40 Years of Influence Joe Polish’s Special Interview with Dr. Robert Cialdini - I Love Marketing Episode #468

It turns out that you have to be a good listener. You have to ask them to state their objections or their opinion about something. Can you tell me what your, what your side of the case is? If it's somebody who has a different opinion and you have to be a good listener and if you've ever taken a course on being a good listener, there are three things that came out for me. One is you give them your undivided attention. You take notes while they're speaking.

Take notes while they're speaking.

And you provide non evaluative questions. Not the questions that, where you can say, well, that was stupid. It's a question. Well, oh, you did that. Can you tell me the circumstances surrounding why you did that or why you have come to believe that?

If you'd like to join world renowned entrepreneurs at the next Genius Network event or want to learn more about Genius network, go to www.gienstruitnetwork.com. well, it wouldn't be an anniversary party without a surprise. Right? So we've got a surprise Guest, one of Dr. Cialdini's longtime colleagues and friends.

That has come by to say hello.

How many of you have heard of Joe Polish or the Genius Network? A few of you. Joe's probably one of the most conn guys in the world. Him and Kevin Bacon. Top two. They know everybody. Well, great to be here with you as always, Joe.

Great for you to be here. Thank you.

Yeah, yeah.

Joining us.

So, yeah, I didn't want to miss this. This is a special occasion. Yeah. And so what I wanted, I want to ask you a few questions. I mean, we've interviewed each other back and forth a lot, but I figured it's an endless amount of, of knowledge that you have. What do you hope comes out of this? It's 40 years now. You wrote that book. You've influenced. I mean, you've sold millions of copies of the book. You got all kinds of people. And you know, Charl, Charlie Munger, who recently passed away, and Warren Buffett all endorse it. So you've had some of the smartest people in the world being influenced by your ability to help them be more persuasive and influential. So what is your, what is your hope?

My hope is that I get back to something that I have always been in my professional life and that is a teacher. We did programs on ethical influence for a number of years in person, 30 people at a time. We had very good luck with it. It was successful, but we weren't able to reach the number of people who could benefit from this. You know, your work with addiction is an example of how important you see making a contribution to the welfare of those around you. You mentioned Charlie Munger. This is Warren Buffett's partner, and he amassed billions of dollars of wealth. And he once said to me, the purpose of building personal wealth is to have the resources to help others when they are in trouble, in troubled times who don't have the resources to help themselves. Right. So it's making the connection and then making the contribution as a consequence of that connection that you have to them. So that's the purpose of the Cellini Institute, is to. To increase the reach of this message and this information.

Yeah. You know what? I do have to say this because I don't know, I've never heard you or Bobette brag about it. And you both do so many things behind the scenes to help people in need. You've contributed, I mean, just, I would imagine, millions of dollars to charity and things that no one knows about. And I know that because I've been the recipient of it in my own foundation. I recommended Robert a few years ago to a to go speak. It was, I think in front of like 5,000 people. Big event, you know, big speaker fee. He gave 100% of the speaker fee to Genius Recovery, my foundation. I mean, I didn't ask him this did it. And Bobette and, you know, and Bob just do so much. And so. You're awesome. I mean, you actually do practice what we preach. Yeah. You know, and let me say this too. When I first read Info Influence, when I was a dead broke carpet cleaner living off credit cards, I mean, the whole story of like, okay, I was a hard worker, I was struggling, but I did not know how to generate business. I did not know how to get people to buy my stuff. And I learned early on there's no relationship between being good at what you do and getting paid for it. Unless you actually know how to present and how to market and how to message and how to attract the right people and repel the wrong ones. And so, you know, your book was just instrumental. And then we became, you know, friends, you know, over 30 years ago, and here we are. And it's. It's so great to be here. So I got a couple of questions that I do want to ask you. All right, so what is the latest, most interesting research on persuasion? Persuasion and influence. And what's the most interesting insight that you've had recently that you've not talked about yet?

