020 Your Professional Jargon Doesn't Work - Sell Snake Oil Instead

This is Dr. Torrey. Welcome to the Influence Every Day show, where we make every day better and we influence for good. It's not fair. You always win. We're not playing anymore. That's what my kids said to me when we were playing a game called Snake Oil. They said it's not fair because, you know, influence and persuasion and hypnosis and all this stuff. So you win every time. So Snake Oil is a game that I purchased on Amazon. It's hilarious. It's a game that we have a lot of fun when we play. And in fact, I've turned it into a workshop. So if you. You're not aware of what snake oil is, or maybe you've heard the phrase snake oil salesman. A snake oil salesman comes from something that actually occurred in history, which was when workers were laying the transcontinental railroad across the United, continental United States. It was noted that the Chinese migrant workers would massage their own legs, shoulders, neck with an oil. And they seem to have more energy, less fatigue. They said that they slept, slept better, and that this oil cured all of their ailments. And so when people heard this, they would start using the snake oil. And eventually it caught on and people started selling this from town to town, bringing a carriage and a very dramatic sales pitch. And they would sell this snake oil. Well, it turned out when the FDA started testing different medicines and things that were out there, they. One of the first things they tested was something called Clark Stanley snake oil. And it turned out that there was no snake oil in it at all. So it's not known whether or not the migrant Chinese workers were using snake oil and it was working. But what is known is that the people who were later selling so called snake oil basically bottled cheap oils and started going around pitching it like it would cure all the diseases that people had, pox, rheumatism, and all the other things and the terms that they used back then. And it turned out that when the FDA tested it, there was no snake oil in it. So the snake oil salesman became equated with like a scamster, huckster, somebody who is a con artist or something like that. So that's what the snake oil salesman is associated with. So this game, snake oil, is all about creating a product and selling it to somebody. So in the way the game works is you're given a card or snake. So the group of you, one person is designated as the person that's being sold. Okay, so you might be a diva or a zombie or a ninja or a samurai or a kindergartner or a pregnant woman or what have you. And what happens is the rest of the people, so in this case, let's say they're a diva. The rest of the people are given multiple cards that have nouns on them and their job is to combine two cards into one product, right? So they're given multiple cards. They pick some that might make sense to sell to this person. So to sell to a diva, for example, they pick two cards and they say, okay, I have a friend blanket. So one card says friend, the other says blanket. And they say, look, I have a friend blanket. You know what it's like as a diva. People, everyone's trying to get around. You take selfies and you, you don't know who's real, who is your, who are your real friends, your real confidants, your. The people you can trust, who are they? You don't really know. And so this friend blanket, this will give you that feeling of connection and love and rapport. You just cuddle up with this thing at night and it's almost like washing away all the fake people around you. It's tough being a diva, right? So what happens is you pitch this product to that person and then another person takes a turn and pitches a different product to the same person. Another person pitches a different product to the same person and you go around and then they pick which one they like the best. My kids said, it's not fair. We, you win all the time. You're this, you're a hypnotherapist and you do, you do all this training and stuff on influence and persuasion and body language, and you win all the time. The fact is, if we're honest, we're going to pick your product every time. And so I was like, fine, I'll teach you. So what I did was I decided to say, okay, we'll play one round. I will teach you a persuasive speech pattern, then you practice it in the next round. Then I'll teach you another persuasive speech pattern and we'll practice again the next round and then we'll teach another and another, right? And so that's what we did. So I turned that into a workshop. And it turns out the workshop is absolutely hilarious. So it's often used as a combined, I would say a team building icebreaker, plus learning some stuff about communication. Then oftentimes, sometimes it's paired with difficult conversations workshop as well. So there's like a fun part where you're learning influence and, and rapport and communication. And then in another part, you're learning how to have those challenging, difficult conversations or high stakes conversations. Oftentimes it's paired that way. But when I do this workshop, I notice something. It's really remarkable. And so these are some of the lessons from teaching people these persuasive speech patterns and playing this game. First thing, before I teach anyone anything, it is remarkable. Their first round of playing is absolutely off the charts remarkable. You know why? Because in their professional settings, each of these people, meaning each of the people participating in the workshop, tend to use their jargon, their language, their work language, their corporate speak, medical speak, legal speak, insurance speak, whatever their discipline is. But the moment they start playing this game, it all changes. When they start talking to a diva, they immediately tailor the product to that person. They immediately tailor it to them. They use language that is related to them. They relate to them in a way, right? This is shocking to me because contrast that with how we behave in the professional setting of corporate leader is going to use corporate speak. As we analyze the metrics in each vertical. Like what relating to the people is automatic when we're playing a game, but all of