Robert Cialdini Interview: The Science of Persuasion, Influence & Reciprocity

What is the premise of persuasion? So let's go into like, how does persuasion differ from or enhance persuasion? I guess.

Yeah. You know, in the book Influence, I talked about what you should put into a message to increase the likelihood that people would want it, would try to acquire it. That thing that's. That you're talking about your offer.

Pre.

Suasion is about what you should say or do in the moment before you deliver that message to make people attuned to the strengths of that message, to make them inclined toward open, to receptive to the thing about your message that is its strongest element, that the thing that will make it wise for them to say yes. Because that's the essence of what it is that you are offering.

That is such an important concept that if someone was able to do that 5%, 10% more effectively, not just twice as good, but just little incremental things, that would make a huge shift. But if you did it five or ten times more effectively, that would change your life, that would change the entire game. And so this is a way, like Joel Weldon, who is one of my friends, we had been speaking about him previously, before the cameras started rolling, he made this comment about how to introduce a speaker as an example. And if you're going to go up on stage, if you have a beautiful piece of art and you duct tape it to the wall, it's going to look a certain way. But if you put it in a nice frame, it's different. And ever since I heard that, I've always thought about how you frame anything has a lot to do with how it occurs to people, how they like it, how they buy into it. And then here you come out with pre suasion, which is an entire study of how you frame things. I want to do it justice because it's way beyond just framing things. There's a whole lot more into it. So what I'd love to have you do is talk about the scientific research around pre suasion so that people realize this is not just a really bright professor's opinion about how to set up the sale, setting up the request. This is like you have done some serious research on it. So I think people would really appreciate this at a much deeper level if they knew how to. How hard you have worked on this. So if you could talk about that.

Well, there are some literatures in academic behavioral science about priming, about framing, about positioning, about anchoring. That all came together for me in terms of what they were implying about how you amplify the effect of your Message, it's by what you do before you send that message. And it involves creating engagement, creating a focus in your audience on some aspect that they're yet to experience. They haven't encountered it yet. You just make them open and receptive to it before they ever encounter it. That's the idea. Let me give you an example. Suppose you want to sell somebody something that's new, or you want to bring them in. And you know that people hang back when they've got something that's new. They haven't yet tried it, they're unfamiliar, they don't like getting out of their comfort zone. But you've got this thing and it's really great. How do you. Here's a study. Researchers went up to people on the street, said, we have a new soft drink. It's untried, Nobody's ever encountered it before. Would you be willing to give us your email address right now and we'll send you the information that will allow you to get this new product? Now that's a risky thing to do. Somebody comes up to you unbidden, unsolicited, unknown, ask for your email address, that's a risky thing. Only 30% of the people were willing to do that. Under those circumstances, even that sounds to me like a lot.

Right.

But there are risk takers among us. For another sample of people, the researcher walked up and said, excuse me, do you consider yourself an adventurous person? People thought for a minute and they went on a particular memory track for times that they were adventurous because adventure was the question that they were now engaged in. And we've all experienced. Almost Everybody said yes. 98% of the people said yes just.

By planting that seed of getting them to focus on where their brain goes.

And now instead of 30% giving them their email address when they were later told about this new product, 75.6% provide that risky chancy thing.

That's fascinating. It's almost like the study you did with Hare Krishna's in influence where someone would go up and put the flower on their collar in airports. And it was more difficult for someone to step away than reach in their pocket and pull out a dollar and give them donation, walk away and then throw the.

What do you do first?

Yeah, so I mean, like the way that I look at that piece of information, which is again so incredibly valuable by how you direct the brain to think about something before you then ask them for what you really want. So if a single person, if a guy was afraid of going up to a woman and asking for her Email or asking for a phone number. If they said, are you adventurous? And just plant that and say, oh, by the way, would you like to go on a date? You've just probably, in this case, tripled your chances of getting a yes.

Here's a piece of research that shows how you can increase that even more. A study done in France. Researchers had an attractive young man walk up to young women who were by themselves strolling through a shopping mall. And he stopped them and said, I wonder if you could give me your phone number so I can call you for a date later. Another risky thing to do. And indeed, only 13.5% of the time did he get a phone number. If he did, that guy, though, they got an actor, a matinee idol kind of looking guy.

That's part of persuasion also, right?

But even that, only 13.5, unless he asked in front of a particular kind of shop. And it doubled, almost doubled, to 24% success. A flower shop. In the environment of flowers, women are put in mind of romance. And now romance is more important than risk.

Wow.

Where do you put people first?

So the environment has everything to do.

With it can be a word that you use like adventurous, it can be a setting that you arrange, or it can be an image that you provide on your website.

Right.

Wow.

Let me give you an example of the image.

You can talk about these examples for the next week and I would love them all because they're fantastic.

A study done with an online furniture store. They sell sofas. They sent half of the visitors to their site to a landing page that had as its background wallpaper fluffy clouds. The other half they sent to a landing page that had as its background wallpaper coins, pennies. Now, they then track what happens to those visitors who were randomly sent to one or the other place with different images. The first thing they can counter is an image of clouds or an image of coins. Those who experience the clouds rated comfort as the most important feature for them to decide on a sofa. They then searched the site for information about comfort and they preferred to buy more comfortable sofas. Those who got pennies rated cost as the most important feature for determining their choice. They searched for price related information and they preferred to buy inexpensive furniture. And not one of them recognized they were asked afterwards. So do you think the clouds made a difference? Not one of them believed that the clouds or the coins made any difference. This stuff flies under the radar totally.

Well, you know, it almost makes you question all of the things. Not almost. It does. I mean, for me, the things of Find a need and fill it. Find a want and fill it. Where you literally direct people to where you want them to go. In some cases, by just the setup, I mean, like, it's almost. It's almost like people are thinking they know what they're looking for. But what you're showing here is. No, you're helping them to look.

This is a great insight, Joe, because there's an old saying, tell me what you're paying attention to and I'll tell you who you are. In other words, if you're always watching espn, you're probably a sports fan. If you're always getting gourmet magazines, you're probably a foodie, that sort of thing. Here's what the newest behavioral science says. What you're paying attention to doesn't just reveal who you are, it makes you who you are in that moment. The guys in France could make those women romantics in the moment after they passed a flower shop, but not a bakery, because flowers are associated with romance, not cheese. Danish, Right.

Here's a croissant. Can I have your either?

No.

Right. That's why if you've got a date, you don't send the young woman a box of Krispy Kreme.

Right, right, right.

You send flowers. All right, so what is the thing that is the essence of your message? You create attention to that concept before you send your message and people are attuned to it.

That's so good. It is honestly so good. You've already given several here. One of my questions was, if someone is an entrepreneur or business owner listening to this, what techniques or strategies could they utilize to better persuade in their business? I mean, what you just said is amazing.

Let me give you another one because I love this one. It's one word changing one word pre suasively. So suppose you want to co create with your customer base your new line of products or services, or you want to ask them about how to best improve what you have for new models and so on. And this co creation, it's the biggest thing right now in marketing. What we typically do is to ask people for their feedback, ask for their for that information by saying, could you provide us with your opinion on this topic? It's a mistake because researchers have found that when you ask for someone's opinion, that person takes a half step back from you, a separating step, and they go inside themselves for the answer.

Interesting.

If instead of asking for their opinion, you ask for their advice, they take a half step towards you.

Wow.

And you've created a partnership Teamwork, collaborative frame in their mind. And here's what the research shows. Now, when they encounter your products or services or your brand, they're more supportive of it because they feel more a part of it. They feel a merged identity with it because they've moved into that identity with you by providing advice instead of an opinion.

I love it. I love it. So one method of approach is repelling, the other is, is attracting. And so it reminds me of the quotes. People support what they help to create. And the others, if you let them plan the fight, they don't fight the plan. And I utilize that with my team in my own company by having everyone do teamwork together. But you just gave me a whole other way of thinking about framing it.

In fact, what I like, there's a quote, People don't sink the boats they're riding in, right?

Yeah.

If you can get them to see them as part of your enterprise, it's both of your boat now. You're both riding in that boat. They're not going to torpedo it.