It has something to do with DJs presentation reputation management. You know those star ratings that you get? The star rating that produces the highest number of conversions is not five stars. It's. It's a set of scores between 4.2 and 4.7. Why? Because above four, well below 4.2, you're saying maybe it's not above 4.7. You're saying there may not be. There may not be everybody playing fairly here. There may be some phony evaluation. People are buying them or having their staff members create them. Nobody gets all fives, right? And so you start losing credibility by implying that you have more success than you do. There's another study that makes this point. So suppose it's a social proof. So. So if you are able to say 9 out of 10 people positively evaluate our product, all right, you get a lot of people who then want to buy it. If you say 90%, you get even more because you're being more accurate. If you say 89%, you get the most because you're obviously being sincere. You're not just rounding it up to 9 out of 10, right? So we have to watch out for these, for taking success too far. People are going to doubt us unless we are absolutely accurate. And one of the things we do make sure is that we're absolutely specific about the. So when I talked about some of the percentages a while ago, I said, in one case, if you ask, are you. Are you. You consider yourself an adventurous person. And then the number of people who bought, who decided to give their contact information to get a new product was 75.6. It's 75.6. That tells you that I'm knowledgeable and honest about this information. I'm not just rounding it up to impress people. We have to be careful about that because everybody is now aware of the cheaters. We can do that by being accurate and have the integrity of presenting exactly what we have.

Let's talk about influencers today versus influence. When you first wrote influence, we've got a whole category of people that want to be famous. And there's a lot of pursuit of status and look at me. And it's quite seductive because I like it when people think I'm cool. I like it when people admire me. And I also know there's an ego there that could get misinformed by thinking I'm so damn special. Because, you know, let's take for instance, that video. We show this video, right? So someone made a movie about my life. That propaganda piece was not created by me. It was actually done by one of my clients. And made a movie about me, which is. I was worried because I was like, oh, is this going to be sort of a fluff piece? And of course, it's got social proof. That's a perfect example of positioning. And so I think of. Of marketing is anything you put in front of somebody is marketing. How do you position yourself? Right. So we know each other. Gave everyone a copy of my book show, a video. There's. There's. That sort of stuff. So there's this whole world of influence. Look at me, look at me, look at me. What's the dark side of it?

Of influencer.

Yeah, of being an influencer. Of going out and being famous. I mean, you've got a lot of fame and notoriety in your world. Not like, you know, movie star sort of celebrity, where you can't, you know, walk into a restaurant without having everyone notice you, but you're quite a known human. Right. And you see what fame does to people, good ways and bad ways, how to leverage it and how it could be destructive. So I'd like to get your perspective on it. Yeah.

The. The takeaway for me is to use as the metric how famous I am rather than why I am famous. So we're in your. Where if you're in competition with your rivals for more fame, right. Rather than for what you're providing to your audience, and then you're working just to get the profile up there, right. Then you're. It's all empty calories now that you're giving people. Right. It's just your glow. And that's not enough. Just the glow. There has to be some reason that you're glowing, you know, the real merits of the light you're providing to the world.

Yeah, no, that's a really good point because it is. It's like empty calories. If you just like. And you can game the system, and there's a lot of people that are gaming the system. A lot of it is purely vanity, but there's not a lot of substance. So to if.

If.

Who do you consider a true influencer?

If you could name, you know, I have just been at the Berkshire Hathaway meetings. Charlie Munger was no longer there. He's Warren Buffett's partner. And Warren Buffett is a true influencer of opinion and. And activity in the way that he presents himself as being truly concerned about the welfare of his stock, of his shareholders, and beyond that, the company as a whole. And I saw something there that almost made me weep. If you've ever been to these meetings, there were 47,000 people in an auditorium at. At. In. In Omaha, where the Berkshire Hathaway. By the way, a single share of Berkshire Hathaway stock is on this morning's New York Stock Exchange is worth $610,000 a share. A share. There's never been anything like it in our markets. And one of the reasons that that's the case is not only are they amazing financial analysts, they know that the market is not made up of econometric models. It's made up of people. And when they send out communications, they have studied human psychology before they do that. They are experts at communication, experts at connection, experts at giving people cues of honest information. So, for example, Warren Buffett, on the first page of all of his annual shareholder letters, mentions something that went wrong that year, something that went. And then he says, but you've heard that here. But. And then he mentions the strengths. Well, now you believe the strengths because you've. He's shown himself to be an honest person who's willing to mention the drawbacks. So he does that sort of thing. But there's the thing that almost made me weep. His partner, Charlie Munger, was called the brainiac of the company. Warren says that he was the architect of Berkshire Hathaway. And at these meetings, they would sit on a stage, and there'd be this crowd of thousands upon thousands of people, and they would take questions, and Warren would always take the question and then take the first swing at it, and then he'd turn it over to Charlie. Charlie died last year at 99 years and 11 months. He missed by a month. Right. Just before. It was in December. So just before the Berkshire Hathaway meetings by a couple of months. A few months. And so Warren would take the questions, and then he would turn it over to Charlie. And Charlie would usually answer with a single various service line. That was funny. So everybody waited for that. And this time, I think it was the second question. Warren got it, and he finished answering. And there were a couple of executives on the stage with him in Starlee instead of Charlie. So he. He finished and he turned and said, charlie. The place fell silent. You could have heard a pin drop. Charlie was still there. Fifty years later, Charlie was still in his memory and in his psycho, his psychological space. Charlie was there. Yeah. That's the. That's the kind of connections that you were talking about. Yeah.

