67% to 71. If he said the majority of people in your region, it goes up to 76, and if he says the majority of people in your community who you identify with as a locale, it goes up to 81%. Speaker 3 Which which I think is absolutely fascinating because, you know, many people would say social proof, it's one of the most powerful biases you can use. But in Stephen's example, you get a four percentage point increase from the control by using basic social proof. And that's not to be sniffed at. You know, these were people who hadn't paid the tax previously. Very, very hard to change. But what's fascinating is from the social proof example to the more tailored by local example, you're going up by another 10 percentage points. So we're seeing a bigger change between social proof with and tailoring than between the control and social proof. I think that's a a fantastic demonstration. Tiny Language Changes, Big Persuasion Impacts That is, I think my view of 1 of the biggest mistakes that a brand marketers make. They don't segment their market enough. They use social proof with a blast and they don't say and they don't segment to people of a particular age or a particular profession or a particular background. And if they raised that and said people in your situation, here's the social proof on them makes a big difference, right? And, and when they do it, let's say by saying, and people like you in your situation, what we found is that we get, we have 105 star reviews from those people. That would be wonderful. And, and here would be the one extra step. We have 105 star reviewers, not reviews. Think of the different people there's there are people like you. You imagine, you envision you envision checkmarks on a scale for reviews. You envision people who are on your side and who are recommending you 100 of them. I'm so I have a, a small company called the Cialdini Institute. And what we're recommending is look what are the smallest changes you can make to your influence approach that will produce the biggest changes in your influence success. That would be one of them. The same thing with test of testimonials. I have these expert testimonials. No, You have these expert testifiers to your merits, an entirely different image you've installed in the minds of the people, small things like that. We're spending a lot of time trying to think about the smallest things you can do to make a difference. Change this word. So for example, when you're asking for your, you're asking for people around you to share your idea and let's say peers, your peers, because if you could get everybody on the same page, then you would be emboldened to go forward with this idea. And you and you love this idea. All right, so you would say, can you give me your opinion right on this? That's a mistake. The research shows if you instead ask for their advice, you get significantly better and more frequent support because you've made them one of you've made them a partner. It's us, not you and me. When you ask for opinion, you get a critic. Ask for advice, you get a partner. And it's not just one study, there's multiple studies that show this. Speaker 3 Could you share one of those studies? Because I think that's as you talk. I think you had this phrase before the small bigs. That's a phenomenal example of a tiny change in language that can have a big effect. So it'd be lovely to go into more detail. Speaker 1 It was this one study was done for the business plan for a new restaurant. It was healthy Mexican food restaurant, all right. And they, they provided the business plan, put it online to various evaluators, right? And half of them were asked for their opinion on the plan has were after asked for their advice on this plan and you got significantly more positive reviews when you asked for advice. They were trying to be helpful. And this is the key the, the, the recommendations they made were rated by independent evaluators as significantly better recommendations advice. So that's, that's the kind of small big that you can that we try to find one word maybe changing the sequence of when you provide your message versus first versus later, that kind of thing. You know, I, I'm a big one for, you know, those testifiers that that, that, that you've been able to find, they should go first on your website. So that the aura of authority that they being an authority that they bring to your message is there at the first word. Speaker 3 Yeah. And, and that's something I've taken from your book and your work and applied personally that if I'm going to do a, a talk, I feel uncomfortable. I'm British after all, talking about achievements or reasons why I'm an an authority. But if I can get someone else to introduce me, you know, that get a testifier in the in the flesh, then it's much, much more more powerful. So that's certainly a little tweak I've made. Speaker 1 And I bet based on it even further, Richard, to someone who can introduce you who is an opinion leader in that group, someone they they have credibility already toward right? They see that person. You don't have to establish your credibility. You get, you get it by virtue of that person's credibility and that person's recommendation of you as a as a speaker. Yes, I think, and here's an interesting study that I saw or at least a report, there are two forms of, of, of marketing that have risen the most in the last decade and one is influencer marketing. You wouldn't be surprised at that, right? And here's the other handmade products. Why there's a person there in both cases, technology is separating us every day in increasing ways. We work separate from others. We're in front of a screen. We, I, we entertain ourselves by pressing a button and getting Netflix or YouTube. We we, we, we inform ourselves by going to Wikipedia or AI. We don't have human connection if as communicators, we can