Influence Psychology and Persuasion - Mike Sweet - 10 Minute Coach - Develop and Discover

This is session number 022 of the Influence Psychology and Persuasion Podcast. And this show is all about Behavioural Economics Principles. Well not all about but certainly 3 tips to help you understand what this amazing study has to offer. So, Behavioural economics are sets of psychological studies all around economic decision making. So, if you buy or sell things, this podcast is for you. And if you are involved in marketing, sales and run your own business, this is most definitely for you. As you're listening to this you will already have a clear understanding that we, humans, are anything but clear or easy to understand. We're odd, we make irrational choices, decisions and statements. I remember a few years back and my wife came home one Saturday in January. She walked through the door, beaming with pride, came into the living room where I was reading a book, hands at breaking point with carrier bags with a red sale logos splattered all over and held them to my face. She then blurted out "You wouldn't believe how much money I've saved". Interesting, I though. She wouldn't have bought anything if it wasn't January sales and the fact she had 25+% off. She felt like she'd saved money. Lol. My wife isn't the only reason for these studies. We all make irrational choices at times. Here are 3 studies to arm you going forward. Tip Number 1 - FREE! Now most of us get this. FREE is like a drug which pulls us in for closer inspection. FREE has a magnetic pull that us mortals can't resist. But is this logical? Forget for a moment that now days we may have been abused by the power of FREE. Most of use will think, but what do you what in return if not money? The science shows we have an unreasonable connection to FREE! An interesting study was carried out. Researchers offered participants a choice of 2 chocolates. The choice was either a 1 cent Hershey's Kisses or a 15 cent Lindor chocolate truffle. Most of the participants opted to pay for a 15 cent Lindor Truffle because they could see the amazing value, when compared to the Hershey's Kiss. Here is the interesting part though, when the researchers dropped the price by 1 cent, the vast majority then opted for Hershey Kiss. All because it made it FREE! The word FREE makes us unreasonable. Watch out, or use it to your advantage. Tip Number 2 - Perceived Value You all know what we like right? We're not persuaded by price, at all. We simply understand what's good and what's not! If Only! The research says we are more likely to admire a bottle of wine if it is priced considerably more. Interesting, this means we may perceive quality based on price. Here is the bones of the study. The members of a Wine Club were invited in to taste and rate 5 bottles of wine, based purely on what they liked. Here's the sneaky part, there were only 3 different wines. 2 of the wines were in 2 bottles. Haha. However each bottle was only noted with a price label. Nothing else, just price. Only, there were actually only 3 different wines in those bottles– two wines had two bottles each. Each bottle was marked only with the price tag and nothing else. The prices ranged from $5 to $45 for the same wines and the other ranged in between. So, the $5 wine was also marked at the top price of $45. There was a clear correlation with the ratings of the wine and the price label. You guessed it. The $45 bottle of wine was rated the highest even though it was the same wine as the $5 bottle. Here's 2 more examples of how price effects your decision making. Prozac the anti depressant, was tested against a placebo. In this study they sold the placebo at a price of $2.50 per pill and the real Prozac pill at $2.00. Strange but true, the higher priced placebo out performed Prozac. Even more disturbing, students were given a caffeine and sugar drink and were told this would help them improve their alertness and cognitive abilities. But, half of the students were asked to pay full price for this while the other half received a huge discount... The results. The students who received a discount solved 30% fewer puzzles. This study has been done time and time again in many studies and they all deliver the same results. Tip Number 3 - Priming Simply talking about a particular attribute will cause people to make a decision based on how they are primed. A very simple study was done in a computer store where people who were looking at Laptops were asked 2 things. The first group were asked how much memory they were looking for, and the second group were asked what processor they wanted. You guessed it, those who were asked about processor purchased a laptop with a high spec processor, and the buyer who were asked about memory chose a new machine based on it high level of memory. A similar study was done in supermarkets. People who were walking down an aisle with yoghurts and fruit were stopped and asked A: whats your favourite fruit and the other group, whats your favourite yoghurt. You can guess what happened by now for sure. Those who were browsing the aisles ended up buying those products they were asked about.