You know, you got your wife over here, you got your granddaughter. You got a lot of people in your world that you care about deeply. What's the best way to influence love?

Give it. Give it. Chart Warren Buffett, He said the best. This is Charlie Munger. The way to be the best spouse is to earn it. And then you get the best spouse in return.

Wow.

Earn it. That's how you. That's how you get love. You earn it.

That's great.

You show people the approval you definitely feel of them. You don't hide it. You don't try to worry about hierarchies and so on. You earn the. Earn their love.

Yeah, you know, I think that's where a lot of marketers and a lot of people that just try to look at the technique because, you know, you talk about the science. There is an art and a bit of science. Right. It's using both of them. And one becomes skilled in these methodologies by integrating them. Not just doing them or parroting them, but just actually going out into the real world and doing it. I mean, if someone wants to. If you take a guy who wants to figure out how to meet women, you can read every pickup book, every book in the world about what to say and how to say. But if you never go out there and just meet people and talk and interact and show up in a certain way, it's. You may have a lot of knowledge, but it doesn't mean it's integrated into. Into your world. So you. Everyone here has been through two days of training here. If. What advice would you give them on, okay, here's how to make it part of you.

Well, it's in doing some things that you can't do a scientific experiment, but you can try different forms of connection, for example, different forms of showing approval or affection and so on, and see which one fits best with the person that you're dealing with. Because not everybody's the same. The audiences will change. But the concept of everybody wanting to have approval or relationships or closeness or trust and so on, you can provide different forms of it and see which ones resonates. So it's. It's kind of like being an experimenter trying different things out and then. And then selecting the one that has the greatest resonance with the people that you're. You're dealing with. Yeah.

And what about fear? What if someone's scared? What if someone's worried about rejection? What if they're not quite there yet? How does. How do you deal with fear?

Yeah, so, I mean, how do I deal with fear? As somebody who's.

If you've been afraid to approach someone or say something or someone's utilizing the methods that you have taught so well on you and you kind of are like, oh, my God. You know, you're just, you know, you don't want to be offensive. You also don't want to be rejected. You want to get what you want. But you also, you know, there's this resistance that you may have. How do, how do you, how do you, how does that play out?

So we actually talked about it in an earlier presentation. I don't mind somebody using my principles on me as long as they're doing it ethically, as long as they're honestly representing the state of affairs and then the way to overcome your fear. And you know, I'm blanking on the woman's name, you probably know it, who wrote a book called Three two one. What's her name? Anyway, she says when you're afraid to interact with somebody, right? Or afraid, she says, I saw this, this guy that I really wanted to meet for a job that I had and so on, but he was elevated high and said, here's what I tell myself. Three, two, one. And then you do it.

Mel Robbins has a five second.

That's it. That's it. Five seconds. So me, four, four or five?

Four.

Three, two, what? Mel Robbins. That's who it is.

I think three is even better. Yeah, you do it.

I mean, yeah, you get. That's right. Otherwise that guy might be.

She's wasting two seconds completely.

But I mean, just give yourself a starting gun, essentially. Start, go.

Yep.

You know, somebody was asking me, I think was pratif what, what, what are the, what are the things, the symbols that re. That you can give. We were talking about how you get people to want to change. Right? What, what, and so what are the things that are associated with, with change? One thing we talked about was at the beginning of a period of time, right. And, well, what, what symbols could we use to put in an email or a message that stimulates the idea of change? There's actually been some research on this. The number one image that leads people to be put in the mind, the mindset of change. It's a sunrise. A sunrise. We can put that in our messaging. We can put that in our PowerPoint decks. We can put that in our, in our subject lines. Right. And number two, you know how in the movies at the start of a scene, there's a clapper clap start something. Start the scene. That's the number two. One that's associated with the motivations and the, and the intents to change. Clap start. That's like five, four, three, two, one, go.

