The Persuasion Trick That Took Sales From 15% to 55% | Robert Cialdini

Robert Cialdini is a retired research psychologist who studied influence by training incognito in sales and fundraising programs. Persuasion works best when a communicator gives first and builds a shared sense of unity before making a request. The conversation covers reciprocity, social proof, scarcity, loss aversion, the unity principle, his books Influence and Pre-Suasion, the Gordon's Restaurant no-show study and Bose ad tests.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:01Lewis Howes?

  You ever grab a protein bar because you're trying to eat healthier? Take one bite and wonder why you're putting yourself through this? I've always believed that if you want to build healthy habits that stick, you've got to actually enjoy what you're eating. And that's what I love about the idea behind Stars and Honey. They make dessert-inspired protein bars because eating better shouldn't mean giving up great taste. Each bar has 15 grams of protein, six grams of fiber, just four grams of sugar and 190 calories. And we're talking flavors like iced lemon cookie, mint chocolate chip and red velvet. They've even brought on Martha Stewart as their chief taste officer to help choose flavors and create new ones.

• 0:44Lewis Howes?

  Because at the end of the day, if something tastes good, you're going to want to keep eating it. Stars and Honey Protein Bars are now available at starsandhoney.com or Target stores nationwide. Order online or grab a box on your next Target run. The School of Greatness is proudly sponsored by Amica Insurance. You know what they say, if you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together. So go with Amica and get coverage from a mutual insurer that's built for their customers. One that looks after what's important to you together. Auto, home, life and more. Coverage that fits your unique needs. Amica helps you protect what matters most. Visit amica.com and get a quote today.

• 1:28Lewis Howes?

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• 2:11Lewis Howes?

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• 2:18Lewis Howes?

  Everywhere I go, airports, events, walking down the street, people stop me and say, Louis, this show got me through one of the hardest seasons of my life. And it's one of the coolest things when people come up to me. So if you see me, please come up and say hi and let me know how this show, The School of Greatness, has impacted you. It lights me up because our mission at Greatness Media is to impact 100 million lives every single week. So if today's conversation hits home for you, do me a favor and push the follow button right now. It means that the next conversation will be delivered to you and will find you exactly when you need it. Again, thank you so much for being here and listening to The School of Greatness. Make sure to follow right now to stay up to date on the latest and greatest.

• 3:03Lewis Howes?

  Welcome back everyone to The School of Greatness. I am very excited about our guest, Dr. Robert Cialdini is in the house. Good to see you, sir. How you doing?

• 3:11Speaker 01

  I'm well, Louis. Good to be with you and your followers.

• 3:16Lewis Howes?

  Yes, I'm very excited about this. For those that have been following me for a long time.

• 3:22Lewis Howes?

  I read your book, Influence. I think it was in 2009 when I read it, maybe it was 2008, 2009. And within months, literally within months, my business started to take off. My community started to grow and opportunities started to flood my way. And I remember people telling me in the online marketing world, you've got to read this book. As I started to kind of launch my online marketing business in 2008, 2009. And I started to implement a few key principles that you have laid out in your book. And again, within weeks and months, things started to come in. And so I'd love to go over some of these principles first for people who haven't read your book. There's been over five million copies sold, so people need to get the book and go through it.

• 4:06Lewis Howes?

  But for, for those who haven't read it, I'd love to go into it and then talk about the, I guess it's the next principle that you've discovered in, in the expanded version of the book. So I'd love to go over each one of these if you're, if you're okay with, with going into that. And also how you discovered these principles as main factors of influence. What was the basis for the research, the studies? I know you have hundreds of peer-reviewed studies that kind of back and prove these things, but, and, and kind of go through it. So the, the first one, which is, I think is reciprocity, reciprocation, I guess you'd call it.

• 4:45Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 4:46Lewis Howes?

  Why is that? It's kind of like the old give and take. You know, let me give you something and then you want to give me something in return. How did that come about as a main, I guess, law of, of influence for you?

• 4:58Speaker 01

  Well, you know, it came about in the way that all of them did, which was that I decided I needed to get out of my laboratory and off my college campus to really understand what were the factors that moved people powerfully and consistently in the direction of a communicator's request or proposal or recommendation. And I did it by answer, answering ads for, to be, to be trained in any of the major influence professions of our society. I took training in how to sell automobiles, how to sell insurance, how to sell portrait photography over the phone.

• 5:43Speaker 01

  But I didn't stop there. I also did the same thing, infiltrated training programs, incognito, disguised identity, disguised intent. They didn't know why I was there. I was there to learn what they had learned over decades and decades of what moves people in their direction. So I did that with fundraisers. I did it with recruiters. I even did it with cult specialists. How did the cults get us to move into their, their orbit and keep us there? And what I looked for were the commonalities. What worked across all of those various influence professions

• 6:28Speaker 01

  whose economic livelihood, after all, depends on the success of getting people to say yes to them. And what I found just shocked me in how small the footprint was. I only counted six universal principles of influence that seemed to work in each of those domains to move people. And the first one, as you rightly suggested, was the rule for reciprocation. That says, people feel a drive to give back to others who have first given to them. Right? So there are a lot, there are a lot of different ways that we can move people in our direction.

• 7:14Speaker 01

  One is if people see that they owe us, they say yes to us. They say yes to the next request we make of them. So what it means is that we have to go first. We have to give benefits. We have to give information. We have to give advantages. We have to give concessions. And that comes, that flows back to us by the rule that exists in every human culture. Turns out the anthropologists have shown us, there's not a single human society that fails to train its, its youth in this rule. You must not take without giving in return. So what it tells me is that we have to flip the script

• 8:00Speaker 01

  of the usual business arrangement with people where we say to them, you do something for us first. You buy my product, you sign my contract, you make an agreement with me, a commitment to me. And then I will give back to you what I, I hope you will accept. This one says, yeah, that's fine, but there's another route where we go first. We give and then people want by this rule to give to us. There's a lovely study that was, it's not even published yet, conducted in McDonald's restaurants in Colombia and Brazil.

• 8:45Speaker 01

  So, you know, in South America, where they did a promotion one week. Every family that came in, the kids got a balloon as a nice thank you for coming in. Half of them got the balloon as they were leaving. Each of the kids got a balloon. Thank you for, you know, patronizing McDonald's, please come again.

• 9:09Speaker 01

  The other half got the balloon as they entered.

• 9:14Speaker 01

  Those families.

• 9:15Lewis Howes?

  Sales went up.

• 9:16Speaker 01

  Yeah. 25% more food.

• 9:19Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 9:20Speaker 01

  Now here's the thing I love. For a balloon.

• 9:24Lewis Howes?

  A simple little 10 cent balloon.

• 9:26Speaker 01

  For a balloon.

• 9:29Speaker 01

  Now here's the thing I love about that. If you look into the data closely, that 25% increase in buy included 20% higher coffee orders. The kids weren't offering, getting the coffee. The parents were. The, the parents were grateful for what their kids got and they were going to buy more. This has to do with the last principle that we'll talk about later, the principle of unity. But here's the takeaway.

• 10:08Speaker 01

  Any favor you do for my child, you have done for me.

• 10:11Lewis Howes?

  Interesting. You make my child happy. I'm happier and I want to thank you.

• 10:16Speaker 01

  And I'm good. That's right. I'm not just thankful, I'm obligated. I'm, I'm both grateful and obligated by this rule to, to give in return.

• 10:28Lewis Howes?

  Why do we feel, yeah, why do we feel this obligation? Is it trained culturally or society? Is it kind of innate in our human DNA or our psychology or the way our brain works? The chemistry? Why are we, why do we feel obligated to give something in return? When someone gives something to us?

• 10:47Speaker 01

  Because the first of your candidates, I think, is the, is the major one. That we are socialized from childhood into this rule.

• 10:58Speaker 01

  Because that rule, if it exists in any culture, makes the culture thrive. Because people give back and forth. They, they, it allows them to, to be specialized in a particular area where they can have an input. And then somebody gives them something that they don't have in their particular area. And it also allows people to cooperate toward a common goal.

• 11:27Speaker 01

  If this rule didn't exist, why would I ever give something first to you?

• 11:33Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 11:34Speaker 01

  With the risk of losing it.

• 11:35Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 11:36Speaker 01

  For the first time in evolutionary history now, there is a rule that allows us to give something without giving it away. We don't give it away. It comes back to us. And so we're now freed to begin economic exchanges that require that we trust the other person will not just take this. So, you know, in, in every human language, we have very nasty names for people who take without giving in return. And we don't want to be saddled with those names. I know in English, we call them moochers, right?

• 12:17Lewis Howes?

  Yes. I, I've been that in my life. When I had no money and I was broke and I was sleeping on my sister's couch for about a year and a half, I was a moocher because I was like, and it doesn't feel good. You know, mooching off my sister, eating her food, you know, not paying rent, not working. And I was like, that's when I started to study your work.

• 12:36Speaker 01

  And you can't, you can't wait. I mean, you're on the balls of your feet, waiting to get in a position to help in return when she might need something.

• 12:45Lewis Howes?

  Oh, that's, that's all I wanted to do is constantly give back. It's, it's funny because I was talking about this a couple of days ago, actually. For the last, I don't know, eight years, I feel very uncomfortable when I go to dinner or lunch or coffee with someone. I feel very uncomfortable for them paying for me. I almost always pay, almost always. Unless someone is like, somehow sneaks their credit card in before me with, you know, with the waiter or something. And it's because for almost two years, I couldn't, like everyone else had to pay for me. And I feel I, I feel obligated to pay the debt back.

• 13:19Speaker 01

  Isn't that interesting?

• 13:20Lewis Howes?

  I feel obligated. It's been a decade and I still feel like, ah, I just need to keep paying and paying it. Like I feel the obligation and, you know, I don't feel bad about it. It just feels hard to receive because I know that I was a mooch for most two years. And, uh, you know, you're, I, I believe you're close with Adam Grant, who talks about this in his book, Give and Take. And then there's another book called Giftology by John Ruland. I'm not sure if you've heard of Giftology.

• 13:45Speaker 01

  Both of those. I've read and recommend.

• 13:48Lewis Howes?

  Yeah. The principles of kind of giving first and not waiting for someone to buy, but giving first. I'm curious, in the online marketing world where it seems like every website is trying to give you something to opt in. Is there ever too much saturation of giving where people, where it diminishes the opportunity to connect or someone to opt in or to buy? Is there ever kind of too much saturation where it numbs us? Or is this always going to work?

• 14:22Speaker 01

  Well, it, it is diminished where we don't see the gift as something genuine, but just as a device that you give to everybody. It's not, you don't, you're not trying to benefit me. You're trying to just get me to feel obligated. So for me, there's good evidence on this. It, the more we can personalize what we give, the more people feel like they really want to give back. And, uh, here's another study that shows that. It's also in a fast food restaurant. People came into the shop and half of them were greeted warmly and then went to the counter.

• 15:07Speaker 01

  Another group of them was given a gift, a little key ring, a nice expensive key ring, right? And the third group was given a small cup of yogurt. Now, those who were given the key ring bought 12% more food than those who weren't given anything. Just as we said, right? But those given the yogurt bought 24% more food.

• 15:37Lewis Howes?

  Why is that?

• 15:39Speaker 01

  Why do you go to a restaurant? Because you're hungry.

• 15:44Lewis Howes?

  You're hungry. So if you give them food.

• 15:46Speaker 01

  You, I've personalized the gift to your challenges, your needs, what you prefer in that moment. And I double your likelihood.

