The Seven Principles That Make Sales Easier

Most sales scripts fail for a boring reason: they assume people decide with patience, logic, and unlimited attention. They don’t. We talk with Patrick Vanderbert, an ethical persuasion trainer based in Australia, about how real decisions get made and why so many prospects aren’t rejecting you they’re freezing in indecision.

Patrick connects Daniel Kahneman’s System 1 vs System 2 thinking to what we see every day in marketing, rent-to-own (RTO) sales, retail, lending, and leadership. When we “help” by piling on details, we often create uncertainty and delay. The goal of ethical persuasion is to make a good decision easier to recognize without manipulating anyone, because trust is the asset that compounds.

From there we get practical with Dr. Robert Cialdini’s seven universal principles of persuasion: reciprocity, liking, unity, social proof, authority, consistency, and scarcity. You’ll hear memorable examples you can use immediately, like why a gated “free” download is not a gift, how co-creation builds unity and buy-in, how to use social proof that matches the person in front of you, why a perfect 5.0 review score can feel suspicious, and how precise numbers can boost credibility. We also dig into scarcity and loss framing, plus a lightning round on the research that surprises even seasoned operators.

If you want better conversions, stronger relationships, and fewer stalled deals, listen all the way through, then subscribe, share the episode with your team, and leave a review with one idea you’re going to test this week. What principle will you apply first?

Transcript

Welcome And Guest Introduction

Pete Shau 0:08

Hello and welcome to the RTO show. I'm your host, Pete Chow. Today we have a classic on here. My guest, absolutely all the way from Australia. I love to hear everything that's going on down under. But real quick, make sure that you guys, if you're watching or listening, make sure that you drop a like, make sure that you subscribe so you guys don't miss any content. Plus, the newsletter is out every time that we drop the newsletter. It is items that we do not cover on the show because we want it to be new to you. And right now, I am talking to an esteemed guest who has done quite a bit in the world of ethical persuasion. And guys, let me tell you, you know, and I know just as well as anybody that our sales force, our people, there's a couple things that we can always teach them, and this is going to be one of them. So as we go on, I've got Mr. Patrick Vanderbert is uh what where is that from? Uh the Netherlands uh originally, Pete. So how did you end up all the way in Australia? Yeah, a girl, of course. Oh, absolutely, right? I love that. So talking a little bit about what you do, you you have quite a little bit of a history here and what you have going on. Patrick, right now, why don't you fill the listeners in? You're on the show because you you have immense knowledge in this industry. How are you doing today? How's things in Australia? And what what brought you into the world of ethical persuasion?

SPEAKER_00 1:30

Uh yeah, things are okay in Australia. And uh how I got into this, I was a sales rep and I was uh I was on the road, I was looking after three states in Australia, which is a decent stretch of land. And uh I was uh a sales rep for a scuba diving wholesaler, and so I was visiting retailers, and uh I was working hard trying to assist my retailers as best as I could, and I was investing a lot of time, but uh I wasn't really sort of seeing the growth in uptake of my products that I was looking for, as in you know, there was a percentage that they were buying from us, and then there was percentages that they were buying from other wholesalers, and I was, of course, always working to expand our share, and it wasn't really coming. I I don't think I was getting the rewards or the success that the amount of effort and genuine care that I was injecting in it, you know, should have sort of produced. So I was a bit frustrated with that. And then my boss actually hired a business coach to help him grow his business, and uh a bit of a funny angle. The the business coach identified that people at that time who ran dive shops, they loved diving, but they weren't necessarily great business people. So, us sales reps, we were trained

From Scuba Sales To Cialdini

SPEAKER_00 2:45

by the business coach to sort of be business coaches so we could handhold our retailers, do things like goal setting and sales training to help them grow their business. And the idea was if we double their business, we double with them by definition, probably more because feel indebted to us. And so that was fantastic. And the the gentleman, the business coach, his name was John McDonald's, he was a business partner of Jay Abraham, which of course we do all know. I hope John's still around, he was a mature gentleman back then, but uh, he was local to uh Vermont here in uh in Melbourne, and he said, Oh Patrick, if you ever have any questions implementing the strategies we're sharing, just come by the office and we can have a bit of a chat. And of course, I know this guy was expensive, and so I don't know if you've ever met a Dutch person on holiday and you go, Oh, if you're ever in North America, come visit. You know, you can have a place to stay. Don't do that with Dutch people, they turn up, right? And so I took that invitation uh eagerly. So I would visit, and what he liked was that, you know, when I had tried to implement a strategy, sometimes you know it doesn't seem to work, or you're not getting the results you were hoping for. Where my you know, some of my colleagues would go, ah, that stuff doesn't work and then dismiss it. I would go back and say, Okay, well, I did this, didn't really work, what am I doing wrong? Right. And so he loved that because it gives him an opportunity to tweak, and then we did get the results. So, anyway, long story short, he was lending me uh educational series, as in you know, CD sets and cassette tapes, right? For those who still remember what those are, and they used to be really expensive. I mean, I remember paying $1,200 for a set of Brian Tracy CDs. Oh wow, wow, and and so he was lending me this stuff, and there was this event called Mind Capture, which was in Los Angeles, and Dr. Cialdini was in there with two cassette tapes, and I loved what I was hearing, as in the psychology behind how decisions are made and how you can just by looking for the right pieces of information that appeal to, and we can get into that, into the primary decision-making part of the brain, you can have a lot more success. As in, you're actually wasting it if you don't use it. And so I was fascinated by this. And so I was doing sales training with my retailers, but I wanted to do persuasion training, and so I actually communicated with Dr. Cialdini and got permission to uh you know pass on his work. So that's when that all started. But uh at that time I was also confronted with a challenge. There was a dry diving suit that's produced in Australia. I took up representation for it, and it was the best dry diving suit that I'd ever used. I'd used those in the military, back in the Netherlands and recreationally. And uh I was very excited, and I was walking into my retailer store, who of course knew me, and I said, Oh, I've picked up representation for hot and dry, which is what they were called, they're still around. And uh they go, Well, you're a nice fellow, Patrick, but we're not touching that again after the the debacle of last year. What are you talking about? And uh so it turns out that they had changed the material of the inner membrane that's supposed to keep you dry and uh you know in a cost-saving effort. And anyway, this was inferior, it all delaminated, and every single suit I saw the year before had had to be recalled and replaced. And so my my retailers didn't want to have a bar of it. So here I was. I have a quality product, and it's sort of destroyed its name. So, how do I get that into stores? Anyway, so dived into Dr. Cialdini's work, used what information was in the situation, what I could do, and 18 months later, we were basically market leader in that field. So, ever since then, converted, love it, and I love human decision making and behavioral science. It's amazing how people behave. It's entertaining. In other times, it's absolutely frightening, but it's always fascinating.

