Ethical Selling For Any Business ft. Brian Ahearn | Ep. 133 |

People seem to forget if you change today, today will change your life. Hello, Brian. How you doing?

I'm doing great. How are you today?

I am very well, and thank you very much for joining me on the podcast. And we were just chatting beforehand in terms of how things are going on with, you know, for you with the pandemic and everything else, very crazy time for you. And so, you know, from your point of view, with everything going on in the US at the moment, how are you feeling?

I'm feeling good because the weather is changing and we're coming out from under the quarantine. Got to go out and have breakfast with a friend. Hadn't done that for quite a while, so. Starting to feel like there's light at the end of the tunnel. Of course, there's a lot of civil unrest, too, but that's starting to not die down. The movement won't die down, but in terms of the unrest is starting to die down, and I think there'll start to be some good dialogue going forward. So things are brightening up, I think.

Good, good. Well, no, I'm glad to hear that. And for the people listening, you know, I've certainly know a bit about you and certainly done my research as well, but for the people listening, Brian, just if you could introduce yourself in terms of your. Your backstory and, and how you've come to be in the position that you are now.

Okay. Well, I spent over 30 years in the insurance industry, and quite a bit of that was involved with sales training. I came across some material from a man named Dr. Robert Cialdini, who's the most sighted living social psychologist in the world, on the science of influence. And I realized when I came across his information that it was the underpinning of selling. It was why certain sales techniques worked, why some didn't. And I really gravitated to it and I started utilizing it in sales training. And as fate would have it, I ended up meeting Dr. Cialdini, went through some workshops, got certified, and then left the insurance industry about a year and a half ago. And I now do this full time, teaching people about the psychology of persuasion. How is it that they can communicate with somebody in order to get them to say yes? And I was fortunate enough to be one of only 20 people in the world who's been certified by Dr. Cialdini to teach his methodology.

And on, I mean, and yeah, Robert Geraldini, someone that I've read and come across plenty of times. So I'm really curious as to, you know, when we're talking about the evolution of influence from your perspective, how you feel it's evolved from when you started, and also in terms of what direction is it moving in? Because from when I started looking at sales and influence and persuasion, all those things, just in the short period of time that I've been doing this stuff, it's changed. So how do you feel like it's evolved over time?

Well, I think our understanding always gets better because there's more and more research from the time when Robert Cialdini wrote the book Influence Science and Practice. That was in the mid-80s. What really was interesting about that book was he pulled together all of this research and looked at human behavior and said, when it comes to the process of influencing people, there are really six, six principles, six ways that we can engage people that really can help move them to action. And so he coined the term the principles of influence. Prior to that, the research was kind of all over the map and nobody really kind of had a handle or a methodology around influence. It was just, you know, learning bits here and there. So that was the first big step in the mid-80s. And then people started to really recognize, you know, this is the underpinning, as I say, of selling, but it really is the underpinning of coaching, of leadership. Any position that requires you to get a yes and get people to take action, this psychology applies. What I think has really changed over time is the mediums that we use. So when he first wrote that, we didn't have the Internet, we didn't have cell phones. And so how we communicate now is different. But the psychology, the human mind hasn't changed in some 40,000 years. So the psychology is every bit as relevant today as it was when he wrote the book back in the mid-80s. It's just that we need to adjust for the communication mediums that we now use. So for me, that's really the biggest change. And in two years from now, there could be a whole new medium. And then we'd have to think, well, how do we use that medium? How do we bring the psychology into that to enhance our communication?

Yeah. And, you know, even as I said in the short period I've been doing it in terms of the mediums, I mean, the speed at which marketing changes and everything else. But the way I always, you know, I mentioned this quite often is from a really simplistic point of view with the people I work with, I try to get them to think that all communication often is one of two E's. It's empathy or expectation. And so from any point of view, you know, any negative emotions created around an expectation, you and understanding what someone else's expectations are, but also providing a sense of empathy and understanding. If you can lead with that quite often, then you can get into the intricacies of all of that. And one of the just, you know, speaking of those different principles that you were mentioning, for the people listening, you know, I'm familiar with what they are, but for the people listening, understanding what those principles are, can you talk a bit, a bit more about those principles that you learn and the ones that kind of clearly from your point of view have stood the test of time, really, that continue to be useful for people to understand?