bring human connection back into our messages, even the ones that occur on technological dimensions, like saying re reviewers instead of reviews, like causing somebody to say, give me your advice and make you a partner with me. Right? Everything we can do here's Yeah. Do you know that there was a study done of 6700 online commercial sites and they looked at the factors that in AB test most led to conversions and as you would expect the principles of influence like authority and social proof and consistency and scarcity were there but so was liking. How do you get liking on a on a website? If you put a welcoming statement on the landing page of your site, you get significantly more conversions. There's warmth there, there's a, there's approval there. There's human connection there. Speaker 2 And something that you're highlighting in all of these points is it's our job as communicators to remind the recipient of the message that the human is central to the message. That the difference between reviewers and reviews is that it puts in the picture, in my mind, a person believing review. Same thing in testimonials. So part of your insight is that by bringing the human front and center, we do a better job building a connection and therefore we're more effective. Speaker 1 And people are increasingly thirsty for it. Thank you. That's why influencers and handmade products have shown the biggest increase in the last decade. Do you know, I just saw an article last week. I'm not like a a shark in the water when it comes to behavioral science influence strategies and effects. I'm always looking at the journals and outlets of one sort or another. And there was a study of people who advertise Airbnb. You know, I have this rental that you can and they have a, there's a picture. If the owner is smiling, he gets significantly more conversions. That's what people are looking for. They're looking for a human connection because it's being bleached out of us by technology. Now, we're not going to, we're not going to stand in the way of technology. That's like standing in front of a bullet train, right? But we can link humanness to our messaging, even in technology like a website, and get the the the the consequences, the favorable consequences of those human connections. Speaker 2 Strikes me that over a longer arc of history, there's been other technologies that have separated people. I was reading a story of when radios were first introduced to cars. Folks were terrified that they could not drive and listen. Or when the printing press started and oral and oral storytelling could take more of a backseat. This is this part of a longer narrative of how we are we, we. Technology is interrupting human connection and shows that it It's not the first time this has happened. Speaker 1 It it's not the first time, and I would venture that the people who built warmth into their radio programming or their literature or their news test would were the ones who are most popular because people, that's who we are as a as a species, we're an affiliative species. We need that. We want that. Speaker 3 I think sometimes marked as fall into the trap of thinking oh but I need to get across a message of quality or value for money or trustworthiness and what they forget is the. Speaker 1 If. Speaker 3 You can come across as likable because of the Halo effects. If you come across very strongly likeable, all those other attributes will will follow suit. And we we don't judge people on independent metrics. Speaker 1 I think that's a great insight. And another version of that is that because with technology we are prioritizing efficiency over effectiveness. Bill it it may take a little longer to to sign your emails or your your to put a signature and a photo at the beneath each of your emails at first, but every one of those is going to make you more a person in the eyes of that individual, right that that receives it. And they're looking for cues about that person. So that person should be smiling. Speaker 2 So we've gone deeply through this opportunity for communicators to find a way to be likable, to make the human connection come to the front. If that's maybe the biggest area, I think you said that marketers most underused, would there be a second area you would guide marketers to say this is really important to not miss if you want to be effective? Underused and Misused Influence Principles And it has to do with scarcity and the idea that people want more of those things they can have less of. So if if you have something that's that's unique, if that differentiates yourself, you, you from your competitors and so on. And I think that marketers tend to use that, except I've heard a lot of them say, you know, we're in such a competitive business. I don't have anything. One thing that's unique that sets me apart. And here's the problem, you, you might not have that, but I bet you have a suite of things that together in conjoint presence your rivals don't have. Put that together and put that in your message. You can't get this, this and this together. And I don't see that. I don't see that in the marketing literature or, or, or presentation, you know, the combination of ingredients that's unique. That would be worth emphasizing. No, that's exactly right. By the way, there's, there's good evidence that limited number is more effective than limited time, because when there's limited number, you have competitors who can take away that that choice. If, if they're, if they jump, it leaves you with nothing. So limited number causes people to jump. But you're, you're right about limited information as well. People want what they what what what they haven't exposed to and nobody else has exclusive information. So one thing I would say to to marketers is when you have something that has new, I was just mentioning, I saw an article that came out last