Pete Shau 6:32

Well, you know, looking at some of my notes here, because I there was a lot to talk about. You know, I seen something here that said that you mentioned that ethical persuasion and unethical persuasion have different outcomes, although they dress the same almost during the decision-making process, right? So you have unethical persuasion tends to win short term and lose long term. Where you have ethical persuasion that it works because they're being signaled what they're talking about, what you're talking about is an actual true statement versus something that's unethical and saying it is an untrue statement, but I'm getting you to believe it. Those differences that you've learned through Dr. Cialdini, you've decided to take it, not only become certified, but now you go out and do this full time.

SPEAKER_00 7:20

Uh, yeah. Yeah, I mean, no, not as full-time as I'd like. I'm passionate about sharing this stuff, but yeah, so I've been teaching doing keynotes, workshops, and I love I love seeing the penny drop in people's eyes when I'm doing a keynote. I was uh at uh one of the major four banks last year, for example, room full of people. And at some point you see the penny drop, like, oh my, is this how it works? And the right entertaining

Why Ethical Persuasion Wins Long Term

SPEAKER_00 7:45

thing is it it works professionally, but it works privately as well, right? I mean, if you're trying to get your teenager to clean up their room, you're gonna have to be persuasive. When you're asking someone out on a date, you're gonna have to be persuasive, and it's all the same science.

Pete Shau 7:58

So the idea is to take this ethical persuasion now and talk to our salespeople, talk to our team leads, talk to our staff, talk to the people that we have in our lives business-wise, and and ethically persuade them to do the things that are gonna get them ahead, ethically persuade them to take on the task of being better at the situation that they're in and what they're doing, correct?

SPEAKER_00 8:19

Yeah, and I I would phrase that in a little bit more slap in the face, let me wake you up, sort of a way. Okay, okay. If we if you imagine an architect, right? And if you imagine the architect constructing a sky skyscraper, but not knowing or not using the science, that's not gonna turn out so well, right?

Pete Shau 8:43

No, no, right.

SPEAKER_00 8:45

But in business, we're at it every single time. And depending on the way we communicate, you know, let's say you might do a thousand proposals, depending on the setting is it could be lead generate lead generating efforts, right? So you have a thousand proposals as in come and talk to us. It could be a thousand sales pitches you do on the telephone, a thousand sales pitches face to face. Out of those thousand sales pitches, you might get a small percentage of yeses. And therefore you deduct that, well, the rest of them, we didn't get the business, so there must have been no's. Because you don't know the science, you don't actually realize how big a percentage of those didn't get the business weren't actually no at all. They were indecision. By how you communicated, you actually caused more uncertainty in your audience, and they decided not to decide. So you have an enormous amount of sex success on the table, but just because you're oblivious that there actually is a science on how this works, or which is also a little bit of a trap, you might be aware that there is a science, you might even have read Dr. Cialdini's book, but you're not using it. I mean, we'll cover some stuff today that people go, ah, yeah, reciprocity. I know how that works. Yeah, yeah. Well, let me show me your brochure, show me your website, let me hear to your you know, listen to your salespeople do their pitch. You're not using it. So there is a lot of loss that is happening every single day. And of course, we all see the world through the lens of our expertise. And so I do the same thing. I can't look at a restaurant menu and go, if they just change the order, they'd sell more, right? You can't look at a website to go, why is this not above the fold? As in above the fold is what you see without scrolling, right? People think that if they hit your website, they're all gonna scroll. No, no, no. They're gonna look at the first piece they see, and from there they'll make a decision whether or not to scroll or move away. So we have very delicate moments where we need to get in there with some information that tells the brain, you know what, this is probably a good decision for me. Right? And make let them make that decision.

Pete Shau 10:55

Well, talking about yes, there is a science behind yes, and and you have seven principles of it. Walk us through the human decision-making process. Why do people actually say yes?