Sure. So there are seven what we call principles of influence. The book Influence Science and Practice. Robert Cialdini laid out six when he wrote Pre Suasion several years ago. He introduced a seventh principle. So the seven principles are. The first that I typically talk about is liking. And all of your audience will get this. It's easier to say yes to people we know and like.

Absolutely.

But. But we need to focus on that to be a relationship builder. The principle of unity is the principle that Cialdini introduced in the book Pre Suasion. And unity is not just, you know, I've heard people say it's liking on steroids. It's just, you know, more powerful. It's much more than that. The principle of unity says that it's easier for us to say yes to those who are of us. So when we are saying yes to people that we are unitized with, in a sense, we're saying yes to ourselves. The tightest group like that would be family. I mean, you are genetically related. When you help your family, you in a sense are helping yourself and your gene pool continue on. But there are other examples too. My father served in the United States Marine Corps during Vietnam. My father will do anything for another Marine. Probably those are the closest people in his life other than his family, even the Marines he's not met. As soon as he finds out you're a Marine, there's this sense of we're one. So that's another principle, the principle of unity. The principle of reciprocity is the principle that alerts us to the reality that we feel this obligation to give back to people who first give to us. You know, generally when we do something kind for somebody, they feel grateful and at a minimum they say thank you. But quite often they will look to do something more. Those three principles are very good when it comes to building rapport or if you have A longer term interaction with somebody, building relationship. There are a couple that are really good when people are in a state of uncertainty. And those would be social proof and authority. Social proofs, the feeling that we have that we should kind of go along with the crowd. As social creatures, human beings, we are impacted by how other people are thinking, feeling, behaving, because that'll impact how we think, how we feel and how we behave. I mean, best example I can give that everybody will get Amazon reviews. We see other people who are like us giving four and five star ratings. We are far more likely to consider that product than we are a product that has no ratings or two and three stars. We feel more comfortable following that crowd. Principle of authority tells us that we are more likely to follow the lead of somebody who is an expert. We just feel more comfortable if we're not feeling good, we talk to our neighbor. He or she might tell us something. But boy, if we talk to a doctor, we give our much more weight to that because we know that person's an expert. So those two principles, very good. When somebody's not sure what to do that they look at what other people are doing or they look to experts. The last two principles are very good to motivate people to take action. And those would be the principles of consistency and scarcity. Consistency tells us that most people have this internal psychological pressure, but also an external social pressure to be consistent in what they say and what they do. Most human beings, as little pleasure seekers and pain avoiders, we feel better about ourselves when our words and deeds line up. So if we can get someone to commit to us, to actually say they'll do something, the odds that they will do that go up dramatically. And that final principle is scarcity, which I think everybody will understand this too. When we think something's rare or going away, there's just something in us that wants it more. And so by alerting people to the rarity or the scarcity of something that may be the deciding factor to get them to actually take action. So that's a very high level overview of the seven principles.

Thank you for that. And yeah, and a lot of those things are just for the type of sales work I do with people. Just they are just, they feel, sometimes they feel overly simplistic. And yet it's the simple things in sales that make such huge differences. And, and it's the simple things that people get wrong. You know, people looking for like, what's the perfect way to do this, the perfect way to do this. But really it's just the simplicity of understanding those principles and understanding actually truly what they mean that makes the hugest difference. And so when we touch on your book on influence people and I want to talk about the acronym which and specific. You know, it's got powerful everyday opportunities to persuade that are lasting and ethical. I love the fact that the word ethical is in there because anyone, and this is part of what I feel has been a shift is more and more people I work with that's at the forefront of their mind, that's incredibly important that they don't want to come across as the preconceived salesperson they want to be. You know, they should be doing it ethically but they also want people want to come across as ethical. I wanted to touch onto that and also talk a little bit about you mentioned beforehand in terms of the difference between ethical and using these very powerful sales techniques as a form of which you know can be used as a form of manipulation in the wrong hands. Why is the ethical part so incredibly important to you, Brian? And also in terms of how someone can be more ethical in what they do, what can people do to do a better job of that?