Yeah, that's good. Yeah. So what are the best ways to protect yourself against manipulation and unethical influence in the AI age?

Yeah. So, you know, sometimes you can't. But one of our. Because you, you don't. Sometimes you just get drawn in and you're tricked. But sometimes you can prevent yourself from being tricked by somebody who's not giving you the straight scoop about any of the principles of influence. There is no real scarcity. There is no real authority testimonials. There are no, you know, other trends in your, in, in their direction. They're just fabricating that. Okay, so one way you can avoid that, we can use the Internet. We can go online, we can check them out, we can see if there are voices saying, this guy cheated us, this woman was not straight with us. You know, this company is not. So go and check and see if this person is a cheater. All right, if, if it happened, you fault. Now here's what we do. We go online and we provide that voice. We have to provide a way to penalize the cheaters. All right, so if we have been taken, we're going to take a little bit out of their reputation as a consequence.

Yeah, I'm just thinking to people, I'd love to take a little bit out of the Richmond. So what are some effective ways to make friends with or influence skeptical people or prospects? I mean, I know we've talked a lot about that, but.

Yeah, so it turns out that you have to, you have to be a good listener. You have to ask them to state their objections or their opinion about something. Can you tell me what your, what your side of the, the case is? If it's somebody who has a different opinion and you have to be a good listener, and if you've ever taken a, a course on being a good listener, there are three things that came out for me. One is you give them your undivided attention. You take notes while they're speaking. Right.

You take notes while they're speaking.

And you provide non evaluative questions. Not the questions that, where you can say, well, that was stupid. I mean, not. It's a question, well, oh, you, you did that. Can you tell me the circumstances surrounding why you did that or why you have come to believe that? All right. And that's the way that the research literature suggests you're most likely then to be able to change somebody in your direction when you present your case. And the reason has always been because if you have been a good listener, if you've shown them that you're open to, to these sorts of they like you more. They like that kind of characteristic. I think there's another reason that's even more primitive. If you've done that, it's their turn. It's their turn, by the rule of reciprocity, to be open, to listen to you, to be non evaluative in searching for the rationale behind their. And you get a chance to change, change them. Without that, they're not even listening to you. There's a wall up there. There's a brick wall. Your message is bouncing off that wall. So you have to, it's, it's you, you be a good listener, you be open. And the rule says, now it's your turn. And they do. They do. They, they're open to you. And that gives you a chance to get your message across. And if it's a good message, then you get some change.

So when you encounter people that rub you the wrong way or that you don't like or have a, be it a belief system or an attitude that is just very hard to stomach or they're threatening, how do you either handle that or escape that situation?

Yeah. So I'm going to go back to Ben Franklin again. And he tells the story of having a rival, a political rival. They did not like each other, but Ben needed to have his friendship for moving forward with some initiatives. And so he asked that guy to lend him a book, a book that he wanted to read. And it was in this guy's library. And the guy didn't say no. How do you say, I like the same author that you do. I wonder if you would lend me that book. Lends him the book and then you give it back to him with a book of your own. And you say, can we schedule a time to talk about these books? Right. And now you've got to connect. You've got a, you've got somebody who's not an, not an enemy, somebody who shares an interest in these topics. And he said, has it has an impression. In this case, it was a man of himself as liking you enough to trust you with one of his valued books. Now he's got to change his opinion of you based on his behavior. Right. But the longer lasting thing is that you shared books and you started talking about books together and you found connections and similarities you didn't have before. And in his telling, they became friends and they worked together to get some things done that separately neither of them would have achieved.

Yeah, that's great. That's great.

So.

So what? Have you not been asked that you wish you were Asked.

What? Have I not been asked? Yeah, because people ask me a lot. That's really a good question.

You know.