• 15:56Lewis Howes?

  So it's not a random gift. It's something you came in for already, some hunger. And I wonder if they did an extra study where it said, you get to choose the flavor. And it was specialized to you even more. I wonder if that, how that would work, but.

• 16:10Speaker 01

  That's a, that's interesting. I don't know. There's, uh, there's another principle of social proof that we'll get to later.

• 16:19Lewis Howes?

  Yes.

• 16:20Speaker 01

  That says if, um, I, let's say it's a dessert. It was in a McDonald's and they have various kinds of, of, uh, additions you can put on, you know, sprinkles or Oreos.

• 16:38Speaker 01

  If you, if you tell people what the most, um, popular addition is,

• 16:50Speaker 01

  uh, it, it raises the willingness to get additions by 45%.

• 16:56Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 16:57Speaker 01

  So we'll get to that, the idea that, uh, you can ask people and give them an option and tell them in the, in the process, what a lot of people like them prefer.

• 17:09Lewis Howes?

  Yes. I think, yeah, I think of Sees Candy, um, where if you go in, they give you a piece of free chocolate. Like you get to kind of pick the chocolate, your liking. It's like, yeah, I want this piece. And they always give a free piece of chocolate to anyone. And sometimes they'll give you a couple of pieces where it's like, now I want to buy more. It's just this feeling of obligation of like, of course I want to buy. And just the fact that you know, you can go into the store and get a free piece. You could walk out if you want to, but just the knowing, I can go into Sees Candy store. I can get a piece of chocolate I want. I'm going to feel like obligated, so I'm going to do it anyways.

• 17:43Speaker 01

  To, to, to your question, how do you do this online?

• 17:47Lewis Howes?

  Yes.

• 17:47Speaker 01

  How do you personalize? Well, if you have a particular expertise, right? And you know that people are following you because they want that particular thing. You give them something like the top three things you can do to enhance your success on this particular topic, in this particular dimension that you're, that you're here for. Or here are the top five mistakes that people should avoid in, in buying insurance or selecting, uh, you know, uh, motorcycle parts, whatever it is, right?

• 18:33Speaker 01

  It shouldn't be something that specifically enhances your business. Because that is seen as a device now.

• 18:45Speaker 01

  That's just, you're just promoting yourself. No, what will make you a better consumer, a better reviewer, a better decision maker in this particular field? Give that first.

• 19:00Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 19:01Speaker 01

  People will feel indebted for that.

• 19:04Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, I'm always of the mindset of like, give as much of your best stuff upfront for free, like give as much value as possible and let people just be like, man, this is unbelievable. This is the authority, which we'll go into a little bit later. And when you showcase your value and people realize, wow, no one else in this space is giving like this. I trust this person more. I like this person more. You know, all the things that we're going to talk about here.

• 19:28Speaker 01

  I agree with you on that. And there are, there are people who argue with me that, no, no, no, don't give away your best stuff. No, no, you'll save that. Wait a minute. How do people know what your best stuff is? Unless you give them a sample of it.

• 19:44Lewis Howes?

  You gotta give a sample. Is there a diminishing return based on the season of your gift giving? For example, it doesn't seem like there is with seize candy. When people come in, they've been doing this for probably decades where you get a free piece of chocolate. But talking about it in maybe the online marketing world or online business world, if you're just giving the same PDF or video series or audio series for three, five, 10 years in a row, are there diminishing returns with that season? Should we be changing up the give every six to 12 months? Have you seen any research around that?

• 20:24Speaker 01

  Yes, we should because it turns out that what we give, if it is new, if it is unexpected, it increases the likelihood of the amount that people give back to us.

• 20:38Lewis Howes?

  Interesting.

• 20:39Speaker 01

  And because it's, once again, not just the same thing. It's, it's more personalized. It's, you've updated it for us. So that makes it feel, you know, more thoughtful.

• 20:54Lewis Howes?

  Unique. Yeah, unique and rare and interesting and all these things. What else around reciprocation should we be aware of that's important for us? And is there any downside?

• 21:07Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 21:07Lewis Howes?

  To, to how much you can give? Like, is there, you know, I'm spending so much money on this give and it's not working in terms of making me money. Is there a downside there?

• 21:19Speaker 01

  Well, there is a downside and I'll give you an example of what I found is a mistake that people make. After they have done something that is truly beneficial to a group or an audience or an individual, let's say an individual, you've done something and that person comes back to you and says, Louis, thank you. I can't tell you how important that was for me. It was, it, it really did pull me out of the, the problem I was in and I can't tell. And here's what I used to say when people would, ah, listen, don't think anything of it. No big deal. I would have done, you know, it's part of the job. Would have done

• 22:04Speaker 01

  it for anybody. You've just slapped the rule of reciprocity out the window where it dominates that situation. You really did go out of your way. You really did go above and beyond and you've diminished it. So here's what I recommend that you say.

• 22:26Speaker 01

  You say, of course, I was glad to do it. It's what partners do for one another.

• 22:34Speaker 01

  Don't forget the addendum for one another.

• 22:37Lewis Howes?

  Oh.

• 22:38Speaker 01

  That's the mistake that people very much off. You have to put it on the map. You have to acknowledge you don't diminish it. You don't dismiss it. You put it on the map and you say, it's what we do for one another. That person is on record, is ready to give back to you.

• 23:01Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 23:02Speaker 01

  Now, that's for somebody that you've had a relationship. It's what friends do. It's what partners do for one another, a business partner. What if it's somebody who you've helped for the first time? You don't have a lasting relationship. What do you say then? Here's what I would recommend. Again, I was glad to do it. I know that if the situation

• 23:23Speaker 01

  were ever to be reversed, you'd do the same for me.

• 23:26Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 23:28Speaker 01

  You'd do the same for me. Again, you've put it, you've put the person on record. Yes. Yeah, I did do you a favor. And I know you're the kind of person who plays by the rules. The key is not to say, oh, I know if the situation had been reversed, you would have done the same for me. That's in the past. That will never happen. You say, if the situation would be reversed, you would do the same for me. You're going to get the next request you ask for.

• 24:00Lewis Howes?

  Wow. The subtle, the subtleties of how we communicate are so important in creating the life of our dreams and struggling consistently. I think the little nuances, you know, Chris Voss, who I think you know as well.

• 24:15Speaker 01

  I do.

• 24:16Lewis Howes?

  Talks about this in his work, Never Split the Difference. Just the little subtle communication, you know, the way we communicate, the words we use at the specific time can drastically transform our life for good or not for good. And I, and I think we, we want to learn how to use these tools, the communication styles ethically and in an empowering way so that everyone benefits. There's a win, win, win in every interaction. That's what I think what we're all looking for.

• 24:50Speaker 01

  That's what gets you long-term profitable relationships. People who are, who are with you, who trust you, who recognize that, hey, you're a straight shooter. I can, I can work with this person on into the future and do well.

• 25:07Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, I would see my father do this. My dad was in the insurance business for 33 years and I would see him always going to the local shop. We were in a small town in Delaware, Ohio. So it was a very small community and I would always see him, you know, buying from all the local people and then them buying from him and just like building those relationships. He would send them, you know, gifts. This was like snail mail days where he would like write them letters and he would find newspaper clippings about them and write a little thoughtful note and send it to them just kind of constantly in that giving mentality. And I saw it work for him, you know, for, for decades in the insurance business of the, kind of the old

• 25:47Lewis Howes?

  school, pre-internet social media days. And, and you can do it online, offline. This, this, this law, this principle works.

• 25:54Speaker 01

  You know, I have a colleague, she's my speaker's agent in Europe and she has a client, very big client, but who's a slow pay. He doesn't pay for six months. And all her friends in the business say, oh, this guy, you know, he's, he's a big client. We need him, but he, he, he won't pay our invoices. And she asked me about it. I said, well, what do you know about him? She said, well, he lives in a different city than I do, so I don't know a lot. I just know that he's a, he's a, an art lover. I said, oh, listen,

• 26:34Speaker 01

  go to your local art galleries and museums where they have these little postcards, you know, that show the pictures of the, the exhibitions that they have on display and their permanent work and so on. And put one in the mail with your invoice.

• 26:55Lewis Howes?

  I love that.

• 26:56Speaker 01

  She said, it cut time in half.

• 27:01Lewis Howes?

  That's brilliant. That's brilliant. If you want to get paid, you gotta do, do things a little differently. You gotta stand out. I think that's fascinating.

• 27:10Speaker 01

  Put a, put a Starbucks card in with the invoice.

• 27:14Lewis Howes?

  Something. Could be 25 bucks. It doesn't have to be, yeah.

• 27:17Speaker 01

  Thank you for your business.

• 27:19Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 27:21Speaker 01

  And now they're ready to say, now they're the ones who are saying thank you. And they do it by things like that.

• 27:28Lewis Howes?

  Absolutely.

• 27:29Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 27:30Lewis Howes?

  I love this. Anything else about reciprocation before?

• 27:33Speaker 01

  I think we've covered our bases there.

• 27:35Lewis Howes?

  I love it.

• 27:39Lewis Howes?

  You ever grab a protein bar because you're trying to eat healthier? Take one bite and wonder why you're putting yourself through this? I've always believed that if you want to build healthy habits that stick, you've got to actually enjoy what you're eating. And that's what I love about the idea behind Stars and Honey. They make dessert-inspired protein bars because eating better shouldn't mean giving up great taste. Each bar has 15 grams of protein, six grams of fiber, just four grams of sugar and 190 calories. And we're talking flavors like iced lemon cookie, mint chocolate chip and red velvet. They've even brought on Martha Stewart as their chief taste officer to help choose flavors and create new ones.

• 28:23Lewis Howes?

  Because at the end of the day, if something tastes good, you're going to want to keep eating it. Stars and Honey Protein Bars are now available at starsandhoney.com or Target stores nationwide. Order online or grab a box on your next Target run.

• 28:40Lewis Howes?

  In business, there's the easy way with staples or the hard way. Hard means waiting too long for custom prints when your business needs them now. Easy means banners, business cards and more, ready as fast as same day. Hard means unfortunate printer errors. Easy means quality, professional-grade print solutions. Don't choose hard, choose staples, in-store, online or through the app. This fall, LL Bean is celebrating the moments people look forward to all year. The first school drop-off, the first sweater weather day and the first chilly evening around the fire pit. For over 100 years, LL Bean has been part of these traditions.

• 29:21Lewis Howes?

  Crunching leaves in Maine-made bean boots, cheering from the sidelines in Scotch plaid flannel and walking the dog in a rugged field coat. So grab the layers and people you love and get outside. Visit llbean.com to shop the fall collection. LL Bean, be an outsider. I think it's such an important rule and it's, um, yeah. And it's, it's something that if you're not thinking of this, if you're not coming, in my opinion, if you're not coming from a giving heart first and wanting to add value, wanting to be of service, wanting to give, it's just going to be harder to sustain relationships long-term with your business,

• 30:02Lewis Howes?

  your intimate relationships, your family relationships, if you're always being the moocher or the taker. And so I just come from a place of service first and I think you'll always win out in the win-win-win situation in the long run.

• 30:15Speaker 01

  We are on the same page there. You come from a position of service. What can you provide that enhances the other person's outcomes first? And then as a side effect, they will want to enhance yours.

• 30:31Lewis Howes?

