The 6 Principles of Influence: How to Persuade and Connect Feat. Robert Cialdini

I'll tell you something. This is an interesting thing. We talk about 25 years like it was yesterday, because it feels like yesterday that we were at the Wigwam having dinner with Eben and Bobette and hanging out. But I had an experience a couple of summers ago. I had somebody come to one of my Breakthrough Blueprint events, and she was 30 years old, young, you know, bright, young, you know, go-getter marketer. And in that moment, I realized, you know, she was born in 1990 is when she was born. And I thought, wow, we've got a whole new generation. I bet a lot of the people that are listening to us even on the Zoom here are, you know, 30-ish type of people who weren't around when the first— when Influence first came out. So I think it'd be good if you could maybe tell a little bit about the background of your work, because it's been kind of defined your, your life's work since then.

Well, as your very gracious introduction suggested, I started out as a traditionally trained and traditionally practicing academic doing research on my college campus with college sophomores pretty much as the students in laboratory settings and recognized there was something missing there. And I needed to get away from those academic constraints into the environment where the influence wars are being waged every day. After all, we're always either sending out influence appeals or receiving influence appeals of one sort or another. Every day. And there are certain people who know how to do this because their economic livelihoods depend on using the influence process properly and effectively. And it seemed to me that those professions— sales, management, recruiting, fundraising, marketing, advertising and so on. Those were the people who really knew what I should be focusing my, my, my thinking on. So I began to— I began to infiltrate their training programs with disguised identity, disguised intent, to learn what they had done that produced yes from people regularly. And I spent 2 and a half years in that undercover activity to learn something beyond the college campus where I had been studying this process.

And I remember you saying how it was initially because you wanted to learn about these things not to be a practitioner of them, but to protect yourself from them, or to help people protect themselves from the sort of illicit use of these, of those principles.

Right.

They could recognize them.

Exactly. Recognize, resist, deflect, defend. But it turned out soon after the publication of Influence that a lot of people were interested besides that.

Yeah.

In harnessing the process.

Yeah.

In ethical ways, in morally responsible ways to move people into positive choices that they could make. That they were hesitant to make. They were sitting on the fence. They just were dithering. They weren't thinking through what exactly the costs and benefits might be. The merits of one's case were simply not being presented to them in an optimal way. And so they wanted to know about optimization of the persuasion process for that reason as well.

Mm-hmm.

That's what I found when I first started studying it. Like, I've always told you, from the moment I read your book, the— just the understanding was like having a pair of 3D glasses all of a sudden, that you see the, the mechanisms that are at work and why things are, uh, turning out the way they are. And the, um, this kind of underlying understanding of influence has really helped me in applying the marketing principles then that you can overlay on top of that when you've got an understanding of why people are reacting, how our brains are responding to, uh, things. And one of the greatest phrases that you used in the description is that when these are presented, they trigger this click were patterned that it's just, it's almost like an autopilot thing when somebody is presented with this, uh, with, under the right circumstances, one of the elements of influence. It's almost like instinctual. We can't even, it's not a, um, they're not reasoning or thinking it, it's just happening, uh, automatically.

And you know, the, the thing about the click that you were talking about, the thing that triggers their response, it can be a very small thing.

Mm-hmm.

You know, I like the metaphor of a light switch. Suppose you were in charge of lighting a stadium, you know, for a night match or game of some sort or another.

You—

and you're down in the bowels of the stadium and there's a switch that you just flick and suddenly everything is illuminated. All of a sudden, things are possible that weren't possible before. It didn't take a lot of strength or effort or time on your part. You just had to know how to locate that switch, and then it's just a little bit of effort, and all of the power that's stored in the, in the power system of that, of that arena flows because of that small thing you did. It goes against the rule of proportionality. There's a belief that in order to get big effects, we need to do big things to change people in substantial ways. It's just not true. There are big power sources inside people And our job is to locate the switch that flicks them on, that then drives their behavior.

Mm-hmm.

Now I'm going to ask you, so when Joe Polish and I did our first I Love Marketing conference, it's all about our 8 profit activators. And he asked me a question that was just funny because he asked me, do I know all the 8 profit activators? Like, without looking. And I'm going to ask you just for fun of the— to just maybe quickly name what the 6 elements of influence are so we can set the context for what we're talking about here.

Sure.

Would you prefer that I just label them and how they work or give an example?

Let's, let's just kind of name them first and then we'll pick, uh, kind of and go through, uh, some of them because we've got so many, uh, stories.

Yeah.

So the first is the rule of reciprocation. People want to say yes to those people who have given to them. First done a favor, a service, provided a gift. People want to give back. So you go into a room where you want to be more influential, your first question should not be, who can help me here? It should be, whom can I help here? Whose circumstances can I elevate? Whose outcomes can I increase? They will stand on the balls of their feet wanting to do the same for you. Next principle is liking. Nobody's surprised that we prefer to say yes to those we like, but there are two small things we can do that substantially enhance the feeling of rapport that people feel with us. And one is to point out genuine similarities, and the other is to give genuine compliments or praise, as warranted. Next principle is social proof. This is a term, by the way, that's used. We coined it back in, uh, when with the first edition, right? Influence. Social proof didn't exist before. I'm so glad because I was thinking of using people proof, right? What's happened with social media now?

Yeah, think about social media.

I'm so glad that I, I use the term social proof where The, the fact that a lot of other people are doing something, especially people like us, is the proof that we should do it too. It's not a fact-based proof, it's not scientific proof, it's not logical proof, it's social proof. So that's the other thing, simply letting people know of the others who are around them like them who are choosing or have been choosing our recommended step forward.

Robert, what year— before you continue, what year did the first book come out?

The first book came out in 1984.

Okay, so this was well before anything with the internet. I mean, it was really— okay, because I was turned on to it in 1996, as you know, so it had already been out for 12 years, but that was just at the very beginning. Of the internet. So I'm sorry for interrupting your train, but—

No, no, that's exactly— the people say to me, you know, Bob, your book is called The Bible of Digital Commerce. There wasn't digital commerce.

How did you see—

how, how did you foresee this? How did you look forward and see this 40 years, 35 years later?

Yeah.

And it was by looking back, right, at what were the factors that have always driven behavior in our species. Look back at the evidence to be able to predict how we as a species will behave in the future.

Yeah, love it. Okay, so social proof, then carry on.

Next is authority.

We—

if we're uncertain about something, one way to reduce our uncertainty is to see what the experts are saying and what they are doing. And if we have expertise, we have to be sure that the people who we're trying to move in our direction are properly informed of that before we ever try to influence them. Next principle is the principle of, uh, scarcity, right? Uh, people want more of those things they can have less of. It's just the way we are.

Right.

So things that are rare, scarce, dwindling in availability, if we properly inform people of those characteristics, they get a little crazy.

I'll tell you what, that's the absolute truth. I've got some— I'm, I'm hypervigilant of what's going on in my world because I'm, I'm aware of all of these things. And so I always kind of observe the situations that I get into and I see how influences that work in my life too. And I'll share a couple of stories with you as we go on, but please continue.

Yeah.

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 joesfreebook.com and you can get a copy there.

Then the next principle is commitment and consistency. People want to be consistent.

Yes.

With what they have already said or done, especially in our presence, especially publicly. They don't want to say one thing, do another, or, or, or, or misspeak by saying one thing and then contradicting it the next time. They want to be congruent with what they have already made a commitment to. So asking people to take very small steps in our direction causes them to be much more likely to want to continue to take steps, even outsized steps, in our direction in the future.

Mm-hmm.

And then finally, there's a new principle.

That's what I was going to ask you about. So now this is exciting. That you got to the point— these, that's Masterwork of the Six. And then in revisiting now, you've discovered a final, a new one.

Yes. And I'm calling it Unity.

I love that.

But it has to do really with membership in a particular group.

Yes.

Right.