Hey, I hope you're enjoying this video. And I want to let you know that I have a new book that's come out and if you'd like to get it absolutely free, there's a link below in the description. Or you can wait till the end of this video or you can simply go to Joe's Free book and you can get a copy there. You know, one of the things that I have always thought of in marketing, and I learned this from studying sales copy and persuasive words. When you're not having the advantage of being face to face with someone and you have to use words to persuade. And so part of it is the communication, how you say it, the frequency of it, the usefulness of it. And I've always thought the number one thing to do with copy clients is to bond and how to bond with them. And anything that breaks that bond is not good. And alignment is critical. Like in business. The way that I. My new marketing book, which is coming out currently titled Joe's Marketing Book. And we're crowdsourcing different titles, although everyone seems to love the title, Joe's Marketing Book, it'll be out in a few months, is it's all about elf. You can have an elf business, which is easy, lucrative and fun, or you can have a half business, which is. Which is hard, annoying, lame and frustrating. And I think learning persuasion is going to give you an elf business. Because if you don't utilize what you have researched and proven and studied, then to do anything other than what you're saying is hard, annoying, sometimes lucrative and frustrating. And so I look at, like any sort of thing that I can do that's going to give me a greater advantage, that is going to get a better result. To not only study it, learn it, and apply it is just idiotic. And now in some cases, you can't fix stupid. So some people, they just don't get it. However, knowing that there is knowledge out there, knowing there is a method that will improve things, is critical. And I only want to align myself with people that are aligned with me. And I think the greatest joy of using persuasion and getting someone into a better position to make their lives better is, is if they wanted to go along with it. It wasn't like trickery, it wasn't manipulation. Although sometimes you persuade people into directions that they don't want to go, but it's actually good for them. So you can argue that you're doing them a favor. However, anything that can be set up to just, you know, I think people love to be sold. They hate to be pressured. And if you do things in a certain way, it doesn't even occur to them that anyone's selling. When anyone is really conscientious and cares about us and gets us into something to exchange our money or our time or our energy for something and it actually helps you and you, that feels good. Everyone loves that.

Everybody feels good about that. And so they want to continue to do business the next round and the round after that.

Exactly. Because the most expensive business cost is client acquisition. And once you've already done that, I always think of it as it's a lot harder to create momentum than it is to maintain it. Every once in a while, I'll run into you guys at the gym because you work out consistently. And the thing is, if you just did that, oh, every three months, I'm going to go work out and do a really great workout. It doesn't work that way. I think what you teach is kind of the same way. These are just ongoing practices that if you put them into place, your business, your connection, your quality of clientele, your joy of how you do things just increases. So this is great. Well, you've already covered some of this, but I'm going to go a little more specific. What specific steps could someone listening to this take to better persuade or prepare the moment or moments before the message is delivered that you've not shared?

So let's take a step back and provide a general approach. It is to focus your attention on Your message. What is the strength of your message? What is the strongest element of it? The thing that if people say yes to it, makes it most wise for them to say yes so that they will benefit. What is it? Identify that thing and then reverse engineer the persuasion process to the moment before you describe that thing so that you've aligned people's consciousness and their sense of who they are with the strength of that message we just saw. You could make me a comfort oriented buyer. You could make me a cost oriented buyer, depending on what you put first. If you put fluffy clouds or coins in the background of your landing page, I become that person.

Now.

If you know that and comfort is the strength of your product, you've got me, right? I'm going to rate that as important. I'm going to search for it and I'm going to use it to determine how to behave.

Well, I'm not sure if it's in the second chapter or third chapter in your book. You talk about playing French music or German music especially. Explain that.

So there's a study that shows that if a wine shop owner plays German music for a particular time of the day, people buy more German vintages. If he plays French music, they buy more French vids because they're put in a German or a French state of mind. And now they're going to behave in ways that are aligned with that state of mind that's been installed by something as background based as the music that they're hearing on the PA system.

I always listen for words that you say because it leaves so many strategic clues on what to do installed. So if you sit and think like, okay, I want to sell more of my thing here. What do I need to install in order to set it up in to order. Order to do that.

Let me give you an example. It's just worked for me. I've got a colleague who I've worked with for a long time over in the psychology department where I'm housed, and I needed a big favor from him. I sent him an email and I said, don, I'm working on a project. I don't have the information I need in my files, but I know you have it in your files. I'm going to call you later to get that information. I would really appreciate it.

He just planted that seed.

So I called him up, he said, bob, I know why you're calling. I can't help you. I'm swamped right now. I know you've got this project with a time limit, but I've got projects with time limits too. I'd like to be a bit of help, but I can't this time. Sorry. So I didn't say to him.

But.

Don, I'd really appreciate it if you could help me with this one. It would mean a lot to me. I said, don, you know, we've been in the same department now for 10 years. I really wish you could help me with this. It would mean a lot to me. I created a framework of unity. I had the information that afternoon.

So what happened in his head? I mean, explain what went down.

There was something that was true, that we had a relationship, a long term relationship, but it wasn't at the top of his consciousness. It wasn't the thing that was aligning his subsequent behavior until I brought it to top of mind. We're relationship partners, Don, for 10 years. And inside relationships you say yes to people. I just moved it from somewhere at midbrain to top of mind and it made the difference. So what did I. I didn't install the relationship. I installed a focus on that relationship. That was now the thing that he was paying attention to. And what you're paying attention to in that moment changes who you are. He became a relationship oriented respondent, not a selfish respondent about his own issues.

Right, right.

You know, you have a real power to where these sort of things could be used in very manipulative ways. And for the time that I've known you, I mean, I would like to think in the same way, you know, our relation. I've never overly asked for anything. You've not either. You've always approached us. You're very cognizant of the ethical use of persuasion. And you know, this is filled with, with literally a ninja assassin methodologies if used in the wrong way and incredible human betterment methodologies. And the other side, what is your advice for the people out there about the proper care and feeding of others utilizing persuasion once you learn what is in persuasion? Because this is, I mean you literally teach people how to get what they want.

Yes, it's dynamite. And dynamite can be used to build a bridge or blow up a bridge right between people. So Joe, we've been friends for a long time. And the reason we've been friends for a long time is what you said, that we share values. And the reason I've liked interacting with you over that time is that your ethical approach, you take an ethical approach to this. So here's why I am recommending that people who understand the pre suasive strategies that are available to them only Use them in ethical ways. We've just completed a research program where we find that those organizations that use influence attempts in dishonest, deceptive, unethical ways produce two big damages to their viability. The first is there are some people inside the organization who are just not comfortable with the unethicality and they are stressed by it. And they try to leave. They don't do very well on the job because of that stress. They try to leave. When they do leave, you get all these turnover costs that are associated with that big cost. But here's the one that was most interesting to me. When those people who are stressed by the deception leave, who remains is those people who are comfortable with dishonesty and cheating. And they're going to cheat you.

Wow.

They're the ones who are going to steal equipment. They're the ones who are going to run these under the table deals with vendors and partners and suppliers. They're the ones who are going to pad their expense accounts. Count on it. They've been selected for. They've been selected for. You've pulled the viper under your coat.

Yeah, exactly.

You know, that says a lot about people that have toxic cultures and are toxic in general and cannot. And then they have a worldview that everyone's out to screw them because that's just their frame of how they view the world. I mean, I've always like the saying I said earlier, be nice to the people you meet on the way up. They're the same people you meet on the way down. And that. I heard Dan Sullivan say this years ago and I've said it to so many people because I'm constantly trying to reinforce this to people, is that money earned ethically is a byproduct of value creation. And if you're going to go out and ask people to give you money, you better damn well give them value because it takes a lifetime to build a reputation. And like you said, with social proof. The one thing I do like about it is it makes it much harder for scumbags to exist for as long as they were able to. Because now it's out in the open.

It's out there.

Yeah.