  Absolutely. The, the next principle is commitment and consistency. And I get this question so often, Robert, about people asking me about, you know, how have you built your online business or how have you got your podcast to go so big? What's the secret? What's the hack? What's the trick to help me launch my podcast as fast as you did? And I literally tell people commitment and consistency over, I'm like, I'm going to give you the most boring answer of how I've built, you know, one of the biggest shows, uh, podcasts in the world. And when you do things consistently with a level of commitment to your vision, it starts to pay off. So can you explain more about commitment and consistency?

• 31:12Speaker 01

  I mean, that is very, that is primal, what you just said. You have to have within yourself a commitment to your vision and a consistent movement toward it in ways that really do advance the, toward your goals. But we also need to recognize that the people we want to influence also value consistency in themselves, right? So one thing we can do is to find an existing value or an existing preference of theirs

• 31:49Speaker 01

  and show how what we offer them is consistent with that value, their vision, their commitment. And then they will want to move in our direction because of a drive to be congruent with their existing preferences and, and, and values and, and previous choices.

• 32:12Lewis Howes?

  Right. Can you give an example around that?

• 32:14Speaker 01

  Here's one that

• 32:18Speaker 01

  there was a study done in, um, Chicago. Restaurant owner, not this time a server, but a restaurant owner,

• 32:29Speaker 01

  who was having a problem with no-shows, people who weren't being consistent. They would call, they would make a, they would make a, a reservation and then they wouldn't appear for it. And he went and he listened to what his receptionist would say when she took a booking. And she would say, "Thank you for calling Gordon's Restaurant. Please call if you have to change or cancel your reservation." He asked her to change two words. You were saying a minute ago, you know, it's remarkable how just changing a word or two, you know, it makes a big difference. He asked her to change two words. Instead of saying, "Please call",

• 33:10Speaker 01

  he asked her to say, "Will you please call if you have to change or cancel your reservation?" And then he asked her to pause.

• 33:22Speaker 01

  If I said to you, "Will you please call?" And I paused, what would you fill that pause with?

• 33:30Speaker 01

  Of course, yes.

• 33:31Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, yeah, of course. So it's them reciprocating and saying, "Yes, I will." A commitment.

• 33:36Speaker 01

  You've made a commitment.

• 33:37Lewis Howes?

  Interesting.

• 33:39Speaker 01

  No-shows dropped by 67% because people were on record as publicly committing themselves to that act. Because we all want to be, it's a value to, to live up to what we say. We prefer our, that image of ourselves.

• 33:56Lewis Howes?

  Be our word, yeah.

• 33:57Speaker 01

  Yes. And so you make people,

• 34:01Speaker 01

  uh, make that commitment explicit, "Yes, I will." Now you've given them something to be consistent with.

• 34:08Lewis Howes?

  Because please call is more of an ask. It's not, it's more of like a suggestion. It's not a, an ask with a commitment attached to it.

• 34:17Speaker 01

  The most brilliant thing about his recommendation was asking her to pause. So people had to make an active commitment. Here's another one. I love this one. Guy called me a couple of years ago. He's the Boy Scout leader and he says, "To make money for our troop, we've arranged with a supermarket that we put, uh, tables outside the doors and we sell popcorn to people who come out of the supermarket, uh, to help the Boy Scouts, right? And he said, "Our, our, our results are dismal. We're getting like 15%."

• 34:56Speaker 01

  Well, I can understand why because first of all, people, if they wanted popcorn, they would have bought it in the, in the, and they've already expended their budget, right? And, and they're tired and they're, okay. So I said, "So what do you say when they come?" They said, "Would you like to buy some popcorn? If you do, you could support the Boy Scouts."

• 35:20Speaker 01

  I said, "Try this.

• 35:23Speaker 01

  Say, 'Excuse me, do you support the Boy Scouts?'" Everybody says yes.

• 35:29Lewis Howes?

  Yes. You say, "No, I don't support the Boy Scouts." Yeah, you're like a bad person.

• 35:33Speaker 01

  Who doesn't have as a value, the Boy Scout, right? A preference.

• 35:39Speaker 01

  He says, "Well, if you, if you would, if you do, would you like to buy some popcorn that will support us?" Now 55%.

• 35:49Lewis Howes?

  Bought the, oh my goodness.

• 35:51Speaker 01

  From 15 to 55. And here's what he said to me, he called me up, he said, "This is amazing because the people who don't want the popcorn, say, 'I don't want your popcorn, but I'll give you a donation because I support the Boy Scouts.'"

• 36:07Lewis Howes?

  Amazing.

• 36:08Speaker 01

  So they're, they're making a profit without even having to sell the popcorn.

• 36:15Lewis Howes?

  It's amazing.

• 36:16Speaker 01

  Because they get people to first make a commitment. Where, how do you ask the question so people say yes to the direction you would like them to move before you ask them to move in that direction?

• 36:33Lewis Howes?

  Yeah. I'm, I'm reminded of, I'm having so many flashbacks of early 2010s where I studied your, your book and I was studying everyone else in kind of, uh, behavioral psychology and influence and persuasion and marketing. And I'm reminded of, um, oh my gosh, is it Frank Lutz? Frank Luntz?

• 36:57Speaker 01

  Lutz.

• 36:58Lewis Howes?

  Lutz, yes. Words that work, where he had all these examples, kind of similar to the, you created where it's like, if you just change this one word, all these other things could happen in your favor. And it's so fascinating that you're giving these suggestions and testing these things for the Boy Scouts and all these people. And it's seeing these increases just with a couple little tweaks. And if we learn these things, and I know you've got all this stuff in your book as well, but if we start to really learn these things, it's just the results can be incredible.

• 37:31Speaker 01

  For a return on, on investment, that's.

• 37:37Speaker 01

  Over the top, the, the investment is one more breath?

• 37:42Lewis Howes?

  That's it.

• 37:42Speaker 01

  Will you?

• 37:44Lewis Howes?

  Or the pause, yes.

• 37:46Speaker 01

  And a pause. It's costless. So what I, so I don't know how many of the people who, who listen are managers or have to run teams from time to time where you have a team meeting and everybody has a task to do before the next meeting. Here's what I say, don't let anybody out of that room until you say, will you be able to complete that task by our next?

• 38:22Lewis Howes?

  So when, so we do our team calls on Mondays and if we have kind of each person go around and share like, what's the one thing they're going to accomplish this week or the big task of the week? How should we phrase that?

• 38:34Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 38:35Lewis Howes?

  To get their buy-in and their commitment on, on that.

• 38:38Speaker 01

  What you say to them is, will, do you think you will be able to accomplish this or make progress toward it before our next meeting? And if they say, no, I don't, you know, you can say, well, what can you get some help with it? Do you need more resources? Do you need to put something else to the side? You can then work on getting to yes, right?

• 39:02Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 39:02Speaker 01

  But if they do say, yes, I'm able, you have now motivated them to put that higher in the priority list of what they're going to do because they've made a commitment.

• 39:14Lewis Howes?

  Yes.

• 39:15Speaker 01

  They've made a public commitment to everybody that they're going to do it.

• 39:20Lewis Howes?

  And no one wants to break their commitment. No one wants to break their word. You do it over and over again, you kind of lose confidence in yourself. You know, your, your self-worth goes down, your, I guess your likability with yourself kind of probably goes down because you're always breaking your commitment to yourself and other people, right?

• 39:37Speaker 01

  That's a really good point and a lot of people, when we talk about this, say, oh, well, your reputation with others will go down if you break it. What you've pointed to is something just as powerful. You want to live up to your own standards and so you will take steps to make sure you, you live up to your commitments.

• 40:00Lewis Howes?

  Absolutely. Absolutely. So what's one thing, if I'm trying to get someone to listen more regularly on the show or watch the YouTube channel on a weekly basis? What's something I could ask to the listeners or the viewers to get them committed to showing up consistently? What would be something you'd suggest? Or for anyone who has a show that's, you know, has, that they want to get their listeners to be more consistent, what would you suggest?

• 40:29Speaker 01

  I would say I'd, I'd begin by asking for something small, like, could you listen to last week's podcast or any of the following and tell me? And then say to yourself, was that worth it?

• 40:45Speaker 01

  And would you like to get that kind of benefit regularly?

• 40:51Speaker 01

  I'm going to make a commitment to you. If you do, you will get that. I'm going to, I, I select my guests and I do my homework so that there is value for you in each of our programs. And if you would be willing to make that commitment to me, I have made, I'll make this commitment to you. You will get value.

• 41:15Lewis Howes?

  I love that. Okay. Awesome. Anything else around commitment or consistency that we should know about?

• 41:22Speaker 01

  Okay. Here's another thing where you change one word.

• 41:25Lewis Howes?

  Yes.

• 41:26Speaker 01

  So again, let's say you're a manager and you've got a, a goal that your team is making progress toward and, and they're advancing and, and they're halfway there.

• 41:39Speaker 01

  And what we're always supposed to do is to congratulate them on the, the movement that they've made and on their progress. That's a mistake to use the word progress, to congratulate people on their progress. Because what you've asked them to do is look behind them at where they have been and what, what's happened so far and their, their movement. And a lot of times people say, oh, okay.

• 42:14Lewis Howes?

  They're satisfied.

• 42:15Speaker 01

  I'm satisfied. Now I can coast a little bit here, right? If instead you don't say, congratulations on your progress that you've made toward the goal, it's congratulations on your commitment to this goal.

• 42:31Lewis Howes?

  To finishing this.

• 42:33Speaker 01

  Now they're looking forward.

• 42:35Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 42:36Speaker 01

  And the research shows they're significantly more likely to reach that goal on time. If you use the word commitment to it, then progress toward it.

• 42:47Lewis Howes?

  Congratulations on your commitment to this goal. So not even, don't even add congratulations on the progress of your commitment to this goal, just say congratulations on the commitment to your goal. We're, we're doing great things and we're, we're, we're almost there. Let's finish it off.

• 43:04Speaker 01

  Right.

• 43:05Lewis Howes?

  Okay. Congratulations on the commitment. I'm writing this down. I like that a lot.

• 43:11Speaker 01

  Your commitment. Make sure it's their commitment, your commitment to this goal.

• 43:16Lewis Howes?

  Okay. I hope everyone's taking notes as well, like me.

• 43:22Lewis Howes?

  I love this. This is powerful.

• 43:23Speaker 01

  Me too. I love this.

• 43:24Lewis Howes?

  Commitment and consistency.

• 43:26Speaker 01

  I always loved this stuff. You know, this, I was always a curious teenager and young man about, how did this work like that? How did people get me to say yes to things I wasn't really interested in?

• 43:40Lewis Howes?

  I didn't want to buy this.

• 43:41Speaker 01

  Yeah. I didn't want this thing. It must be the way they presented it. The psychology of it.

• 43:49Lewis Howes?

  Yes. Yes. The next principle is social proof and I've always been fascinated by this. I think there's, there's stories in the book that, that go into some of these examples, but I'm always fascinated by the one of just like, okay, there's two coffee shops or two donut shops or whatever, there's the same type of store. One's got a long line and the other has no line. And then most people go into the one with the long line because it just shows a social proof case study of people want this thing, then it must be good. Can you explain more of this concept of social proof?

• 44:25Speaker 01

  Well, yes. And I want to compliment you on that particular example because not only does it show the kind of principle of social proof that says, when I'm uncertain about what to do, I use the responses of other people, the choices of other people to steer me in that direction. It reduces my uncertainty.

• 44:49Lewis Howes?

  We're so persuaded but to want to wait in line just because everyone else wants the thing. It's like the nightclub where it's like they make you wait outside in line.

• 44:57Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 44:57Lewis Howes?

