499: Key Psychological Principles for Ethical Persuasion with Brian Ahearn

Pete Mockaitis
Brian, thanks so much for joining us here on the How to be Awesome at Your Job podcast.

Brian Ahearn
It is my pleasure, Pete.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, one thing I learned about you is that you were born on April Fools’ Day. What has been the impact of this over the course of your life?

Brian Ahearn
I tell people I may be a fool but I’m not stupid. It was always nice to grow up and have your birthday be memorable.

Pete Mockaitis
That’s right, certainly because they just won’t forget, “Hey, when is your birthday?” It’s sort of locked in. Now, were there extra jokes, like, “You’re going to have a party. Nah, I’m just kidding”?

Brian Ahearn
No, I was usually the one who made the jokes because my mother told me I was supposed to be born on St. Patrick’s Day, so I did fool everybody by staying in the oven for an extra two weeks. And I always said it was good that I wasn’t born on St. Patrick’s Day because I’d probably be a drunk if I was.

Pete Mockaitis
And I don’t know if there’s any real research on this, but I’ve just kind of imagined that having extra time in the womb is probably handy with all the development that’s going on there.

Brian Ahearn
I don’t know. I never really thought that much about it but I was always revolving around, “You were supposed to be born on this day but you were born on this other day.” So, I’ll ask my mom. I’m sure she’ll take a lot of credit for my development.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, I’m so excited to dig into your wisdom here with regard to influence and persuasion. And so, I think we’re going to get into a lot of great stuff. But maybe, as a starting point, how might you suggest we kind of gauge where we are today with someone’s influence skills in terms of like, “How do I know if I’m amazing in influencing or terrible at influencing or in the middle?” Because I think all of us just in real life, no matter how amazing you are, sometimes people are going to say no. So, how do you interpret like does a given person have a lot of room for improvement or not so much? And what are the telltale indicators?

Brian Ahearn
Tremendous amount of room for improvement. I’ve been teaching this for more than 15 years, I wrote a book on it, and I still am growing, or I still sometimes have somebody point out something, and I’m like, “Oh, that’s a great point. I didn’t actually see that.” So, I think if I can be deeply immersed in it like this and still say I’m growing and getting better all the time, well, then people who haven’t immersed themselves, they’ve got even more room to grow.

Pete Mockaitis
Oh, that’s cool. Well, maybe could you sort of establish our appetites a little bit by sharing maybe a dramatic transformation, or a before or after story, like what can be possible if you dig your teeth in and learn this stuff?

Brian Ahearn
Well, there’s a lot of things that we do, Pete, every single day that may not seem monumental but they are very important to move the ball ahead in our job, and I will give you an example. In my former corporate life, part of my responsibility was to help with the recruiting of insurance agents to come to the company that I work for. When we learned about…

Pete Mockaitis
That’s not always easy. Selling insurance doesn’t sound like a great gig for many people that you might be reaching out to.

Brian Ahearn
I’ve not yet met somebody who grew up and said, “I want to be an insurance agent.” Everybody’s got a story about how they fell into insurance. But it’s actually a wonderful industry, and if you do it well as an insurance agent, it can be very lucrative, so they are usually looking for good companies to represent. And part of our job was to help recruit them.

And when we learned about the principles of scarcity, which alerts us to the fact that people want more of what they can have less of, that we value things more when we think they’re rare or diminishing in some respect, well, we had been prospecting to these agents for many, many years and never thought to incorporate this principle.

And so, here’s what we did, Pete. We always had a limited number of agents that we would bring on any given year, let’s say it was 50. And we never thought to really promote that number. Fifty is not a lot when you’re only in 30 states. And so at the end of the third quarter, we sent a mailing, or an email message out to prospective agents, and the last paragraph would say, “Pete, part of the reason I’m contacting you today is to let you know we’re only looking to appoint 50 agents in our 30 operating states. As of today, we’ve appointed 40. We hope you’re one of the remaining few we appoint by year end.”

As soon as we sent that email, within the hour, my boss came over to me and he said, “I can’t believe it. I’ve already had eight agents call or email in response to that communication.” He said, “I have never had any respond within the hour.” And we knew the only thing that was different was that last paragraph, alerting them to the fact that there were going to be very few slots left by year end, and those agents who were considering it, all of a sudden had moved the needle. That was a big win for us. Not monumental in the scheme of the world but for what we were doing, that was darn important for our goals.