I'm going to show you today how you can charge up to four times more for selling exactly the same thing. I did an experiment in which I gave women two pairs of sunglasses. They were exactly the same. The only difference was that one pair had a Chanel logo. And I asked women how much they'd be willing to pay for these two pairs of sunglasses. The pair with the Chanel logo, they were willing to pay four times more for it, even though the utility of the sunglasses was exactly the same. So here's the takeaway for marketing. People were paying for the logo even though they were buying the glasses. In other words, marketing can improve your price points by up to four times. So today I'm going to show you some examples of the hidden patterns that I found in studying 600,000 people. It's based on a decade of world class branding experience with some of the top brands. But before we talk about valuable brands that attract exactly the right customer, let's talk about having a major branding disadvantage. What's my last name? Hogshead. Can you imagine what it was like growing up with the last name Hogan? I was literally tortured on the playground for my legal last name. And I remember going up to my mother, Mrs. Hogshead, and saying, why couldn't we just have a normal last name like Smith or Jones? And she said something I'll never forget. She said, it's the thing about our name that makes it different, that will one day make you love it. And this is what I found in marketing. It's the thing about a brand or a company or a person that makes them different, that makes people truly love them and be willing to pay more money for them. This is especially true in a crowded competitive environment. And I'm going to give you an example of a competitive environment. This is a photograph that was taken of my sister, Nancy Hogshead when I was seven years old. When I was seven, she was the number one ranked swimmer in the world in two events. She had two Guinness Book world records when I was seven. So I want you to imagine, here I am, a seven year old, sort of the challenger brand, the underdog in a competitive marketplace. And my sister went on to win three gold medals and a silver in the Olympics the same year my brother graduated from Harvard. So I want you to imagine in my seven year old mind trying to differentiate myself and trying to find what's my competitive advantage in this marketplace. And so I remember thinking to myself, well, I can't do athletics, I can't do academics, those trees have been peed on. What am I going to do? So I did what you do and you're not good at athletics or academics. And I went into marketing. And from the very beginning, from the very beginning, I knew that my competitive advantage was not in following what other people did, but in developing new ways of helping people differentiate and standing out. And so I decided that I was going to write a tagline for myself. And now I want you to remember, over the course of my life, when I check into a hotel, they literally say, no, seriously, what's your real last name? Or when I make a reservation at a restaurant, they cancel it because they think that it's a joke. The maitre d comes and thinks it's been a prank. So my father said to me, you know, the name Hogshead really isn't that bad. A hogshead is a barrel that holds 62 gallons. It's a wooden cask that was used to ship rum from the old world to the new world. So when I wrote my tagline, here's what I wrote. A hogshead is a barrel that holds 62 gallons. So what's your last name, smartass? Now, this is what I call strategic polarization. There are certain clients that wouldn't want to work with me because I have the word smartass in my tagline. And that's probably a really good fit for me to know at the beginning. If they don't want to work with me because I have smartass in my tagline, we're probably not a very good fit for anything. So when you think about your own marketing and your own communication, figure out who you're not talking to so that you can more accurately identify who you do want to talk to. Because in today's marketplace, different is better than better. It's not enough to be the best. A lot of people are the best. But when you're trying to compete on being better than your competition, you're just incrementally trying to outdo them at their own game. So if you offer 0.2% better returns, well, you know what? Next year, somebody else is going to come into the marketplace and they're going to outdo you. If you're not better, then you're going to compete on price. And if you compete on price, then there is no loyalty. And if there is no loyalty, then you're never going to be able to really scale and replicate and build your brand. So instead of trying to be better, I recommend that you try to be different, to tap into. What are those qualities, not only about your company, but about yourself, that make you inimitable, in other words, that nobody else can copy, because it's so easy for you as an entrepreneur to infuse them constantly. Now, over the course of the last 10 years, as I've studied over half a million people, we've looked at the high performers, We've gone inside companies like AT&T. GE, Cisco, Qualcomm Intel Intuit. We've looked at the high performers. What do they do differently? We found that there are specific communication patterns among the entrepreneurs and the team members that are able to get the best possible results and get that 400% return. And the key is. Oh, I'll tell you in just a minute. Fascination is an intense focus. When you fascinate your customer or your client or your team, they're only thinking about you. They're not thinking about your competition. They're not distracted, they're not checking their iPhone. They're not thinking about their next meeting or what they're going to feed their kids for dinner. They're only thinking about you.

And.

And neurologically, in a state of fascination, the brain opens up. Fascination is a state of intense focus. This is what it looks like in an mri. When the brain is in a state of fascination, it opens up neurologically, it looks as though the brain is falling in love. So when you fascinate a customer or a client, it's almost like they're falling in love with you. They're not being cynical, they're not being skeptical. They're not thinking about.

No.

They're not thinking about how they can defer the decision. They're not overcome by inertia. They're ready to take action. They're more likely to listen to you, remember you, and put in place what you say. And so when you fascinate your customer, you have a tremendous competitive advantage. The problem is that today, although the average attention span used to be 20 minutes long, the BBC reports it may only be nine seconds long. The average attention span, nine seconds. So you're in a pitch or you're in a meeting with your team, or you're listening to me at the front of the room. Every nine seconds, your brain scans to see if it should focus on something else. In other words, attention span has become the most precious resource. When you introduce yourself to somebody, if you don't make a strong first impression, you've actually damaged your. Your odds of communicating with them again. In other words, you have disincentivized them from communicating with you the next time. So the next time you send an email, the next time you raise your hand to speak in a meeting, think to yourself, am I adding value or am I taking up space? Because if you fail to fascinate them, then the next time they're going to be less likely to turn and listen to you or open your email or take your call. When you fascinate somebody, you become most worthy of Their attention, their most precious resource, their attention span. They want to give it to you instead of giving it to everybody else. And this is key, not only in marketing, but in having effective meetings. Building your company, building a career and a life that you love as an entrepreneur, you're either adding value or you're taking up space. And there are certain ways in which you create new value that feels for.

You like a well spaced.

So let me show you what it is that high performers do differently. Yesterday, the most important thing for you to know was how you see the world. Raise your hand if you've ever done a test like Myers Briggs StrengthsFinder Disc Colby. These are great tests and they show us how you see the world. They're built on psychology, so they're looking from your eyes out. I created the first assessment that takes that and turns it around and shows the opposite. It shows how the world sees you. It's not built on psychology. So I'm not looking out of your eyes at the other person. I'm showing you the kind of impression and cues that you consciously or unconsciously send to other people. So in the same way that a brand can measure how the world sees the brand, or that a company can measure through market research, how the customer sees the company, I'm showing you how the world sees you. And this is a really uncomfortable perspective for a lot of people. We're not used to thinking about how the world sees us. We're used to thinking that we can show up however we want. So the problem is that people try to be all things to all people. And instead of focusing in and honing on those key benefits that they naturally offer, they water down their benefits. And just like a brand that tries to be all things to all people, it's hard to get traction. For the first half of my career, I was a copywriter in advertising. When I was 24, I was the most award winning copywriter in the country. When I was 27, I opened up my first advertising agency with Target and Remy Martin as my clients. My work still hangs in the Smithsonian Museum of American History. And what I found as a copywriter and creative director for these brands is that when I could find the perfect words to identify a brand, that brand became more valuable, more admired, more loved. So the key was for me to unlock the positioning by finding the absolute perfect words that were going to inspire action and fascination in the consumer. And I found that what I really loved most about creating advertising messages for brands was being able to hone in on that core essential difference and the key of creating a great brand. There are two steps, little secret here. First step is how is the brand different? And the second step is what does the brand do best? Once you figure out how a brand is different and what the brand does best, it becomes really easy to create a positioning that the brand can just naturally live into over and over and over again. And the same is true for you. Once you can identify how you are different and and what you do best, it's easy to have a wellspring as an entrepreneur because you can hone in on those areas of core focus. Now, I told you earlier about how women are willing to pay four times more for a pair of sunglasses with a Chanel logo, even though it's the exact same as a pair that doesn't have a Chanel logo. This phenomenon happens all the time in everyday life. Raise your hand if you buy Morton Salt. We're paying 187% more for Morton salt than regular salt, even though chemically it's the exact same salt. It's literally a commodity. So people are buying salt, but what they're really paying for is the Morton's connection to the brand. We see this happening all over the time with products, and we're familiar with that in marketing. But the reality is that the same is true for you. If you can identify what has people see you as being different and better than your competition, it becomes easier for you to charge more. So in all of marketing, what I learned from this decade as a creative director is you have a choice. You can either have the biggest budget or you can be the most fascinating. If you have the biggest budget, you can just pound the message in over and over again with television commercials. But if you don't have the biggest budget, then you need to be more competitive and you need to find something that's not only going to interest your customer and not just add value, but truly fascinate them. It's better to avoid putting yourself in front of somebody than to waste their time with weak communication. The same is true in your marketing. If you're not differentiating yourself, you might as well donate that money to a charity. Every time you communicate, you're either adding value or taking up space. So today I'm going to show you how to add value, how to create value. Every time you communicate in those first nine seconds of the attention span, the key is stand out or don't bother. Every time you create a marketing message, that message needs to stand out or else it's going to compete and fail. When I Began researching brands. In my last book about 10 years ago, I found that there are seven different ways that brands create marketing messages. I created a structure for developing marketing messages for any type of company or organization or person. And I found that each one of them creates a different type of fascination. It works differently in the brain. Five years ago, when my book came out, I decided that just simply as a launch technique, I was going to create a personality assessment. The assessment outdid the book. Within just a few months, we had 30,000 people do the assessment. That was for free. So I realized, wow, maybe it's not about writing about brands. Maybe it's about helping people figure out what makes them fascinating. And now we've had 600,000 people do the assessment all over the world, with research translated into 14 languages. So there are seven types of communication, and you naturally use two of these. One of them is your primary advantage. Your primary advantage is when you are in the flow, you are in the groove. You feel confident. You are more likely to persuade the person on the other side of the table. Your secondary advantage is the way in which you are second most likely to fascinate and impress that person. You also have a dormant advantage. The dormant advantage is exhausting. And when you have to use your dormant advantage, it just feels like quicksand. So, for example, if you have a primary power advantage, you're very comfortable in a position of being a leader who makes decisions for you. That feels like a wellspring. You could do it all day long. You feel confident in these situations. If you have a primary passion advantage, like me, you're a relationship builder, so. So you have a competitive advantage in situations in which you're going to go in and immediately create a connection with other people. Passion personalities like to come in. They like to talk a little bit before they do business. They don't tend to like spreadsheets. And when we do training with companies, we separate people according to different groups. We put the passion people together and the innovation people and the trust people. And the passion personalities are always really excited.

High five.

Woo.

Love that.