SPEAKER_00 11:09

All right, and thanks for asking that because I think that really explains how then how powerful the principles are and why they're such a must-to have. And by the way, social influence, which is another word for ethical persuasion, was ranked by the World Economic Forum as the third most urgent skill that businesses need to develop in their teams moving forward to was it, uh, 2013. So this is a much in-demand skill, and especially in a world where AI is making things a little bit uncertain, it is uh in personal skills that are so important. All right, so how are decisions made? So I'm gonna lean on the world work of a professor Daniel Kahneman, who unfortunately died a couple of years ago. Daniel Kahneman won a Nobel Prize in economics in 2002. And that was a little bit surprising, perhaps, because he was a professor in psychology and a behavioral scientist. So, you know, you win a Nobel Prize for normally making an extraordinary contribution to a field. So what the heck did he figure out that

How People Actually Decide

SPEAKER_00 12:10

had such an impact in economics? Well, basically, a lot of his work was on the decision-making process, and decisions shape economics. That's where the link is. And so he basically disproved the popular belief that old economics used to have. And the older belief was human beings are logical, rational creatures, and we would therefore use logic and reason to formulate our decisions. And Daniel Kahneman proved that that's not the case. So when it comes to decision making, your brain has two parts, or your audience's brain has two parts. And when I say audience, it's not audience as in an auditorium where you're giving a big presentation per se. I mean, it is your audience there as well, but it is the recipient of your message, right? So if you're trying to get your sales team to follow a new process that you want them to follow, well, you're gonna have to be persuasive, right? Um so they are then your audience. If you're talking to a client and you're in the customer service department, right, then the client in that setting, not for sales, but for customer service, is your audience. If you're talking to your teenager, then they are the audience, right? All right, so our brain has two parts when it comes to decision making. So we have system one and system two. System one is the intuitive part of the brain, system two is the logical, rational part of the brain. All right, let's look at system one first. So system one is fast, it works automatically, and it's an unconscious brain, as in it works outside of our conscious control. It takes very little effort to run system one, and it's basically on all the time. System one uses shortcuts to formulate decisions. Now, uh let me give some examples of that. So a shortcut could be expensive equals good. Right? I could be faced with a decision, let's say it's a purchase decision, I'm standing in a store looking to buy something I really don't know anything about or not enough about. Could be anything, could be a laptop, monitor for your computer, could be front door for your house, set of speakers, doesn't matter what it is. In that moment, I could do a number of things. One of them could be that I decide to delay my decision. I could go to the library and I could start reading books on those topics to educate myself. I could maybe do some workshop and some courses to learn the ins and outs of I don't know, door construction. And then five months later, I could come back to the store and make an educated decision about which option to buy. But I don't know about you. I don't have the time to go to the library for three, five months and learn on every single decision that I don't know everything about. So that's not an option for most of us, if not all of us. So the rule of thumb that expensive is typically better when we make a purchase, right? We've learned from experience that if we spend more money on something, chances are we get something that's a better quality, it's gonna last us longer, it's better suited to purpose. So that rule of thumb affords us a shortcut to a quicker decision. In that moment, I can go, you know what? I'm looking at these three options. I was thinking of spending this much money, but if I just spend a bit more money and I just buy that next level up, let's say, I'll probably have done the right thing here today. And that's exactly what will happen. You will probably have done the right thing because that rule of thumb is in your head because it works most of the time. It doesn't work all the time, right? Sometimes more expensive things are still rubbish, right? But most of the time that rule works. And so that affords us a quicker decision in that moment, and I can move on with my day, right? Decision made. Other example is which is social proof, which we'll get into later. People follow the actions of others, right? So if other people are doing something, that must be the right thing to do. Right? We've heard the classic example. You're walking through a city you don't know, you're looking for a place to have dinner, there's two restaurants in front of you, one of them is empty, one of them is half filled with people. Which one do you not go into? The empty one.

Pete Shau 16:34

You usually just piepast the empty one, regardless of the fact, yes.

SPEAKER_00 16:37

Exactly. Because if if the other people are all going to that, they must know something, right? Maybe the food's better there, maybe they've got great deals on or something, not quite sure, right? But if they are choosing to go there, I'm typically better off doing what everybody else is doing. Uh it's quite interesting. We're very much herd animals, but not in romance. In romance, we're different. In romance, we want to be very different, uh separate and unique, let's say. So again, social proof, the actions of other people allow me to make a quicker decision. Okay, so that's how system one works a lot of the time. It uses shortcuts to make decisions, and it's an unconscious process outside of our conscious control. All right, let's jump across to system two. So system two is a logical, rational part of the brain. This works slowly, where system one is fast. System two is conscious thinking, where system one is unconscious thought. System two takes a lot of effort, takes a lot of energy to run. And Daniel Kahneman actually refers to it as a lazy controller. It doesn't actually want to engage, it's quite happy for system one to make the decisions, right? Unless the flags go up. Now, system two is more reliable because it looks at all the available information that we have and it formulates the best decision. So it's more reliable. Okay. Well, Daniel Kahneman demonstrates back in 2009 that 90 of our decisions, 9-0, are made by System One, unconsciously, automatically, largely based on shortcuts. As time has progressed, that percentage is increasing. We now say it's 95%, and some people say it's going to 98%.

Pete Shau 18:26

Well, with AI, I can see that. I can definitely see that happening.

SPEAKER_00 18:31

Yeah, but AI, the the impact would be related to how much stimuli and how much decisions we have to make. Because you know, our world is ever changing and we get more things that add to our day. There's more decisions to be made. And so our attention span is getting shorter. In the 80s, we had an attention span of 20 minutes. Um, do you know what the uh attention span of the famous goldfish is supposed to be?

Pete Shau 18:59

No, I don't.

SPEAKER_00 19:00

That's all right. Nine seconds, supposedly, for the goldfish. Right? Our attention span is now seven seconds. Oh wow. We've been beaten by the goldfish, right? And the internet had a big impact on us, right? A lot of information at our fingertips, and so we were able to move quicker to from one decision to the other. And then sort of finally the smartphone was sort of the nail in the coffin. Uh, we've all been there, right? You need to make a phone call, you pick up your phone, you unlock it. 34 apps pop up with notifications asking you to make a decision whether or not you want to interact with them. Goodness, you might open one, right? Now that brings

Attention Span Collapse And AI

SPEAKER_00 19:35

you to a message from him, message from her, link there, video there. 20 minutes later, you put the phone down and you go, What did I pick that thing up for? Have you done that?