Pete Mockaitis
Yeah, well, that is exciting when you can pinpoint a result to a little change, and so that’s leverage. I mean, that’s exciting, that’s powerful, and I guess it makes sense if some folks were thinking, “You know what, maybe I’m looking to change industries or careers, get to another company,” as opposed to, “Oh, shoot. I actually better get on this right away or I guess this opportunity will disappear for me.”

Brian Ahearn
Exactly. And we all respond to it. I know sometimes people say, “Oh, that stuff doesn’t work on me.” But we’ve all had those times where we got off the couch on a Sunday, and we went to the store because we heard “Sale on Sunday,” or maybe we got there on Friday because we heard “While supplies last.” And the reality is we probably never would’ve gone to the store were it not for being alerted to the fact that something was going to be limited.

Pete Mockaitis
Certainly. Well, so that’s one principle. Let’s zoom out a little bit. So, you unpack a lot of this in your work, in one of your books Influence People: Powerful Everyday Opportunities to Persuade that are Lasting and Ethical. So, how would you maybe organize or share kind of the main message as we dig into this?

Brian Ahearn
Well, the subtitle, as you said, “Powerful Everyday Opportunities to Persuade that are Lasting and Ethical,” that’s really foundational to what I talk about because I tell people it’s powerful because it’s research-based. This isn’t somebody’s good advice. This is backed by empirical data. It’s an everyday skill. I mean, most people realize, if they want to be successful at work, they need to get people to say yes to them. But when they go home, life is more peaceful and happy when they can get those people around them to say yes. So, it’s an everyday skill.

The real opportunities are the fact that, going back to what you asked at the beginning, “Do people have room for improvement?” most people don’t know the language of influence. And until you can label something, you usually don’t start seeing it with any consistency. But once you learn the language and you can label things, you would be amazed at how often you understand how the salesperson is trying to get you to buy, marketers trying to get you to store, politicians trying to get you to vote for him or her, so you begin to see these opportunities.

And then even when it comes to persuasion, most people don’t really have a handle on what that is. If I ask people, “What is your definition of persuasion?” What I hear most often is to convince somebody or change somebody’s thinking, and that sounds good, Pete, until you ask this follow-up question, “If you tell your son or daughter, ‘Clean your room,’ do you want them to say, A, ‘Mom or Dad, that’s a good idea,’ or, B, get in there and clean the room”? And everybody gets it. They want them to change their behavior.

And when I talk about persuasion, it’s about changing behavior, getting people to do something that they wouldn’t do if you had not asked. So, it really comes down to the ask. And if we do it well, it can have a lasting impact on people, and certainly we want to be ethical when we do it.

Pete Mockaitis
Now when it comes to ethics, why don’t we hit this right now in case there’s any resistance in the listener? So, ethics, I mean, I think we all like ethics. Can you share what are some kind of maybe golden rules that you keep in mind when it comes to using influence and persuasion ethically?

Brian Ahearn
Sure. First one is good for me, good for you. I can’t ask you to do something that’s not also in your best interest, otherwise I am only out for me. And I think any person listening to this, if they said, “That person is only out for themselves,” they wouldn’t want to do business with them. So, whatever I’m proposing has to be good for you, has to be good for me. If we use Stephen Covey’s term a win-win.

Second, we need to be honest. And not just honest in what we say, but also honest in what we know because it’s not enough to look you in the eye and say, “Well, Pete, I answered all your questions.” And you look at me and said, “Yeah, Brian, but you didn’t tell me when you sold me the house there was a crack in the foundation.” Me saying, “Pete, you didn’t ask that question,” wouldn’t cut the mustard. You’d say, “Hey, if I’d known that, I would’ve made a different decision.”

So, we’re honest about what it is that we’re talking about, what it is that we’re offering, but we’re also confident because even when there’s a shortcoming in something, if we are honest and we bring that forth relatively early in the conversation and deal with it, we gain credibility as a trustworthy person, and then we can segue into more of the strengths of our product or service.

So, we create win-wins, we are honest, and then the third thing that we talk about is we only use the psychological principles that are natural to the situation that we find ourselves in. And I think a good example of this is anybody who’s listening to this who’s a homeowner has probably had people who tried to sell them roofing, gutters, siding, painting, whatever, those things we all need for our homes. And they probably had people say something like, “Pete, if you sign today, you can save 15%. But if I have to come back at a later date, I can’t offer you that same deal.” They’re trying to invoke a sense of scarcity, like, “Oh, if I don’t act right now, I’m going to lose this great deal that he or she is proposing.”