  You want to go in there, you know?

• 44:59Speaker 01

  Exactly. So that's the, that's the extra point that I think you raised with that example. You're willing to go and wait in line and incur all the inconvenience because this rule is so powerful.

• 45:15Lewis Howes?

  Crazy. You'll wait 10, 20, 30 minutes for the same cup of coffee.

• 45:21Speaker 01

  Right.

• 45:21Lewis Howes?

  And or whatever it is, you know, it's like, a lot of times, I mean, I haven't been in the nightclub in, I don't know, 10 years or something, but a lot of times you would go into the nightclub and you're like, this is not that good. Let me get out of here. You just waited an hour to go something you didn't really like.

• 45:36Lewis Howes?

  One, here's a story that for me, that this worked incredibly well. When I learned this principle in 2009, I learned this from you and it worked. I was like, this is fascinating. I remember getting a big press opportunity. I was in a big, I don't know, five-page spread of Details Magazine. The magazine's no longer around, I don't think, but Details Magazine.

• 46:01Speaker 01

  I remember it.

• 46:02Lewis Howes?

  It was a big magazine back in the day. It was kind of like a GQ type of thing. And I got an email from one of the main writers there saying, I'm doing a story about

• 46:14Lewis Howes?

  online marketers who can help you earn more money. And I've got Tim Ferriss that I'm featuring, Gary Vaynerchuk, Seth Godin, and I want to include you. And it was maybe one or two other people. And he was like, we're going to fly you out to New York City. We're going to do a big photo shoot, the whole thing. I was a nobody, Robert. I was a nobody. No one even knew who I was. I had a very small following when I was teaching LinkedIn strategies back in 2008. So I had a small micro community and, but I was nobody compared to Tim Ferriss and Gary Vaynerchuk and all these other people. And I said, yes, right away. And I, I went there and did this shoot and it was like this big spread of Details Magazine. And it was like a massive opportunity for me.

• 46:58Lewis Howes?

  And I remember after it was published, I asked the writer, I didn't want to ask him beforehand, but I asked the writer, hey, why did you choose me? Why did you want to have me in this, this featured magazine? And he said, I saw someone retweet one of your tweets. And I went to, who was influential to me, I saw them retweet it. Then I went to your link in your bio and I saw your website. And on the website, at the very top, I saw that you were featured in Time Magazine and Fast Company and a few other places. And he said, right away, I saw that you were featured in these other places.

• 47:41Lewis Howes?

  And I thought if you were good enough for them, you were good enough for Details Magazine. And that was pretty much all the research he did before reaching out to me. And there was two levels of social proof. One, someone sharing a message that I had put out there on Twitter that he saw. So someone else was talking about it. And then seeing the logos of the other press that I had gotten, which was very small, you know, mentions. It wasn't like these featured articles, but it was showing where I'd been featured. And he said, because other people desired you and wanted to talk about you, I figured you were good enough for us.

• 48:18Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 48:18Lewis Howes?

  And that, that small change that I learned from you helped just unlock so much more. And I think if people just understood the subtleties of just showcase where you've been featured, just make sure you're showing these things. So people are aware, it'll bring new opportunities.

• 48:35Speaker 01

  Right. And I mean, that's, that's the essence of social proof.

• 48:42Lewis Howes?

  Yes.

• 48:42Speaker 01

  What are people around me like me doing? Or what have they been doing? That reduces my uncertainty about what I should do in that situation. And it works in all kinds. There is this lovely little study in a pub in, in UK, in London, where one day the proprietor put up a sign on the bar that said, this week, our most popular beer is our porter. Right? Porter sales doubled.

• 49:21Lewis Howes?

  Just by saying this week, our most popular is.

• 49:26Speaker 01

  Wow. We all have our most popular item.

• 49:31Lewis Howes?

  Yes.

• 49:31Speaker 01

  Product, feature, payment plan. All we have to do is point to, to the one that is. And people say, oh, I can stop asking about where I should go or what I should. No, here's a reason for me to stop searching and choose right now.

• 49:51Lewis Howes?

  Well, I feel like we're all suckers for this. I mean, not in a bad way, but when I go to a restaurant that I've never been to, I just ask the waiter, I don't even look at the menu. I just say, what are the three most popular items? Or what are the three things you like the most on the menu? And they'll say, well, this one's great. I love this one the most, and this is the most popular one. And then I make a decision based on that typically. Cause I don't want to look through everything and try to find something. I just want to know, what do other people like? What do you like? And what's the recommendation?

• 50:19Speaker 01

  Right.

• 50:19Lewis Howes?

  And you know, I'm sure on Amazon, they're probably the masters at all this, but they're showing Amazon's recommended choice all the time when you're searching something. I buy, I buy that recommended choice pretty much every time. It's got the most reviews, it's got the credibility, it's got all these things.

• 50:36Speaker 01

  You know, I do the same thing when I go to a restaurant where I am not familiar with the menu. I just add one other thing that I, when I say, so tell me, what are your most popular items in the appetizer category? How about the mains? How about the desserts? And so whatever I'm interested soup, whatever. And I say, of your regulars, tell me the people who are your regulars. What's the most popular of theirs? They're essentially the verified buyers.

• 51:14Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 51:14Speaker 01

  On Amazon, right? Yeah, that we all listen to the most, right? Your regulars, they've already done the beta testing for me. I don't have to go all over the menu and test. So what's, so that's, that idea, I mean.

• 51:30Lewis Howes?

  I wonder if, I've never seen a menu do that in each category. I've seen sometimes like one item that says like our most popular item, but I wonder if they did it in appetizers, salads, soups, you know, entrees, desserts. They put the top, like the star, most popular item here in each category. I bet those things would get so much more sales.

• 51:52Speaker 01

  Louis, I can give you confirmation that you're right. There was a study done in Beijing. Shows you how cross culturally extended this principle is. Restaurant managers put a little asterisk next to certain items in each of the categories. And each one became 13 to 20% more purchased. And what did the asterisk stand for? This is one of our most popular items.

• 52:20Lewis Howes?

  I bet you could start to predict as a business owner, a restaurateur, what ingredients you need more of, based on the consistency of just that one difference of putting an asterisk or most popular, or whatever you want to do it. You can start to predict the sales every week of, okay, I'm not going to buy in excess of all these other ingredients, because we know that only 20% of people are going to buy these other lower choices. You can start to increase the profit margin. You can start to predict things better. There's so many things that would happen in your benefit.

• 52:52Speaker 01

  Well, here's the best part of it.

• 52:54Lewis Howes?

  And I bet people are happier because they're making a choice they think is the best choice.

• 52:58Speaker 01

  Right.

• 52:58Lewis Howes?

  And they enjoy it more psychologically. They're like, oh, I'm doing what everyone else loves.

• 53:03Speaker 01

  That's the best part, because not only are you reducing their uncertainty. If you've truly pointed to the genuinely most popular, you're giving them a better experience and they're going to come back.

• 53:16Lewis Howes?

  You're going to come back. And also you're going to become better at making that thing better. Because you're working on that thing more, you're going to make sure it's great every time. Like just, it's just all these things are going to level you up the entire experience. I love this.

• 53:31Speaker 01

  And it doesn't have to be any one thing. It can be a couple of things within the advertise, the appetizer category and so on.

• 53:39Lewis Howes?

  Top two most popular choices, yes. Anything else around social proof that we should be aware of?

• 53:45Speaker 01

  No, I think this is, well, the biggest is it shouldn't just be many others. It should be comparable others. We most reduce our uncertainty of what to do in a situation by looking at what those like us have done there.

• 54:04Lewis Howes?

  Interesting.

• 54:05Speaker 01

  So one thing we can do is let people know that, you know, like on the hotel sites, what they will do is segment their marketing and say, the best hotels as rated by business people, the best for leisure travelers, the best for romantic couples, the best for people with families. And so now you dive right in there and you say, that's, that's where I'm going to go to get my information.

• 54:39Lewis Howes?

  That's smart, yes. Specializing it to people that are like you or doing something like you. I love that. And speaking of liking someone, the next principle is, is liking? And what is the difference between liking and likability?

• 54:55Speaker 01

  Well, you can become, you, you get liking by being likable.

• 55:01Lewis Howes?

  Okay.

• 55:01Speaker 01

  But nobody would be surprised to hear that. Here's what's worth knowing from the research. And that is there are two very small things we can do that cause people to like us more. Right? One is to point to similarities between the two of us, right? The comparabilities. And because people like those who are like them.

• 55:31Lewis Howes?

  Yes.

• 55:32Speaker 01

  Right? There was a study of negotiators who were doing bargaining over email. And if before they began to bargain, they traded information about one another. Right? So they could personalize the other person, you know? They found that stymied negotiations went from 30% to 6%.

• 55:56Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 55:56Speaker 01

  Just by sending, now here's the key. When the researchers looked at the data, they found that it wasn't those who sent the most information back and forth about themselves and, you know, kind of made themselves human. It was whether in the information, there were parallels.

• 56:16Lewis Howes?

  Similarities.

• 56:18Speaker 01

  You're a runner? I'm a runner.

• 56:20Lewis Howes?

  Yes.

• 56:22Speaker 01

  You're an only child? I'm an only child. Those were the things that created the willingness to give the other person grace in a negotiation, so you don't walk away with a stymied, deadlocked, nothing burger where nobody wins.

• 56:41Lewis Howes?

  Right, right. My friend, I hope you're enjoying this episode. And the School of Greatness drops new conversations every Monday, Wednesday and Friday around money, mindset, healing, manifestation and relationships. And if you're not yet following the show, then you're missing all of them. Please tap the follow button right now and you'll get notified the moment every new episode drops, because the next one might be exactly what you need. Now let's get back to the conversation. This podcast is brought to you by Aura. Everyone has advice about your health. Early mornings, more exercise, but Aura Ring helps you figure out what's exactly working for you.

• 57:22Lewis Howes?

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• 58:07Lewis Howes?

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• 58:16Lewis Howes?

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• 59:01Speaker 01

  Praise, compliments.

• 59:03Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 59:06Speaker 01

  I'm going to admit to something here. This is my biggest

• 59:13Speaker 01

  fallback. This is, this is my biggest mistake. I have a very difficult time giving warranted praise

• 59:25Lewis Howes?

  Really?

• 59:25Speaker 01

  to people.

• 59:26Lewis Howes?

  Why is that?

• 59:27Speaker 01

  It was the way I grew up. My parents didn't do it. They were always

• 59:32Lewis Howes?

  They didn't say I loved you.

• 59:33Speaker 01

  Well, they would say that, but they wouldn't say, oh, great job on that, in that game, or you really, you know, did terrific. Because they didn't want me to take it easy. They always wanted me to

• 59:48Lewis Howes?

  Push a little harder.

• 59:49Speaker 01

  Push a little harder. So I can't tell you how many times, you know, I was a, before I retired, a research psychologist and how many times in meetings, research meetings with my graduate students, I would hear myself say, oh, that's a brilliant thing that Louis just said. Or, oh, what's there, how Sarah just frees that is exactly what we should say in our study.

• 1:00:20Lewis Howes?

  What you want to say.

• 1:00:21Speaker 01

  And I say it to myself. And I didn't, and I missed all the goodwill that would come from just translating it from my mind to my tongue. And now I, I don't do that anymore. I make sure that anytime I hear myself praise somebody,

• 1:00:43Speaker 01

  in my head, I hear myself say it in my ears because I say it out loud.

• 1:00:49Lewis Howes?

  That's good, yeah.