A tribe, some in-group that defines us. And if a communicator can arrange for us to see him or her as inside that group, one of us. Yes, all the influence barriers come down for that communicator. We say yes to those people, we cooperate with them, we believe them, we trust them. Those people who are of us become people who we want to favor and follow.

According to the new thing that you've done, you have added a 7th universal principle, which is so appropriate for our theme of connection, for the theme of this Genius Network meeting.

What is that 7th principle and how does it apply to Genius Network members?

Okay, that's a good question. And it's a differentiator for the new edition as opposed to the others. The other editions. I should just name the 6 principles and then go on to the 7th. But the principles are reciprocation: people say yes to those they owe. So if we go first with benefits, advantages, information, they give that back to us in terms of benefits and advantages in return. Liking— nobody's surprised that we prefer to say yes to those we know and like. But there are 2 very simple things we can do to highlight and enhance the rapport that people feel with us. One is to point to genuine similarities. Another is to give genuine compliments. Third principle is social proof. It's a term that we coined back in 1984 in that first edition. Now people use the term all the time, uh, and it means that people want to follow the lead of their peers. What those around them, like them, have been doing or are doing reduces their uncertainty as to what they should do in that situation. If we can give them evidence like that, they will significantly more likely say yes to the request that accompanies that evidence. Fourth is authority. And, you know, the people also want to reduce their uncertainty by following the lead of the experts in a situation. Again, if we can give them evidence that there are expert voices that are aligned with the proposal or the request that we are making of them, they will more likely say yes. Next principle is commitment and consistency. People want to be consistent with what they have already said or done. If we can show them how what we have to offer is congruent with the commitments that they've already made, especially in public, especially in front of us, we significantly, once more, increase the probabilities that they will say yes to that proposal. Scarcity is the 6th principle. The idea that people want more of those things they can have less of. And if we can honestly show them that what we have is scarce, rare, dwindling in availability to them, gives them something unique that they can't get elsewhere, they pile in to the offers that we make under those circumstances. And now we come to the 7th principle. It's what I'm calling unity. For a communicator, if, if as a communicator we can arrange for people to see us as sharing membership in a group, an important group that they use to define themselves, define themselves, that they use to identify who they are. All influence barriers come down to us. They just come down, right? Because inside those we groups, people trust us more. They cooperate with us more, they believe us more, and for the bottom line, they say yes to us significantly more often. They comply with our requests, proposals, and recommendations significantly more often. And this is different from similarity inside the liking principle. Where if we see that we have similar tastes or preferences or style, uh, uh, orientations, uh, to other people, that causes us to like them more. And that's, that's successful. This isn't similarity like that. This is similarity of membership in a category, a group that we use to define ourselves. Let me give you an example from a study that was done on a college campus. Researchers took a young woman, college-age student, a young woman, put her on a very heavily trafficked spot on campus and asked her to request donations for a legitimate charity from students who were passing by. And she got some results from that. She got some contributions, but she was able to more than double contributions by adding one more sentence to the request. It was, "I'm a student here too. I'm of you. I'm one of you." And all the barriers came down. And these college students who don't have a lot of money were 250% more likely to reach into their wallets or purses and make a contribution. Let me give you a personal example of how this works, where you can identify an existing category in which you exist with somebody else, right? Simply raising that commonality to consciousness makes all the difference. A while ago, I had a project that I needed to complete by the end of the next day. I had to submit the project. As I was reading through the final draft of my report that was going to request that the project be approved and funded, I noticed there was a section in the report that wasn't really compelling. I didn't have the evidence I needed to make that case in a convincing way, but I knew I had a colleague— let's call him Tim, it's not his real name— who did have the data like that because he had done an experiment the year before that provided that evidence. And so I sent him an email. I said, "Tim, I'm gonna call you in a few minutes, but I wanna put you on alert that I have this need for some data that you have in your archives. I have this problem. I have this report due tomorrow. I need it today. Could you go into your archives? I'm gonna ask you if you can go in, take the data out, get it into a form that I can use." and send it across to me today. So I sent that and then waited a few minutes and I called him. Now I have to tell you, Tim was renowned in my psychology department for being a sour, irascible guy, a difficult guy. This is a difficult guy. So when I called him, he answered the phone, he said, hello Bob, I know why you're calling, and the answer is no. You say you have deadlines? I have deadlines. You say you need to have this done by the end of the day? I have things that have to be done by the end of the day. I can't just, uh, respond, uh, to every time you need something because you have poor time management skills. No, the answer is no. Before I read the research on unity, here's what I would have said to Tim: Come on, Tim, I really need this.

I have this thing, it needs that—

the data that you have, and it also is due tomorrow. He had already said no to that. Instead, here's what I said: Come on, Tim, We've been members of the same psychology department now for 12 years. I had the information that afternoon because I reminded him of a connection that we had. I know that the title of this meeting is Connection. This was a we connection. This was a connection that we used to define define who we were, identify ourselves, right? And those things have massive power to move people in our direction, right? So let's— so I know we'll probably come back to this in, in some of your questions about how you actually do this, uh, to harness the power of, of unity, but I'll leave it at that at this point.

When we talked, he said, is there anything new and exclusive that you could provide to our Genius Network members? And I said, well, you know, I'm writing a new edition of my book Influence. And I have to say that book has been very kind to me. Sold a lot of copies, a lot of languages. I was in Poland a while ago and I have a colleague there, Professor Wilhelmina Woszynska. She said, "You know, Bob, your book Influence is so famous in Poland, my students think you're dead." And I thought that was an affirming yet sobering observation on the success of the book. And that's one reason I decided to write a revision, something new, because I wanted people to know I'm still kicking, I'm still thinking. And so I just finished writing the chapter on reciprocation, the principle of influence that says people feel obligated to give back to those who have first given to them. And I thought, well, there were several new pieces of information I thought I could share. And as we go through it, I hope you'll think about these insights and see if they're available for you to use in your own businesses. But let me just provide a first example that sort of takes us through a validation of how this principle works. There was a study done in a candy shop. In Southern California. One day, for half of the visitors who came in, the manager met them at the door, greeted them warmly, and escorted them to the candy counter. For the other half, he met them, greeted them warmly, gave them a small piece of chocolate, and escorted them to the candy counter. Where they bought 42% more candy than those who didn't get a piece of chocolate. And you might explain that in ways other than the rule for reciprocation, that people felt that they had to give back after they had received. You might say, "Well, maybe they liked the chocolate and they wanted more of it." But if you look deeper into the data, the majority of those 42% more people who bought chocolate didn't buy— who got chocolate didn't buy more chocolate. They bought some other kinds of candy. So it wasn't what they had been given, it was that they had been given something that caused them to change their purchase decisions up to 42%. So what we know from that is that the act of reciprocation triggers— the act of giving triggers an act of reciprocation. But that doesn't mean that what we give is unimportant, right? Just because people get triggered. Here's what the newest research shows about what you can give first to your customers, your clients, your partners, your colleagues. That will cause them to want to give back to you at the highest possible levels, that will cause them to be ready to give back to you, be standing on the balls of their feet, waiting for the opportunity to give back to you in a major way? There are 3 things, 3 features. If what you give is unexpected, It's not just part of the normal exchange. You know how you get a holiday greeting card and you send one in return? That's not, that's not unexpected. That's just normal exchange, right? Something that's a surprise elevates the willingness of people to want to give back to you. Secondly is if what you give is seen as meaningful by the recipient, that you've gone to a step to give something to them that's meaningful, right? Then they want to give something meaningful in return to you at a higher level. And finally, if what you've given is personalized or customized to their identity, to their preferences, to their current needs or challenges, through the roof. They want to give back to you for that kind of kindness. Right? Okay, so let's take some examples. Here's the first one that has to do with unexpected gifts. There was a supermarket chain that sent coupons to their shoppers regularly in the mail, and sometimes they would include a coupon for a free gift, a free half-gallon of milk at the store. What they were disappointed in is that many of these shoppers who redeemed the coupon didn't then buy more other things, right? So, that is, their total spend wasn't increased by the fact that they got a gift. So they tried something by a consultant, not me, told them about the research that shows when people get an unexpected gift, then they're more motivated to give back at high levels. So they did an experiment where one day Everyone who came into the store got a coupon, a surprise coupon for a half a gallon of milk. Those people, their total spend went up by 10%. Do you know what 10% increase in total spend for a supermarket is? It's unheard of, right? Because the gift they got was a surprise. So what's the implication for you? If you're working online with people, send them a coupon out of the blue for one of your popular items or services, something, at least a discount for it. They're going to feel from that surprise more obligated to give something back to you. Okay, so that's the idea of Something unexpected elevates the power of the rule for reciprocation. How about this meaningful thing? Let's go inside your organization. Suppose you have an idea, an initiative that you're in charge of, and if it is successful, it'll elevate the outcomes of your organization. It will elevate your reputation within it. Alright? And you want the people inside your organization to get on board, to embrace this. And you send them information about this new initiative and you want them to incorporate it into the way they behave. Is there anything you can do to ensure the likelihood that they will do that? Here's a study that was done in the UK that gives us an example. It was done by the British National Employment Service office, who tried to get people who were not working, who were unemployed, to apply for and appear for interviews for a new job. And a lot of these folks, they weren't interested in getting off corporate— off welfare. They liked getting their unemployment and they didn't show up for these interviews. They would be scheduled for interviews and they just were no-shows. What the researchers asked the office to do is instead of just saying to these individuals in a letter, "We have scheduled an interview for a job at such and such a time on such and such a date," "with Mr. Jones. Here's the time and the place. Please appear." They said in the letter, "Here's what we did to secure that interview for you. We called the office. We got a return call. We talked with the supervising manager. The supervising manager saw what was the most appropriate fit for you, we contacted that person and we made this appointment. In other words, they talked about the effort that they had gone through to get the appointment. And as a consequence, people spent the effort then to appear for it. They gave back in true reciprocal form what they had received. So, What's the implication? In your initiative, you need to tell people who you want to expend effort to get on board the effort that you expended to develop the initiative. How many months it took, how many meetings it involved, how much interplay and revision of the initiative occurred before I'm presenting it to you now. That will cause the them to be spurred more likely into action.