This is session number 020 of the Influence Psychology and Persuasion podcast. This session is all about how we can be influenced by the the power of touch. Beware of the power of touch. So, the power of touch. Babies and children reach out for their moth

This is session number 018 of the Influence Psychology and Persuasion podcast. In this show, I'll be sharing some information on Metaphors and Influence, explaining how they are being used to influence you and what you need to be aware of to use your own metaphors more effectively. I have been away from the podcast for a while, as I have been chasing my tail with a new full time role and kids school holidays and all that Jazz. I was out walking the dog this morning in the woods, and I came across a large flat area right in the depths of the woods. Standing there I was faced with six different paths, all of which were brand-new to me and I didn't really know which one I wanted to take. What I did know though however, that whatever path I took would definitely have its own twists and turns and new things for me to discover. The last paragraph in itself was a metaphor, a metaphor about me deciding today what the podcast should be about. I was in fact walking the dog earlier in the woods, and I was contemplating what to do today's podcast about, I did know that it would involve some research on some more discovery to fill in all the pieces. I decided on this, Metaphors and Influence.

This is session number 016 of the Influence Psychology and Persuasion podcast. This show investigates how humans are motivated. Are you playing to your own strengths and do you understand what drives you the most? Statistics and human nature dictates that we are far more likely to make a decision if that decision eliminates either FEAR or LOSS. Examples: Your boss asks you to work another 2 hours on Wednesday evening. If you do this you will earn another £20! Feel motivated to do this? Most of us would base this on whether we needed that additional £20, but how about you boss saying if you don't work on Wednesday evening you'd lose £20 per week from your salary? Think about that for a moment! Changing banks and utility suppliers is a very common one. Comparison sites show you what you can save if you shift, but add that up to what we may lose as a result of changing. What are the Risks associated with changing, what's the hassle that you will have to go through? Car insurers don't tend to have this issue as this is more accepted as a simple process. 1-2-1 therapy, business coaching and performance coaches all talk in terms of the big goal and what you want to achieve. Creating the compelling outcome and that will give you drive for the journey. However, history and psychology tell us a much different story. The truth is, we are far more motivated to take initial action to get away from fear, pain, and anxiety, than we are for achieving a goal or getting a reward. Take a look at this from Usain Bolt "

This is session number 014 of the Influence Psychology and Persuasion podcast. This show is something that has been showing up lots of the last few months. It seems people all over are all talking of Fixed vs Growth mindsets. But whats the deal, why now, and is this really important? Well, in this show I hope you'll find out. Definition of Fixed and Growth Mindsets First and foremost, is important to understand that this topic of fixed and growth mindset stems from lots of studies carried out by Prof of psychology from Stanford University Dr Carol Dweck. I'm simply relaying my learnings from this and how I can, and others around me have applied some of these learnings. The takeaways to create a growth mindset Embrace challenges. Challenges something you initially find difficult, this means you're about to learn and discover something new. Be persistent when you're faced with setbacks and even failures. Sometimes you win and sometimes you learn either way being persistent gives you what you need. Effort is your path to mastering a growth mindset. Learn from criticisms. Be careful not to simply accept them all verbatim but certainly, look at adopting an understanding what's being said. Find inspiration from others that have succeeded where you want to. Finding out their path will break down some old self-limiting beliefs to what's possible and what's necessary to achieve.