If you had it to do over again, what would you change? I would have written my book three years earlier. I had the ability to do it, but I was a coward. I was not yet tenured. I needed to get publications. I needed. And writing a book. If you look at my resume of the number of academic publications I have, there's a big gap in the two years before and the year in which I published because I wasn't doing research, I was writing this book and I was doing like research by infiltrating sales and marketing and advertising training programs. Right. So I didn't have, so I wanted to have tenure. I wanted to be promoted before I started writing the book. The truth is I started at Arizona State University here. When I started it was a third rate university. It's a third rate university. I had enough publications from graduate school to get 10 years there. I shouldn't have worried. Now 15 years later it became a second rate university. It's now a first rate univ. It is genuinely a first rate university. I have been at other universities. You know, I've been at ASU all my professional life with occasional time off for good behavior on sabbaticals. I know what other universities, you know, you know Stanford and, and Yale and so on. I, I know what they're like. This is a first rate university. But in those days it was a third rate university. I needn't have worried. I could have written that book three years earlier and I waited.

Yeah, that's, that's, that's great advice. And I, Yeah, I guess if I could go back in time, there's so much stuff that I just did not do because. Yeah, fear.

Yeah.

Being cowardly. Not my biggest thing was I didn't deal with my trauma and my addictions. I just, I just kept running from it and would bury myself and stuff. But that's for a whole nother story. Bobette, would you be opposed to coming up here on stage for a moment? Yeah, I'm taking a little bit of a risk with that, this one. But I'm going to ask Bobette.

Bobette, Here you go. Have a seat here.

So. And we'll stand close to you. So the mic picks up your voice. So what do you think of Bob?

Wait a minute, I'm going to listen in on this one.

Well, when I first met Bob, when we first went out, I thought he was the most interesting man I'd ever met 47 years later. I still think he's the most interesting man I've ever met.

So, yeah, this is awesome. So what is the key and advice that you would give everybody in a relationship? And I would like to hear from both of you in a relationship, your relationship as a model to other people in their own relationships.

You know, everybody faces their own challenges. So I can't give blanket advice outside.

Of.

To give the other person grace. They're not always going to be perfect, but they're perfect for you.

So mine would be. That's. That's great because I am imperfect. Yeah, I need that grace. It would be back to Charlie Mungs. If you want to have the perfect relationship partner, earn it. Earn it. Be able and willing to do what you need to have that person in your camp.

Well, so these two planted seeds 47 years ago, and all of this body of work and everything has been built together. And I just wanted to acknowledge you because you're behind the scenes a lot and you're both a huge support structure. And I've known both of you for a long time, and you're both amazing.

Well, you know, we're a reflection of everyone who we meet and of our close friends like you and Cherie. We're a reflection of you. And to think it's important to know that you affect us, that we take in each one of you every conversation we have while we share and affects us. It's not like it's fleeting and it's gone. And so we appreciate all your conversations, all your words and reminding us what the work is about. And Joe, you've been a big inspiration.

Joe's been great. And it means more than being a life. So it means being a lifelong learner, not just in the sense of the information we're getting here. Being a lifelong learner in recognizing the input that other people have provided us and the role models that lifelong willingness to absorb and take into account and to modify ourselves based on what we see in the friends that we choose, in the interactions that we fight ourselves in.

Yeah, Bob, so I'd like to ask you, what's your one piece of advice? You have one piece that I've heard you talk about many times for people who want to. Want to be better, better at influencing, better in business, better in their relationships, just better. What's your one piece of advice?

Okay, so I would say three words. Three words.

He's now, like, being prompted, like chatgpt.

I know the three words that you. It's. It's not what I was going to say, but I know it's be more human. Be more human. But what I was going to say, if you go in, if you're a young person, so this is number two, number one is be with number two. So if you're going into a situation where you don't know anybody and you would like to fit in with that group, right. With those people, be generous, be generous with them. Right? Because now if it's somebody you know does not play by the rules of reciprocity. No. Then you don't want to. But be generous because there are two really important features that come from your generosity, right? They like you more and secondly, they'll be generous to you in return. And what's a better relationship than that, than people you like who both want to help the other when it's possible to do so. So that would be the start out with a presumption that they are well intentioned and good people that allows you to be generous with them. And then the downstream consequences of that generous generosity are really very, very positive.

All right, well, give it up for two amazing, awesome, generous healings. Don't miss another episode of I Love Marketing. Subscribe today@ilovemarketing.com subscribe if you'd like access to the show notes to take action on what was discussed, please visit ilovemarketing.com for forward/4 68.