Okay.

So that's unexpected and meaningful. What's seen as a meaningful effort that you undertook to provide that gift or service first, right? Or favor. How about the last of these issues? Personalized. Customized to the identity or the preferences or the challenges of the recipient.

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 joesfreebook.com and you can get a copy there.

I like this one. This is the one I think is more important than the other two combined. If you can convince people that what you're giving represents something for them personally, has been customized for them, right, they will want to give back to you for you and your outcomes. I have a friend who's a consultant who told me about a problem she was having with a particular client, a particular customer who was notoriously a slow payer. When she would send an invoice, and this was true of all of her friends in the industry as well, it would be typically about 6 months before He would pay. And she said, "What can I do about this? What do we know about influence?" I said, "Well, what do you know about this guy?" And she said, "You know, he lives in a different city and I really can't find very much about him except that I know that he's an art lover." So here's what we suggest, what we decided to do. When she sent the next invoice, before she did that, she went to the art museums and galleries in her town where he would not have had access, right? And he— and she got a little postcard that depicted one of the exhibits there at the museum that he wouldn't have been able to see. And she wrote on the back of it, from Anna, right, and enclosed it with the invoice. I got an email from her. She said, "You won't believe this. That postcard cut the delay in receipt of our money in half. We went from 6 months to 3 months for the cost of that postcard." Because it was personalized to something that she knew he liked, and then it was inscribed to him by her. Now, she didn't need me for this. She took the next step. She found out that not only was he an art lover, he collected modern art. So the next time, and the time after that, that she sent him an invoice, right? She included a postcard of a piece of modern art that he wouldn't have had access to, right? Now, this time she didn't write me an email, she called me. She said, "You won't believe this. I'm getting paid immediately. Immediately. And all my friends want to know "Joe Polish, how did you do this?" And she said, "I'm not telling him, but I'm telling you." You know how this will work now. With an invoice, include something so that in the moment that invoice is opened, there's a gift. The rule for reciprocity dominates that situation right there. And that man, in this case anyway, succumbed to the rule of reciprocity. He wrote a check in that moment, right? And I think that's important for us, right? When we give anything, right, if we personalize it, it becomes more valuable. Here, let me ask, I'll give you one more example. It doesn't have to be just with a preference. It can be with a person's identity. How many of you have seen, or maybe your companies do this, that you give gifts to customers and clients like a pen with your company's name on it, a calendar at holidays with your company's name on it? How many of you have seen that or actually participated? It's the wrong name. Sorry, it's the wrong name. It's your name, not that customer's name, not that prospect's name. And that's what happened to me. When I get things like this— this is from some company— I throw it in the drawer with 50 other pens, with 100 other, you know, with all these other names on them. And then I had one customer who gave me this pen that has my name on it.

My name on it.

It's for me. And on the other side is their name. And you know what I do with this pen? I carry it wherever I go. And every time I take out this pen, I notice and I remember the gift, the personalized a gift that was given to me. It wasn't an advertising device. It was a gift, a personalized gift. Everywhere I go, it's in my pocket. You know how much this costs to do? Now you might say, "Come on, I've got thousands of customers. I can't—" How about for your best customers? How about for your biggest customers? It takes about $3 to do that. Are your biggest customers worth that? I think so. Okay. Let me give you— I'm gonna finish now. In this new book that I'm writing, we have something called reader's reports where people who've read the book Influence write to me. I ask them to write to me with examples of how one or— they've seen one or another of these principles used on them or by them with great effect. And as regards the principle of reciprocity, here's a reader's report that I got from a guy in Australia. Here's what he says: Not long ago, we moved to Australia where my 5-year-old daughter has been struggling to adapt to the new culture and find new friends. Recently, on walks around the neighborhood with my wife, she tried leaving gifts in neighbors' letterboxes. These were really just drawings scribbled in crayon and then folded and taped together into a letter addressed to "My new neighbors from Carly at," and then she included her address. And this guy goes on to say, "I thought it was pretty harmless, and I was more concerned that it might be perceived as a nuisance. I worried that we would be known as the phantom letterbox litterers. Then funny things started happening. In our mailbox, we started finding cards, proper Hallmark cards addressed to my daughter that cost anywhere from $3 to $5 apiece." Then packets of sweets and small toys started appearing there. If it wasn't for reading your book, I wouldn't have understood this, but the power of reciprocity is unbelievable. She now has a group of friends she plays with in the park across the road every day. Why I like this story is, you see, each of the 3 features that amplifies the power of the rule for reciprocity was included in those small gifts. As tiny as they were. They were unexpected. Suddenly there's a letter in the box from this little girl. It was meaningful because she created those letters herself, right? She went to the effort, right, and customized for my new neighbors from Carly. Lovely. I love that example. So if we can all do that, take that counsel, right? I'm sorry. If we— I don't think this is working either. No. Hello? Stage right, Mike. I'm going to use my old professor voice and just shout this out. If we all can do this right, We will dramatically leverage the power of what we give first if we can include one or another of these principles. And if we conclude all of them— I'll get close to you so we can— Yeah, and if we can include all of them— Really? Yeah, yeah. Then everybody wins, everybody wins. People get gifts, services, and favors that are for them, that benefit them, that give them joy, and they give back to us what's warranted from those kinds of resources. Thank you very much.

Okay, we good? Yes. Alrighty, what did you think of Robert? Thank you.

What I'd like to do, I'm going to sit down with you and ask you some questions for a few minutes here.

And so we'll get the other stool over here. Great. Thank you so much. Okay. Are we too far apart or is this good? Yeah. All right. Well, so is there a way to take the lights down for just a moment up here? This, these ones. I want to, I want to be able to see the audience. And not have it be too bright. Okay, and I'm gonna do some— since you're here with Dr. Robert Cialdini at Genius Network, and how many of you have made money or dramatically improved your business as a result of Dr. Robert Cialdini's work? Okay.