This is session number 12 of the influence Psychology and Persuasion podcast. This show is all about Lazy Thinking. Lazy thinking is responsible for so many critical thinking errors. Lazy thinking occurs because we need to limit our inputs and piece together our responses and choices based upon what we have done before and what has served us up to this point. Lazy thinking allows us to function normally, easily but it is defining our choices, decisions and lives as a whole. Action must be taken. The psychological principle of lazy thinking, like most other principles certainly serves a purpose. Every day our life is full of lessons. Each of these lessons are stored and allow us to shortcut critical thinking by using these lessons at a later date. Sometimes we even package these lessons to allow us to come up with a seemingly rapid accurate gut feel. Here is where the problem lies. What's the Issue? Marketeers, sales professionals and even manipulators fully understand that we will go through most of our day on autopilot, lazily thinking and making decisions as we have done in the past. This topic jumped out at me today whilst I was on the school run with the kids, I heard some mums talking about diet, and foods. One of them sounded extremely pleased that they purchased a microwaveable dinner that was gluten-free. The other one also responded in amazement, and clearly wanted to try some of this gluten-free microwaveable dinner. As it was gluten-free, it's obviously healthy isn't it? Nnow this isn't a show about diet, but the facts are this. Gluten is fine for most people, but for those who do suffer, the suffering can be quite intense. So a gluten-free option is certainly, an option. However, we come to think that foods that are fat-free, gluten free, sugarfree are the best options in all cases to choose regardless of our own dietary needs. The lazy thinker would assume that if it didn't have one of the above ingredients in, therefore it must be the healthier choice. The critical, active thinker may be wondering if these items have been taken out what specifically has gone back in? Kknown neurotoxic sweeteners sometimes replace sugar, simply to have the label sugar free. Artificial thickeners are put in foods to replace fats. In most cases, fats that are beneficial to us replaced with thickeners that have no nutritional benefit whatsoever. But marketers get away with labelling something as fat-free, or even low-fat and make us want this more. Chips are meat free, it doesn't tell you anything. Lazy brain, and lazy thinking affects us in so many ways. And it's time to step in and make a cognitive assessment of your brains thinking. Let me give you some more examples. Lazy thinkers tend to be more selfish, and will use certain languages and make specific judgements based on their social situations and things that seem to fit at that time. Think about it for a minute, how many times have you thought about something after an event, and realised that your initial decision was a mistake. “ thinking about it now I can……….” When a person is admired, or believed to be right in a particular subject. People also then believe more of what that person says, it seems that once a person has passed a validation test in some way or another. Then there other suggestions, comments and stories seem to be more plausible and believable. Manipulators can use this to set the scene. They can create a story or situation that they can prove to be true, and then follow it up with an illusion that you will simply adopt more easily.

This is session number 010 of the Influence Psychology and Persuasion podcast. I have a confession! I have just covered this in another one of my Podcast on NLP titled Representational systems, but this just had to be added here too. It's a completely new recording and I'll be explaining it in another way. More aligned with Influence and persuasion. Using representational systems to get people on board is a skill not to be missed. This is very easily practiced and very simple to implement too. What are Representational Systems? Simply put, representational systems are our 5 senses. Each of us senses and experiences the world very differently as you probably well-know. The senses are V.A.K.O.G. and these stand for visual, auditory, kinesthetic, olfactory, and gustatory. typically, and to the purpose of this session I'll be just talking about the first three, visual, auditory, and kinesthetic. Most people do not experience the world through smell or taste so will leave those out for simplicity. People have preferences in the type of representational system that they use mostly. This is their dominant, or preferred representational system, But typically, people will use all of the senses to experience at some point or another. How Is This Useful For Influence And Persuasion? This gets interesting when you can use a person's preference in your own dialogue while you are communicating in with them. This connection or matching of representational systems is what makes people feel greater levels of rapport and more comfort. And we know by now, report and feeling comfortable always allows for interactions to flow more smoothly and therefore allow the communicator to direct the situation conversation into the desired outcome more easily. The easiest example that you will know and understand is when two people meet for the first time, but get on so well for no reason known to them that they make a statement like " it feels like we were on the same wavelength" or even " we just talk the same language". this is a great sign, That two people are aligned in how they represent the world and its meaning.