Awesome. While they're brainstorming together, and then by the end, they've never actually come up with an idea. So the problem is that people entrepreneurs tend to hire people like them. In other words, they're replicating themselves instead of optimizing themselves. So as you're watching this list, I want you to be thinking, which one of these seven is your quicksand? In other words, it's your dormant advantage, the one you're least likely to use, because that is the person that you most need to hire. A mystique advantage is almost like the opposite of a passion advantage. Mystique personalities like to stand back. They like to watch. They like to listen and observe. They want to take all the data and then find the right answer. So what happens in the workplace is the passion personality bounces in, hi, how are you doing? How's your weekend? And the mystique personality doesn't really want to engage. They don't want to talk. They just want to get the job done for them. This all feels a little bit like much. So it's kind of like the passion personality is saying, why don't you tell me you love me anymore? And the mystique personality is saying, I told you I loved you last year, and if that changes, I'll let you know. So we see that there are these dynamics all throughout all of our communication that we're not even aware of, but are actually extremely predictable. Prestige personalities are over achievers with higher standards. They like to push to the next level. Alert personalities are precise detail managers. This group scores incredibly low in alert, which is common among very successful entrepreneurs, because they tend to not be detail focused, not as concerned about implementation, innovation. These are untraditional problem solvers. They like to find a whole range of solutions. They love to be able to brainstorm. They don't think, 1, 2, 3, 4. They like to go, 1, 1, 2, 4. And finally, trust personalities are very stable, very reliable. When we measure large groups of accountants or family physicians or mortgage brokers, they score very high in trust because their communication is naturally going to be extremely consistent, and they're going to do the same thing over and over again.

So I want to share with you a strategy that we've been using at my company and I teach my clients that has helped us to dramatically improve our chances in closing the opportunities that we get in front of. Okay, so just to kind of give you an idea, we are closing roughly between 23, 24% of the raw leads that we generate, and we are closing 70% when they get to the point where they're actually talking to a salesperson. And it's for a $3,000 product. And I don't know if you consider that really good or really bad or whatever it is, but that's what it is. And this process has helped us. And what it is is instead of handling objections the way most sales trainers teach you, it's about thinking about what the objections are going to be in advance and killing them before they've ever been brought up. Okay. Because I think sales training fails in the sense that they teach you how to handle objections. And I believe that if you try and handle an objection once the customer has delivered it to you, you're not handling anything. You are arguing with them. Okay, so let me give you an example. My clients sell outsourced IT support services, right? And how many does anyone in here outsource? Some aspect of it? Right. Okay, so let's suppose you're talking to an IT person and I'm going to read you. This is a sales trainer. I'm not going to mention who the sales trainer is. Very well known sales trainer, and I'm not discrediting what he's teaching. But imagine you're sitting across the desk with a potential IT company you're thinking of outsourcing to and they tell you what they can do and they give you the price and you think out loud, or you say out loud, I don't know, that price seems a little bit high. I can get it cheaper somewhere else. That's what you tell to this salesperson. Now imagine them responding to you and saying, well, that might be true, Mr. Johnson. And after all, in today's economy, we all want the most for our money. And a truth that I've learned over the years and is that the cheapest price is not always what we really want. Most people look for three things when choosing an IT provider. One, competence, Two, a highly responsive service, and three, lowest price. And I've never yet found a company that could provide highly competent technicians and a highly responsive help desk for the lowest price. I'm curious, Mr. Johnson, for your long term happiness, which of the three would you be most willing to give up? Competence, responsiveness or the lowest price? Now, I had to read that because there's no way in hell I'm going to memorize that. But can any of you imagine being on the other end? Like, you'd laugh, right? I mean, I would laugh. I'd be like, okay, can you say again, I got to record this on video? Because this is pretty damn funny. And how many of you can imagine actually with a straight face articulating that to a customer? You can't, because you're arguing. It's condescending. At this point point I've just verbalized something that I'm not comfortable with or a question I have or something. And now you're trying to argue with me and tell me that I'm stupid or I'm wrong and so forth. So that's why I think when you build your sales presentations, you have to know what the objections are in advance and you build it into your presentation and you deliver it as an educational piece of content. So for example, the way I teach my guys to handle that objection is we actually have a report that I wrote actually, which is what you should expect to pay for it. Support in like la, if we were in la. Okay, now this is a report. It's very well written, it's well researched, it shows the different pricing models of how the industry charges, what the average price is. It talks about gotchas in a contract, some things that are excluded and what you want to look for. Now when we give that to a prospect in advance of the sales meeting and we ask them to read it or even in the sales meeting itself, we reference parts of this and say, well, according to the industry research that we've done, I could tell you that this is what most people charge. Yes, we're a little bit higher, but this is why we're a little bit higher. And you give an intelligent answer to that. Now the prospect's more likely to trust you and more likely to buy. So in my business we think of what are going to be the objections in advance. So a lot of it is what we send to the prospect before. And if I could get this screen up, I want to show you something that we've been working on. This is, we call it our online shock and all. Now what this is, it's a customized personalized URL. So where it says Aaron Light up there it would be whoever your prospect is and what you can do here in this video we actually have two versions of this one has, this is Jeff Johnson, who's my VP of the high end coaching we do. And so you can have a personalized video message for the prospect. And you can see over here there's like a little video. This is going to be a video testimonial. There's an audio, but I'll show you this one. So in this case, this one for example, is a testimonial video. So they come to the personalized URL and instantly it starts playing a testimonial video.

Increased sales probably about 15%. Last year was 30% and I expect no less.

This year my net profit was up by almost 150%.

Wait, say that again. Your net profit was up 150%.

My net profit was up 149 plus percent. Yes.

Last year I spent three.

So I'm not going to play the whole video for you. But you get the idea. Now that could be a personalized video or it could be a testimonial one. What I want to show you though, which has been extremely helpful for us, is in these personalized websites, we can stand them up in literally 30 seconds. But we send this in advance of the consultation that my salesperson is going to sit down with this prospect. And so one of the things that we know, for example, is they might no show for their consultation, right, because they kind of know it's a sales pitch. So one of the things we tell them is you have to be in front of a computer because we do not send them the content of the presentation in advance. So, for example, if you do any kind of report of findings, if you're giving any kind of value with our consultations, we actually give them a marketing roadmap. And it's, and it is a very high value piece of content. We make sure that they are on the call, all decision makers are there, and then we email them. So that handles one objection. Another objection we know is that the decision maker might not show up. So what happens is the CEO doesn't show up, but the marketing person does. And what objection then does that create? Does everyone know, I gotta talk it over with the boss? And we know they always say they're the decision maker, but then they use that as an out. We will not hold the consultation if the decision maker's not there. And in advance we've got on the letter to get the most out of the consult. We have three requirements. One, that you're in front of your computer and a quiet place in front of email. That way we can send them the roadmap number two, that the decision maker is there and we have a whole script if they come back and say that they can't be there. And we also ask them to watch a couple videos. And the videos essentially are handling objections. Another thing that we've done now, depending on these little reports down here are customizable and depending on who the person is and what size company they are, what type of company they are, we change the content at the bottom. So let's suppose, for example, we found when we were doing consults with companies that are larger IT service providers, they're doing 20 million a year, 10 million, 15, 20 million. They might say they were saying to Aaron, my sales guy, you know what, your stuff probably doesn't work for us. We're a big company, it's too small and vice versa. So if he is talking to a larger IT services firm. We actually have this, which is little page of testimonials that will pop up that are all from companies that are doing anywhere from 12 million to 24 million and testimonials about the program. So that handles that objection over here. This is basically a testimonial book. And we make sure with our testimonials that we have a variety. So we make sure we don't just have men, we don't just have women. We have some people that are from India, Indian descent, because that's a percentage of the IT industry. Is that over here is an audio that if I played on this is.

An interview marketing secret.

So I'm not going to play that for you, but that is somebody interviewing me on basically handling objections. So couple things to take away from this. Number one, this is a cool factor which gets people to consume it because they start clicking around. So that's number one, you got to get people to consume your marketing. If you don't do that, and it doesn't matter how brilliant it is, it falls on deaf ears. Second of all, because of the cool factor, people share it, right? So they're like, hey, check this out. And they email it to other people and we can see how many views there have been. All right, now, how do you put this to work in your business even if you don't have this kind of a shock and all box? Here's what I would recommend. Make a list of every single objection that you get in your business. And if you get right down to it, there's probably only three or four really big ones. Think about how are you going to handle that in advance before they talk to you? How are you going to design your marketing and your sales presentation so that you kill those objections so that when it comes to asking for the order, they can't weasel out of it with something, some kind of excuse. All right? And the other thing is be listening to your salespeople's phone calls, because there's so much value in that. As I grow my company and I hire salespeople and I'm not doing the selling as much anymore as I used to, you can sort of lose touch with that end customer. So it's really important that you're actually reviewing some of the recorded calls with your salespeople, listening to those objections, and then building the marketing out in advance so that those objections are basically erased.

So I've got a unique technology called the Capital Logics Insight engine, and it gives businesses a way to use AI and real time contextual information. To make better decisions. We are our own first customer and we used it to generate a hedge fund.

Okay.

And unlike most people that are using AI to predict the market.