week, almost nobody else knows about it. People are going to lean in to hear what I what that has to say. So when when I talk about some of the research that we've done, I'm a public speaker these days, and I'm talking about a study that we've done that isn't published yet, I say to my audience and the results I'm about to show you are not even published yet. Nobody else has this information. And I see the look and their their posture. They lean in to the next piece of information because it's exclusive. Yeah. Speaker 3 So we've discussed underused biases and we've talked about likability and scarcity, slightly different angle. Are there any of the insights in the book that you think are misused by martyrs you know, actively used in the wrong direction? Speaker 1 Here's what I think is the, I'm not sure as anyone, but I would say any, all of them. And that is, and this is aided by AI where you, you, you ask them, OK, help me forge a marketing plan for this particular industry or this particular customer or this, you know, this e-mail that I'm about to send out what whatever it is. And you say, so tell me based on what you know about the influence process and everything that's been programmed into you, trained into you, what works, Here's what we should be asking what works of what I already have in this, that's naturally a part of this situation. Otherwise you're just fooling people. If you have social proof, that's what you should be asking them to forge the best. Response to a form of if you have authority, that's what you should. I got an e-mail from a woman who is running a big program training program with within a company that reaches out to their client companies and trains their people in the ways to be more persuasive. And she wrote to me and said, we we know about the principles. We train these principles, but they have the ones that are always most effective are the ones that are already naturally there in the situation and the the the marketer can simply raise to consciousness and that registers with the oh, right, that is part of this situation. I don't have to, I don't have to construct it. I don't have to manufacture it. I just need to bring it to consciousness, which makes it ethical. At the same time, you're pointing to something that's naturally there and simply making you're you're you're educating people into ascent. You're informing them into Yes. And it wins, it wins the day over simply claiming scarcity or manufacturing scarcity that isn't a natural part of that situation and trying to leverage it. No. What if if you really have something that's unique in combination, that's that's the way to use scarcity, Yeah. And then you win on both the ethical and effectiveness sides of the Ledger. Yeah. Speaker 3 I was going to say one of the areas that I sometimes see misused from your, your framework is social proof. So I think you've in, in the past called it the government's big mistake. And we certainly see sometimes governments emphasizing the popularity of the wrong thing. They might talk about, you know, loads of students get drunk or lots of youth carry knives or if lots of people steal bits of wood from a petrified National Park in Arizona. And, and I think that is somewhere that I've certainly experienced A misuse amongst martyrs, emphasizing the thing they want to stop, not emphasizing. Speaker 1 Few people are taking advantage of our new model. It means most people don't don't want them, right? Yeah. It's the wrong thing to. I mean, we did a study telling people that there was we wanted them to conserve water in the home, right? And the evidence was that 30% of people are trying to conserve water in the home every day. That message reduced water conservation, right? But here's the newest research on the social proof that allows you to escape that problem. If we said there's a trend two years ago was 15%, last year it was 20%, now it's 30%, we get the highest conservation law because people project the trajectory of trends into the future and that's what our mediational research found. The reason they did it is that they expected it would be the norm. It would be the popular thing shortly, right? So it's still social proof, but it's future social proof that won the day. Speaker 2 It's interesting how that connects to a conversation we were having earlier about how they we look for the human in the other. And in this instance, they're seeing they're projecting future social proof, even if it is not there yet, they're they're injecting it themselves. Speaker 1 I really like that. That's very perceptive because I think what you see is you see people going in that direction, you see your neighbors going in that direction with a trend like that. Building Trust and AI's Impact on Persuasion Our listeners love to find sources of inspiration and ideas from wide areas, and you've highlighted companies like Berkshire Hathaway. What do they understand about influence that most organizations miss? Speaker 1 They understand that if you're dealing with people who don't know you have, don't have a history with you, they're not familiar with you, but you'd like them to move. I told you, sending them and a message with all of your strengths, your best arguments up front, right away, bang, bang, bang you. You hit them with the most logical, the wisest, the the the easiest, the most efficient. Whatever the arguments are, you fail to recognize that if they don't know you, there's a wall of incredulity. They're not willing to accept your best messages yet and your best messages when that's the only thing you send them. You're just like your rivals. You're just like everybody else. You have to bring down the wall of uncertainty where they can have trust in you. And here's what Warren Buffett does it with every one of his letters to his shareholders at the beginning of the year. On the first