• 1:00:50Speaker 01

  I can't tell you the effect it's had on, on the social interaction and goodwill in those sessions and with my students.

• 1:01:02Lewis Howes?

  You know, it's fascinating. Again, I have applied so many of these principles throughout my, the last 10, 12 years, I guess. When I was getting started, a lot of people are listening, they've fallen for a while, they know my story. I got started using LinkedIn to kind of build relationships and connections. And then from there, started helping people how to use LinkedIn to get opportunities and jobs and, you know, investors and all these different things. And the first few months of using LinkedIn back in 2007, 2000, yeah, late 2007, I would email people and message people and very few would reply to me. And I was reaching out to kind of influential CEOs and business leaders because I was trying to build relationships.

• 1:01:46Lewis Howes?

  I was trying to interview them early on to ask them questions and just learn from them. And very few would give me the time of day. And then I started to implement this strategy from your book of liking, right? And, and also kind of social proof in there as well. And I started emailing and I said to myself, in the first sentence, I've got to incorporate this. So I would look and do research on their profile and I'd see what are the similarities? How do we know, how do we know each other? How do we know friends of friends? That's why I think social networking is a great tool to use because you can usually see if you have common friends. And I would, I would always talk about like, oh, I see that we have

• 1:02:29Lewis Howes?

  Bob and Sarah and Tom as mutual friends. There's a similarity. I would see where did they go to school? Where are they from? Did they play sports? Because it tells you their hobbies, their interests, their associations. You know, I see that you're a public speaker. I'm in Toastmasters right now. I see that you played football. I just finished playing arena football. Whatever it is, I would try to add three levels of similarities within the first sentence. And by doing that, I believe, I think I got like eight or nine out of 10 replies every time. Whereas maybe I was only getting one or two out of 10 replies before then. Just by adding that and also by acknowledging something in their career they did that I felt inspired by. So I would add the similarities and then I would also try to find out

• 1:03:13Speaker 01

  And praise.

• 1:03:14Lewis Howes?

  what do they do in their career? I would research them a lot and say, I really like when you put this out. I really like how you did this thing and I acknowledge them for that. And then I would say, I would love to learn more about how you did this. Before, I would say, can you give me advice? Can I take 10 minutes of your time where you teach me these things?

• 1:03:37Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:03:37Lewis Howes?

  Then I said, no one wants to give advice and give up when they're busy and give them their time.

• 1:03:42Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:03:42Lewis Howes?

  But people love to tell their story of their success and how they overcame the challenge. So I rephrased it and I would get so many different connections from that because I didn't ask for advice. I just was inspired by their story and wanted them to share. And by listening, they gave me all the advice in the world.

• 1:04:00Speaker 01

  You know, it seems to me you've hit the two principal pillars of liking then, similarity and praise. And, and, yeah, so not only do we like the people who are like us, we like the people who do like us and say so. Praise, compliments. We like the people who give us compliments. And as a result, we want to do business with them. We want to interact with them. We want to say yes to them.

• 1:04:36Lewis Howes?

  Praise, such a simple thing.

• 1:04:38Speaker 01

  And it's, and it's, again, it's costless.

• 1:04:41Lewis Howes?

  Yes.

• 1:04:41Speaker 01

  I mean, but what you did is the right thing. If you give a phony compliment, you know, it's just going to ring, it's not going to ring true.

• 1:04:50Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 1:04:50Speaker 01

  But if you really research there, really think about who they are and understand what their challenges are, who, where they came from, what challenges they've overcome, and you praise that, it's genuine. It rings true.

• 1:05:05Lewis Howes?

  Absolutely. Absolutely. I love this. Liking is huge. Again, two things that we can do to get more people to like us is finding commonalities and similarities and praise, acknowledgement, compliments. They're, they're free. It just takes a little bit of research, a little bit of thoughtfulness, and the benefits are abundant.

• 1:05:27Speaker 01

  And it doesn't take a lot of research because they tell us about themselves on LinkedIn.

• 1:05:32Lewis Howes?

  Exactly.

• 1:05:33Speaker 01

  They tell us about themselves on Facebook. It's not proprietary information.

• 1:05:38Lewis Howes?

  You can go to someone's Instagram and the few photos, you can see if they have kids, you can see what they're up to, where they live and

• 1:05:44Speaker 01

  They want us to know that about them.

• 1:05:46Lewis Howes?

  Exactly. And it's interesting when, I'm sure, Bob, when you get emailed and someone does the research and someone shares common similarities and they acknowledge you for the incredible work you've done in the world and how your book has impacted them or the videos they've seen, you're more likely to reply. Maybe you won't spend your time on the phone with them, but you're more likely to say, I like this person. Let me at least say thank you and I appreciate it. And let's, you know, maybe in the future we'll get together. I feel obligated to want to reply to those nice compliments. And, oh, we know these people in common. Okay, if I don't reply to this person and he has a common friend, am I going to be the jerk that blows, you know, is it going to come back to me from my friend that I was a jerk? You know, it's like we feel obligated.

• 1:06:31Speaker 01

  I, I am exactly the same. Somebody compliments me. It's very difficult to just dismiss and not, you have to do something in return.

• 1:06:41Lewis Howes?

  Say thank you.

• 1:06:42Speaker 01

  It's a property. You have to do something in return.

• 1:06:45Lewis Howes?

  Crazy. I love it. Okay, the next principle is authority. And I think with all the people that are maybe getting started in their career or their business or they're launching an idea and they feel like they have no authority, why do they need to create authority in order to be more successful? How do they gain authority in an authentic way? And what happens if we don't have authority?

• 1:07:15Speaker 01

  Yeah. So I'm going to differentiate between two kinds of authority, both of which make a difference and cause people to say yes to us. But the person you described doesn't have the first type, which is to be in a position of authority. That is, to be, to have standing or stature in a hierarchy or some, yeah. So there are people who are in authority. That's not who we're talking about in influence. That's power. That's about power.

• 1:07:48Speaker 01

  There are people, there's somebody who is an authority. That's the person I'm talking about. Somebody who's knowledgeable, somebody who has experience, somebody who can point to some credentials they have. And very often, you know, that can be somebody who's just come out of a training program or a university with a major in a particular area where they specialize and they can say, I know about the latest research on this. You know, or somebody who's been around for a while can say, I've been in this area for a while and I have a lot of experience.

• 1:08:33Speaker 01

  You can point to those things that are genuine credentials that you have. And so, for example, I did a, some work with a hospital in the, I live in the Phoenix area, it's a hospital where they asked me to help them with stroke patients who weren't doing their home exercises that the physical therapist gave them to do when they left the hospital. And so, they weren't getting better. So I said, well, can you show me what you do? And they said, well, here's the regimen we give them to do it.

• 1:09:13Speaker 01

  And we take them into this, this little room and we make sure they understand everything. And I looked at the room. There were pictures on the walls. I said, replace those pictures with your credentials. Put your diplomas, put your awards, put your certifications on the wall. And exercise compliance as measured by flexibility, strength, range of motion increased by 31%. Because in the room where they were giving them the information, they had all this, all this evidence.

• 1:09:58Lewis Howes?

  Credibility.

• 1:09:58Speaker 01

  That they were an authority.

• 1:10:01Lewis Howes?

  So people took them more seriously.

• 1:10:03Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:10:04Lewis Howes?

  Yeah. So showcasing your.

• 1:10:06Speaker 01

  Showcase your credentials. You can't do it face to face, though. You can't sit down in front of somebody and say, Louis, let me just tell you how great.

• 1:10:17Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 1:10:19Speaker 01

  No, you do it by sending them your resume as an attachment ahead of your first meeting. I'm looking forward to our meeting on Thursday. The top, on the topic of X, here are my background and credentials on X.

• 1:10:34Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 1:10:34Speaker 01

  Or you say, here's my LinkedIn.

• 1:10:36Lewis Howes?

  Right. Absolutely.

• 1:10:38Speaker 01

  Go there.

• 1:10:39Lewis Howes?

  Or at the bottom of your email signature, you could have like the letters, the initials.

• 1:10:43Speaker 01

  The initials.

• 1:10:45Lewis Howes?

  I'm sure that if I, you know, if I'm looking at your book here and it just said, Robert Cialdini with no PhD after it versus having the PhD, I'm sure that adds just a subtle level of credibility with this right here.

• 1:10:59Speaker 01

  It does.

• 1:11:00Lewis Howes?

  For people.

• 1:11:00Speaker 01

  And the authority. Now, if you hold that up again and you look at the top of it, over 5 million copies sold.

• 1:11:08Lewis Howes?

  Yes.

• 1:11:08Speaker 01

  That's social proof.

• 1:11:09Lewis Howes?

  Huge social proof.

• 1:11:10Speaker 01

  But in both cases, I'm pointing to something that's genuine.

• 1:11:14Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 1:11:15Speaker 01

  I don't have to fabricate it. I don't have to, really, you don't have to do that.

• 1:11:20Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, you have the social proof with how many, this is, how many people have bought it? Then you have the more social proof from a credible source giving a recommendation. Then you have this down here, which is the authority. It's all on the front of the book. New and expanded, you know, additional content, all this stuff. It's all on the front page, which helps you make a decision.

• 1:11:43Speaker 01

  And you know, Louis, I had in the past, not this particular edition, but in previous editions, I've had to fight my publisher to get that stuff on there.

• 1:11:55Lewis Howes?

  Really?

• 1:11:56Speaker 01

  Because they said, you know, we want more white space. What? You want white? I'm talking about authority. I'm talking about social. You're talking about white space?

• 1:12:06Lewis Howes?

  Yeah. And you have, again, praise on the back. It's like when someone's praising you, it's more social proof.

• 1:12:12Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:12:13Lewis Howes?

  And it's funny because there's so many authors who have implemented these strategies over the last 10 years since you've been putting this work out there. And you see it everywhere now. You see everyone following a similar format if they're researched and studied well with these principles. And it's, they work. They do it because it works.

• 1:12:32Speaker 01

  Do it because it works. So authority, yeah. And oh, there's one more feature of authority that the newest research suggests. And that is, people say, how do I, how can I multiply my authority? Well, get legitimate experts quotes or testimonials. It doesn't have to be necessarily to you or your product, but to your idea.

• 1:13:00Lewis Howes?

  Yes.

• 1:13:00Speaker 01

  To the.

• 1:13:01Lewis Howes?

  To you as a person.

• 1:13:02Speaker 01

  To you as, yes. And, all right, you put that there in, in any message that you send at the top. Not at the, don't bar, you want that authority aura to suffuse everything that goes next. Every claim that you make.

• 1:13:25Lewis Howes?

  Really?

• 1:13:25Speaker 01

  You want to be supported by the fact that an authority agrees with you and your vision.

• 1:13:33Lewis Howes?

  So what would this be? Would this be for like a book proposal to have those at the top? Would it be for, what other types of examples would that be for? To put the quotes at the top, at your website at the top?

• 1:13:45Speaker 01

  At the webs, the website is the key, right? What's the first thing you should see on somebody's website? You should see testimonials.

• 1:13:55Lewis Howes?

  From credible people.

• 1:13:57Speaker 01

  Credible people. Most of the websites have them buried somewhere or in a separate category over there, praise for such a, it, there should be testimonials at the outset so that that authority influence applies to everything you've yet to read in it.

• 1:14:26Lewis Howes?

  Yes. It sets this, it sets a tone.

• 1:14:30Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:14:30Lewis Howes?

  As opposed to them guessing and wondering and have to look. It sets the stages, this is the authority. This is a credible person. Let me learn more, not.