Hold that closer to you. Also, I want to make sure people downstairs can hear y.

We're using AI to predict the performance of all the little constituent algorithms and bots to figure out what's working in real time. So we're not actually predicting what's going to work in the market. We're measuring all the things that are working and then trying to use AI to figure out what does that mean or what should we really be doing more of.

Yeah.

And then ultimately I want to sell that insight engine the way people buy cloud computing, so that it's the people, the process, the automation, the execution capability, and make sure you get the right answer.

Yeah.

Not just that you're doing the math right. But that you actually get an answer that's helpful and right.

Sure.

And we figure we can use that because AI is about to terraform every industry and there's an old way and a new way, and we can help people take the best of what they already know, but create the next level business that's going to infuse AI and better decision making to create new products or new delivery messages or delivery methods to compete in the world that's coming rather than the world that they used to live in.

Sure, Absolutely. So I think I understand your business pretty well. Do you want me to do the X, Y or talk about.

But we can do that your way for a second. But then realize the second thing is. So we've got this hedge fund and there's like an automatic advantage by eliminating the fear, the greed, the discretionary mistake. But while people are enticed by that, they're also afraid of Skynet. So it's a really weird thing where I'm ultimately selling safety. I'm ultimately helping people realize this is something that's going to impact your portfolio and your business, regardless of whether you want to believe it or not. But you're now taking steps to take advantage of it rather than be trampled by it.

Right, Right.

And when he says Skynet, he's referring to the Terminator software that killed everybody.

Sure. Yeah. So two of the most powerful words in marketing are you and your. So every single one of you look at your website headlines, look at your social media bios, and see if it says you and your. If you grab Tucker's book, the book in a Box, or the scribe method, and you open the inside flap, the word you or your. Or you've is like eight of the. Or is like six of the first 20 words. Because he's really good at this. The framework for explaining what you do. A great place to start, sort of like the atomic element or like the sourdough starter of positioning and messaging for your business, is a framework I came up with called verb, your noun. So what is the noun that your customers want? Verbed. This little magic phrase does a few different things by using you and your. You're automatically framing it and talking about your customers, not ourselves. Remember old school marketing, direct marketing. We used to be so proud of the plaque that said establish 1926. The customer doesn't care. They care about themselves.

Yeah.

Or see your future or decode your future. Right. That's what they really want. Yeah. I mean, there's a lot we could play with. Enhance your decisions. Could be. And what's great about verb, you noun is it can be your main headline and then it can be six or seven different sub headlines. So if you're digging deep on the decision part, it could be enhance your decisions. And then you can flip it into questions. What would you pay for a functioning crystal ball? Or what would you pay for the world's best crystal ball? Now you've got them to attach kind of a price to it.

This is actually pretty good. You could just take what he's saying here and just start using it.

Yeah, yeah. Verb, your noun is great. I used to do, like Joe said in the bio, I used to do a ton with crowdfunding. Kickstarter, indiegogo, the positioning around that an average marketer would have said, I'm the world's leading crowdfunding strategist or worse, gone with a platform name and been like, I'm the world's leading kickstarter strategist. That's the wrong thing because it's about me. Nobody cares about you. Nobody cares about you. Until they know that what you do can help them, then they care about you. So by starting with you and your. And by using verb, your noun, you automatically make it about them and not about you. So everyone in here look at your website. Chances are it says something about your business or your offering or your framework or whatever. That's all great. That comes later. Challenge yourself to come up with a verb. You're now. So for crowdfunding, mine was fund your dream. I did the work to figure out it doesn't matter if they're doing a leather wallet or a new kind of drone or whatever. If that entrepreneur or that creative had a dream that they want funded. The fund part of crowdfunding is really what they wanted. Crowdfunding, again, is just one tool to get there. They had a dream they want funded. So I said, fund your dream. And another little tidbit or tip. The goal of any headline is not to close the sale. The goal of the headline is to get them to read the sub headline or get them to scroll down or get them to click play on the video. The goal of any headline is to earn permission for them to go a little bit deeper. So think about a headline like an opening line. If you're at the bar and you walk up to somebody, the headline, the opening line, might get you the chance to ask them if you can buy them a drink. And then down the road you get the phone number. And then down the road it can progress. Everyone tries to make their headline so complete, they try to jam it full of industry buzzwords and things like that. Think of the most primal. I call this the alarm clock test. So go get any issue of Men's Health magazine, and on the COVID it will say, some version of six pack abs or rock hard abs. And some version of more sex. And some version plays around every cover every month. Because when guys wake up in the morning, that's what I mean by the alarm clock test. Before the dreams fade away, the alarm goes off. What do guys want? Six pack abs and more sex. So that's why Men's Health puts that on every single cover, because it sells magazines. So your challenge for you guys is that's not the business you're in. But challenge yourself to think of what's your verb, your noun? What's your Predict your future? See your future? What is the verb that your customer what is the noun that your customer wants? Verbed. And then what's that verb? This is what I mean by we make it too complicated. If you start with verb, your noun, as the atomic element of your marketing and messaging language, everything can flow from there. You might end up with seven verb your nouns.

Cool.

Now you just wrote half your website.

Yeah, that was okay, Howard. Does that help?

How do you think about the opposite adjectives?

Use the mic, please.

How do you think about the opposite adjectives for people? Yeah, so because it sounds like better or cheaper or faster, but what do you really think through? Yeah, it needs to be, how are you different than your competitors? So I usually ask people, who are your competitors? And then how do you want to be known as being different than them? And then how do you want people to talk about that. So Yeti coolers, you know, one of theirs, if you're just looking at the facts, is more expensive, but Yeti's not trying to own more expensive. Yeti being more expensive is a result of the fact that they have this brand. You know what yeti's portable story is? We can talk about portable stories. Yeti spread because out of 10, let's say, fishing and hunting guides in Austin, that was their initial core customer, right? They weren't trying to reach the housewife in Iowa when they started, but now housewives in Iowa by yeti, they were in the middle of their bullseye. That was fishing and hunting guides and fishermen and hardcore outdoor enthusiasts. They had a problem. It was not that their sandwich was getting warm. It was that their cooler was not cool enough to brag about. So they built a cooler worth bragging about.

You know what?

One thing Yeti did, and it wasn't the viral video. The point of this story is not that it was a viral video on YouTube, but they seeded a video where it was a little bit like the yeti version of the Pepsi challenge. They put a bunch of blood and meat and whatever in the Yeti cooler, and they put a bunch of blood and meat in the baby blue Coleman cooler that nobody wants to brag about. Anyway, they put them both in the woods, and of course, the grizzly bear attacked both and could get into the Coleman and ate well and then tried to get into the Yeti and it couldn't. So they created this story that a yeti is grizzly proof. That is the portable story so that the guys brag about the cooler to their other friends. My cooler's grizzly proof. Yo, Tucker. My cooler's grizzly proof is yours. That's what they get to brag about. That's worth $200 per cooler to brag about. The funny thing is there's not a grizzly bear within 1,000 miles of Austin, Texas, where they're based. That's how much it's a story. They planted a story and a seed. They basically said, I mean, they did build a better cooler, but this is a brand, like I said, Tesla. Nobody buys a Tesla because their Mercedes didn't get them to the meeting on time. They buy a Tesla so that they can talk about Elon and Mars and electricity and saving the world. So when you're buying a Tesla, you're buying the story. Almost none of you only sell the product that you sell. And your opportunity is not to make your product better. Your opportunity is to make your story better.

That's really funny, because when I see. I first bought a member of those Fisker Karmas.

Oh, yeah, Yeah.

I bought one of those.

Right?

And then he had a Tesla. This is back in, like, 2015, 2014. No, no, it's funny. He kept, like, talking about his Tesla and how great it was, everything. And I bought this Fisker, which looked amazing, but it was a real piece of. And I mean, it was so complicated. I even met the, you know, Henry Fisker. But I ultimately, you know, Dave, like, kept beating on me about this. That guy. But he. But it really. He had bragging rights to the. I've now bought four Teslas.

But go ahead. So the real story is that we're at this party, and Joe has this new Fisker, and he's got everyone outside, and he lifts up the hood and shows this huge engine. And of course, I got this boring Tesla I just got last week, first one in Arizona. And he's showing this huge engine. And of course, I go, so, Joe, how many miles do you get on it? Oh, I don't know, like, 300. No, on electricity. And it gets them, like five. And so I. So everyone now wants to see my car. So I said, hey, you want to see the engine? I opened the front. Oh, who took it?

Yeah.

Anyway, I'm just being an asshole. The only power I had over Joe at this party was that I had no engine in my car. And he had a big one.

Yeah.

Yeah. This is what I call story math. Part of what you paid for, because you knew that parlor trick before you did it, right? You knew where the engine was in your car. And so opening the hood to say, oh, where is it?

Who took it?