Pete Shau 19:45

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_00 19:46

You didn't even last seven seconds. Two seconds you were gone. It's how quickly are we distracted? And so that is why that percentage is increasing. Now, some people do argue with that percentage, as in they say, Well, maybe if it's an everyday decision, you know, maybe when I'm deciding where to sit in an airport or something, maybe then I would use intuit intuition. But if it was really important, I would use logic and reason. And we can unpack that a little bit. If we're looking at making an uh an expensive purchase, right? Um, I mean, I know a lot of your audience are in RTO, so let's go a little bigger than that still. Let's say buying a house.

Pete Shau 20:30

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 20:32

Big decision, right? We we do that only once or a few times in our lifetime. When that process begins, right, first we have to decide which suburb we're interested in. We might compare how the value of suburbs in the area are changing, as in what is some good investment. Then, of course, if we have children, we'll be looking at the performance of the schools in the area, because the kids have got to go somewhere. And then once we've got the suburb figured out, then we'll go and uh inspect these homes that are available, right? And we'll turn up with a notepad or a tablet, and we'll take notes on everything, right? The size of the house, how many bedrooms, how many bathrooms, uh, the size of the balcony, the garage, right? We write everything down and we do a full analysis of everything that we're seeing. And this is all system two work. But how many times have you met someone that just bought a house and they go, well, it was a bit above the budget, you know, but we just had to buy it. That's not logic and reason. They did do all the system two work, but when decision making time came, system one took over. Right, there were other decision triggers involved. And so here's the punchline, right? If we're uh contemplating how am I going to convince someone to purchase this item with the options that we have available, or how am I gonna get my staff. To follow the new procedures to the letter. How am I going to increase the loyalty of our clients so they come back more readily to us? When you're sitting there thinking how you're going to achieve that and how you're going to verbalize, what you're going to say, what you're going to write, you're using conscious thought, right? So you're using system two at that moment. And system two, the logical, con logical, rational part of the brain, tends to come up with reasonings, arguments that need system two in the other person to process it. And our audience doesn't have the time for that anymore. We are making them more uncertain. And as I said before, they then withdraw, they then decide not to decide on your genuinely good value, good for them proposal. They decide not to decide. And so you end up with what looks like no's, but they weren't actually. Had you just supplied some information that would have allowed system one to make a quick decision, automatically outside of their conscious control, based on shortcuts, you would have made it easier for them to make a um quicker decision. When I was uh doing a keynote at Westpac, which is one of the four big banks here in Australia, we had some time to workshop strategies and how they could use them in their business. And I'm going around the table, sort of asking, okay, how are we going with this? You know, what ideas are you coming up with? Pitch them at me, right? To sort of check that they're using the science correctly. And I'm talking to this uh this lender, and uh he says, you know what, because we're talking about social proof, the actions of others. And he says, you know what? Now that you've explained it, I understand something that's been happening to me sometimes. I said, right? Tell me what's been happening. So he says, and they they specialize in loans to medical practitioners, doctors, surgeons. And so he says, Yeah, well, once people have decided to take the mortgage with us, there's still a lot of other decisions that need to be made. One of them is if they want a fixed-rate home loan or a variable rate home loan. And he says, I normally spend a lot of time explaining to the doctors on the other side of the phone what the difference is so they can make a decision. He says, but sometimes I've noticed that the decision is made really quickly. And in those instances, what I've now realized, and now I know how it works, is that I say to the doctor, well, you know, we've got fixed rate and variable home loans, right? We need to pick which option you want to go with. But just so you know, that nine out of ten of the doctors that we've written home loans for in the last six months have all chosen for the variable option. To which the doctor goes, you know what, I'll do the same. That's good enough for me. Let's move on. Right? Because if a lot of other people are doing it, it must be the right cause of action. So just by providing a genuine piece of information that qualifies as a shortcut, qualifies as a rule of a principle of persuasion, we can make it much easier for people to make a decision. And this was a perfect example of that.

Pete Shau 25:24

Would you say that the way people are now, sometimes we're overfeeding them information, not necessarily that was the wrong information, but sometimes overfeeding it. And instead of doing that, the best thing to do for a salesperson to do, whether they're selling a furniture or whether they're selling a house, is to kind of condense it into short bytes to say, this is this is for option A and this is for option B, and let that number one side work as a quick decision maker instead of, oh, well, you can do all this and it has all this and comes with that, and these are the payment plans, and this is how long you're looking at it. But give them these short byte informations to be able to really go in, make a quick decision, and go out because the world around us is pushing us to seven seconds of actual concentration. Let me ask you something. Are you getting everything out of your rent-to-owned business? If you're not an APRO member, then the answer is probably no. Look, advocacy is April's bread and butter. This is why they were created and what they do best. But here's the thing Apro membership is about way more than advocacy. April connects you to the movers and the shakers of the industry. People who've been there, done that, and they could help you do it even better. APRO's monthly webinars give you expert insights and actionable takeaways. It's like having a masterclass for your business every single month. A lot questions about complex regulations or sticky situations, no problem. April's legal hotline gives you direct access to experts who have got the answers. That's a peace of mind that you can't put a price on. And let's not forget the resources, news, updates, and tools that keep you ahead of the curb. Scholarships for your team? Check. Disaster relief when you need it most? Double check. APRO is your ultimate support system in the rent-to-own world. So stop settling for less. With APRO, members get more. More support, more connections, more success. Head over to rtohq.org and join the APRO family today. Because in this business, more

APRO Membership Message

Pete Shau 27:15

isn't just better. It's essential. See you at the top with Apro.