And most of the time that’s garbage because whatever they’re offering is probably not in short supply. They’re only doing it to manipulate you into making a decision right then and there so they don’t have to come back or you don’t rethink it, so that’s not being genuine in terms of how you’re using the principle. There’s no scarcity there, but they’re trying to squeeze it in to change your behavior. Does that make sense?

Pete Mockaitis
You know, I like that. That’s a nice piece there in terms of like it’s natural and it makes sense. And so, not to trash talk but let’s trash talk, shall we, Brian? I think that there’s a lot of sort of online sales stuff with the funnel and a launch and a deadline, and it doesn’t feel so good. And I guess I’ve done it too, although there was a real reason associated with the deadline, it’s like, “Hey, everybody is starting the class at this time. We need to gather a sort of critical mass to have a community, and there’s going to be some live sessions, and you would miss them if you didn’t sign up by this deadline.” So, that was real.

But a lot of other times when it’s sort of like there’s a digital training course, and it is available for, I don’t know, 24 or 72 hours, I’m just like, “’Why?” And it just seems like the only reason that that deadline is there is to make me do this thing now, and I don’t like it. Now, at the same time, I guess it could very well be win-win. It’s like, “I know this is what you need to do in order to get off your butt and make something happen because I need to have a little bit of pressure here, but it doesn’t feel so good on the receiving end.” I just want to get your take on this.

Brian Ahearn
Well, I think that’s a good example that there’s probably not something in short supply because you can access it 24/7, 365. It’s not like they ran out of something. Or your example of holding a class. You might say, “Early registrants are going to pay this price. If you register by this certain date, it goes up. And by this last date, it’s higher.” And somebody might say, “Well, a seat is a seat. Is that fair?” Yes, I think it can be because you’re having to plan, you’re having to ship materials, you’re having to secure a room with certain seats, so, yes, there can be additional costs for you.”

Pete Mockaitis
I buy that, absolutely, yeah.

Brian Ahearn
And so, you’re passing that on. It makes your life easier so you’re going to make their life easier by putting a deadline like that. I think deadlines are legitimate when you know that those deadlines will also help people. So, there were some work I read from Dan Ariely where they looked at students who were either given no deadline, “You have six papers all due at the end of the semester. You’re adults. Do them at your leisure.” There was a group that could choose their own deadlines, and then there was a group that was given deadlines.

And, contrary to what people might want to think, those who were given the deadlines actually performed best because we all, I mean, probably every person listening to this, had times where they delayed all their studying and crammed. And they had all kinds of times and it is such a common human phenomenon to do that. So, I think imposing deadlines there, you can say, “Yeah, you might’ve had to the end of the semester but it will be beneficial for most students if we set these deadlines and adhere to them.”

Pete Mockaitis
That is helpful. Thank you. I dig that. And then when it comes to products, let’s talk about digital products in terms of like, “Hey, I got this thing. I can flip the on/off switch whenever I care to, and I care to flip it on for three days once a year, and then flip it off to keep everyone in a ladder.” It doesn’t feel great to me. What’s your take?

Brian Ahearn
I would want to know more about the details of what they’re doing and why they’re doing it before just making a blanket statement to say, “You could create something and put it out there.” People could argue that there are a lot of things that are not truly scarce. You know, time. Somebody might say, “Hey, if you’re not doing something on this day, isn’t it better to come and speak for this and throw out some low fee than to get nothing?” They might say that’s fair.

Somebody else who’s a speaker might say, “Well, no, I’ve already charged other people a particular amount. I’m not going to go ahead and lower that just for you. That’s not fair to those people.” So, there’s always a tension there that you have to understand what’s behind it. So, I would want to know why are they only making it available for three days. Is it tied to something else that’s part of their offering or their services?

Now, if they’re laughing in the backroom going, “Oh, yeah, we just make it available three days every year, and people go crazy, and then we pull it from…” I don’t know that that’s really a very ethical way to go about doing things. It’s like you remember the Disney Vault? That’s all that was. It’s out for limited time, then it goes back into the vault. And the imagery was great because the vault is closed and the only people who know the combination worked at Disney. But the reason they did it is it worked. People would flock to buy those videos or DVDs, and they would always change them every so slightly. Blu-Ray Digitally Remastered with two scenes never seen before, then you’re like, “Oh, gosh, I got to have it. And if I don’t get it now, it goes into the vault and who knows when they’ll open the vault again.”
Pete Mockaitis
Right. And I think about DeBeers, that’s sort of their whole game with diamonds is that they acquire much of the supply, and then they trickle it out as they so choose.