Oh, wow. Makes me feel great. Awesome.

I mean, I don't know anyone that's made more marketers money which I think in a lot of ways your intention when you first did all of this research was to teach people not only how to use ethical influence but not get taken advantage of by people. You make such an emphasis on the ethical use of influence. And there's— in the marketing industry, there's a lot of snakes. I mean, there just simply are. And so I've always appreciated how, how much emphasis you put on the application of all of the research that you've done. Anything you want to speak to about that?

You know, that's a big issue for me. It's always been a big issue. But it seems to me that being ethical can lead— we always say, well, it's a trade-off. You're ethical, you might lose in the short run, but you gain in the long run. I think that's true. But I think if you use these principles ethically and wisely, you win in the short run as well as the long run. I'll give you an example of the— one of the principles in the book is scarcity. People want more of those things they can have less of, anything that's dwindling in availability. Last time I bought a big-screen TV, I was in an electronic shop. I wasn't really looking for a TV, but I saw one on the shelf that I knew got great ratings in Consumer Reports and it was on sale. And as I was standing looking at it, a salesman came up to me and he said, "I see you're interested in this set at this price. I can see why. It's a great deal. But I have to tell you, it's our last one." "Your last one?" And he said, "Yes. And I just got a call from a woman from Scottsdale who said she might come down and get it this afternoon." 20 minutes later, I'm wheeling out of the— and I'm supposed to be the doctor of influence, right?

It's so funny because you know this and it's still—

I know it. But here's the thing. On the degree, on the dimension of ethics, if that was the last one, I wanted that man to use the scarcity principle on me genuinely. Because if I went back to my, you know, back home to think about it and then came back the next day and it was gone, I would've said, why didn't you tell me it was the last one? That's a piece of information I wanted to know about a valuable resource here, a good deal. I want to know when it's scarce. I want to know when there are competitors and I want to know when it's dwindling in availability. Right? So he would— so people using, all of us using these strategies honestly, right? There are allies, there are allies in the exchange. We're informing people into yes, we're not deceiving them into yes. Now, if that man was lying, it wasn't the last one. There were 10 more in the back room. And when I took mine, he just went and put another one on the shelf and used the same strategy. Then he's not my ally, he's my antagonist. He's my rival in this process. So I went back the next day to see, was there an empty spot? There was. There was. And so I went back to my office now and I wrote a glowing review for that shop and that man because he was my ally. He was my collaborator in this exchange. That's how I would like all of us to act by using these principles so we educate people into ascent.

Yeah, you know, I mean, I remember this story from years ago where this, I mean, I read it couple decades ago about a man that took his two kids to a movie theater. And, I think the kids, one was like 11, the other one was like 13. And, he said, "I'd like two adults and one child." And, the person behind the ticket counter, this is before the internet of buying tickets, said, "Sir, I would have not known your son was one year older than the child's age." You could have got, you know, an adult ticket and two children. He goes, yes, you know, you wouldn't have known, but they would have known. And it always reminded me, you know, wow, it's— ethics is about you, not about what you can get away with in that sort of stuff. And so there's— and your knowledge and research is so powerful in the right hands, and in the wrong hands, it could be very dangerous. And that's why you've always been very good about.

Can I just add an addendum to your story? Not only would his kids have known, he would have known. He would have known that he's a cheater. That's not how we want to think of ourselves. Why would we ever, for that momentary lift in success, degrade the way we have to think about ourselves in terms of self-concept? That the only way we succeed is By cheating? No. We can do it with these principles and an understanding of human psychology and win in the short run as well as the long run.

Yeah, and I do believe in karma and I believe, you know, people that are not willing to operate that way, their punishment is their own existence. So let me ask you a couple of things. What is the most important rule for pre-suasion or persuade? Let's do persuasion first. And then I wanna ask you about pre-suasion.

So the most important rule for persuasion, of course, what do you put into your message to get people to move in your direction? I guess we can answer it in terms of a colleague of mine, a marketing professor at University of Florida, who set out to find the single most powerful persuasive appeal. What works best? Across the widest range of circumstances and populations and so on. This is your go-to strategy. Use this one and you will be more successful than any other strategy. So he went and he started investigating this. And I saw him about 2 years later at a conference. He said, "Bob, I found it. I found the single most effective persuasive appeal. It is not to have a single." persuasive appeal. That's a fool's game to think that the same strategy is going to be optimally effective across all circumstances, all sets of conditions, all populations, all experiences with the buyer that you've had or relationships. It's silly. What you have to do is use the principle that's most— or the appeal that's most appropriate for that situation in that time. That's the most successful persuasive approach.

Gotcha.

Okay, so for pre-suasion. Now for pre-suasion. Oh, and define pre-suasion. Pre-suasion is the ability to move your audience into agreement with your message before they encounter it. That is, Get them in a state of mind whereby they are receptive or sympathetic to the core elements of your message before they get to your message. Let me give you an example. Do you know that there was a study that showed that if people go into a wine shop and there is German music playing, they become more likely to purchase German wine. If there's French music playing, they become more likely to purchase a French vintage. The concept is put in their mind. The idea of things that are German or French is in their mind, top of conscious. Now when they get to the choices, that focus on what they experienced first guides their behavior into the sales setting. I don't know if anybody remembers what song was playing when I came on this stage. They asked me, "Do you want— what song would you like to be played on to?" the stage with. Anybody remember it? It was "Think" by Aretha Franklin. See, I'm a public speaker these days, and most of the time when I get on stage, people play loud, upscale, highly energetic music. I'm not that kind of speaker. That's not— I'm not that kind of speaker. I'm not a motivational speaker. I'm an informational speaker. I'm an educational speaker. I don't want people thinking about energy and drive and so on. I want them to take a step back and think about the content. And so that's the song I get played on to. In the same way that it's like German music, you know, you're more likely to follow the concept that has first been made prominent, at top of mind, your behavior is likely to flow in that direction. And here's the concept I think the great psychologist Daniel Kahneman— won the Nobel Prize in Economics a few years ago— said, in his view, the most important idea of that he would want people to know is nothing is as important as you think it is while you are thinking about it. In other words, if a communicator can get you to think about a particular concept, French, right? Nothing— that causes you to overestimate its importance to you, right? Because it's top of mind. And as a consequence of that overestimation, you will move in the direction of it. So what pre-suasion is about is the ability to change the state of mind that your customer is in, or your recipient of your message, so that it aligns with the core features of your message before they experience it.