SPEAKER_00 27:20

Yes and no. As in, yes, if you have an enormous amount of content to share, people could be overwhelmed and it's just too hard. And typically we see this in an online influence environment as well, right? If we make a paragraph shorter, as in we're still saying the same thing, but we're just cutting out what we don't need, conversion and interaction tends to go up. So there's some truth in that. But what this essentially more about is that we learn how to identify the pieces of information that allow people to make those quicker decisions. Okay. And so if you have a lot of content to share with people, you need to strategically fit in pieces of information to sort of draw them further into your content. Maybe you can do it with a shorter text. That's great. But you know, depending on field you're in, you might have to, I mean, you know, I don't know. Let's say you're you're selling nuclear power plants or something, right? I mean, your proposals can't be very short. I mean, that would have to be a lot longer. So it's more about strategically planning what you can use. And then it actually goes a level deeper as well. You could argue that, or I like doing this with an audience, you could argue that there's three stages in getting compliance from someone. One of them is relationships,

Three Stages Of Compliance

SPEAKER_00 28:36

right? Or relationship status or the strength of your relationship that you have with that person. If you you know this, if you got somebody who's trying to sell you something and you really don't like them, right? I mean, you're gonna go out of your way not to deal with them, right? So a strong relationship is important and valuable in moving down the process. Actually, KPMG did a study on that. They had a complex algorithm to determine the strength of the relationship that their account managers had with their clients. And they looked who's more able to get agreement from their clients. And those with a weak relationship were 30% successful, those with an average strength of the relationship were 45% successful, and those with a strong relationship were 70% successful. That's more than double. And there's also other studies that support that, right? So relationship is important. If I have a bad relationship, I'm not going to be very successful when I go, well, it's the last one we have, right? I mean, trying to motivate you with scarcity, isn't it? So relationship is important. Now you'll have contacts that they love you, right? They they you've got a good relationship with it with you, they love you, but they're actually not quite sure about what it is you're offering. And in sales, we often hear, oh, well, if they you know if they don't want to buy, then you just haven't shown them enough value yet. And that's true in some way. I would say that they're just uncertain about what it is you're offering. So uncertainty can be the problem. So there's particular principles that are good for relationship building, but there's also principles that are good for reducing uncertainty. Right? So once we've got that covered, we've got a good relationship, we've got to reduce the uncertainty with people, right? They love you, they love your product when they're ready, they're gonna get it. But they don't, do they? They're still not buying it. So now you're lacking motivation. And so there's other principles that are your go-to principles when you want to motivate people into action. And so when we're putting a communication together, we also need to be aware where we are in this process with our audience. That's why AI is very lousy at coming up with a truly persuasive text, for example, because it has no situational awareness. If you have never communicated with someone, you need to focus more, certainly in the beginning, on building relationships. And we'll go into some principles and I'll give you some ideas. Right? But if it's later in, now you might move more to reducing uncertainty. And once you think you've got those two elements covered, maybe now you're looking at motivating into action. And as I like to ask people when I've got an audience in front of me, if I can give you the tools that will help you to build strong relationships, strong loyal relationships, if I can give you the tools to reduce uncertainty about what it is you're offering, and if I give you the tools that you can motivate people into taking action, what else do you need? I think you've got to cover it, don't you? Nobody get blank stares and saying, Yeah, I can't think of anything else. Right. All right. So does that make sense? So there's science teaches us how decisions are made. We know how it works, but business doesn't tend to use this, and so a lot of success is left on the table.

Pete Shau 31:56

On the table is exactly the way I put it. So describe to me then the seven principles as we go into this and we're talking about the yes and no. Describe to me about the seven principles, walk us through the human way of looking at things, but the seven ways to make this right, to do what you're talking.

SPEAKER_00 32:14

Sure. And you'll be uh delighted. It's not actually that difficult. It's relatively simple. And keep in mind this works both in business and privately, so it's an awesome soft skill, actually life skill to have. All right, so there's seven universal principles of persuasion, and we call them universal because they work in all languages, all cultures, and all countries. And this is exceedingly powerful, right? We, you know, our our in our own country, our cultures are intermixed, but it's also much easier now to do business with people in other countries. So this is something that works everywhere. Okay, so there's seven principles. I'll walk through them and I'll give you, let's say, the rule why they work, and then uh, you know, some strategies uh you know to share, uh to share as well that you can use immediately. So let's start with reciprocity that we've all heard of. The rule of reciprocity works because we have a tendency to want to give back the same type of behavior that was first given to us. Yes. And in the context of compliance, we tend to agree

Seven Principles You Can Use

SPEAKER_00 33:25

more readily with people that we feel we owe something to. So in business, we've taken that as in okay, we gotta give people stuff. And in essence, that's correct, but a lot of business operators do this wrong. Let me give you a classic example. On a lot of websites, there is something valuable that you can download, and there's no cost associated to it. Maybe a free ebook, maybe an industry report, something like that. And a lot of businesses think, okay, well, if we give this ebook away, right, then that will activate reciprocity. But they put on their website and they just say, okay, you know, we've got a wonderful ebook for you, you can download it, right? Just give us your name and your email address, we'll send you the link, our gift to you. Nice try. It's not going to activate reciprocity. Because for it to be reciprocated, it needs to be a gift. And a gift is something that's given without a requirement needing to be met. In terms of the downloadable ebook, it was give me your name and your email address first, and then I'll give you the download link. Therefore, it wasn't a gift, it was a reward. Those people that take up that option don't feel that they have