Being able to do that a hundred times, a thousand times is part of what you pay for when you buy a Tesla, right? So think about that. What is the story? How do your customers want to feel when they buy your product? A lot of us think about that. How do your customers want to feel when they recommend the product that they bought from you? That's the part that most of us don't think about, because Yeti does not have enough advertising budget to reach each person individually, but they have plenty to reach the hardcore person in the middle of the bullseye. The middle of the bullseye will sell the outer rings of the bullseye better than you ever can. Meaning in A group of 10 fishing and hunting guides, there's always one like Joe, like you, who get the. Or Joe's early adopter. He's always got the cool new thing, the cool new toy, and then Joe sells a few of them to the next people, and then they sell them the next people. And the last guy still has 12 blinking on his VCR and he's never buying anything. And so that's where. Focusing on your core customers and, and then crafting the story of figuring out how people talk about your product.

And like, to bring up the point of this because, like, Tesla does 0 advertise.

0. It's all referability. Right, Right. And a lot of news.

Right.

Which is. But it's.

That's.

That's what I'm saying.

Yeah.

That's when I say, how do people talk about you? That includes the media.

Yeah. And see, like the thing is, is. Is it's all positioned as this environmentally safe thing. And fossil fuels are evil and everything, but they don't factor in. What does, what does it do environmentally to dispose of a lithium battery? I mean, there nothing environmental about a freaking Tesla. I don't give a shit what they.

Like, try to argue the story shouldn't be unethical, but they don't have to be a thousand percent true. Undeniably true. If you look at R Wine glasses is my, one of my favorite examples. R Wine glasses. I mean, Tucker's a wine expert, and Tucker has much more fancy wine glasses than that. But Rideau built a billion dollar wine glass company selling the story that if you're going to buy a expensive bottle of wine, you should drink it out of the right glass. Right. Now that story works at a family level. If you're, you know, most people have wine glasses have big for red, smaller for white. Right. If I go to Eunice's house and we're at a party and Eunice is like, oh, we're serving Pinot Noir now. Okay, let's put away the Bordeaux glasses and get out the Pinot Noir glasses. That creates a conversation between me and Angie on the way home. And you can imagine that conversation. We don't have Bordeaux glasses. And now I just bought a case of Riedel Bordeaux glasses. And the reality is, it's funny because it's true and it's not true. It's true because Riedel spent a lot of money. And if you look at the regular taste test and everything else, they'll say, wine drank out of the appropriate shaped glass. Right. A big bowl for Bordeaux and taller for Pinot Noir, that it works. Well, if you look at the true actual triple blind appropriate studies, it's not mathematically true, but then something magical called placebo comes into play where if you believe wine is going to taste better. It does taste better. So is it true? Is it not true scientifically? Are you going to care about the triple blind thing or do you just want to care about the thing? And then part of what you get is Part of what Eunice is paying for when she buys a Riedel wine glass is, oh, babe, are we switching to. Okay, let's put away our one red glasses and get out the other red glasses. Right. That's part of what you're buying. That's what I call story math. So don't be unethical. But also don't worry so much about if the story is 1000% scientifically true.

Yeah, I mean, the fact is people, they are enrolled into Stories and bragging rights and they, you know, I mean, you gotta engage them. And if it's, you know, it's like David Ogilvy's, you can't bore people into buying.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Stories is all we buy. It's all we pay for. Netflix is just full of stories. Game of Thrones is Stories. There is no Netflix of press releases at all. No kid ever said, mommy, please read me a press release ever.

Hey, I hope you're enjoying this video. And I want to let you know that I have a new book that's come out and. And if you'd like to get it absolutely free, there's a link below in the description. Or you can wait till the end of this video, or you can Simply go to joesfreebook.com and you can get a copy there.

So on our website, we kind of alternate between your and our clients. So are you suggesting to just change it all to, like, all the our clients to you?

No, if you. The next best way to do it, and those are paired beautifully, is to tell your client's story, because speak in the head. That's perfect. It sounds like you have it done perfectly. Speak to them in their pain verb, your noun, whatever that is, and then if you can, reinforce it with stories of you helping the customer. I teach this framework called Perfect Intro. And the best way to explain what you do is to do it through the story of someone that you've helped some transformation. Best way for Joe to sell Genius Network is to tell his favorite story, of which he's got hundreds of. Of someone who was maybe struggling really hard with something before they found Genius Network, then came into this group of generous, helpful entrepreneurs, and two years later, whatever problems they had were solved. It's like A mini hero's journey of your customer. Yeah. The more you can do that, the better. That's another thing that, myself included, almost everyone could do better is video. It's 2020. I mean, it's time. And use video of your customers, interview them and show that hero's journey. Because as soon as you say that headline and your customer's like, okay, I'm interested, they scroll down, they click play on the video. Now what they're wondering is, what's it going to be like? Is it for me? Is it for people like me? And if you can show a video of your customer that does that. Tucker's back. Scribe does this extremely well. One of the best consumer websites I've ever seen as far as their positioning and then how they tell the stories. None of Scribe's website is Tucker beating his chest about what a good positioning copywriter he is. It's all about their customers and why their customers that are prospective leads, why their ideas matter, and why they should have a book in the world. And then they completely demolish. Any objection about Scribe's ability to pull that book out of you? Testimonials is what you're saying. Yeah, testimonial, social proof. But here's the thing, and I'm on a little bit of a rampage. Do not use first name last initial as your testimonial. Do not use Michael F. The last time I said Michael F. Was in the third grade and construction paper was involved, like full name or not at all. And video is even better. There's nothing better than actual video of an actual customer. So, yes, testimonials, yes, social proof. And make them real. If it's an embedded tweet, if it's, you know, whatever, but make it real.

So just to be a tiny bit more specific.

Sure, sure.

Sorry. Before testimonials, currently the headline is, we put. We always put our clients first. Would it be better to put we always put you first or just leave that as is and then show the testimonials?

I would. So I'm glad you asked this and I'm not picking on you. Maybe it's like a micro hot seat. We always put our clients first is generic. Is there anyone in this room who loves to put their clients last? No. So anytime you can, a little litmus test for positioning or website is remove your logo, remove your brand, remove everything and say, is that the voice of you? Is it unique to you? So I'm helping a friend of mine who's an author with his book, and it's about picking a fight, teaching organizations to align their people by coming up with a common enemy and picking a fight. That fight could be against climate change or whatever. Yeah, Berkus. Yeah. Right. So I'm talking to Burkus about his thing, and he wants to revert back to this generic, like, align your people. And like, there's a thousand people doing that. I was like, you can come up with secondary ones, but your first one has to be find your fight verb. Your noun, Find your fight. Because that's what his whole book teaches. And it's almost like his entire book in three words. So we put our customers first. Erase it. What is the. What is the. What is the verb or what is the noun that your customer wants Verbed. If they work with you and they say, wow, I really. What my. What?

They didn't.

Move it closer on your.

They didn't charge me or they were on my side.

Tell me more about what you do. Like 30 seconds.

Well, real quick. I have a lemon law firm. So we help people with defective vehicles, get refunds, repurchases, or cash compensation. The way the law works, we charge manufacturers for the attorney's fees, so we generally don't charge our clients. But in my side of the fence, a lot of the attorneys are scumbags. They still find ways to charge their clients. They don't put their clients first, they put their clients last. All they care about is getting paid first.

Sure. So remember that the headline is not meant to close the sale. The headline just gets them to say, sounds like this guy understands my pain. I'm willing to scroll down. I'm willing to click play on the video. So is it return your lemon. We can help.

Yeah, well, we say banish your lemon. Okay. Stuff like that.

Yeah. Whatever they're. This takes a little bit of exploration, but whatever is Turn your lemon into lemonade.

Yeah.

That's actually very, like, cliche in our industry. So I'm trying to be a little different.

Yeah, yeah, sure. What comes to mind, and this is not a verb. You're noun. But what comes to mind to me is the scene from one of my favorite movies, Good Will Hunting, where he's hugging him and he keeps saying, it's not your fault. It's not your fault. It's not your fault. One of the things it's about putting them first. It's about the finances, but it's a lot about the shame of them making a mistake in buying a bad car in the first place. I should have known not to buy a car from that guy. Right. So some of your copy, probably not the headline, but maybe in the sub headline. It's not your fault. You know that kind of messaging language. Okay, thank you.

Let's go to Kathy.

And since there's so many people or customers now finding us on social media.

Is there a way to bring that.

Type of copy and content over regularly.

Into our social media feeds?

Oh, yeah, absolutely. I mean, I've worked with clients where we figured out, let's say they had three different offerings and we built a virb, you're noun for each offering. The power of virb, your noun is. It's simple. They're relatively easy to kind of brainstorm with your team. And then let's say on your Instagram bio, you could say fund your dream, or it could even be undyourdream and you link them to that particular page or whatever, whatever they want to do and then send them to that. Or if you're on ig, you could use link tree or whatever. But yeah, I love the. Once you nail the verb, your noun, you can use it all over, all over social media. It can even be an entire Instagram or Twitter graphical post just by itself.

Right.

Let'S go to Tim and then we'll come up here.