What I'm going to talk about today is how to use ethical influence and persuasion to get more people to say yes. And, you know, usually when I talk about this kind of stuff, most people are focused on marketing. I teach a lot of people about copywriting and marketing and sales, face-to-face sales and things like that, but One of the things I want you to know is this is not just about business, which I think is really fitting for Genius Network. These are the kinds of things that you can use in everyday life. And, you know, a lot of times when I speak, I get people that, you know, they want to know the magic words. I'm an NLP guy, right? It's all about linguistics. They're like, tell me the right sentence to say for this. And, you know, this and that. It kind of reminds me of, you know, back when Eben Pagan used to do the double your dating thing. You know, I was an affiliate for his probably 20 years ago, and he would get guys all the time going, "Tell me the pickup lines. What do I say to girls to make them like me?" And he would say, "I'm not going to teach you pickup lines. I'm going to teach you how to be a better man, then you'll naturally be more attractive." And that's kind of the— you know, I thought about all the things that I could teach in, you know, 25, 30 minutes today, and that's kind of the tack that I'm going to take is I'm going to go a bit meta on influence and persuasion. You'll be able to apply this to anything that you do. It's not necessarily about the individual language patterns. There are a lot of them. You can learn language patterns. This is more going to be about how to think about how you speak to people in a way that will get them to say yes in every area of life, every context of life. So, um, I'm kind of new to Genius Network. You know, we, my wife Kayla and I, we joined in January. Don't know a lot of people yet, so I'll just spend a second kind of telling you where I came from and how I got here. This is where it all started for me. Back in 1995, I started a company called LiquidMirror Software. I was what we affectionately called back in the day a shareware author—try before you buy software. And I actually got into business for a really weird reason. I was 20 years old. I was fresh off the streets being homeless, and my girlfriend, who I'd only been dating for a few weeks, got pregnant. And I had no ambition in my life. I didn't have a high school degree. I didn't have really any skills other than the fact that I was a hobbyist programmer. And I knew I needed a career. I knew I needed to take care of this, you know, new human being that was coming into the world, who's about to turn 30, which is crazy to me. And, you know, I was a security guard making $6 an hour, which was a lot of money for me. I mean, I think minimum wage at the time was $4.50. So $6 an hour is like, wow, I was making it. And I knew I needed to do something. And really programming was the only skill that I had. And this new thing had been coming out called internet programming. You didn't need a degree to get into it, but everywhere I went, I would give them my resume and they'd say, well, you don't have experience. Come back when you have experience. Nobody would hire me. And, uh, after probably 20 or 30 interviews, uh, I was finally like, how am I going to get experience if nobody hires me? And I came up with this idea. What if I came up with my own software company and I published my own software title and then put that on the resume? Then, then I've got experience and people will have to hire me. And I had this little program that I had written. It was called Send to Anywhere and it was a file utility would help you. Copy and move files around in Windows. And I published that out there, and really it was— the only purpose was to get it on the resume. And, uh, it took off, and it did really well, and it did help me get my first job. And then that was my side gig for a number of years. And, and, um, about a year later, I started getting featured in newspapers, magazines, and I started realizing I should really figure out how to market this thing. Maybe I don't have to have a day job, you know. And so that's where I used to get these 3M floppy disks at CompUSA and duplicate them and put the stickers on them and That's where I started. That was my first website, uh, back in 1995. That was my earthlink.net free 10-page website that I had there. It was beautiful. I ended up with a better one later. Started one of the very first shareware networks. If you ever downloaded shareware software in the late '90s and 2000s, you probably downloaded from one of my sites called the Shareware Junction Network. Uh, had one of the very first file hosting, um, companies out there, SWMirr, years ago. In 1998, everything changed. I was at the county fair in Orange County, California, and my friends and I would go there every year primarily to see the stage hypnotist, a guy named Mark Yuzik. And I think he's one of the best stage hypnotists on the planet. I was sitting there in the audience and enjoying the show like I did every year. I mean, we would go pretty much just to see him, but I didn't believe in hypnosis. I thought it was all, you know, a put-on. I thought the people on stage were drunk or Or idiots are just paid to be on stage or something like that. But I love the show. But at the end of the show, he was selling these tapes and he's going, step right up, step right up, get your tapes, 3 for $20. And all I wanted— I didn't believe in hypnosis. I was super skeptical, very logical guy. And, you know, I believed the kind of hypnosis that they put out in Hollywood and cartoon, you know, cartoons where people are sort of controlling others and their eyes, you know, spin and stuff like that. But I had $20 in my pocket and I just really wanted to hear what was on these cassette tapes. So I walked up and I said, "I'll take it," slapped down my $20 bill. He goes, "Which ones do you want?" I looked down in the case and the first one that jumped out at me was Quit Smoking. At that time, 1998, I was 25 years old. I was smoking 3 packs of cigarettes a day and I was hopelessly addicted to cigarettes. From the time that I graduated high school and really got some freedom being out of the house a lot, I really just started smoking more more and more and more. By the time I was 21, I was smoking 3 packs a day. There was a time where I actually rolled cigarettes and I would smoke filterless cigarettes just to get even more of a rush out of it. And I tried everything I could to quit smoking. Nothing worked. And so I bought this silly little tape. About 3 weeks later at home, I popped it in and listened to it. The curiosity finally got to me and everything changed. I woke up the next morning and never touched another cigarette again. I barely had a thought of a cigarette after that night that I literally fell asleep listening to the tape, and it was so effortless for me to quit smoking that it actually took me 3 days before I realized that something had changed, and it dawned on me that I hadn't had a cigarette in 72 hours, and that was the moment when I went down a rabbit hole that I'm still going down rabbit holes. I fell in love with Joe Polish. With the subconscious mind and how it works. I started reading everything that I could find on hypnosis. That led me to neurolinguistic programming, social psychology, and in late 1998, it really began to fuse into my marketing. And I began to play around with these ideas of things like conversational hypnosis and embedded commands and anchoring and using these things in my marketing to such an extent that by 1999, 2000, I was actually writing copy for other people. I'd never been trained as a copywriter. I'd read some books, of course, the Joe Sugarman book, you know, was the one that really got me started. If anybody's ever read that, if you've never read that, it's definitely one of the top books to read on copywriting, Slippery Slide Principle, right? And, you know, really helping other people as well. And it was great because, you know, working with other people, I could really see the objective change in their results just by adding a few things. Sometimes I wouldn't even rewrite their copy for them. I would just change a few things or put a little embedded command in that was almost already there. And I just became fascinated with this. So in 2000, I became certified as a hypnotherapist, 2001 NLP. I ran a practice for many years. I'm still a coach till today. We run a coaching practice. But my real love, like my passion, is fusing together NLP and hypnosis and psychology with marketing, because I really think it's all the same thing. And I think a lot of times people think that marketing is about creative writing, whereas in my mind, it's all about hypnosis. It's all about suggestion. It's all about really getting to the subconscious mind. So today, I'm the owner of Transform Destiny. We're the top NLP training company in North America. And also with my wife, I co-own Transform Destiny, and also with my wife, I co-own Influence to Profit. And that's where we teach heart-centered business owners ethical influence and persuasion. I think the most important word of that is ethical. Um, because I find that most people who are heart-centered business owners, they have something that's going to transform the world in one way or another, or at least transform a life, help a person out, and they just don't know how to get that message across. And that's what I'd love to do is to help people, number one, craft that message, and then number two, amplify it, um, teach them how to get that out there.

So I want to talk about one thing. So my, my latest book, What's in It for Them, uh, I write about Harvey McKay. I write about the McKay 66. I love the to have you speak to what that is, because today's way of utilizing it— and you, you've always been known as a relationship guy, and you have so many connections, and you have done and taught people, do your freaking research on people, know who it is you're talking about, get to know the person so you're not only valuable to them but you don't look like an idiot, you know. And so many people are just pitching people, well, they do no research, they have no background, and they're not thinking about the other person, they're thinking about themselves. So you've always focused on what's in it for them and you've been teaching this process to people for many years. So what is in the Case 66?