Reciprocity Liking Unity In Practice

SPEAKER_00 34:45

something to reciprocate for. They feel like paid for that with their email address. You can compare that, for example, with or a different setting with the supermarket, right? You go in there and there's a person there with a tray with pieces of cheese for you to try, or pieces of sausages or cups of yogurt or whatever it is, samples. Most people think if they take that piece of cheese, that that does not change their behavior. But the research is very clear, right? The more you give away, the more people, you know, uh give back to you. And what I find entertaining to no end is that it doesn't matter if you don't like the cheese because it's not about the cheese, it's about the behavior. We reciprocate behavior. You were nice to me, now I need to be nice to you, right? So with a downloadable ebook, that doesn't do what we're hoping it will do when it comes to reciprocity. I'm not saying it's a bad lead generator, it might work for that, but it doesn't activate reciprocity. Now you can change that to so it does activate reciprocity. So what you could do is you could have a downloadable ebook or a report and just say, you know, you can download this, just right-click and download. No need for an email address. Our gift to you. Now it's a gift. And when you know I got something that was valuable in there, there'll be some reciprocation sitting in the situation. So next time when you come with a request you're making, as in, hey, we've got a webinar on, come join us, or hey, we've got this event on, come join us, or hey, right, got this email, can we talk about it on the phone? You're going to be empowered by that bit of reciprocity that sits there. And what I like about reciprocity is that the expiry date is very long. As in people remember for it depends on the on the size of the gift as well, right? Or the size of what we were helped with. But people tend to remember really for a long time that you assisted them. So you might help somebody this year, and they'll still remember next year. Because we have nasty names for people that take without giving in return. And because we don't want to be labeled like that, we pay close attention when somebody helps us. And then you know, we look for an opportunity to reciprocate, and most of the time we actually go overboard, we reciprocate even more so. All right, so that's reciprocity. Make sense so far?

Pete Shau 37:15

Right on point.

SPEAKER_00 37:17

Let's go to liking, the principle of liking. People like people who are like them, we like people who like us, and we like people who like us and say so. Let's go for the the the the middle one out of those three at the moment. That's a little different to what old sales training teaches, right? Old sales training used to teach us, well, if you want people to buy from you, then you have to do whatever you can so that you are liked by your audience. Right? I have to be likable for them. But our audience is more persuaded by knowing that someone likes them, right? I mean, if you need assistance on Saturday to move house, right? If you ask one of your friends who knows that you know you like them, you'll probably get a yes, they'll probably come help you. But if you ask a perfect stranger in the street, yeah, they're not gonna help you. So it's nice to be likable, but if you're trying to convince me to use your product or services, well, it's nice if I like you, but it's more powerful if I get the feeling that you genuinely like me. Because if you like me, you're gonna look after me, right? That's what people do when they like each other. So as professionals, we need to pause for a moment and look for genuine reasons why we would like the other party. And it's easier than ever before. Most people have social media uh accounts, right? So we can go and have a look, see what people are into, uh, maybe what values they have, right? I do scuba diving, and sometimes we go diving and we clean up underwater near the beach, you know, or near the piers, and you know, lots of garbage bags come out. Now, let's say that I, you know, I'm meeting someone and on their social media profile file, I figure out that, well, they do snorkeling and they do exactly the same thing. Now we've got something in common and we share a value, right? Now I like that person more. What would you say because I like them more, they feel that.

Pete Shau 39:39

What would you say in a sales environment where it's a little bit more touch and go? I don't get to research that person away, you know, on in some level. They come in through the door. I am a salesperson or I'm a sales manager, I'm talking to my team. How do I get that same event where I'm I'm looking at them, I need them to like me. This is a moment's notice because they're walking in now. How do you how do you tackle those types of situations without being able to do that type of research?