a sudden we put on our suit and we're a different, like, different person. You know, a physician walking in and talking to a diabetic about their risk reduction of. No, like that. That's a teacher and she's a single mom and she's worried about how she's going to care for her kids. Like you. If you go in there with that, like, it's a completely different conversation. You can move them in the direction that is best to move them in. You can influence them with the. In a way that is best to influence them. So it's shocking to me how automatic it is in a game and then how we switch it off. So I point that out usually in the workshop and people are like, they look around like, oh my God, this guy's right. They're like blown away by this fact, right? They tailored it to the zombie. They're better at speaking to a zombie. They're better than they are to their own frontline staff. Anyway. When you point it out, when you point out the contrast, it's shocking. And, and they realize that they already have the skill. All they have to do is like change their frame a little bit. So a couple other lessons learned from it. One is that people automatically attempt to establish rapport by doing things where they have commonality. They start to talk about the things where they have commonality. They start to establish rapport, increase Liking and all those things that you learn about in other influence trainings and things like that. So it's really. It's automatic. They also automatically think about and talk about the challenges that person is going to face or the opportunities that they have, their pain points, the things that they desire, the things that they hope for. They walk them into the future automatically. Why don't we do that at work with our kids, at. At home, like with our friends? Why aren't we doing that? It's automatic in this game, but somehow in the work context, it changes. Okay. A couple other things that people are often shocked by is that they often come in with their own limiting belief that they're not creative. But yet when they start to play this game, they get competitive and creative at the same time, and they have a lot of fun. So they get creative within constraints. You're given seven cards with nouns on them that are random, and you pick two of those, combine it and sell it to some. To a princess or a hunter or something. Right? That is an act of creativity, and you're doing it within the constraints you've been given. So sometimes, sometimes it's harder to be creative when everything is wide open, like all of the possibilities lay before you. But no, you have these seven to work with. What can you do differently? That lesson is powerful for people who think they're not creative, because in fact they are. It's just changing the frame a bit. And so we work through some of that. Then a couple other things. It's learning can be fun. And in fact, when it is fun, there's often more learning. If you think about it like the steepest curve of learning that occurs in your lifetime occurs when you are a child and you are at play. When you are playing, you are learning. You're learning about texture and sight and sound and depth and movement and interaction and all these things all in moments of play. And yet for some reason, we leave it. And this is why some of the best influencers, some of the best leaders, they've done things like training and improv because they bring play to work. They bring play to how they approach things. It's not that things are a game, but when you bring game elements to it, you actually can increase the learning. And not only that, it's stickiness. Like when people play snake oil in these workshops, they actually start to develop, like inside jokes and shoot shared language and be like, oh, yeah, I wish I had a friend blanket for this one because I'm doing blah, blah, blah, right? Like, they allude Back to the game. And so it, it's something that is very sticky and something I've noticed as we do this workshop. Anyway, if you're interested in a workshop like that. By the way, this is not some advertisement for my workshop. I'm just trying to tell you're already creative. You're. Especially if you're, if you have constraints. I'm also trying to tell you, you already tailor stuff to the right people, especially in the game setting. Why not do that in the professional setting? And you already walk people into a future when you're trying to move them to a better place. Why aren't you doing that in your professional setting? So that's the main point of this. But I also want to say if you are interested in bringing the snake oil workshop to your workplace or your team or your community, you can go to doctor.com speaker doctor.com speaker there you can schedule a discovery call. It could be any kind of speaking. By the way, it doesn't have to be the snake oil workshop, but the snake oil workshop is particularly fun and particularly sticky. Mickey like it. It's hilarious. I, in fact, I have to always say we cannot do this during lunch because people are at high risk for choking and all these things because they're laughing so hard. Also, I always tell them we have to be careful about the location. It can't be a place. We have to be super quiet because people are down the hall, because everyone will be cackling with laughter. So anyway, I hope you found this helpful, these lessons from snake oil and that just because you're pitching something, a better future, a rollout, grieving or getting over a loss or a breakup, or pitching something to your kids about how they can do better in school or how why they should engage in this sport or whatever. As you're doing those things, you're not selling snake oil. You're relating to people and you can learn from those who know how to influence others. You can learn their patterns and use them for good. So I hope you found this helpful. I'll see you in the next episode. This is only the end of today's show if you let it be. Who needs to hear what you just heard? Go ahead and share it with them right now. The Influence Every Day podcast is free. We don't sell advertising space, so telling others is the best way to pay us back. 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