Two words. First of all, you are spot on. That's right. People buy from other people because of likability, because of chemistry, because of people's skills. And this book There's a reason, of course, why every book usually has one or two great concepts. There's a reason why this book is 35 years old, still selling, you know, extraordinarily fast. And it's called, as you just referred to, The McKay 66. When I was 21 years old, I had 300 customers selling envelopes. Yeah, you, you You might laugh at envelopes, but you know, we use an envelope once and then you have to come back and order more. And my company happens to sell 25 million every day, every single day we sell around the world. So that's a few envelopes. But the K66, you have to humanize your selling strategy. I'll repeat that, humanize your selling strategy. So if I'm trying to sell sell Joe Polish? I can't talk about business every minute. I can't go ahead and have a 20-minute conversation to talk about envelopes. So I want to read the desk, I want to read the walls, I want to talk to receptionist and find out how many children, if he's married, I want to find out his lifestyle. I came up with 66 questions that all of our sales force— we have about 15 of them now still on my business, okay, McKay Mitchell, Joe Polish company and we'll find out 66 things about them. And those are the questions, you know, right? Where'd they go to school? You know, what turns them on, which is a key question. Where do they take their vacations? What's their political aspirations? Whatever it is, right? And once you get those 66 answers and 30 are better than 20, 50 are better than 20? Yes. Once you get those answers, that's when you can find out. And of course, this book that you're talking about, I like to call it, and you call it the same thing in different words, you know, if I say, hey, hi Joe, just met you, right? Right. Write to my brain bank, what can I do for Joe Polish? How can I help him? How can I add value? And if you just Do that for about 90 days, and here is the real cachet: expect nothing in return. Right. You got too many people out there doing that, but they expect something in return. Expect nothing in return. You have a very, very happy life. So with all our sales force, we have on 3,000 accounts, we have 3,000 K66s. Now McKay Mitchell, 66s. And if someone loses, let's say, General Mills account, right? Well, I'll call them in, and I still have my company going back to Minneapolis. We're in Phoenix here, uh, in 48 hours. But if they lose General Mills, I'll call them in and I'll say, uh, why'd you lose it? And then I'll ask, what was the real reason? The given reason almost always in life is never the real reason. And so therefore they'll tell me, and I'll say, go get your 66 and bring it in. Boy, whoo, you catch some big fish at your own company. Yeah, exactly. They bring in the 66, they've been calling on the account for 5 years, there's 2 new buyers over there, they don't know anything, and the account is taking away in less than 60 seconds. Wow. That's all. And they know, they know because agreements prevent disagreements. If you have an agreement with your salesperson and all the people and the people that report to you, you'll never have a disagreement. They know that the account will be taken away unless they work that 66. And if you don't love people, If you don't like doing this, wow. And do you ever get surprised? I'll never forget at a YPO, that's Young Presidents Organization party. I walked up to a woman, she was 6'2", didn't know how to say hello. If you said hello to her, she couldn't handle it and all that. But I insisted, well, I'm still going to find out about her. She's a professional basketball player from Iowa. Wow. But a real good one. Yeah. And whether it's your seatmate on an airplane, doesn't matter where you are, it's on an elevator and you're going to be there for 20, 30 seconds. Just that extra 4, 5, 6 nanoseconds, whatever. Hello. Right. Smile. Right. Ask a question. I mean, I mean, enthusiastic. I have a real good friend, Dwight Peirce, sat on the last row of 747 7, and there was a woman sitting next to her and he wound up marrying her. I mean, it happens. And so if you were to ask me what's the most important thing in selling and in getting results, and they don't pay off on effort, they pay off on results. But if you absolutely know what the word and how to do it and believe in it. Relationships. If you don't, as I say, if you don't like people, there's no sense being a salesperson, right? Right. And if you don't get excited doing something for somebody else, there's no sense either. Exactly. So once you get those, I like to say, uh, if you think education is expensive, try ignorance. And there's just too many people that don't do this. These are your mentors. Mentors. Ask 1,000 businessmen and women, how did you make it? Mentors. And there's more mentors out there that will help than will not. Okay, as long as you want to ask. And then that gets into never say no for the other person. Right. People say, I can't sell him, I can't sell her.

Yeah, his brother-in-law I was getting into business.' That's great advice too— don't say no for the other person!

A myriad of reasons why let them say 'no,' that's all so if you can find it, if you can't find a mentor these are all mentors forget me, forget Joe Polish Polish, you got the whole world out there pick your subjects, pick your experts those become mentors even though you don't know them yeah now And the thing with—

I look at this as mining. So for instance, the gold is maybe there, or let's say it is there when it comes to people and relationships. But if you don't go and put forth the effort in— when you say the thing about results, yeah, you don't build a great reputation by talking about what you're going to do. You build a great reputation by actually doing it. And when you learn about someone, when you research them, when you find out what they're all about, and that has to come from a place of truly, like you're saying, caring about people, being conscientious. You can sort of learn the techniques, but if you don't integrate the techniques, it doesn't become real. Flattery, I would be foolish to say flattery doesn't work, but it's not the depth. Okay, you can, you can develop relationships on a shallow level. But the deeper you go, the more you get to understand. So it's like what you're talking about. You lose an account, you go back to your, your mind, that Rolodex that you have, and you, you understand, let's, let's go and talk to the human again and let's reconnect that bond that we have. Because the number one thing to do, I think, with customers and clients in business, and I would say, you know, humans in general, is to bond with them. And if you can deepen that bond, and that's what Harvey teaches people how to do, he's been doing it for years, how to actually connect with people. And part of it is make sure that your give is equal to or greater than your want, because everybody wants something. We all want something, but you have to show up with a give that's equal to or greater than your want, because people that don't, then those people, you perceive them as takers and they're annoying. And so the key is to be valuable and useful and grateful and put that into play every day.

Boy, why wasn't I taking notes? Good thing you've written books. You can't say it any better. And to just piggyback on that a little tiny bit, my favorite— I have maybe, I don't know, thousands of slogans because I happen to write a business column too, as you know.

Yeah, you have 100 newspapers.

10 million newspapers, 100 cities. Yeah, that's what I meant. 35 years. So you have to have a lot of one-liners. But my favorite and my father taught me that. He was a national syndicated columnist also. But still currently once a week writing those 100, 100 newspapers. Biggest room in the world is the room for improvement. And when you believe that, again, then you can go forward and move to the next level. You don't go You don't go to school once for a lifetime. We know that. You're in school all of your life. And then one thing lastly, it doesn't have to be lastly, but paramount importance, a salient point. Again, I live on aphorisms because I always end the chapter with an aphorism and my newspaper columns, but practice makes perfect. Not true. You have to have one word: perfect practice makes perfect. Practice something time and time again. If you don't know what you're doing, what are you doing? Yeah, you put a ceiling on how good you can become. You know, we're talking right now, I don't know, our audiences, doesn't matter, high percentage of people out there have played golf. You can play golf 8 days a week, you can practice golf 8 days a week. And if you got a loop in your swing and you're playing every day, what are you doing? You're perfecting an error. You put a ceiling on how good you can become. So if you practice the right concepts over a long period of time, you can't miss. Yeah, that's it.

Yeah, cannot miss. One of the best ways to build rapport with someone is to Identify an area of mutual suffering and pain. The reason 12-step groups work is because there is a community of people that have been through pain. And when prisoners of war would go to therapists and psychologists and stuff, and they would not get any help, but then they would take those same people and put them into a room with other people that have been through the horrible situations they have been, there would be instant rapport. Now, to put that in a positive light, one thing that I do with a lot of people that I meet, and I've met some very famous people and I'm good friends with them, I haven't just met them, I've developed relationships with them, is I have the understanding that most human beings are just insane and completely fucked up on many different levels. And I'm not saying that like to be just for effect, it's true. I mean, people are people. And they have issues and they enjoy having fun, they like building rapport, and I just like goofing around. I don't think that someone is like God or some Messiah, unless, you know, I run into God or Messiah. So Evan, you know, shoots an email over to Tony, how do you pronounce his last name? Shay. Shay, 'cause I always say his last name, Tony Shay. He's the guy that's the CEO of Zappos, and I've met him before, but, you know, he had dinner with Joe Polish, Eben went and had dinner with him, with Joe Sugarman, who's a good friend of mine, the founder of BlueBlocker Sunglasses, and sends back an email to Tony saying, "You gotta connect with Joe." And then he also demeaned me in the email in a very funny way, but that built instant rapport because he just knew, yeah, it's cool to talk shit, you know? And so I shoot back another email kind of doing the same thing. And all of a sudden, you know, now we're gonna do a tour of Zappos and, you know, blah, blah, blah. 'Blah, blah, blah, gonna do an interview with him.' And that's just a real simple, quick connection. So when you meet other connected people, just become buddies and they'll introduce you to everybody. And one of the things, just some stuff that everyone can do, if you wanna meet someone, first off, find their birthday. Know everyone's birthday that you wanna meet. Send them cards, send them gifts. Before the holidays, send them stuff. Robert Cialdini, who's a good friend of mine, book called Influence, and there's a chapter on reciprocity. Learn to use reciprocity. Giving things to people will help you tremendously, but don't just give them goofy, silly things. Find out things that they really would find valuable and interesting. Um, in terms of, you know, gifts, um, if they have any sort of pain, you know, hang on a sec.