This is session number 008 of the Influence Psychology and Persuasion podcast. Adding typical Mike fashion I've given you a strange title that seems oxymoronic. Agree, even when you don't. Why I suggest you always agree! Initially. Okay, I have given a bit more away now I've added the "initially" part at the end of the title. But bear with me here because there are some very important factors to consider and why I have made this statement about agreement. Agreeing with a person first and foremost allows for rapport to be built and for the interaction to flow. And in any interaction, we are always looking for a good level of rapport and to ensure that we feel comfortable enough at the conversation stays in flow. Agreement is the very best way to do this! Agreed? lol Examples of agreement You are selling gas and electricity for a small not very known distribution company. You do have very competitive rates and the switch over from their existing large supplier over to you can be seamless and involve very little of their time. But, right at the end of the interaction before the person is about to sign their new agreement, they say that they have some concerns. "As you are only a small company, how do I know you will stay in business, and be able to provide me with the service I want, I feel a little uneasy". the untrained person here would try to explain to that person that they needn't feel uneasy and they would try to reassure in any way they could, simply saying that they're not that small and they do have 3% of the entire market. this is a great example of not agreeing, trying to dissuade a person's opinion by telling. Creating an agreement though allows a person to feel as if you understand their situation, and also lets them know that it's fine for them to feel that way, as others have to. In this case, you'd use something called the feel, felt, found method, and it goes a little something like this. " Well Mrs Jackson I completely understand a you feel about switching to a smaller company for your gas and electricity services even though we are cheaper than your current supplier, in fact, every day I hear similar thoughts from people like you who felt the same way as you, however, once the switch has happened almost seamlessly, those people found that they were pleased that they trusted in smaller company to provide them with the similar great service, at a much reduced cost. This agreement twists the angle and makes a disagreement, agreeable.

This is session number 006 of the Influence Psychology and Persuasion podcast. This podcast is all about understanding hypnosis. What it is, how it's induced, and why it seems so effective at producing rapid amazing change. First I need to start off by saying, hypnosis is absolutely a "real thing", and you should not view this in terms of magic, or things like sorcery. You'd be surprised how many people seem to classify hypnosis is something not of this world, or simply made up. So let's start with what is hypnosis?This can be defined in so many ways but let's drag a little excerpts from Wikipedia as they have a nice neat, and concise description, here is what It is said here. "Hypnosis is a state of human consciousness involving focused attention and reduced peripheral awareness and an enhanced capacity for response to suggestion. To give you an example of what hypnosis is, and something that is commonly taught throughout hypnotherapy training practices around the world. Hypnosis is a state of trance. The most common example of day to day trance is while you are driving, think for a moment, perhaps you're on a route that you know all too well, you may have the radio on in the background and you're thinking about what the day has to offer, and things that you may have to do. When you get to where you're going, more often than not you won't remember the route you took, what cars were in front of you, what happened at the roundabout. so many people actually say they don't remember any of the journey. then the strange addition! While you are driving, without seemingly paying any attention to the journey, the radio was on in the background. If you are asked what was playing, you prog you wouldn't remember. However! You will most likely be singing that, or humming it throughout the day without giving it a second thought.

This is session number 004 of the Influence Psychology and Persuasion podcast. In this show, I'll be talking all about the commitment and consistency principle. This a Psychological principle details by Robert Cialdini and it has so many interesting caveats and discoveries. Typically, we value consistency and commitment. However, you need to be aware that this psychological process of remaining consistent and committed can sometimes lead you down the wrong path.

This is session number 002 of the Influence Psychology and Persuasion podcast. In this show, I'll be explaining a very common sales and influence technique called the Yes Set. This is perhaps one of these principles that people use without even realising that they use it. In fact, it is so effective that children learn this principle very quickly and very easily without, in most cases being told. I give an example in this during the podcast about my daughter, influencing me even after I explained this principle to her.