Brian Ahearn
Well, we see it with tickets to concerts, right, where people go online, and they’re like, “I can never buy anything because these major corporations go in and buy them all up and then they jack the price.” Yes, so they buy them, they have the purchasing power, and then they leverage scarcity after that.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. Well, so that’s good rules of thumb for the ethics, and so even if there’s an on/off switch being flipped for additional good or the sales of a service, there very may be a nice valid reason in terms of the life of the provider and sort of the conveniences they get to enjoy or not, or it could be some folks cackling all the way to the bank as they’re utilizing this.

Anyway, so we talked about scarcity. Can you share what are some of the other most powerful principles, when you said once you see have a label for something, you can use it and identify it? Can we hear some more useful labels?

Brian Ahearn
Okay. Well, one of the principles that we talk about is called the principle of liking which tells us that we prefer to say yes to people that we know and like. Now, listeners might be saying, “Well, duh, we all know that.” What a lot of people don’t think about though is how to make that a reality. And most people will go into situations and work really hard to get people to like them, and that’s better than doing nothing.

But the most powerful thing you can do is to go into a situation to say, “How can I come to like this other person? And I’m going to, therefore, connect in what we have in common. I’m going to listen. I’m going to try to take it in. And when I hear something we have in common, like we grew up in the same town or cheer for the same team, I’m going to start talking about that because I want to like the people that I’m networking with, working with, supporting, etc. Or I’m going to look for things that I can genuinely compliment them about because I know that if I find those things, I’ll start thinking more highly.”

And here’s why this is so key. When that other person believes you truly like them, and you really are coming to like them, it opens them up because we all believe deep down inside that friends do right by friends. And the good news is we do right by friends. If you’re truly a friend, you’ll never want to manipulate your friends. And this is a powerful way to remove that whole question about manipulation because when I look to the people that I know and like, I want to help them. They know I want to help them. And it creates this really good virtuous cycle, so I think it’s a very, very powerful principle. But that key is don’t try to get people to like you. Try to come to like other people.

Pete Mockaitis
Yeah, that’s great. And so, then so part of that is just doing the research and zeroing in on commonalities. And how else can we get to like them?

Brian Ahearn
Well, there’s things like, I mean, certainly if you mirror and match. When you are with somebody, and you consciously mirror their body language, you kind of get into sync, when you make a conscious choice to pace your speaking along the lines of theirs, not to manipulate them or anything, but to say, “I want to make this person comfortable with me and I want to be comfortable with them,” because the more we see ourselves as similar, how we stand, how we talk, the things that we have in common, etc., all of those start to create this sense of rapport, like, “Hey, that person is like me and, therefore, I kind of like them.” It’s much easier to like people who are similar to you in multiple ways.

And then, of course, I mentioned paying somebody genuine compliments. Another thing that we talk about at times is when you work together in cooperative ways, and you have success, you tend to high-five and really look more positively upon each other, especially for people who are leaders who are listening to this. If you have employees who might not get along so great, put them into situations where they have to work together. Don’t put them into situations that would be hard to be successful in. You want them to kind of take baby steps. But as they work together and they have success, people pretty naturally start looking at the other person and say, “That was great. You did a good job,” and they start passing compliments. So, those are natural ways to make liking come about.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. Excellent. Thank you. And how about some more?

Brian Ahearn
One of the really interesting principles, for salespeople especially, is the principle of consistency. People always ask, “What is the most powerful principle of influence?” And I always say it depends because it depends on the situation you’re in, and these principles aren’t always available, or at least every one of them are not always available. But if you’re a salesperson, the principle of consistency is paramount because the principle of consistency is predicated on asking good questions.

And we define the principle this way. We feel an internal psychological pressure but also an external social pressure to be consistent in what we say and what we do. So, to drive this home. Pete, have you ever given your word to somebody, friend, family member, someone, that you would be somewhere or do something with them but had to back out?

Pete Mockaitis
I’m certain that’s happened and I’m trying to recall a specific instance but I’m with you.

Brian Ahearn
Okay. You know, when I ask an audience on this, almost we can all recall a time where, “Oh, gosh,” we forgot it’s our kid’s recital, or, “Somebody got sick and I need to stay home.” Legitimate reasons that I’m sure when somebody says, “Hey, I can’t make it, and here’s why.” But friends say, “Don’t worry about it.” But the reality is how do we feel? Most people I ask that question, they say, “I felt terrible having to tell them I couldn’t be there. I felt bad or guilty.” And what do we do? We don’t like to feel those feelings. We work really, really hard to try to keep our word.