page, he mentioned something that went wrong. He said we were wrong about this. We made a mistake. It won't happen again because we've put things in place that make sure, but you know, but but it won't ever happen again. We've made sure that that's the case. We put in policies and people to make sure that. And then he says, however, let, but here's the things that went right now, his strongest arguments are coming in straight. The wall is down. I've been getting his mess, his his letters, his stockholder letters for 25 years. And every time I say to myself, wow, this guy's being straight with us. Speaker 3 There's something I think very powerful about that. Speaker 1 What do you see now about the strongest? Speaker 3 Because what's the best way to prove your honesty? It's to admit a flaw and admit a mistake. That's a tangible proof point, and then everything else becomes more. Speaker 1 Not only are you competent in knowing the pros and the cons, you're trustworthy enough to talk about the cons as well as. Speaker 3 Does this tactic, when we previously referred to as the stolen Thunder tactic, does this tactic require a degree of status? So a very related or similar bias is the pratfall effect. This idea from Elliot Aronson, if you admit a flaw, you become more appealing. But for the pratfall effect, he, he showed a bit of a nuance, which was if you had status and exhibited A flaw, you were much, much more appealing if you didn't have status. In his case, you know, you made loads of mistakes in a quiz and you sport a cup of coffee to himself. You became even less likeable. Is there something similar here? Because Warren Buffett's got loads of status. I mean, he, he's got this amazing reputation. Could someone? Speaker 1 That's right, that that you have to be careful that you're, you're not seen as a bottom feeder, you're not seen as a low status communicator that you have, you know, credentials that you had your your company has a history and so on under those circumstances. And here's this, the second part of it that I think has not been recognized. But you're absolutely right, Richard, about that research. The the title of that study is to error is human, right? Here's what I would add to admit it is humanizing. You become a person, you become someone they can recognize and trust. But the key is always after you mentioned that, not the first thing you say. You don't trash your come. Let me tell you all the things that are wrong with me, my organization, my products and services. No, but fairly early you mentioned a drawback that you can then eliminate or overpower with your strengths, but you always have to say but or however or nonetheless or at the same time. So you move their attention away from the from the drawback to the strings. I have a friend who's a psycholinguist, studies the psychology of language, and she says, do you know what the word but signifies to the person who has just received it? Ignore what? I've just forget what I've just told you. Focus now on the next thing I'm about to say. And that's where the strengths form. Speaker 3 A bit earlier you mentioned AI and I think of all the questions we got, that was the the biggest theme. Are you seeing any changes in the most effective persuasive tactics with the technological developments around AI? Speaker 1 Yes, I think social proof is the one that's most available to those models to find in their training on the Internet in in. Yeah. And so they can bring it to consciousness in ways that we weren't really able to do before technology we didn't have. I mean, we could talk to our neighbors, but it wasn't groups of people from all over the world who would be who who, who could testify as to the the, the merits of a product, service or idea. And so AI has that. Now they can get that and they can bring it in. Yeah. Speaker 2 One of our listeners, Andy Kingston, asked what happens when people experience. He called it synthetic social proof. What what he means by that is fake social proof that has been faked. It is made-up. Does that change people's relationship to social proof? If they feel AI can just manufacture reviews, can manufacture pictures of people enjoying a product, how does that change our relationship with social proof it if it's being called into question? Speaker 1 I'm very concerned about this because we so we don't know if there's true, if it's true, right? And So what, what we have to do is check online to see if there's any complaints about this. If then if there's any evidence that these people are manufacturing it like they're headlines about companies that that in in that sell and and buy five star reviews or they order their all their employees to write 5 star reviews as if. And then when, when that comes, whenever I see somebody who is misusing the principles, it's not just social proof, but misinforming us about it, I get online and I penalize them. We have to have a counter to those individuals who are using AI or whatever source to mislead us about the presence of these principles. Get online, complain about them, give them a one star and give the reason and say you should this. Hey, you ABC company fire the marketing agency that that led you to do this or re rethink your marketing people who sought to mislead us right? What do you think of your customers? If you think that it's fine to mislead them into change, rethink this. Go back to what you really have. If you have something genuinely scarce genuine when has genuine social proof or authority or whatever, use that man. Get out of that, that that, that cheaters role. I I'm very militant about this. I'm online, I'm penalizing, I'm puncturing them whenever I see evidence of this. We need to counteract this. Otherwise, what can we believe anymore? Speaker 2 Richard and I have talked so often about It's an easy shorthand to say humans are cognitive