Well, I can tell you, David, if it were not for the word manipulation, you and I would not be having this conversation. Because it was in the early 2000s and I forget exactly which year it was. 2002, maybe 2003. A co worker at the insurance company I work for gave a videotape to my boss and I she was studying for her master's. She saw this videotape of Robert Cialdini presenting at Stanford. She knew right away that we would really like it. So she gives us this video. And I watched the video and for me the light bulb comes on. That's where I thought holy cow, what he's talking about here, that's the underpinning of all selling. It's why certain sales techniques work and certain ones don't. It's the psychology behind it. I really appreciated that he backed up everything with data. Being a social scientist, he referred to experiments, research. And so I felt like I can get behind this. There's proof that this stuff works. And the third thing was his stance on ethics. He was very clear about non manipulative ways to move people to action. So the video was so good that I signed up for Stanford's marketing. I started getting other information and materials that we were using at the insurance company. And one day a marketing flyer comes across my desk and I'm flipping through it and I see Cialdini's picture. And in bold letters right at the top it says bestseller and right underneath it it says call it influence, persuasion, or even manipulation. And I just thought, I can't believe they actually used that word. He was so clear about non manipulative ways to do things. So the moral part of me felt like it needed to be addressed. And I emailed Stanford and I basically said in my email, I don't know anyone who wants to be a good manipulator and I don't know anybody who wants to be manipulated. That word cannot be helping your sales, but it really could be hurting. Never heard from Stanford. But sometime later, my phone rang at work and it was Robert Cialdini's office. And one of his representatives called and said, I'm calling to thank you on behalf of Dr. Cialdini. You sent an email to Stanford and because of that they're changing the marketing of all of our materials. I was like, wow, that is really cool. It was in that conversation that she said, you know, if your company ever needs a guest speaker, he travels the world and talks about this. Fate would have it. I said, I sit next to the woman who books all of our speakers and plans our events. Would you like to speak with her? And in summer of 2004, he was in Columbus, Ohio, several times to address our agents. And that was the beginning of my relationship with him. So a long way of saying, David, if I didn't feel so strongly about doing this ethically, I never would have sent that email. And the whole course of my career would be different because I wouldn't have sent that email. Nobody, none of your clients, none of my clients, nobody would ever want to deal with somebody if they learned they went to a class on how to manipulate people. But we all know that we do need to get people to do things. And the definition that I talk about when I talk about persuasion, love Aristotle's definition. It's the art of getting somebody to do something that they wouldn't ordinarily do if you didn't ask. So it really comes down to, okay, they're not doing what we want or need them to do. How am I going to ask? And I can make that ask in a very, very ethical way. I don't have to resort to manipulation and trickery to get people to do things. Because when I these principles which describe how humans think and behave, I now have a whole new tool set to communicate with people.

That is an incredible story. And when people have those stories like that, which just as you put it, just alters their career in such a way. But you did it for no other reason than you've seen value from someone and it made you go to that extreme for no reason not to get anything in return. And I always refer to that as sort of unconditional giving. And in any kind of relationship or, you know, anyone listening, their personal interactions, that ability to be able to give to someone unconditionally. You know, in any relationship, you have that honeymoon period where at the beginning you do anything, you do anything for no reason at all. And then five years down the line, 10 years, 20 years down the line, they ask you to do something and you're like, well, do it yourself. And the whole dynamic changes. And that's when you start getting into trading or expect, you know, creating expectations. But unconditional giving always stress to people if there's, if there are ways to do that, at some point someone will do something. Not that you need it, not that you're looking for it, but someone will do something massive for you in return. And you'll think, why have you done that? And they'll say, well, do you remember that thing that you did that you probably thought was nothing? That's that. You have no idea how much that means to me. So that's a fantastic story. I love that story. And so getting onto that relationship aspect is. There'll be lots of people listening. You know, for some people, sales is everything every single part of their day. And for other people that sales isn't every part of the day, but they haven't quite realized or noticed that influence is part of their everyday persuasion is part of their every day. And so from people who aren't interested from a business point of view, but in terms of their own everyday life, and they know that actually if they can create the shift or persuasion or influence or be more influential that it make a massive difference in their life. How can they incorporate these values in their everyday life? And perhaps with your book, the main things that you want people to get across in terms of their everyday life.