• 1:14:39Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:14:40Lewis Howes?

  Let me find out if they're credible with their bio and this and this or whatever, like scrolling, like start with credibility and authority. That's why when I use the strategy of like, here are the other places I've featured. Here are the logos of the presses that I've been featured on. It was instant authority, just when a second, you see it, you feel authority in your body. You're just like, okay, as opposed to not showing it at the top, people have to go down and look for it. I feel like you're missing the mark.

• 1:15:07Speaker 01

  I once did some work with Bose Acoustics Corporation. They had a new product, the Bose Wave Music System at the time. And after we got some increased sales to a particular ad, the, the product had been out there long enough that they had authorities testifying. And so, they made up a new generation of the ad with the authorities in there, right? Except they were at the bottom of the ad. The authority. And we just had them move them to the top and got a 15% increase in sales.

• 1:15:50Lewis Howes?

  Crazy. You see that, I think the movie industry does this well, where they are constantly saying, the movie of the year by Entertainment Magazine or this, you know, it's like astonishing, you know, whatever it may be. You see that always flashing up in the trailers of, of the movies. And you're just like, okay, if everyone else loves this and they're calling to me authority, or this is the authoritative movie of the year, I gotta go watch it, you know?

• 1:16:14Speaker 01

  Right, right, right.

• 1:16:16Lewis Howes?

  20 Emmy nominations. It's like, okay, I have to go watch this.

• 1:16:19Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:16:19Lewis Howes?

  You know, it's, it's the authority in that space as well, so.

• 1:16:23Speaker 01

  Remember I said that social proof reduces your uncertainty about what you, what you should do? The same thing applies to authority. If the experts are recommending something, it reduces your uncertainty. You don't have to sit on the fence anymore. You don't have to dither around then and think about this or that. Boom, you can go right in.

• 1:16:44Lewis Howes?

  I love it. I love that. We've got the, the final principle of the previous version until you've discovered the new principle, which I want to get to. But the, the, the original final principle is scarcity. And can you explain the, the principle of scarcity? Why we find things that are rare and scarce or limited, something that we desire, that we want on human psychology standpoint? And then also, in a digital world, for people that have unlimited of digital goods, essentially, that's not a physical good and they, they have digital,

• 1:17:25Lewis Howes?

  how do they position in a way that is ethical scarcity?

• 1:17:30Speaker 01

  Okay, I want to take those in order because that's the right sequence of this. First of all, the reason we want things that are rare, scarce or dwindling in availability is that otherwise we lose them. And loss is a more powerful motivator in human psychology than gaining the same thing.

• 1:17:56Lewis Howes?

  Really?

• 1:17:58Speaker 01

  There's a, a man who won the Nobel Prize in Economics a few years ago, Daniel Kahneman, for something he called prospect theory, where he showed that the prospects of gaining a particular I, amount of a resource, all right? Let's say a dollar, right?

• 1:18:23Speaker 01

  Compared to the prospects of losing that dollar, people were twice as likely to want to avoid losing the dollar than gaining the extra one.

• 1:18:38Lewis Howes?

  So wow, so if if we have the ability to

• 1:18:44Lewis Howes?

  earn, gain a million dollars or lose a million dollars, we'd rather hold on to the losing of the million dollars than the possibility of gaining. Is that kind of?

• 1:18:54Speaker 01

  That's it. I I I once gave a lecture to a financial services firm and afterwards the the the boss came up to me and said, you just said something with that loss aversion, the idea of people are averse to loss more than they they want to gain things. You just said something that finally allows me to understand what my mentor told me. He said, if you have a high value client, right, way up there.

• 1:19:24Lewis Howes?

  You don't want to lose them.

• 1:19:25Speaker 01

  You're right. Yeah, but they're millions of dollars, right? And you call them at five in the morning and say, if you act now, you'll be able to gain $25,000 on this uh on this stock. They're going to scream at you and hang up the phone. But if you call them and say, if you if you act now, you'll avoid losing $25,000 on our position, they'll thank you.

• 1:19:56Lewis Howes?

  Wow. People don't want to lose what they have.

• 1:19:59Speaker 01

  They don't want to lose. So that's why scarcity is so valuable because scarcity loss is the ultimate form of scarcity. It means you can't have it anymore. That's why people are so adamant about grabbing onto scarce or dwindling resources. They don't want to lose them. Okay, now, how does that apply? How do you do that when you've got a lot of various, a lot of opportunities? Uh, okay.

• 1:20:30Speaker 01

  Uh, I'm gonna say two things. One is you do have something that's scarce, which is what differentiates you from your rivals? What is the single thing that people can't get? They will lose if they don't move in your direction, right? Now, it might not be one thing, but it might be a suite of things, a combination of items that only you provide.

• 1:21:05Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 1:21:06Speaker 01

  Right? And then you simply say, you you don't just say, and if you will go with us, you will gain these. You have to be able to say you don't want to lose these benefits that only we can offer. You don't want to miss that. Remember I told you about the Bose ad that we did? Where if you added testimonials at the top, you increased uh uh sales by 15%. And I said, but first of all, we had done something that increased their sales in a different way. Well, here's what we did.

• 1:21:46Speaker 01

  At the top of their initial ad for the Bose Wave music system, they had new features, new convenience, new simplicity, new elegance, right? And at the top was the word new. This was their app. We changed it to hear what you've been missing.

• 1:22:08Lewis Howes?

  Ooh.

• 1:22:10Speaker 01

  And we got a 45% increase in sales.

• 1:22:13Lewis Howes?

  So something people has lost, missing, you haven't heard it yet. Yeah.

• 1:22:17Speaker 01

  Yes, before all those new features and those were things to be gained. Now we say you don't want to miss these.

• 1:22:27Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, that's good. That's interesting. Man.

• 1:22:31Speaker 01

  That's why. Okay, so that's one thing.

• 1:22:34Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 1:22:34Speaker 01

  Now here's the other, and I think your online people will be interested in it. There was a study of 6,700 online commercial sites, right? And they looked at A B tests within each one for various kinds of features of the site that would lead to conversions. And some of them were economic, like uh do we offer free delivery, right? Uh, some were technological. Is there a search function in the site for where you can? Some were psychological, like is there a call to action uh it it after each appeal, in each appeal?

• 1:23:19Speaker 01

  The top six were the six principles. It wasn't any of that. It was the six principles of influence. And you know what was at the top? Scarcity.

• 1:23:31Lewis Howes?

  Really?

• 1:23:32Speaker 01

  If you could legitimately say

• 1:23:37Speaker 01

  we only have X number of these items at this price.

• 1:23:43Lewis Howes?

  Yes.

• 1:23:44Speaker 01

  Or with this feature or with this bonus,

• 1:23:52Speaker 01

  you got the most conversions of all.

• 1:23:57Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 1:23:58Speaker 01

  Even more than saying we only have a limited time for buying this at this price.

• 1:24:07Lewis Howes?

  So limited time is valuable, but limited quantity or package of certain things is more powerful.

• 1:24:14Speaker 01

  And here's why, because with a limited number, you're in competition.

• 1:24:20Lewis Howes?

  All right. Limited time, you can still wait till the last minute. Yeah.

• 1:24:24Speaker 01

  You're not in competition with anybody for it. You can do it anytime. If it's a limited number, you better move or it'll be gone. It's lost.

• 1:24:35Lewis Howes?

  Yes.

• 1:24:36Speaker 01

  Now, if you've got a lot of these, you can say this this special is only good for X number of items. Or, you know, we've only got so many of these with this extra feature or that we will provide this additional inducement.

• 1:24:59Speaker 01

  Now, let me say that was number one. Number two was social proof. Telling people what a lot of others like them had been doing with this, right? Number three was limited time.

• 1:25:15Lewis Howes?

  Mm hmm.

• 1:25:17Speaker 01

  And here's one I rarely see in online sites.

• 1:25:27Speaker 01

  It was the liking principle.

• 1:25:28Lewis Howes?

  Really?

• 1:25:29Speaker 01

  Here's what they did. They began with a welcoming letter.

• 1:25:34Lewis Howes?

  Hmm.

• 1:25:38Speaker 01

  It's what you do like when somebody comes to your door, you welcome them in.

• 1:25:43Lewis Howes?

  Yes.

• 1:25:43Speaker 01

  You say hello, glad that you're here.

• 1:25:47Lewis Howes?

  Yep.

• 1:25:47Speaker 01

  Come on in. It was a welcoming letter.

• 1:25:52Speaker 01

  Liking. First.

• 1:25:57Lewis Howes?

  Scarcity, social proof, limited time, liking with a welcome letter. This was the this, the in order, the influence.

• 1:26:06Speaker 01

  Actually, authority was authority was before liking.

• 1:26:11Lewis Howes?

  Got it. Okay.

• 1:26:15Lewis Howes?

  I love this stuff. I love learning about this.

• 1:26:21Lewis Howes?

  I don't know if people, hopefully people are jotting down as many notes as me. This is powerful.

• 1:26:26Lewis Howes?

  The School of Greatness is presented by ChatGPT. Now, personal growth looks different for everyone. Maybe it's exercising more, maybe it's learning something new or making time for a goal that you've been putting off for a while. The hardest part is finding time in your busy schedule. And that's where ChatGPT can help you. Give it your goals, connect your personal calendar and tell it how much time you can commit to. And ChatGPT creates an adjustable weekly plan and progress tracker that fits your lifestyle. I use ChatGPT with the work toggle enabled to research guests, organize information and create reports for the School of Greatness. So I have more data. It helps me stay organized and focused on what matters most.

• 1:27:10Lewis Howes?

  Get started at chatgpt.com.

• 1:27:15Lewis Howes?

  Support for this episode comes from Amazon Business. When it comes to your business, procurement shouldn't be a guessing game. Whether you're running a small business or managing a large organization, Amazon Business offers smart purchasing experiences designed to meet your unique needs. Smart tech, smarter decisions, streamline your buying process, save time and money, and gain valuable insights. Amazon Business empowers you and your team to buy with confidence. Learn more at amazonbusiness.com. The scarcity thing has been a big factor that I've seen more and more in the last couple of years. With, I don't know if you've been aware of this whole NFT movement, these NFTs

• 1:28:00Lewis Howes?

  online, which are essentially digital representations of artwork.

• 1:28:04Speaker 01

  Oh, yes, I am.

• 1:28:05Lewis Howes?

  That that are selling out in seconds, you know, when they have a thousand or 500, they're limited, they're selling out in seconds. I live here in Los Angeles, and sometimes I'll drive down Fairfax or Melrose Avenue, and you'll see people in hundreds of people in line outside of a store, the shoe stores, kind of the sneaker head stores where they have like this limited run, and people will wait for hours. I think it's, you know, I think Apple does this well, where it's like, well, I got a limited amount the first week, you know, stand in line for three days in a tent so you can get the iPhone when it comes out.

• 1:28:41Speaker 01

  Right, the first, yeah.

• 1:28:43Lewis Howes?

  You know, baseball and basketball and trading cards have have become booming in the last couple of years. I even got involved in this, and I was like, I can't believe, you know, now with so much limited quality, a quantity of older cards or rare cards.