And when you understand that, then rather than telling people what to do, you start asking, because when you ask and they commit to you, it triggers that internal sense of, “I want to be consistent with what I say and do because, first and foremost, I will feel better about myself. And, oh, by the way, I’ll look better in your eyes.” So, it’s a powerful motivator of human behavior.

Pete Mockaitis
Certainly. So, then when you are attempting to be influential and persuade, knowing that this is a powerful force within us, what are some key ways that this can be utilized?

Brian Ahearn
Okay. So, it’s very common for people in a business setting to tell somebody what they need. I may walk by you and say, “Pete, I need the sales numbers by Friday.” Now maybe you’ll get them to me, maybe you won’t, but I know this from the research, I will be more effective if I were to say, “Pete, would you be able to give me the sales numbers by Friday?” because if you say yes, the odds that you’ll do it are significantly higher than if you don’t say anything at all.

But a smarter way to go about doing this would be, “Pete, would you be able to get me the sales numbers by Tuesday?” Now, if you tell me you can’t, then I have fallback positions. I might say, “Pete, I realized it’s really busy around here. Any chance you could get them to me by the end of the day Wednesday?” Now this is tapping into another principle that we call reciprocity. And, people, when you come in with another request immediately after somebody says no, there’s lots of research that shows people will be more likely to say yes.

So, by starting to think about what it is that you need, how can I ask, how can I set fallback positions so that if that person says, “No, I’m too busy,” well, I can retreat to Wednesday, I can retreat to Thursday, I still can even retreat to Friday. And so, the manager who gets into that habit of asking instead of telling and setting themselves up with fallback positions will get what they need far more often than somebody who just tells people what they need on the due date.

Pete Mockaitis
And I also wonder, and I guess this could be risky, but if you were to say, “When can you commit to completing this by?” And then they generate their own due date, does that have even more power because it came from them?

Brian Ahearn
Yes, anytime somebody self-generates their own reasons, goals, they will be more committed to those. You may look at me and say, “Well, Brian is an expert in influence.” And if I tell you what you should probably do, you’d give that some weight because you’re like, “Hey, Brian knows what he’s doing, he wrote a book.” But if I asked you to write questions and you come up with the very same idea, you own it because you feel like, “That’s my idea.” And we all think our ideas are pretty good.

And so, that becomes another skill too, which taps into this principle, but asking those right questions to get people to come up with the answers themselves, it’s a huge part of the coaching process because coaching is about teaching people to think for themselves. And when they start coming up with their own ideas, then they feel more confident at generating their own ideas down the road, and they don’t need as much attention through coaching.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. Excellent. Well, so we’re really kind of taking down the six greatest hits here, we got the scarcity, liking, consistency, reciprocity. I guess we also got to hit the authority and social proof to round that out.

Brian Ahearn
Okay. Authority tells us that we defer to people that we view as more wise or experts when we’re making decisions. I mean, if we’re standing around at a cocktail party and we’re all complaining about taxes, and then somebody says, “Well, I’m a CPA,” and they start talking, we give that more weight because we know that person knows far more about taxes than we probably do.

Funny story that happened quite a number of years ago, my wife is a really, really good golfer, and when I say really good, she’s a single-digit handicap, usually she’d shoot in the upper 70s. She’s very, very good. I came home from a sales training event and I told her about a golf example that I had used during the training. A few weeks later, she’s reading a book, and she says, “Listen to what Corey Pavin says.” For those of you who are listening, Corey Pavin won the US Open in the early ‘90s, and he finished in the top five in all of the major golf championships.

She reads this paragraph, Pete, and it’s almost verbatim what I said. So, of course, I had to let her know that, and I said, “Jane, I told you that.” She said, “No, you didn’t.” I say, “Yeah, a couple of weeks ago. Remember I came home from the training event?” “No.” I go, “Come on, we were sitting right here having dinner. You don’t…?” And she had no recollection that I had told her that. So, finally, I threw my hands up and I go, “Oh, I guess if Corey Pavin says it, it’s true but when I say it it’s not?”

But here’s the reality. Because he was a golf pro and won the US Open, who would you believe? Corey Pavin or Brian Ahearn, a trainer? It’s a funny story but it really drives home the point. Two people can say exactly the same thing, the person who’s viewed as an expert, believed far more than the person who has no credibility at all in that area, and yet it can be every bit as true the statements that’s made from both people. So, it’s really, really important that people do what they can to get their expertise in front of other people.