Well, when I'm in front of an audience, I usually very early on will ask the question and I'll say, you know, by a show of hands, how many of you would agree with the following statement that much of your professional success and personal happiness depends on getting people to say yes and every hand goes up. Because in a business sense, they know whether they're in sales, management, leadership, they have to get people to say yes, to keep moving the ball forward and achieve the goals, their personal goals and their Corporate goals. But when they stop and they start to realize, when I go home and I interact with my spouse, my significant other, my kids, my neighbors, when they more willingly say yes, life tends to be more peaceful and happy, there's less friction. And so at that point, virtually every person is dialed in and what I have to share because I'll tell them, you know, what you're going to learn is how to get more people to say yes to you more often. So you know, there's an ROI at work, very tangible ROI to being better at this. But I want people who are listening to start to realize, how often are you asking your spouse? Unfortunately, too many people are probably telling, but asking is better. How often are you interacting with that spouse, significant other kids, where you want them to do something that they probably are not going to do unless you're having that communication. Well, now you need influence. And the more you understand how they think and behave and the more you're willing to change how you communicate, the better your chance. An example of this, David, is sometimes people will say, what do you mean I should ask? I'm the parent, I shouldn't have to ask. Okay, you want to go bang your head on that wall a little longer? Feel free to. But research is really clear. When you ask instead of tell and you can get someone to say yes, the chances of them doing what you want go up dramatically and it removes a lot of miscommunication like, oh, I didn't hear you, I was going to do it later, I've been busy. But if I ask and I say, would you be able to do this for me by Tuesday? Yes. They're more likely to do it if they say I won't be able to get that done by Tuesday. Being a good influencer, I know that I've got fallback positions and I might say, would you be able to do it by Wednesday? Yeah, I think I could do it by Wednesday. I'm still getting what I need. But it's about changing how I communicate with people based on what the data says.

And I do like that you sort of got a very science based approach to that. I'm very similar that I like to see the evidence that backs all of this stuff up. And that's why I like Robert Cialdini as well. Because as you said, that's very much the standpoint that he came from. And what I'm curious about is, you know, there are lots of information, lots of data around persuasion, influence and sales and lots of different perspectives is with your book, why did you feel this was the right time? What made you write it at this particular moment?

Well, it's really two things. Timing. I started the book a long time ago and I was so busy with my corporate job, travel, training, all the things that I was doing that I didn't get it published as quickly as I wanted to. But when I left my corporate job, that was my number one goal. I said, I am so deep into this process, I need to get this thing finished. And so I was able to do that. So that's part of the timing. But the reason that I wrote the book was in having worked with Robert Cialdini and his material and hundreds or thousands of independent insurance agents on selling. What I recognized was no matter how deep people go into like a two day workshop that I do, a lot of them still struggle to actually put this into practical application. And so I'm very clear in the book that I'm not a social scientist or a behavioral economist. I don't aspire to be. But I love reading about the research and my mind works in a way that it sees application. And the book is intended to help people have very practical ways to take the research. I don't go deep into the science, I mention it, but it's really about. Read this chapter and you're going to walk away with at least one thing you could do today to be more influential. And there's, and there's lots of chapters.

And what I like is having gone through a few different things that you've done and you're you, obviously your blog and everything else is, you know, complex like you would already know. Complexity is the enemy to success, isn't it? And so the very simple nature and sales can feel very intricate, it can feel overly detailed. There can be a lot of thing that one has to digest at once. And so I really like the approach that you have in terms of creating it really simple. However, I always, I'm sure you've wondered the question and I certainly would love to get your view on it, is are people, are there people who are sort of, you know, disposed to be better influencers? Right. So I don't want to say are people born great sales salespeople. And absolutely everyone who's ever been involved in sales or persuasion or influence, whether it's in negotiation or anything else, they've had to, you know, you have to be trained to do that. But where do you draw the line and where do you think it is from someone? Can you look at someone before they've even started? Incorporate the principles and go, you know what, that that's what makes someone good at, good at this or do you think you know what it's. It's very much about? Anyone can pick up these principles and be better. And of course anyone could be better. But in terms of reaching that level of being very, very good at this, where do you draw the line on that?