• 1:29:01Speaker 01

  Here's the best example I ever saw. It has to do with Apple and how Apple uses this, right? So it was the release of the iPhone 5. In Phoenix, the local TV station that I listen to, I watch, they sent a reporter to interview the people who had been around the corner in sleeping bags, right, waiting for this. And they went up, the reporter went up to the person who was number 23 in line. So interviewing, so do you talk to the other people in line? Did you get to know them? She said, yeah, actually, she said, I was originally number 25 in line,

• 1:29:44Speaker 01

  but I struck up a conversation with the woman who was number 23, who admired my shoulder bag. It's a $2,800 Louis Vuitton bag. And she's, that's exactly right.

• 1:29:59Lewis Howes?

  Oh, my goodness.

• 1:29:59Speaker 01

  She said, I broke her to deal with her. Your spot in line for my Louis Vuitton bag.

• 1:30:07Lewis Howes?

  That's craziness.

• 1:30:08Speaker 01

  To go from 25 to 23. And to her credit, the reporter, after stammering, what? She said, why did you do that? And she said, I heard this shop didn't have a lot, and I didn't want to lose the chance to get one.

• 1:30:29Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 1:30:29Speaker 01

  It's all about loss. Scarcity is about loss. And you'll give up

• 1:30:38Speaker 01

  a $2,800 shoulder bag to go from 25 to 23?

• 1:30:44Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, maybe to like number one.

• 1:30:46Speaker 01

  That's how powerful this is.

• 1:30:48Lewis Howes?

  That's crazy. But the human psychology is fascinating. The way our brain thinks, the way we work is fascinating. So scarcity is all about loss and showcasing that there's a limited quantity. You don't want to lose out. You don't want to miss out on this limited quantity or packaging, exclusive packaging of the thing.

• 1:31:11Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:31:11Lewis Howes?

  Anything else on scarcity before we get into unity?

• 1:31:14Speaker 01

  That's a good.

• 1:31:15Lewis Howes?

  This is great.

• 1:31:16Speaker 01

  Run through.

• 1:31:17Lewis Howes?

  So for, how long is this? The first book has been around for what, over a decade, right? Before the new, before the new version came out?

• 1:31:25Speaker 01

  12 years.

• 1:31:25Lewis Howes?

  12 years. And these six principles have been the leading force in massive companies for entrepreneurs, for lifestyle entrepreneurs, for online websites for for the last 12 years. But now with this new and expanded version, you've got a lot of new research, and you've added an additional principle, which is unity. Can you explain what unity is and why you decided to add an additional principle to influence?

• 1:31:57Speaker 01

  Because I started to see evidence that I was mistaken in thinking that unity was just an extension of similarity. What unity is, if, if as a communicator,

• 1:32:14Speaker 01

  I can convince somebody that I share membership in a, in a we group, a group that this person uses the term we to characterize, right? Everything becomes easier inside the boundaries of the we group.

• 1:32:38Lewis Howes?

  So for example, like, we are part of, you know, the same college alumni association.

• 1:32:44Speaker 01

  Precisely. Some category that defines our identity, right? And so I

• 1:32:56Speaker 01

  even, yeah. So region is one thing. So for example, people who belong to the same city or community or to state.

• 1:33:07Lewis Howes?

  Country. It's like finding something where we're apart, we belong.

• 1:33:11Speaker 01

  We belong, we're a we group, right? But when, when we were first talking before we went on the air, you were saying some of your followers just want to know about how things can be done

• 1:33:25Speaker 01

  in their personal life to increase their, their outcomes. And there's a great example of how the unity principle works in relationships, romantic relationships. You know, in all romantic relationships, there are some things that are going really well, and there are some things that there are just a disagreement. You're not, you can't get resolution on a particular problem or difficulty. And so these researchers in Texas brought couples into a situation, a research situation, and they said, what we'd like you to do is, is think

• 1:34:07Speaker 01

  about an issue that you haven't been able to get agreement on. You just, all the time that you've been together, you just haven't been able to do it. And we would like for one of you, and flipped a coin, to be the persuader, to try to persuade your partner to come into line with your position on this issue, right? And then they took a step back, left the room, but they had TV cameras and tape recorders going. So they knew what happened. And they found three kinds of persuaders. One was what they called the coercive persuader, who said,

• 1:34:47Speaker 01

  I need you to do this for me, otherwise you'll be sorry. I'll have to do some things that you're not happy about, right? Not only did that fail to work, it produced polarization. You got the opposite result. Now, the recipient of that message was further away from the persuader's position. So that was terrible. There was another approach that the researchers called the rational logical approach, where the persuader said, look, if you'll just, if you'll just examine the situation more closely, you'll see that my position is the more rational one.

• 1:35:32Speaker 01

  It's the more reasonable one. Now, that didn't get polarization. That got laughter.

• 1:35:38Lewis Howes?

  Yes, right.

• 1:35:40Speaker 01

  So they got no movement at all from that one. There was only one strategy that worked.

• 1:35:50Lewis Howes?

  What was that?

• 1:35:50Speaker 01

  By a very small percentage of people.

• 1:35:54Lewis Howes?

  Okay.

• 1:35:56Speaker 01

  Who said, you know,

• 1:35:59Speaker 01

  we've been together now for two and a half years. I'd really appreciate it if you'd do this for me. They just brought to the surface that they were a unit.

• 1:36:11Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 1:36:12Speaker 01

  They shared an identity.

• 1:36:16Speaker 01

  That's all.

• 1:36:17Lewis Howes?

  That was it.

• 1:36:18Speaker 01

  No new information, no greater logic, no, no, no. Just bring to consciousness that we are a we group. And inside we groups, people support and compromise. It's what we do inside we groups. Right? Now, there was another version of that that was even simpler to implement. It was simply to use the pronouns we, our, and us in making the request.

• 1:36:58Lewis Howes?

  So wow, for change, gotcha. We, our, and us.

• 1:37:03Speaker 01

  And us.

• 1:37:04Lewis Howes?

  Okay.

• 1:37:05Speaker 01

  Again, bringing to consciousness the idea of, oh, we're members of this shared identity.

• 1:37:14Lewis Howes?

  It can be anything, really. And it could be, we go to the same gym, we like the same workouts, we like the same whatever. Food, we like the same restaurants, you're saying, any type of we community.

• 1:37:25Speaker 01

  Yes. So I, I grew up in Wisconsin.

• 1:37:29Lewis Howes?

  Yep.

• 1:37:29Speaker 01

  And so my NFL football team is the Green Bay Packers. All my life, I've been a Packers fan, right? A little, a while ago, I read a newspaper article where they looked at the favorite NFL teams of various celebrities. And I found out that Justin Timberlake and Lil Wayne are both avid Green Bay Packer fans. Louis, I immediately thought better of their music.

• 1:37:58Lewis Howes?

  Oh, wow, that's crazy.

• 1:38:00Speaker 01

  And I wanted them to succeed to a greater. They were of me. They weren't just like me. They were one of us. They were one of us. It made all, yeah. So.

• 1:38:14Lewis Howes?

  That's crazy. And I'm, and I'm assuming the more emotionally connected to an identity group you are, the more likely you're want to support or be in partnership with or like someone who is a part of that deeper emotional group for you. If you're like the Green Bay Packers super fan, if you find one person likes them, you're like, okay, I look at them completely differently now.

• 1:38:38Speaker 01

  Completely differently.

• 1:38:40Lewis Howes?

  That's amazing. So how, how can we incorporate this in a business negotiation, let's say?

• 1:38:48Speaker 01

  All right. Here's, here's what I am going to recommend. First of all, just like you look for just similarities of preferences and styles and tastes, you can also look for similarities of categories by doing that search, that initial search. And bring, and bring it up. You, you, you're a boater, I'm a boater.

• 1:39:17Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 1:39:17Speaker 01

  Whatever it could be. But there's another way that I, that has been wildly successful in the marketing community. Maybe the most successful strategy for creating loyalty and satisfaction with your product in the last decade. Co-creation. Where we ask people who have been, who are our customers or even our prospective customers, we want to create the next level of our product or service.

• 1:39:59Speaker 01

  Can you give us some input? And we ask for their responses, you know, on what, what can we do to make this better? What can we do to, what should we drop away? What should we, what do we need to improve? Co-create the next level of our products or services. That creates unity. You are co-creating this thing.

• 1:40:27Lewis Howes?

  It's probably why, it's probably why, you know, crowdfunding and Kickstarter and all these sites have done so well because someone puts out an idea and then says, but also give us feedback so that when we ship it, we've incorporated those ideas into making this product to your liking. And people get behind it, they buy something they can't even get for a year, they, you know, invest in something to be a part of the co-creation of, of someone launching it. They'll give feedback, they'll be excited about, they'll spend so much time and energy on one potential product that maybe they get six to 12 months later.

• 1:41:03Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:41:04Lewis Howes?

  Because they're a part of the co-creation.

• 1:41:06Speaker 01

  And here where we come to another one of those single word changes. If you ask for feedback, if you ask for an opinion, you can get this effect, this, but there's one word you can use that enhances the effect significantly. Instead of asking for their opinion or their feedback, you ask for their advice.

• 1:41:32Lewis Howes?

  Ooh.

• 1:41:33Speaker 01

  And you get a partner.

• 1:41:37Lewis Howes?

  So don't ask for feedback, ask for advice.

• 1:41:40Speaker 01

  Ask for advice. When you ask for feedback, people take a half step away from you and they go inside themselves, right? And they're, they, they consider what their reactions are inside. If you ask for advice, they come and stand next to you.

• 1:41:57Lewis Howes?

  Hmm.

• 1:41:58Speaker 01

  Psychologically.

• 1:41:59Lewis Howes?

  Right. That's interesting.

• 1:42:02Speaker 01

  And now, here's what the research shows. If you ask for advice, people like your idea better than if you ask for feedback or opinion about it.

• 1:42:16Lewis Howes?

  What am I, this stuff is fascinating to me.

• 1:42:18Speaker 01

  One word.

• 1:42:19Lewis Howes?

  Yes. This stuff is fascinating to me. If you were, is there anything else about unity?

• 1:42:25Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:42:26Lewis Howes?

  That you would add to?

• 1:42:27Speaker 01

  I would say that we don't want to let this go where it exists already. I'll give you an example of how it worked for me. A while ago, I was, I had to complete a report. And it was due the next day. And as I was reading over it, I saw there was one section that it was not really convincing. I wasn't, I really didn't make my case, but, because I didn't have the research to support it, but I knew I had a colleague who had done a study the year before and had collected data relevant to this point that I, if I put that in, it would, it would close the envelope, it would be a sure thing.

• 1:43:08Lewis Howes?

  Sure.

• 1:43:10Speaker 01

  Well, this guy, let's call him Tim, that's not his real name, was known to be sour and irascible and unpleasant guy. So I, I, I sent him an email. I said, Tim, I explained my situation, I have this due the next day, you have the data. I'm going to call you and see how we can get this to me today so I can put it into my report. And I called him, he said, I know why you're calling, Bob, and the answer is no. He said, look, man, I can't be responsible for your poor time management skills that it's due the next day and you don't have the data.

• 1:43:55Speaker 01

  He said, does he, no. And before I read all the research on unity, I would have said, come on, Tim, it's due the next, it's, I, I, I'm really in a bind here, it's due tomorrow. He had already said no to that, right? This is what I said. Honestly, you know, Tim, we've been in the same psychology department now for 12 years. I really appreciate if you do this for me.

• 1:44:25Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 1:44:26Speaker 01

  And I had the data that afternoon.

• 1:44:29Lewis Howes?

  Wow, there you go. So he said no, and then you?

• 1:44:33Speaker 01

  Because I didn't raise to, just like those researchers in Texas, the, the group that said, we're in a couple, we've been together for, I said, we've been together for 12 years in the same unit. And now no went to yes.