So we provide housing and coaching services to addicts in early recovery. And we have a testimonies page on our website and it's typically like first name, last initial, or even anonymous. They don't like. Sure, sure, yeah. If you're in the recovery, that's a caveat. It's kind of like also with like therapy.

Right.

They're not like, I don't say I was a total trainer before I found so and so clay.

But. Right.

People definitely like in certain, certain industries, in certain spaces, there's, there's need for anonymity. But yeah, I think then it's about branding and design and making it look really good and then making sure that the testimonials are another little trick or hack for testimonials is think about people's objections to buying your product. So why might someone not join Genius? Why might someone not hire a scribe? You should know that list because there is a list. Every company has customers that have not bought from them and you should know why. Sometimes they're right, sometimes they're wrong. The best way to use testimonials and social proof is not, oh my God, they're the best thing since sliced bread. It's to address specific objections. So you have a problem. Let's say I sell an Online course and someone's objection is, I'm not gonna have time to finish it. Well, then you should have a testimonial that says, I didn't think I was gonna have time to finish it, but I just consumed one module each morning over breakfast and I got through it in a month. Like that kind of. You see, I'm matching the testimonials to the objection.

Yeah, that's really good.

That's really helpful.

You know, I mean, this, this room is filled with some very high achievers. And obviously what I wanted to derive from you guys is just some insights, some how to. Some what it is you do to just give them, you know, perspective and stuff. And I carefully chose some questions, and this one is you're both masters at achieving what most people consider impossible. And I mean really like what you guys do, most people consider absolutely impossible. So when something is considered quote unquote impossible, how do you reframe it so it becomes possible in your mind? And how much of that is mindset?

I think impossible is not a fact, it's an opinion. When someone tells me it's impossible, I always just look at them. Anybody around me knows that they can't do that. That's part of it. But if they didn't know me, it's your opinion. And they'll say, no, science shows. And I say, yeah, how many times has science showed something's impossible? Now science shows it's possible things are impossible until somebody does it. And so I find that most of you are business people. You look at businesses and what does it take to make a business grow? It's not impossible to make a business grow. A business been shrinking for a long time or it's been stuck. The real problem is always the chokehold, is always the psychology and the skills of the leader. Always. And 80% of that is psychology and 20% is the mechanics. Like if you don't know how to read your financials and you're trying to fly the plane of your, your company, I mean, come on, you know, if all you do is go down, you look at profit loss and you see what it is and you have a beer either way, you either celebrate or get the brass. You know something, you know you're going to be in trouble, right? But if you have the skill sets, that's one thing. But you can get any skill set if you have the psychology. And anytime a business is not growing, it is not because it's impossible. It's because they aren't innovating and they're not innovating because they're believing it's impossible. I mean, if we all know, what does it take to transform, obviously help people. It takes three things to create a breakthrough in anything. In your personal life, in your business, anywhere. You need a strategy. But that's not the first place you should look. And it's the first place all of us look. Me too. It's our inherent thing. You want to lose weight? Well, how do I do it? I want to grow my business. How do I do it? It's instinctive. We've been trained to think that way. But the problem is the how to is usually not that complex. I mean, come on, 70% of America is what, 75% of America now is overweight. Is that because it's so complex? How to be fit and strong, Right? You know, only the 1% know the answers. They hide it from you. You have to work your ass off to not hear what it takes. Right? And so, so, you know, I remember I went to this. I went to a Ted Med center and I watched about 12 doctors, one after another, get up and do these stories about how we could just get patients to take their medications and try to figure out the whole thing. And I was just looking at them going, you're all talking about strategy, and you've forgotten psychology, because strategy is wonderful. I'm a strategist, spent my whole life figuring out strategies. As we both know, a strategy could save you a decade, right? In business, strategy could save you. You know, it could make an interesting success and failure. But most people have strategies available, or they could get them, or you could create them. But the problem is you got a story, and your story is why it isn't working. And the story is, I've tried what? What? Everything. If you tried everything, you'd be fit, right? You tried everything, you'd be profitable. If you tried everything, you'd be there. But people say it, you know, I'm big bone. That's what I used to say. I'm still big bone, but I'm 38 pounds lighter than I was 25 years ago, and I've never gained it back. Right when I was big boned, that was my story. All the good ones are gone. That's why I'm not in a relationship. Or they're gay and I'm not. Or I'm gay and they are. Whatever the story is, there's always a story. And what I tell people is, you know, if you can just divorce the story of your limitation and marry the truth of your unlimited Capacity, Then the whole game changes. But it's hard to do that because when you're in your story, you don't even realize that. So you need a third piece for a breakthrough. And that's really what my life's about, which is changing people's states. Because in a different state, we're different people, you know? Can mean people be nice? Yes or no? Yes or no? Of course they are. When they're in a nice state, can nice people be mean? Sure. They get a mean state. So really learning to train yourself to be in an ideal state where the best of you comes out for yourself, for your family, for your mission, for.

Your world, for your.

For your coworkers. To me, that's one of the most important decisions in life to make. Just ask me out of all the people I've met, all things I've seen, what creates a magnificent life. Everybody has goals and dreams that are different. Some people want picket fence. Some want to make a billion dollars. Some want to have this huge breakthrough in technology. Some people want to write poetry. Whatever is right for people is what I want them for themselves. I don't want to be like me or you or anybody else. I want them to have their dream. But to have it, you need two skills. You need, number one to have the science of achievement. It's a science. You have to know how to take your vision and make it real. And most of the people in this room have already figured that out, and this guy sure as hell has, and you have, and I have. So most of us know, and we can all refine our skills in that area, but we know how to take what we dream about, make it real. And if you don't, you can learn from somebody who does. You know, simplest thing is get crazily hungry for something we all know. When you get so hungry, so, so desirous, your brain starts coming up with answers. And then it's massive action but effective execution, which is all modeling, which is, I assume, what this is about. Find the best example, compress the time. Let someone else take 20 years to figure it out. You do it in two weeks or two months or whatever the period is. We should all be standing on the shoulders of the people around us instead of reinventing the wheel. And then there's this thing called grace. You work your ass off. You're totally focused. You're trying to serve something larger than yourself, and you really are executing what works. You need a little grace. Might want to call it luck if you prefer God, the universe. But it's there and we can all achieve. But I think the more important skill, if you ask me, is to have an extraordinary life is the art of fulfillment. And it's an art. It's not a science. Because there's a science to making money. I don't care who you are, if you do certain things, you're going to have too much financial stress. You do other things, you're gonna have an abundance. There's a science. There's a science to your body. Everyone here is biochemically different. Different genome, but there's certain fundamental patterns that if you and I follow them, you're gonna have tons of energy, gonna feel good if you break them, you're gonna pay the price and have low energy or disease. But fulfillment is an art. What's gonna fulfill you is different than the other person next to you. You're not gonna learn that from anybody else. And you got to find it because success without fulfillment is the ultimate failure. And I get those phone calls all the time for the multi billionaire entrepreneur or politician or business person or the person just won their Academy Award and they're depressed and they can't tell anybody because they got all their goals, but they're not fulfilled because they really don't have that sense of meaning in their life. They went for something and they got it. They achieved. And if you doubt this, what I'm saying is relevant to, to you or us or anyone, just think about about a year, what a month ago, we lost what I consider to be a national treasure, Robin Williams. How many of you loved Robin Williams? Look around the room. Keep your hands up.

Look.