I think you're right. Anybody can get better. And I always emphasize that no matter where you are in the spectrum, you can get better by understanding the research and putting it into application just like you or I. If we understand the research about healthy living and fitness, that we could get more fit doesn't mean that you and I are going to go run an Olympic marathon or something like that. But we have to say I can get much better. Most people can get much better than they think.

They can even agree with that.

Yeah, I think a real key for that is understanding who you are and what your strengths are. So I will give you an example. People who are very outgoing and expressive, they might be naturally, they might find this easier because they already like people and they're interacting and it's not hard for them to go up and start a conversation, pick up the phone and make a phone call. They may have a weakness though in terms of their organization and their follow up. Somebody like me, who is much more naturally in the logical, analytical category. My strength is my organization and my ability to follow up and to build a system that will not let me miss a follow up call, follow up email. So nothing slips through the cracks. So if I can play to that strengths and then bring this influence in, that's where I can really be so much better than I was before, you know. But I would say somebody who is more naturally outgoing, this might come easier to them. Just like public speaking might be easier for that more flamboyant, outgoing person. But that doesn't mean that the person who's a little more reserved can't learn how to leverage that and really become a very, very compelling speaker.

I like, yeah, for people I've worked with in speaking or in sales or in any kind of, I guess, high performance setting is that there is often that worry that the, the introvert loses out. Right. A lot of people who I've worked with, who they would regard themselves as the introvert, they go, oh, you know what? Well, I'm the introvert, so I'm never going to be here. I'm never going to be here. And so I like how you've spoken about the qualities of Both. And actually there is a, there is a space to leverage your talents or your skills in this particular domain.

To consider that you don't overplay your strengths. Example, if we just use the speaking, if you're naturally outgoing and engaging, you might start to rest too much on that and forget that certain things like maybe visuals can really enhance your message. So if you're more introverted and you recognize that and maybe you build in your great visuals and keywords and things like that, that's where you can really leverage that strength. So we always have to be a little bit careful that we don't over rely on something to the detriment of other things that could really be helping us.

Yeah, great. Yeah, definitely, definitely a great point. And even within that, I just think lots of people, you know, because we have a survival brain, don't we? Our brain is not designed to, to make us happy. It's designed to help us survive. And so we look for what is the danger. We look for what is wrong and what needs improving as a survival trait. But people just, you know, you get those two categories, don't you? You get people who just will never acknowledge or recognize their strengths and therefore never really play into that. But as you said, the opposite is absolutely true, is the person who leans on those things and really lacks some very simple or basic qualities that can, that can really develop their success very quickly. Who do you believe are the greatest influences of our time? You know, obviously someone like Robert Cialdini is someone that's had a great influence on you, but for people kind of in the kind of broader space, whether it's names that they know or it might be people that you've specifically worked with, where you've gone, wow, that, that's someone who's really, really excellent at this. Who do you think are the greatest influences of our time and why?

Well, I would say that first the greatest influencers are parents because they may not realize it, but everything they say and do is being taken in and is forming their children into the people that they're going to become. Now some children will get older and reject some of it and some will adhere to it. But I think parents have way more opportunity to be persuasive and influential with their kids than they recognize. You know, I think when we get past that, not at all times, but I think like Steve Jobs, I mean he changed the world and it wasn't just the technology that Apple came up with, and most of the technology wasn't, was not built by Steve Jobs. It wasn't original yet, but the way he communicated about it, you know, I always think about when he introduced the ipod. And he was very thoughtful, intentional, practiced all of those presentations that he did. He did it so much that it just seemed so natural. But when he pulled out that first generation ipod out of his pants pocket to show just how small it was, you didn't even know it's there. And he holds it up and he says, a thousand songs in your pocket. He recognized that he couldn't talk about 5 gigabytes or whatever, thousand songs. Everybody at that time could think, that's my whole CD collection right here. And then he did something else that was brilliant. He didn't tell them it was amazing. He said, isn't this amazing?