On that, just to give you a window inside of Joe Polish's mind and how he thinks, just an experience that I had with him. I was out with you, I think it was after one of your big seminars a few years ago, and you needed to buy a ladder for something. And we're out driving around to find a ladder. You wanted to change a light bulb or something. And I'm like, "Why don't you just have somebody else do it?" And you're like, "Because I want to buy a ladder and I want to change—" You know, I know it was after a seminar. You're just winding down and like, I just want to get out and be a regular person for a little while. So we went over to, I think we went to Costco. And do you remember this?

No, I'm trying to figure out what the hell you're talking about.

Okay, okay.

No, I really want to give you like the model of how a genius thinks, all right? Just like a window inside of his mind, like a perspective you wouldn't normally get. So we're walking down the aisles in Costco and trying to find a ladder, and we're looking at a bunch of different things. Whenever 2 people that are interested in the world go out, we're talking about what's going on in Costco. We come around one of the end caps. It's the huge piles of goods and stuff they have there. Joe's standing there and he's like, "Wow! Look at that. That's awesome." I'm looking and it's these boxes that are probably about 2 feet wide and 3 feet tall and about 8 inches thick. And they're these big porcelain Dutch figurines, like yard figurines. And it was a big box that probably weighed like 40 or 50 pounds. And Joe's like, "That's great." He goes, "You know, that's the kind of thing that you send to someone on their birthday or for Christmas with a really thoughtful card." And they go, "What the hell am I going to do with this?" And then when you come over, they've got to like put him outside on their lawn. He's like, just— he was mesmerized. He was like— I could see the wheels turning, like, this is amazing, this is great.

Because they were like $20 for the whole set. You're absolutely right. I mean, I sent Marty Edelston one of those little samurai guys. You see those in the airplane magazines, the sumo dude? They're like $95. I've probably sent 10 of those to people. What the hell do you do with it? You gotta— they can— they're always forced to have to think about you. That's actually, you know, I don't remember that, but that's the sort of stuff I do all the time. So yeah, Marty Edelston loves that thing. He's the guy that owns Boardroom Inc. You know, I mean, now he sends me, he sends me a personal letter at least every 3 weeks and has done so for at least 3 years. And this is a guy that's running a $100 million a year company that's just a great dude. But it all started with sending goofy stuff to each other. Yeah, every 3 weeks Joe gets a letter that says, "Where'd you get the Dutch figurines?" No, no, he writes, you should see the crazy shit that Marty sends me, he's twisted, but yeah, so you know, find something that they would really find interesting, send them weird gifts, send them cool stuff, if they have any sort, you know, let me do like the strategic stuff. Being a marketer, I learned a lot of, most, I learned marketing from Gary Halbert, who was brilliant and demonic and neurotic and weird, but just a genius. And he said that one of the things that lacks in most marketing is theater. So you want to be theatrical in the stuff that you do. So for instance, if I wanted to meet a bigwig, I mean, I've never had a situation where I've wanted to meet someone that I've not been able to meet. And it's gotten me into, you know, I mean, the stuff that, um, what I would do, for example, if I wanted to meet someone and I had a message I needed to convey to them, I would get a little mini DVD player. I would shoot a video of yourself, put it in the DVD player. I would send them a mini DVD player with a Post-it note on the top of it that said, you know, press— open this up and press play. And I would send that DVD player to them by uniform courier that they personally have to sign for it so it gets through all the gatekeepers and everything, it gets right into their hands, or at least their key right-hand person's hands and just get it to them that way. Stuff like that, simple to do, might cost you $100, $200, but to me, it's a more effective use of time than calling someone 50 times. But what Eben was saying is, yeah, be persistent to a point, but be persistent in a smart way. Do things, you know, send them letters with a $100 bill attached to them. Always be willing to pay for someone's time. If you want to talk to somebody, sometimes just hire them. Cut a check. I mean, I've always been willing to cut a check. What you said here is that you were having the, I don't know the person, but you said, oh, when you were wanting to find out how to, expand in foreign markets, you talk to someone and you said tens of thousands of dollars is rolling out of their mouth. I think that's something that you just said 15 minutes ago. I wrote a picture of a mouth, a head with diamonds rolling out, and I'm gonna have my artist actually illustrate someone talking and all these gems just coming out of them. And one conversation, could be worth $1 million to you. And people are so cheap. I mean, they're just not willing to cut a check. And if you have enough money to solve a problem, you don't have a problem. That's what Dan Sullivan says. And so be willing to cut a check and meet the person. Another thing is, you know, people come up to me all the time and they're like, oh, let's do this, let's do that. First off, my filter immediately is, well, have they ever bought anything of mine? Do they— have they done any research whatsoever about what— They want me to sell their dog food, but do they eat my dog food? And so one of my criteria is I have a $25,000 person coaching group and people come to me and they're like, oh yeah, we're going to make a ton of money together. It's like, well, you know, then one of the filters is if we're going to make so much money together, then join one of my groups and then we'll spend time together. And don't do it because that means we're going to do a joint venture. Do it because you sincerely want to work with me. If not, then all I am is a financial target and access to a list or something. So I try to think about, do they actually really care? Like, if someone wants to meet and do something with you, you know, I mean, you're gonna respect someone more that's an actual client, someone that really appreciates you, and, you know, they study your work. So pay for their time. Always say please and thank you a lot. Really acknowledge people, thank them, you know. And this applies to anyone, even if you want nothing I mean, people that are rude to waiters and people that are just rude in general, they really don't get that far. It's like the whole saying, be nice to the people you meet on the way up, because they're going to be the same people you meet on the way down. Just start living your life that way. And the one thing that you have got to protect more than anything else is your reputation. Just constantly create value for people and operate and live that way. And by living that way in a very karmic way, opportunities will just present themselves to you that won't exist for people that aren't that way. Um, so connect with their friends, uh, with their— you know, for instance, one of the people that I want to— I met Bill Gates at All Things Digital earlier in the year, and I took a picture with me and Bill Gates, and I talked with him for just a couple minutes about doing an interview. But I know that Bill's like in another world as our most billionaires. And so I talked to his wife, Melinda, and I'm gonna do my best to set up an interview with her about the foundation that they have, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. And that will eventually lead to something with Bill, very much the same way that I ended up developing the relationship with Richard Branson. I really admire what he was doing with Virgin Unite, his charity, which he fully funds and supports ports out of pocket. So 100% of the money from that charity goes to the front lines of all the different things they do, from homelessness in America to teaching entrepreneurism in Africa to all kinds of stuff. And I interviewed the lady that ran Virgin Unite, Jean Olwang. And of course, Richard really liked that. And that eventually led to me doing an interview with Richard, him speaking at one of my conferences. And now we're doing trips to Necker Island once a year in raising money for Virgin Unite, but find out who their top people are and do something and work with them. Another clever technique, which everyone could use, 'cause it is a technique, there are some things you just sincerely do 'cause you're talented and skilled, and there's other ways to trick people into talking to you. So if you've got no ability to talk to anyone and you just wanna use marketing tricks, that works to a certain point. One of the things you can do, and I learned this from Brad Atton years ago, I teach carpet cleaners how to basically sell carpet cleaning services. That's how I got into my marketing business. I was a dead broke carpet cleaner living off credit cards and I needed to eat, and so I had to figure out how to learn how to sell stuff in order to survive. And all of the stuff I do today is purely an accident. It's a strategic byproduct. They haven't figured out how to make my carpet cleaning business work. And, uh, it's weird where life takes you, believe me. That and enough drugs, you can go anywhere in life. And, uh, so, uh, one of the things that I've taught a lot of my carpet cleaners to do, because they need to go in and do bids in commercial buildings and they need to talk to the right person, they always have these gatekeepers. So what I have them do, and I learned this from a couple of marketers from years ago named Brad and Alan Anton, is you call up their assistant and you find out the person that you want to talk to, he or she, their, their shoe size and say, you know, I want to send them a pair of shoes as a gift. Can you find out the shoe size for me? Now they always— they will do this for you because they think it's kind of cool. No one calls up and says, hey, what's the shoes? Because they're like, all right, what the hell? And, um, so you find out the person's shoe size. Say it's like size 10. What you do is you go down to, you know, any store and you buy like a pair of Nikes or Reeboks, uh, for $70 or $100. And you take one of the shoes and you write a note that says, "Dear Mr. Bigwig, Mr. and Mrs. Bigwig, I have something really important I want to share with you, and I felt the best way to get my, you know, my foot in the door was to send you a shoe, and I'd like to meet with you, and when we meet, I'll bring the other shoe." And then you send one shoe to them with a little handwritten note, send it uniform courier so it goes directly to them, and here's the deal, anyone that's an entrepreneur has no one that works for them thinks like that, and they just appreciate creativity. Isn't it true? I mean, honestly, when you, when you go out into the regular world, not places like this where people actually think, you know, it's like amazing to see like creative people. And every carpet cleaner I've had, I've taught that to so many people, everyone that actually does it. I say, if you send 10 pairs of shoes to any big commercial account, I guarantee you you're going to land a $10,000 or $20,000 job.