SPEAKER_00 40:05

It's good to realize that the science would indicate that we need to spend a little bit of time to get to know each other. And I know not every setting lends itself to that, but it is exceedingly powerful. Uh, Northwestern and Stanford, there's some research on them where they had email negotiations that they were using, 30% of them ended up in deadlock. And when the negotiators were encouraged to first share some personal information about themselves, as in hobbies that they liked or things, deadlock negotiations dropped to 6%. So if you can have a little bit of a casual chat to figure out what people are into, then that can help you. Another thing that does also help, as in, as I mentioned, people like people that like them and say so, which means we're a little bit we're suckers for compliments. Uh now you can make up a compliment, but there's no need for that. You could look for genuine things that you appreciate about someone that you could compliment them on, right? And I encourage people to also try this. Next time you park the car somewhere and you're in the elevator leaving the car park or something, right? When you meet someone, look for something you could pay a compliment on and pay compliments. See what happens. You see smiles appear, shoulders drop, conversations start, right? So it could be a pair of earrings, someone's jacket, his tie, or whatever it is, right? Pay a genuine compliment. And that also uh can be quite powerful when you know trying to activate that principle of liking. Yeah. So yeah, you can't use that everywhere, right? And you know, we have to look for what we can use out of those seven principles. But if we have the opportunity to raise some you know, personal information to the surface, that would be powerful. Okay, sounds good. Number three. All right, unity. Unity was the last principle that was introduced by Dr. Cialdini when the book Influence the Psychology of Persuasion was republished in 2015 after additional research. It's often confused with liking. Liking is more about similarities that we have with another person, where unity is about being part of the same community. The end result is sort of the same, but it comes from a different angle. So sometimes when you figure out that, you know, you grow up in the same town as someone, or you went to the same university with someone, you can describe you and that other person as we, as in we from that suburb, we from that school. And by doing that, we get a familiarity towards each other. So again, if we can do some homework, we might uncover that that's the case and then let that surface in conversation. What's also part of unity is co-creation, where if we work together with someone, whatever we formulate, whatever we develop together, we are more loyal to that. So in a in a sales perspective, you could easily use that instead of, you know, let's say asking someone what their situation is, and then go, okay, basically saying, I understand your case. This is what I propose, this is what we've got available for you, this is the best solution for you. I've listened, but I've come up with the proposal, let's say. What I could also do is I could co-create with you. So I listen to your story, and now we're going to discuss, okay, well, when it comes to this element, what would work best for you? Right. And when it comes to that element, what's important to you here? Right. And so now together we're figuring out what I should be proposing to you. And I think that's highly ethical. If I figure out what's important to you and I make sure my proposal aligns with that, that's very ethical. But once you've been busy with me creating what then in the end we come up with, it's very hard to say no to that because it aligns so well. And you said these things were important to you. So co creating builds unity between us. It's good that people reveal what's important, right? That's consistency. I'll touch on that later. But working together to produce something creates more loyalty to each other and the process. All right, let's move on to social proof, which a lot of people will be familiar with. So if you know the word social proof, then that is because of Dr. Cialdini, because he coined that phrase. It used to be consensus before that. So social proof works because we tend to follow the actions of others, especially when they are numerous, as in there's many of them, and they are similar to us. So what we need to do is look for information about what other people similar to our audience have done beforehand, as in data that supports what it is we're suggesting. Testimonials and reviews are part of social proof, right? There's all these principles have many different strategies, and we can't possibly cover that in a podcast episode. And but testimonials and reviews are one element within social proof. And I'm delighted that most business owners have figured out that so the testimonials are really powerful, and we don't want to remove those from our marketing material. But and that's great, but social proof has a lot more other strategies to offer, equally, if not more powerful, and you're not using any of those.

Social Proof Reviews And Credibility

SPEAKER_00 45:20

So testimonials are powerful. 98% of online shoppers say that detailed, detailed, online reviews are an important factor when deciding on what and where to buy. So when you're talking to someone, and um, I don't know, let's say it's a mature lady, and I don't know, let's make it more specific, and she's got red hair, right? If you're gonna bring up some social proof, let's say testimonials of other people that have worked with you in the past, then that's good, that's great, right? That's social proof. And let's say you might bring up, I don't know, five experiences of other clients. That's good. But let's say that these five experiences of other clients are a range of different people. It's a you know, one mature lady, it's a mature gentleman, it's a middle-aged guy, middle-aged girl, uh, young woman, sort of a thing, right? We have a range of different ages and different sexes and maybe different looks. If you know that you're talking to someone who is female and let's say more mature, if you have testimonials of other mature women that used your product and were certain were happy, that is exceedingly more powerful than testimonials which are more wide-ranging. You can feel that, right? I mean, if I see, you know, especially that's why pictures and names, of course, are valuable. Um, if I see other people who are just like me, that hits me much more than when I see an 18-year-old who loved your product and was happy. Does that make sense?

Pete Shau 46:58

So when you're talking about reviews, let's say we're talking about Google reviews, and we are soliciting Google reviews as much as we can. I mean, we'd like to say, hey, listen, if we did a great job, you're standing at the counter now, you had a good experience. And we usually wait till the end, right? We wait till the transaction's over so that we know they're happy, we know that there's a great experience. And in that moment, we go, hey, we appreciate everything that you've done. We appreciate you being in this establishment. If you have the opportunity, can you leave a great Google review in that situation? And the idea is to, you know, push it when they're the happiest, they've completed the transaction, they've nothing left, and they're feeling great about it. So what we should do is almost coach them in the sense to be like as to be as specific as possible so that not only does a Google review go out, but the people who have most in common with them are now more highly likely to come in and do business because they can share that interaction almost over online thoughts and go, you know what? Yeah, that that would be great. This person understands the way I shop, or they understand more of how I feel. In other words, in my neighborhood or where I come from or my ethnicity or my background, and that's gonna make me more, you know, I'm gonna look more like this is this person gets me, so this is why I'm gonna shop there. Hey everyone, it's Pete Chow here from the RTO Show Podcast, and I want to tell you about a company that's making a real difference in the rent-to-owned space. WoW Brands. I've seen firsthand how they approach marketing. Let me tell you, it's not just about ads. WoW Brands build complete digital ecosystems designed specifically for the rent-to-one industry. Their e-commerce and regeneration strategies are pretty qualified leading. And did I mention that they are actively working with the rent-town industry while also being members of April and Trip? Listen, these folks are passionate problem solvers. They don't just slap something together, they design, build, and scale the kind of digital retail tools your business needs. And your customers actually want. So if you're serious about growing, reach out to WoWBrands at WowBrands.com. I trust them, and I think you will too.

SPEAKER_00 48:59

Yeah, exactly. And it's I think it's perfectly fine to ask someone, hey, I'm delighted that you've had such a great experience with us. And as you know, you know, I mean, you were also not sure maybe to use our use our company. And as other people like you are also looking to make decisions, and it would be of great help to them and also to us, you know, if

WoW Brands Message

SPEAKER_00 49:20

they had an opportunity to read about your experience with us, would you mind leaving, you know, a testimonial or review for us with some detail about your experience with us? And we also know from research that if a testimonial says that something happened today, for some reason that is more valuable for the reader. Um so you could even say, oh, you know, and if you don't mind if you could mention to people that this, you know, you picked up your your you know, your your products today or your your equipment today, right? Yeah, they write that in the testimonial, that makes it even more powerful. When it comes to testimonials, people like they they look first to the bad reviews.