Pete Mockaitis
And now I’m intrigued, do we think that this is the explanation for the mysterious phenomenon in a meeting, one person says something and it gets no response, and another person says just about the same thing, and other are, “Yes, yes,” and it’s are sort of all behind there? Do we think this is primarily driven by authority or there are some other elements that explain this situation?

Brian Ahearn
There could certainly be some liking that people might say, “Oh, yeah, you know, we love Joe.” And when Joe says something, everybody likes that. But it probably leans more on the authority thing. And in my corporate job, when I was reporting at one point to the vice president of sales, there were times when he would come to me and he’d say, “I’d like you to draft this and then send it to these people,” and I’d say, “I will draft it, but I would like you to send it,” because coming from the vice president of sales it will mean a lot more than coming from me. And he knew this stuff well too, and he’s like, “You’re right.”

And so, I had the satisfaction of knowing that the messaging was coming from me, I was building my skill, it helped me write the book and do other things, but I was humble enough to say, “The goal here is to move the ball forward, move the agenda forward for the company, and my saying the very same thing won’t help it as much as you, so I will save you time, craft the message, and together we will make this thing happen.”

Pete Mockaitis
Yes, that’s so dead-on. And, yeah, this reminds me of just recently I started up a new training program with a group, you know, run it through The Enhanced Thinking and Collaboration Program, and so there’s some pre-work to be done and the majority of folks had not yet done it. And so, I have all the participants’ email addresses but they haven’t met me yet. So, I proposed that exact same thing, it’s like, “Hey, here’s the rundown of who has and has not yet finished the pre-work. I’d love to have them prompted, which I could do, but I think it would be much better coming from you.” And, sure enough, she prompted and the pre-work came rolling in, and mission accomplished.

Brian Ahearn
Yep. Hey, I think it’s just a matter of some people being humble enough to say, “It’s okay if the message doesn’t come from me. I’ll have my time, right? If I do things right and I help the corporation move the agenda forward, I’ll get my praise, I’ll be that one who’s looked on for the promotion. I will eventually probably be in that position where I’m the one doing the messaging.” But develop your skill at creating the message but allow the right person to bring that message forward.

Pete Mockaitis
And how about social proof?

Brian Ahearn
So, social proof tells us that we look to other people to see how we should behave in particular situations. We are heavily impacted by what other people are thinking, how they’re feeling, what they’re doing. And I always tell people the word to remember here is crowds. Large and small, crowds of people impact how we think, how we feel, and how we behave.

Now, it’s interesting, Pete, that in America, because we are more of an individualistic society, sometimes when we talk about this, people push back. And I’ve heard people say things like, “Nothing great ever came from following the crowd.” And I don’t disagree with that. Medical breakthroughs, great leaders, great things happen when people break from the crowd. But I would challenge people who are listening, how often in the day are you trying to accomplish greatness? And how often are you just trying to get your day moving along?

And in most of the time, if you’re driving home from work, and you see that the traffic is backing up and people start getting off on an exit, without even looking at a map, a phone app, you might just decide, “I better get off the exit too.” Why? “Everybody else is, it’s probably the right thing to do. It has nothing to do with greatness. I just want to get home quickly.” And we are confronted with those choices every day all day long. And humans have evolved to know, “Hey, if other people are doing something, yeah, it’s probably the right thing to do the vast majority of the time.”

Pete Mockaitis
All right. Well, so that’s a nice lineup there. And I’d also love to get your perspective in terms of when you’re crafting the message, when you’re delivering the message, sort of what gets in there to see if you could sort of appeal to these dimensions? I’d also love to get your view on how can we sort of just grab people’s attention in the first place and sort of get them listening to our persuasive appeal?

Brian Ahearn
Well, a couple of things come right to mind. First is uniqueness. People are drawn to things that are unique. If I’ve got seven red balls and one white ball, people are going to notice the white ball, that’s the one that’s going to stand out. It’s unique among that. So, putting forth what is unique is going to help you in that regard. But this is where understanding the psychology of persuasion becomes really handy because it’s not always about touting, “Look at this unique thing here.” Sometimes it’s saying, “Nobody else has this.”

It’s the same thing kind of in reverse. It’s utilizing that loss frame, it’s part of scarcity, but by talking about what somebody is going to miss out on if they don’t come to your training, read your article, buy your product or service, is far more powerful than saying, “Buy our product or service because of this one unique feature.” The uniqueness, when it’s framed as, “And nobody else has it,” far more powerful. So, that’s one way.