Always.

But here's the deal, 1 out of 100 people that I'll tell that to actually will ever do it. But the people that do it, they always get in. Send coffee mugs, send anything, but just— that's theater. That's what I mean by being— sending theater. Send in a DVD player, send in a little flip video with a recording of yourself saying something, you know, "Bob, I wanted you to have this really cool camcorder," but press play. Every single person here could do something like that. That's That's something. And then of course, I have to come back to demean them in front of their friends. If— when you can really— I have built more rapport with people with very sick, twisted, really bad, very bad forms of humor in front of them just to know that, hey, the person's really chummy, and it instantly breaks down walls because people are constantly walking around trying to be all professional And I know that everybody, no matter who they are, is a hosed-up human being that has some area of their life that's completely dysfunctional. And the moment you can get into that, it just takes down walls. And just be fun. I mean, people just love people that are fun. And be a ray of sunshine as best you can. And Eben, I don't know if there's—

You know, I want to underscore a couple things you said. Contacting someone and saying, "I'd like to hire you," I'd like to buy an hour of your time. Very powerful. I mean, I can think of 3 people that come to mind, all of whom you know, that I've hired to do an hour on the telephone. The lowest— in the last couple of years, the lowest cost one was $1,000 for an hour, and the highest one was $2,500 for an hour on the phone. And you know what? They gave me great information. They gave me great advice. You know what else? Now I can call any one of them anytime I want and talk to them because I made friends with them. Do the math. Another thing, you recommended Gene Landrum's book, Profiles of Power and Success. Get Gene Landrum's book. Landrum. L-A-N-D-R-U-M. Gene Landrum.

Profiles of Power and Success. That's a very intense book.

It is— it's like the alternate perspective of the lives of highly successful people. He profiles a bunch of just, you know, super successful people like Walt Disney and—

Maria Montessori, Frank Lloyd Wright, Howard Hughes.

And you get to just see like all the common denominators of these people, but what you realize is that they're way more screwed up than the average person. And Joe has an intuitive sense of that. He knows that the geniuses are way more screwed up than the average person, and he goes right for the jugular.

And I mean that— Honestly, it's because I'm about as dysfunctional as a person can get.

And when I say goes right for the jugular, I mean it in the funniest way. Because he makes fun of their foibles. And I mean, if he finds something that they're insecure about, he just makes fun of them in front. I mean, it's like amazing, but it's the most profound instant friendship formula that I've seen. Now, I tend to mess with people too, and that's why—

I asked Richard Branson on, you know, tape, I said, you know, if you were to get in a fight with Al Gore, you think you could take him? And I mean, and you say— and when I talked to Rupert Murdoch at All Things Do, I'm talking, I'm like in front of a huge audience, I'm like, "Do you believe in God?" And he's like, "Yes, I do." And then I had a drink with him after the speech, because who the hell says shit like that to Rupert Murdoch?

Yeah, so those are just kind of underscoring a couple of your points. If you treat— if you meet one of these people and you treat them like they're some perfect high-status being and you start acting weird around them and you become all formal and stilted, what are they going to do? Right? They're going to feel weird. Exactly. They're going to be like, "Okay, another person acting weird around me." On the other hand, if you do what this guy does and says, "Hi, I'm Joe Polish. Do you believe in God?" Or mess with them in any one of a million ways, it's like instant rapport.

No, like one thing which I do in elevators a lot, but you could also do it with really well-known people that everyone's always serious around them is, you know, you get the best thing is try it here in an elevator with people you don't know when it's all silent and there's room, just turn around and say, "Can I ask you all a question? Have you accepted Jesus Christ as your Savior?" Now, just pause enough to say, "No, I'm kidding," because there's a difference between goofing on people and being cruel. But, you know, your own version of that, because some people that's already offensive. To them.

But, you know, as an alternative, you might try, "If the money were right and it could fit into your schedule, do you have a minute to take a look at an opportunity?" I learned that from my friend Sean back there. It's a good one.

But see, the weird thing too is I've had to figure that out because I am I am an introvert. I am not an extrovert. I have forced myself to have to go out and have to talk to people, especially when you get into the public speaking thing. The first time I ever had to do a public speech, I mean, now I've actually spoken, largest crowd I've spoken in front of is 5,000 people. But man, when I first had to do it, it was just nerve-wracking. And the second time I had to do it, it was nerve-wracking and it was nerve-wracking. But, you know, eventually you just kind of, But I realized that if I want to get checks, you got to talk to people. You know, that's what entrepreneurs have to do. So there's one thing that my good friend Dan Sullivan says is, you know, two things you need to be successful as an entrepreneur: you need courage and ignorance. And I had a lot of both in the very beginning, and so I still do. So, you know, first off, be willing, and I've also reframed the thing about rejection and stuff. You know, it's not rejection, it's taking a survey of who has good taste and who doesn't, you know, stuff like that. And, you know, but also remember the Wayne Gretzky thing. Always remember when you're thinking about it, you know, you miss 100% of the shots you don't take. And just go out there and take the shots and just do it. Because, you know, the world does not reward people that don't go out there and do it, you know. And you only lose if you fail to lose the lesson, you know, stupid little clichés. But here's the other thing too, I never ask anybody to do anything for me without creating value for them first. And sometimes that value is simply wanting to make them laugh, even with my goofy jokes and the way— I mean, it's truly, I'm just trying to be fun with people. I'm trying to make them smile. I'm trying to just have a good time. And if I can't do any of those things, at least I amuse the hell out of myself. But always create value for people. I never ask anybody to do anything for for me, give me an— do an interview with me. And I've interviewed some great— I mean, next week, I'm interviewing Hugh Downs on video. I've got a verbal agreement from Tiger Woods to do a Genius Network interview. Part of it is— but I always think of how can I create value for this person? And if you show up with that attitude, the whole— I don't know who originally said it— you can get anything you want in life if you help enough other people get what they want. So always think about what is the value that you could create, provide, give, offer, link them to. And if you use that approach, you can pretty much meet a lot of people. And when you don't know anyone in the beginning, as a marketer, you have to manufacture your own credibility. That's where learning marketing techniques and things come in. But after you've interviewed someone that's really famous, or you know someone that's really connected, it just builds upon it. So, in the beginning, you're gonna have to build up the momentum, but it's a lot easier to maintain momentum than it is to create it. So, just be willing to spend a little bit of time creating it and doing some things in the beginning and just, you know, your life and your income and everything will grow as a result of it. And I mean, I could say more, but I don't wanna hog the mic. Thank you. 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.