• 1:44:52Lewis Howes?

  People, people feel more obligated or persuaded to take the action.

• 1:44:56Speaker 01

  I think obligated, they feel out of loyalty to the group. You have to do this.

• 1:45:02Lewis Howes?

  That's crazy. Otherwise, you're like a bad member of the group or something.

• 1:45:06Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:45:10Lewis Howes?

  Oh, man, this is, why is human psychology so fascinating and powerful?

• 1:45:16Speaker 01

  It's always been fascinating to me.

• 1:45:18Lewis Howes?

  Isn't it crazy that you could have everyone, everything you want in your life, you could accomplish your goals, your dreams, you could, you could have great partnerships, great friendships, great business opportunities, if you learn to understand people and you learn to speak the language of people. It's, it's fascinating and I want more people to learn about these things. I want more people to study it because when you can study it and then integrate it into your daily life and just make it a part of who you are, it's gonna feel like everything flows to you. It's gonna feel like synchronicities are around you constantly. It's gonna feel like life is abundant and you're a magnet for what you want.

• 1:46:02Lewis Howes?

  And I think, yeah, it's just so powerful.

• 1:46:05Speaker 01

  And the best thing about it is that you get to be ethical in the process by simply pointing to the things that truly exist. We've been together for 12, that's right, in the same year, or, you know, uh, uh, you know, uh, we, we both like, uh, we're, we're both runners, or, you know, or any of these things we've, we've talked about, right? You know, you, you just.

• 1:46:33Lewis Howes?

  It's not about manipulation, it's about, yeah, just reaffirming, connecting.

• 1:46:37Speaker 01

  Pointing to something.

• 1:46:38Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, pointing to something.

• 1:46:40Speaker 01

  True social proof, true authority, true scarcity, that's all.

• 1:46:46Lewis Howes?

  Um, this is fascinating. I've got a few more questions for you. I feel like, I feel like we've only been talking for 20 minutes, but it's been about an, almost an hour and 50 minutes now, and I've got a few more for you. I could talk about this stuff all day long. Um, I'm curious about

• 1:47:06Lewis Howes?

  how to use some of this information to get the truth out of someone. Is there any, any research that you've done or practices that you've implemented where you can use some of these seven principles to see whether or not someone is telling the truth or to get them to be more honest about something, whether it's in business or, or just in life?

• 1:47:27Speaker 01

  There is, um, you know, when we talk about reciprocation, the first thing we talked about, it turns out that self-disclosure is reciprocal. If you begin by saying, you know, I'm gonna be honest with you about this, uh, this, this, this and that, people give you back. They disclose something about themselves that's honest, right? So, it, it's, again, you have to be first.

• 1:47:58Lewis Howes?

  Right, just like giving a gift first and someone wants to give it in return, yeah. I, I use, I, I apply that on my show where if I want someone to be vulnerable and open up about something, I always lead with vulnerability.

• 1:48:13Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:48:14Lewis Howes?

  And I always lead with like, something that may be hard to say in, in front of a stranger, like something I've been through or something I'm not proud of, or a challenge I went through and how it made me feel, I try to open up about that so that others are willing to open up and be vulnerable as well.

• 1:48:30Speaker 01

  Right, right. I think that's, you know, so these are the things we've, we've talked about, you were saying, well, how do we really use these principles? Well, one is you have to know them, you have, you have to know what they are. But then it becomes, if you've started out with the, with, with the value system that you described at the beginning, which is you be a ser, you be of service, you use them to steer people correctly, you know, to things that they don't want to miss, to things that do have authorities who support it, to social proof that shows the popularity of what it is, then everybody's winning.

• 1:49:10Lewis Howes?

  Absolutely, everyone's winning. Where in your life are you still struggling to implement some of this?

• 1:49:18Speaker 01

  You know, um.

• 1:49:18Lewis Howes?

  Besides the praise, the praise still a challenge or is that?

• 1:49:22Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's still something I have to fight with. I have to remember to do it every time in order to get that, to, to, um, be sure that people are properly acknowledged for their contributions, their, their thinking, what they have brought to the table. It's so easy to just go on and, and take that without, uh, uh, without appreciating it publicly. So that's what I, I have to fight to be sure that I don't do that anymore.

• 1:49:59Lewis Howes?

  And if someone listening or watching could only implement one of these principles on a daily basis, and the UC would help them get incredible benefits, if they could only do one thing, what would that one be that you suggest that people get started with? Hopefully they can incorporate all seven, but if it was just one?

• 1:50:20Speaker 01

  So I would ask them to look to the one that's already there in the situation. Is there real scarcity that you can use? Is there real authority already? You've got all these testimonials, you've got all those credentials, is there real social proof, whatever it is, that's where you go. You go to the one that's, it's, engine is running, it's right there in the situation, just waiting for you to harness it. But there's one thing I would recommend as a general strategy, as I have a colleague who has a teenage son, and he said, I wanted to give him some advice about going forward now that he's becoming an adult. And I'm asking all of my friends for a piece of advice for him.

• 1:51:05Speaker 01

  What would yours be, Bob? Right? So, um, here's what it would be. When you go into a situation where you don't know people, it's a new situation, unfamiliar, think the best of those people. Think the best and that, that they will, they want to provide the best to you. If you think that, it allows you to be generous with them. And as soon as you are generous with them, there are two really important, maybe three

• 1:51:48Speaker 01

  important, uh, downstream consequences. First of all, by the principle of reciprocity, they will want to be generous with you. Secondly, by giving them this gift of whatever it is, they will like you more and they will want to do business with you. And finally, after they see themselves doing business with you, they've made a commitment to you, they will want to continue to do business with somebody they like. And now you've got people interacting with one another who like one another and why, trying to be generous with that, with one another.

• 1:52:31Speaker 01

  I don't know how you get a better work environment than that.

• 1:52:35Lewis Howes?

  Absolutely, I love this. Uh, okay, couple of final questions that I ask everyone at the end, uh, but before I ask the questions, I want people to get the book, Influence. I've bought this for so many people, I've given it to so many people over the last decade. It's now updated, expanded with a lot of new research, information, uh, that can really educate you on how to integrate and implement these principles into your life and your relationships and your business. So I want people to get the book, get a few copies for friends. Again, over 5 million copies already sold, lots of incredible praise and testimonials, and it's given me incredible results in my life. I'm trying to incorporate all of the principles in Influence by just letting you guys know all these things.

• 1:53:20Lewis Howes?

  Um, and, uh, it's been a, it's been a joy to, to connect with you, Robert, and have you on, and I hope to have you on in person again in the future sometime. This, this question is called the three truths question. I ask everyone at the end of the show, it's called three truths. I'd like you to imagine a hypothetical scenario that you get to, it's your last day on earth, many, many years away, and you get to live as long as you want, but eventually you gotta, you gotta go on to the next place. And you've accomplished every dream you have, Robert, you've got all these dreams, goals, you, the fulfillment, it all happens for you. But for whatever reason, you've got to take all of your written work, video, content, audio, it's all gonna go with you somewhere else, or it's gotta go somewhere else, but

• 1:54:04Lewis Howes?

  it can't be here anymore. And you get to leave behind three lessons to the world, three things you know to be true, from all your experiences and all your wisdom that you would leave behind. What would you say would be those three truths for you?

• 1:54:21Speaker 01

  Um, one is one that we've, uh, just described. Go into new situations, thinking the best of people, so, which allows you to be generous. All right. The second is also something we've talked about. Don't have a favorite principle of influence, because to think that the same principle is gonna work on all audiences with all histories with you, with all kites, times of, types of products and services, no. You, you choose the one that's in there first, right? You, you, the, the thing that's, that's already there.

• 1:55:07Speaker 01

  And the final one really has to do with another book that I wrote called Pre-Suasion. And it is that

• 1:55:19Speaker 01

  there is

• 1:55:25Speaker 01

  People think that the way to make an appeal or a message more successful is what you put into the message. And that's those seven principles, right? So that's true. But it turns out, there's research to show what you say or do before you ever send your message puts people in a mindset that is consistent with your message. And then that message becomes even more successful. So what I would say is, think about arranging for people to be in a state of mind that's consistent with the central

• 1:56:09Speaker 01

  feature of your message before you send it. All right. So if it's about scarcity, so for example, there was a study that showed that if you have a message asking people to take a stand that, or to purchase something that's scarce, if you send them an email with two ticking down clock emojis in the subject line, they become 15% more likely to buy a scarce opportunity.

• 1:56:48Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 1:56:49Speaker 01

  Because you've put them in mind of scarcity.

• 1:56:52Lewis Howes?

  That's interesting.

• 1:56:53Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:56:54Lewis Howes?

  I love this stuff. This is fascinating for me. I've got one final question for you, but I want to make sure people get the book, they can go online and get Influence, the new and expanded version, The Psychology of Persuasion. They can follow you on social media, Robert Cialdini on Twitter, Facebook as well. Are you on Instagram also?

• 1:57:17Speaker 01

  Yeah, we are. But I think the best place is our website, influenceatwork.com.

• 1:57:24Lewis Howes?

  Influenceatwork.com. Go there. You can opt in for the newsletter. You can get all the information. There's got data, research, all the papers are there, all that stuff. You're the godfather of influence, a lot of people call you. And it's been, it's been fun to watch your journey, as I've started my journey, to discover your journey and decades of research and work that you put in long before, you know, I got into this. And it's been fun to implement your research and your findings and really see incredible benefits. So I appreciate that. And I want to acknowledge you, Robert, for the consistency of your efforts,

• 1:58:05Lewis Howes?

  the consistency in your dedication to finding the answers, to finding solutions on how we can improve the quality of our life, improve the quality of our business, our relationships, through these practical and influential, I guess, psychological principles. And I'm just so grateful that you continue to show up in the way you do. And then you continue to speak this message, that you speak about it, you write about it, and continue to offer us tools to improve these different areas of our lives. So I really acknowledge you for how you've shown up in the world. It's amazing, Robert. And my final question for you is, what's your definition of greatness?

• 1:58:46Speaker 01

  I would say, the ability to transcend your circumstances. Not to be imprisoned, or to have a ceiling based on the circumstances that have been dealt to you, that you can get above and beyond those circumstances. Yeah.

• 1:59:16Lewis Howes?

  Robert, thank you so much for being here. I appreciate it.

• 1:59:19Speaker 01

  Good. I enjoyed it.

• 1:59:22Lewis Howes?

  My friend, I hope you're enjoying this episode right now, because we are on a mission to impact 100 million lives every single week. And every follow here on this podcast helps us reach more people. Make sure to hit the follow at the top of this show's page right now. It's the single biggest thing that you can do to support the show and the impact of us reaching you every single time we have new episodes. I appreciate you, and I can't wait to see you in the next episode. I hope you enjoyed today's episode, and it inspired you on your journey towards greatness. Make sure to check out the show notes in the description for a full rundown of today's episode with all the important links. And if you want weekly exclusive bonus episodes

• 2:00:05Lewis Howes?

  with me personally, as well as ad-free listening, then make sure to subscribe to our Greatness Plus channel exclusively on Apple Podcasts. Share this with a friend on social media and leave us a review on Apple Podcasts as well. Let me know what you enjoyed about this episode in that review. I really love hearing feedback from you, and it helps us figure out how we can support and serve you moving forward. And I want to remind you, if no one has told you lately, that you are loved, you are worthy, and you matter. And now, it's time to go out there and do something great.

• 2:00:39Lewis Howes?

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