Another way to grab people’s attention goes back to that principle of consistency by asking questions. So, here’s an example, Pete. Many, many years ago I was in a training session, and the trainer came in after lunch, about 40 people in this room, and he says, “Hey, before we get started, anybody know a good place to go for dinner here in Columbus?” And people start shouting out answers, and some people had their hands or waving their hands in the air.

He lets it go on for just a few seconds, and then he says, “Okay, time out. I come to Columbus all the time, and I know exactly where I’m going to dinner. I asked a question to prove a point. When you ask a question, people feel compelled to answer.” And he said, “Notice how many people shouted out answers and look at how many of you raised your hands.” And then he said, “For those who didn’t say something or raised your hands, were you thinking of a place?” And they started smiling and nodding. And he knew every person had answered that question either in their head or out loud.

So, the point here is if you ask a good question, it’s going to stimulate people to start thinking about what that answer is, and if it’s creative enough, it might have them really wanting that answer, in other words, open up your email, take a look at your brochure, something, whatever it is that you’re trying to promote.

Pete Mockaitis
And in the book Pre-Suasion it’s got all kinds of fun questions with regard to, “Do you consider yourself a helpful person? Or do you consider yourself an adventurous person?” So, then there’s some identifying of self in that, and then they’re kind of primed to if you happen to have something new that can appeal to adventure, and if you are asking for some help, if they’ve said, “Yes, I’m helpful,” yeah, that can line up there. I’m curious, what makes a great question? Because I think I see this a lot, and maybe it’s effective or maybe it’s not.

But when I say, “Are you looking for a way that you can improve the tidiness of your home without spending a fortune?” I don’t know. And when I hear those questions, I mean, maybe they’re very effective but I’m just like, “No, I’m not.” And then maybe it’s mission accomplished, they’ve sort of excluded me and they’ve pre-qualified the others who are. But I don’t know, what’s your take? Is a yes-no question like that fine or what makes an optimal question?

Brian Ahearn
It depends on the context. So, I think asking a question in marketing and the way that you just described is very different than asking somebody at work so that you can get something accomplished. When I talk about like leaders, and stop telling and start asking, some of the elements of a good interaction with somebody is to change a statement into a question, to give yourself the fallback, to use the word because.

There are studies that show when you use the word because, significantly more people will say yes because we’re conditioned from childhood, right? Parents say, when you dared to say, “Mom, why do I have to do this?” “Because I said so.” It’s not a valid reason but we started to learn, “Once I hear ‘Because I said so’ I better get going.” So, instead of making a statement, ask a question, have a fallback position, use the word because, tag it with a reason, that is a great way, in a corporate context, to get people on board and do what they need to do as opposed to, “Give me the sales numbers by Friday.”

When it comes to marketing, I’m with you. I don’t like some of those things that are just so overt that I think most people just probably start to shy away from it. One terrible example is “Ninety-seven percent of my friends won’t have the guts to repost this. Will you?” Nope, I will not because I feel like that’s manipulative, it’s probably a completely false statistic, and it actually works against people because if 97% of the people aren’t doing something, then why should I? It’s a terrible, terrible way to try to get people to take action.

Pete Mockaitis
And I’d also be curious then, so we talked about being ethical. Is there anything else that you think is just a mistake that folks are making all the time with regard to, “Hey, this is an easy lost opportunity, so stop doing this or start doing that because most people are doing it wrong, and this is a quick fix”?

Brian Ahearn
Yes. Another example would be when we go back to that principle of scarcity. I will talk about this, we’ll talk about loss framing, they’ll all understand, like, “Yeah, I’m more motivated by what I might lose versus what I might gain.” But then they go back out and they do things completely wrong. So, here would be an example.

Sometimes I work with financial investors and wealth advisors. If I were to say to you, “Pete, given your age, your current income and how much longer you say you’re going to work, if we can find a way for you to save just 1% more, by the time you retire, my calculation show you’ll have an extra hundred thousand in your retirement account.” That’s pretty motivating, right? One percent of your salary to get an extra hundred grand.

But the smart wealth advisor would say this, “Pete, given your age, your current income and how many years you say you’ll continue to work, if we don’t find a way for you to save just 1% more, by the time you’re retired, you will have given up $100,000 of your retirement savings.” It’s the same a hundred thousand, right? But talking about it as loss frame, like it’s right there, it’s waiting for you, but if you don’t take this action of saving 1%, you’re giving it up. That will be far more motivating to get people to invest the 1%, and yet people go back and they always say, “Rah, rah, rah, look at all the positive things. Do this and you’ll have this wonderful life.” Sometimes they need to honestly say, “If you don’t do this, here’s what you’re going to be giving up in five years or 10 years,” and that will stimulate more people to get on board.