misers, that if they can take a heuristic, they can take a shortcut. They're apartment to do it. And when you don't have confidence and social proof, I wonder if it drives you to things like unity. Well, if I can't be sure of this, maybe I just look at someone that's more like that looks like me or that acts like me. It it it, it starts to tear at the balance of how these forces can play together. Cialdini's Final Thoughts and Resources Yeah, Yeah, I I think that's a that's a good point. And I know that it it, it, it works on me, this unity thing. So I don't, I don't know how well, you know, the National Football League in the United States, you know, these professional football teams and you always. And I'm a fan. It turns out I grew up in the state of Wisconsin. The Green Bay Packers are the the fan. And I saw an article that listed the celebrities who were ardent fans of each of the football teams, each of the National Football, and I learned that Justin Timberlake and Lil Wayne were big Green Bay hacker fans. And guys, I immediately felt better of their music. Really. It's true. And, and here's the influence part. I wanted them to win. I wanted them to be more successful. They were. They were of me. Yeah, they were one of us. I wanted them. You know, there's this saying people don't sink the boats they're riding in. Makes sense. Your job as a communicator of the unity principle is to show people that you're in the same boat. They're not going to sink that boat. They're going to want to advance it. Speaker 3 We began the conversation talking about how ethical uses of these biases that are often the most effective. And there's something lovely about the unity principle, because if people grasp that and they believe and a powerful way to influence is to make whoever you're trying to persuade feel like you're one of us. I think what it leads to is a genuine listening, a genuine desire to discover facets of someone else's personality and then identify similarities. And that I think makes the world a a better place if you go out and try and find these honest areas of. Speaker 1 That's a really good, that's a really good point. Speaker 3 There's too much time spent talking about why we're different from each other. I think this to me encourages to look for those overlaps. Speaker 1 We're all in the human family, after all, and we can see that connection and that unity if it if we bring the features of that to the to the surface. Yeah. Speaker 2 And maybe the point that we're all driving at here is for commercial communicators, we can do that and do well in our goals to sell. We can use these principles to bring people together and to drive good commercial outcomes. And how good does that feel if you're in charge of a brand's budget or if you're in charge of a brand's creative to be able to do those things? Speaker 1 And it seems to me you can do that by showing that you share an identity or by segmenting and saying these people share your identity. And they have been purchasing us. They have been advocating us, yeah. Speaker 2 I hate to start to bring us to a close, Doctor Tialdini. It's very hard to do that based on how engaging this conversation has been. Before we come to a close, one final question. If there was one thing you wish every marketer truly understood about your work on influence, what would it be? What would you want to leave people with as we come to a close in today's episode? Speaker 1 I think it would be the importance of the ethics of the process as enhancing the effectiveness of the process. That message if, if, if everybody understood, not just understood, but but bought into that concept, the world would be a better place. Speaker 2 Thank you for the lovely conversation today. For folks that want to learn more about your work, they can find influence wherever books are sold. They can visit chialdini.com. And we were talking before we hit record today. There's an assessment you and your team have built. Can you tell us a little bit about it? It may be an easy first place for people to get started. Speaker 1 It's a free. Questionnaire that you answer in terms of which kinds of influence you most prefer are most likely to engage in. And then we bring that together and show you which are the approaches that you have the most proclivities toward, right and which are somewhere where you're not using them. And you could increase your effectiveness by thinking about those as well that you're not using, employing to the to the extent that is warranted by some situations, Yeah. Speaker 2 A great place to start. Speaker 3 The only thing I would do is double down on the books as well. So you know, you've got such a a great portfolio of books. We've discussed influence a lot. There's a small big, there's yes, there's Persuasion, and I think all of those are linked by the fact that they are really rich in data and evidence, but they're explained in such a easy to read, almost novelistic, simple way. It's amazing. And then the final bit, they are so practical. If people are listening to this and they've never read an academic book, this is completely different. I think anyone who's in the business or field of persuasion, you read any of doctor children's books and you will be a more effective communicator. So yeah, just doubling down how how good those books are. Speaker 1 Well, thank you for saying that. I'm great. Speaker 3 Genuinely meant. Genuinely meant. Speaker 2 For those listening at home, thank you for tuning in today. If you found today's conversation engaging, please share it or and like, follow and comment on our pages. It helps us reach more people just like you. And until next time, I'm Michael Aaron Flicker. Speaker 3 And I'm Richard Shotton. Speaker 2 Doctor Chialdina, thank you for being with us today. Speaker 1 So long for now, I enjoyed it. I have to. Speaker 2 Thank you.