Yeah, yeah.

The subtlety of what he made his comparison to the subtlety of asking rather than telling. And once the heads are nodding, the people are buying. For that reason, his ability to. To take. And he certainly had a lot of say on design and things, but his ability to get people excited about next generation Apple products and the change that they made, moving away from just the old Macs into the portable phones and things like that, he truly had a huge, huge influence on our generation. So he comes to mind as somebody right away who I think did an outstanding job. Like him or not, I think, you know, Bill Clinton was an amazing communicator. His ability, and you mentioned the term empathy earlier, his ability to really get people to believe that he empathized with them. You know, he famously said, I feel your pain, and people believed it. And so he had, like all politicians, he had his problems, but he was an amazing, amazing communicator in terms of mobilizing people. And I think Barack Obama more so early in his presidency, the enthusiasm that he was able to bring people to get people on board. But here in America, after eight years, every politician becomes old hat and people are ready for a change. But his hope and change message early on was incredible in mobilizing people across the country.

I think most people could certainly agree with those examples. But also for parents listening who still want to hold some hope that they can have more influence or greater impact on their children. And certainly Brian's thoughts around this area would be. Would be very interesting for. You know, I can say this from reading his stuff personally, that's be really interesting thoughts to incorporate and very simple and very straightforward. And before we kind of talk about where they can pick up your book, Brian, or find out more about you, which I'm sure plenty of people will want to Do. The last thing I wanted to ask, really, is we talk about influence and. And to ask you what's influencing you at the moment and what's your motivating factor going forward. You got to this particular stage and now you're thinking, okay, so the thing that's influencing me, where I'm trying to go right now, is to hear what's influencing you right now.

I think more than anything, my desire to help people enjoy more success and happiness, that's, you know, when people ask about, like, you know, to use Simon Sinek's term, what's your. Why I would say success and happiness, I really feel like I can make the world a little bit better place if I am doing something that can help people enjoy more success at the office. Because success at the office probably means you go home and you are happier. Might be a raise, a promotion, a bonus. All kinds of good things can happen when you are really successful at the office. So. So I feel like that's a great way to help. But I also know that what I teach can help them have more happiness at home. And so I think if I can look back on my life and say, I helped a lot of people achieve more success and happiness, I will have done a very, very good thing. My platform to do that is teaching them how to ethically communicate and influence others to take actions that are needed. So focusing on the words success and happiness, really, even though it's been kind of my why for quite some time, it seems like gets bigger and more important all the time.

Yeah, I like that you just said that, actually, that it gets. That it gets more. You think you know what that is. Anyone thinks they know what that is, and then another decade goes by and it means something a bit more to find the balance of those two things because they obviously, they are very much hand in hand. And Brian, I want to thank you very much for your time. For people who were very engaged in this particular episode and very much curious to find out more. Where can they find out more about you and where can they find your book? Brian?

Okay, well, if any listener wants to connect with me on LinkedIn, please feel free to do so. If you don't tell me that you heard me on the podcast, expect that I will get back to you and say, how did you find me? I like to understand where traffic's coming from, and I think it's a great way to put the social back in social media by having some exchange. Yes, my website is influencepeople Biz, and out there you'll be able to see videos, hear podcasts. I've been on been blogging for more than a decade. Just a tremendous amount of resources there, and also links over to coursework I've done with LinkedIn learning. And you can get to the book through the website, or you can just go directly to Amazon and it's in paperback, ebook and audio.

Fantastic. Well, Brian, again, I would just want to thank you very, very much for your time and love to have you back in the future.

Well, it was my pleasure. David and I would love to come back and we can dive in deep. So some very specific application, if you'd like to do that.

I'd love to do that. And I feel like there's plenty more to so thank you very much, Brian.