Pete Mockaitis
Oh, thank you. Well, Brian, tell me, anything else you want to make sure to mention before we shift gears and hear about some of your favorite things?

Brian Ahearn
I will just say I appreciate the emphasis that you have on the ethics. If it weren’t for ethics, I wouldn’t be doing this. And my story on that is simply this, when I came in contact with Cialdini’s material, when I was enthralled by it, it was a Stanford video. And when Stanford sent a marketing piece several months after I’d seen that first video, they used the word manipulation in the advertising for his video despite the fact that he was very clear about non-manipulative ways to move people to act. And I felt so strongly about that that I emailed Stanford to basically say this, “I don’t know anybody who wants to be manipulated, and I don’t know anybody who wants to be known as a good manipulator. That word cannot be helping your sales but it really could be hurting.”

I never heard from Stanford but several months later, my phone rang, and it was Robert Cialdini’s office. And one of his assistants called to personally thank me on his behalf for having sent that email to Stanford. She said, “They’re changing the marketing of our material because of you.” And I was like, “Wow! That is really cool.” And as fate would have it, he ended up coming to my company a few years later, and speaking to insurance agents that represented us.

So, the point here, Pete, is if it hadn’t been for that ethical part, I would’ve never sent that email, I wouldn’t be doing what I’m doing today, and you’d be talking to a different guest right now.

Pete Mockaitis
That’s powerful. Thank you.

Brian Ahearn
You’re welcome.

Pete Mockaitis
Now, could you share a favorite quote, something you find inspiring?

Brian Ahearn
When I read Viktor Frankl’s book Man’s Search for Meaning, one of the quotes that stood out to me was, he said, “In the end, they can take away every freedom except for the last human freedom, which is the ability to choose to where to place your thoughts.” And that just really resonated with me, that nothing happens in life where we can’t shake our head and say, “Wait a minute. I can choose what I’m going to think here. They can break my body, they can do anything they want to me, but I can always choose where I will place my thoughts.” And that’s a pretty lifechanging concept when you really meditate on it.

Pete Mockaitis
And how about a favorite book?

Brian Ahearn
Viktor Frankl’s book is one of the top five books that I think that influenced my life and, primarily, it was that quote and several other things that I read there. But his overcoming and his ability to believe that there was a future beyond living in the concentration camps, and the fact that he made it, and there were certainly some luck involved, pointing one line or the other kind of thing, but he really was a huge influence on the world because of what he went through and how he kind of dissected it and what he had to share.

Pete Mockaitis
How about a favorite tool, something you use to be awesome at your job?

Brian Ahearn
Every day I get up and I work out. I run and lift every single day, seven days a week, and I’ve done this since I was very, very young. I feel like it gives me a huge edge when I’m up very, very early in the morning, and I get done running, and I get done working out. And that’s usually an hour and a half or so of my morning to get things going. It’s a habit. I mean, I’ve done it every single day for 25, 30 plus years, but it is also a tool that I use because when I’m done, I feel like I am way ahead of the game, and I’m ready to roll for the rest of the day.

Pete Mockaitis
And is there a particular nugget you share that really seems to connect and resonate and gets quoted back to you often?

Brian Ahearn
I think the biggest a-ha that I share that people come back and mention is the subtlety of not trying to get people to like you, but really trying hard to come to like people. And I see that play out for my life because people talk about what a good networker I am. And I don’t consider myself a happy go-lucky backslapping meet people all over the place, but I’ve learned to be social and I’ve learned to really focus on the other people, try to get to know them, allow them to tell their stories because it also helps me come to like them. And so, people just seem to naturally respond to me because of that, and that would be the nugget.

Pete Mockaitis
And if folks want to learn more or get in touch, where would you point them?

Brian Ahearn
Well, anybody who’s listening, feel free to connect with me on LinkedIn. If you don’t put a message in there, like, “Hey, I heard you on the podcast,” expect that you’ll see a message coming back saying, “Thanks for connecting. How did you find me?” I just like to understand why people are connecting with me. Certainly, my website which is InfluencePeople.biz, and out there you’ll find all kinds of resources, you’ll find my book, blog, videos, all kinds of information, podcasts that I’ve been on. There’s a wealth of information to continue learning about this.

Pete Mockaitis
Brian, thanks so much for taking this time. This has been a treat. I wish you excellent results in all the ethical ways you are trying to get people to say yes.

Brian Ahearn
Thank you, Pete. I appreciate it, and you were a very fun host to speak with.