And most of you didn't know him. Almost every and where you go in the world, people love Robin Williams. By the way, was he great at achievement? Oh my God, that guy. He said he wanted to make become a great comedian. He did that. I want to make the world laughing. I want to make my own TV show. He did. I want to have the number one TV show. He did it. I want to make movies. He did it. I won an Academy Award for not being funny. Not his skill set. Drama. And he did it. I want a beautiful family. And he did it. And then he hung himself. Make everybody happy but yourself. Not a good plan. So if I had a gift to give you, it would be maybe make a different decision. And decision is that no matter what happens in your life, you're going to live in a beautiful state. A beautiful state. And that could be happy, that could be grateful, that could be being generous. Those are all beautiful states. Aren't they? It could be curious, it could be fun, it could be playful. You're not limited to one state, but it's different than suffering and most people suffering and all suffering I've ever seen. I traveled 100 countries. I've dealt with presidents of countries and, you know, presidents of businesses, CEOs. I've dealt with people in prison. I dealt with, you name it. Average people. Suffering always comes because you're obsessed about something related to you. You can only be depressed if you're focusing on yourself. Say, no, I'm depressed because it's my kids and they're not doing well. No, you're depressed because you feel you failed your kids. It's about you. It's about how you think, what you should have done or shouldn't have done, or what someone did to you or didn't do to you in the past or the future, which don't even exist. So I have a simple goal. My goal is help people make a decision that says, I don't know what's going to happen. You might get a divorce even though you don't think so. You might find a memory of your family with cancer. You might have your house get burned down or have a tornado go by. And if you live in the same place, it happens every two years and you move back. We should talk. But, you know, some people seem to do that for some reason. Reason. You can't control those things. I can't control those things. I don't want those to happen to you or anybody I love or anybody who's even a stranger to me. But they're going to happen. True. Not positive thinking, bullshit, just the truth. So if that's going to happen, I say, make a decision now that says, I'm going to live in a beautiful state and I'm going to find beauty in whatever life brings me. Because life is too short not to. I see a little buddy over here named Shawn. I remember when I got a phone call from the Make a Wish Foundation. You have a young man that's about to die and he wants to meet you. And he came to the seminar and then I took him out afterwards. At the time, if he coughed too much, they said. They said, you can't grab him. I said, I want to take him across the fire. They said, take him across the fire so if he coughs, he'll break the rib. I said, I'll be really gentle. We're going to do this thing. And he did it. And afterwards, I sat down with him. I said, man, I don't have the answers. But if your body is. You're just coughing and it's gonna make you break a rib. Your body is so acid. I said you should get alkaline. Let me put you together with a doctor. How many years ago is that? You were 19. You're now 36. I like seeing you here. So, brother, give him a hand. He's beautiful, man. But Sean. What made me think of Sean as. Sean lives in a beautiful state. He could be bitching and complaining and whining. What does he do? His whole life is not about himself. That's why he's so happy. He doesn't live in himself. He lives outside himself, serving things he loves. He still takes care of himself. And he's funny as shit. And he likes to seduce women and things. Like, I can't talk about right now, but. Oh, you're married now. Okay, well, good. I'm glad of here. It's about fricking time. All right, John. Good you to see. So you grew up. Now, the bottom line is this young man over here. Who now is at a different stage of life. He's always been with us. I think he lived because he lived for more than himself. I'm sure he felt pain. But we only suffer when we think about what's being done to us. Or what people are going to think. Or what they should have done or hadn't done. And you can't control that stuff anyway. I mean, why be pissed when people are going to do? Are people going to be mean? Yes or no? Are people gonna be unfair and unjust? Yes or no? Are people gonna be beautiful and generous? Yes or no? You just never know when that shit's gonna happen. So might as well enjoy yourself along the way. And I suggest today, if you want. If there's any gift I came by to give you. It's to tell you what you know already. But get you to make a decision about it. To actually decide. I'm gonna live in a beautiful state. That doesn't mean I don't get angry or pissed or tired. You know, suffering arises and you end it the moment you go, holy shit, I'm thinking about me. If I leave this, I'll always be suffering. The human mind is always looking for what's wrong. The human brain is not designed to make you happy. It's designed to make you survive Happiness. That's your job. And you only get it if you draw a line in the sand. That's how it's going to be. And I can tell you the few people that do it. I know a few people that have done it. They have magnificent lives. And when you're in a beautiful state, the best ideas come in. This man lives in a beautiful state. Every time I talk you to. I love St. Peter. Peter's just always on fire about something. But notice, you know, he's doing unbelievably well. There's nothing wrong with that. But almost everything he's doing is about more than himself. And so that's why he feels so alive. He's not suffering an ounce. He's in ecstasy. He's not lucky. He's living life a certain way. It's a beautiful way. I'm honored to have you as a friend.

Thank you, brother.

Wow.

Now say something better than that. I mean, like, let's. Let's really see how good you are here, man.

Oh, God.

Yeah.

This guy goes, my mind, I'm like.

There'S no way to follow this.

What the hell was the question?

He doesn't say anything. Truthfully, he doesn't have to say anything. He lives this shit. I'm just telling you what he lives. He really does. I'm not saying that to blow smoke. This guy lives it. If you meet this man, how many met this man before? And he was in a wonderful state. Let me show a show of hands. I don't think I've ever seen him not in a wonderful state. I've seen him have some painful, challenging places, but he doesn't stay there and look at what he's able to create because of it. He has a nine year old boy who's on fire. He's on fire. To light the world on fire with what's possible, it's a beautiful thing. I honor you.

So the contribution I'll make. Thank you, Tony. And I think it was about impossible in mindset and so forth is the reality is there is very little that's impossible, period. It just is. And your mindset, as soon as you say something is impossible, then you shut down every possibility for solving it. And we all know this. And the challenge is that it's really hard not to be in that state because we get thrown stuff all the time. And what I want to share with you is an experiment, which is to say, okay, not only how do I make it, not how do I make it possible, but how do I actually go 10 times bigger? And you've heard me speak about this, you know, moonshot thinking, bold thinking, whatever the case, whatever terminology you want to give it, and most of us in our life are trying to make a 10% improvement. And we know this, this is. I'm trying to increase my revenues by 10%. I'm trying to reduce my sales by 10%, save 10% more of the lands out there. Whatever it truly is, we all have this sort of beaten into us by life and by the rest of the universe that you can make these small incremental improvements. But the fact of the matter is that there are those in the world that go ten times bigger. And every one of us can be that. And as soon as you say, I want to not only solve this thing, but go 10 times bigger in my work and the things. And can I say this in something that you're truly passionate about, not just about earning a little bit more money. I mean, it really should be in something that you care truly about that is bigger than yourself, that is impacting the world. As soon as you try and go 10 times bigger, three magical things happen. Number one, even if you have no idea how to solve it, no idea how to get there, you'll be amazed at what you come up with, with. And what's interesting is our legacy, our past anchors us to where we are today. And you have to let go of that. You truly have to let go of all the stuff in your past, what you thought you'd done, all of the, you know, the infrastructure that you've built to let yourself go. You know, when Elon Musk built Tesla, the reason Tesla was such an amazingly better car is he didn't have 100 years of Detroit to hold onto. He started with a clean sheet of paper and imagine what could be. The second thing is when you try and go 10 times bigger versus 10% bigger, it's 100 times the value proposition and it's never 100 times more expensive or 100 times harder. And so you get this increased capability. And then the third thing is when you try and go 10 times bigger to solve a problem 10 times bigger, you've got to reinvent stuff. You have to actually go and figure out, okay, I have no idea how I'm going to solve that, but you're going to start to reinvent things. So when Eric and I were working on asteroid mining, we had to reinvent. We had to have so much computational power onboard the spacecraft, we had to come up with brand new sensors and hyperspectral and midwave IR that didn't exist, had never been been licensed because these spacecraft were going to be operating at 200 million miles away. And that forced us to come up with New kinds of capabilities that were not currently possible. And you'll be amazed what those capabilities that you create in your business, in your life, enable you to do. And so there's this massive benefit, this payoff, this dividend that comes from expanding your mind and not being anchored to the past. And so I think that there are very few things that are truly impossible. I think that impossible is a state of mind. And I'll say one other thing. The people in your life are part of that anchoring. So how do you anchor yourself with a new set of people? I'm looking at my dear friend Naveen Jain here, with whom we've opened up XPRIZE India and are really working on solving women's and girls issues. Issues in India and providing abundant drinking water in India. I mean, so how do you surround yourself with amazing people who live in the state of anything is possible? I'm blessed at xprize, at Singularity University, at HLI and pri. I live that constantly. And so how do you do that? Where are you doing that? What is your nothing is impossible community here? Yeah, it is here. It is truly here. And so that's really critically important because once you get into that mindset, then you start freeing yourself from the bullshit that you tell yourself and people tell you because we are living in a world where constant amazing miracles happen. The other thing, because I'll put my commercial into this. Stop watching the news. Stop watching the news. You could not pay me enough.

To.

Have the crisis News network or the constantly negative news network, whatever you call cnn, pollute my mind.

Really.

I have social networks, I have Google filters and so forth. I was just telling Arianna about this and hopefully she'll do this. I want, on the front page of Huffington Post, I said, I want a slider where I can control the percentage of positive news stories.

Right?

How would you like that? Instead of.

Because right now it's.

Because right now it's, you know, it's 10 to 1 negative to positive, and that pollutes your mind. And we heard an amazing presentation this morning. I apologize. Who was the gentleman who was talking about that? Talking about, you know, a few minutes of negative news in the morning.

Thank you.

Yeah, Sean, it's true. It's like, why would you possibly invest in the world and in the life and all these things if the world is falling apart, if, you know, if the crisis new network is like showing you airplane accident, airplane accident, airplane accident. What problem is that? The news networks never tell you. There was no school shooting today at this school. You know, or there was this airplane actually flew LA to New York and actually made it and everybody survived. That's not news. And so we get this disproportionate view. And so our minds are constantly. The mindset you have when you watch the negative news is awful. Not that it's not going on. It's not that there's this amazing hardship and lives that are on the precipice of hunger and death around the world. But the world is getting better at an extraordinary rate and you can make a difference in it. And there is no problem. There is no problem we cannot solve. Period. End of statement.

Awesome. Okay. I hope you found that video awesome and useful. So if you want to get a free copy of my book, I want you to click here. And if you want to watch some more videos that will be useful and awesome, click here. Go ahead.

They're over here.

Do it now.

Come on.

Thank you.

Watch them.