Pete Shau 50:01

Always right?

SPEAKER_00 50:03

Always to the bad, what's wrong with this company? And then after that, they start looking at the good reviews, but then more so to the you know the reviews have more details. If we imagine a restaurant, oh the food was great, I'll come back.

Authority Consistency Scarcity Triggers

SPEAKER_00 50:15

It's too short, there's no detail, right? It feels disingenuous, and so more details are good. What is this always opened some eyes when I raise this? We want people to be absolutely happy with the service we've rendered, right? So we want people to leave five-star reviews, and then after we've collected so many, we get an average score, right? And so I love asking an audience of business owners when it comes to your average score, what would you ideally want your average score to be? And most people go five, right? I'd love my average score to be five. And I mean that's that's noble, but it's not actually persuasive. When it when it comes to someone being persuaded to want to deal with you, five is not that persuasive compared to other numbers because it lacks credibility. Nobody is that good, my audience thinks, right? Or you've deleted the bad ones, right? It doesn't have credibility. Average review score of 4.2 to 4.7 is the most persuasive because it has credibility and it's typically still high enough for people to want to deal with us. Less than 4.2 has credibility, but now it's getting too low for people to want to deal with us. So next time you get a two-star review, it might actually be a blessing in disguise. If you start more moving more towards that 4.7, you're actually heading in the right direction.

Pete Shau 51:55

Wow, I never really thought about that. I'm gonna have to think about that the next time I go out and see that because now that you mention it, uh, I I actually don't frequent that many places with a five-star review. Not to say that, you know, not to say that they're not out there and but it's always it's usually like there's only like two or three, right? So there's five stars, but there's only two or three. I don't trust it yet because nobody's had a real problem yet. And I and I look forward to just hearing about and I I don't think I've ever looked at it to say, you know what, they did a poor job. It's more like, how did you handle it? When you got that three-star review or that two-star review, how did they handle it? Did they reach back out to the customer and say, hey, Miss Jones, I'm sorry that this happened. You know, how can we make this better? Or you came across this, or we're sorry that the bottle broke. We're gonna send you a new sample in the mail. Please, is there anything else that we can do for you? And it and that also, you know, makes me feel like even if they get it wrong the first time, that they will do what they can to make it right. Because again, nobody's perfect, right? So you don't expect to see all the five-star reviews. Because if you did that, then you almost wonder, do they have bots in there? Are people lying? Are they just going in there and saying it? And you missed, you missed the personality behind it. You missed the human interaction behind what the whole reason of going to the five-star review for or the Google review is for it to begin with.

SPEAKER_00 53:02

Yeah. But and here we go even deeper, right? And we won't have time to go into that today, but just to blow your socks off. If a if the bad review has such a power to attract people's first attention, then our response to that bad review is more likely to be looked at than any of our positive reviews, right? So what we put in that response, as in yes, it's nice if we dealt with things, that sort of stuff, but we have an opportunity to use some of the principles of persuasion in our reply so that we actually use the power of the bad review to get our positive things in a you know, in a in a in a way that the brain can make an easy decision and saying, you know what, you know, this is still a good company to deal with.

Pete Shau 53:53

So it's I didn't even think about that. That's actually a great way to put it, to actually keep on using the ethical persuasion inside the responses of of less than you know favorable reviews and still come ahead. That's a great, that's a great way to put it.

SPEAKER_00 54:07

All right, let's uh let's move on because we're gonna run out of time otherwise. So, principle of authority. We've got three more to cover. Authority works because we have a tendency to take the advice of other people who have superior knowledge and wisdom on a particular topic. Right? If I don't know enough about this situation and there's someone there who knows a lot more than I do, I'm normally better off to follow what they would do. Right. And so we pay attention to the you know, the opinion of experts. So if you have a case to make, um, if you can support that with the opinions of doctors or professors or research, right? And that gives more validity to your case, right? You might have an opinion on it, but listen, hey, you know, this equipment is used by these and these people, right? And so wow, they are using it, right? I can't go too far wrong doing the exact same thing. So that's there's a lot more to authority. Um actually, here's one extra cute one for your audience. Credibility also fits in authority. If you use numbers in your communication, you're getting a lot more from me today than I usually share. If you use numbers in communication, let's say how many clients you've helped in the last 12 months, right? You might say, let's say it's I don't know, 1194 clients you've helped in the last 12 months. It's very tempting to round that number off to something pretty. Actually, most of us do. We would say, ah, we've helped 1,200 people last year, right? Or we've helped 1,100 plus people this year. When we round things off, our audience can tell because the number is so pretty. And because we realize you rounded off, and I don't know how much liberty you took with your rounding, you're damaging your own credibility. Wow. So stop rounding off. Use exact numbers. If you helped 1,194 clients last year, then say that we helped 1,194 clients this year. Because we're using accurate numbers, it feels like we took it straight out of our admin system, right? Or of an Excel spreadsheet or something. And therefore, it has more credibility. So stop rounding off. If you've got 41 years of experience, don't say we've got 40 plus years experience. Say it's 41. Or say that you, I don't know, you started in 1985, right? And you don't have to come back every year.

Pete Shau 56:48

Right, right, right. Yeah. No, it's that's I like that because the credibility, I didn't even think about that as well. But I, you know, you're right. There's been plenty of times where we do say things where we, you know, you try not to do it too much, but you do round up, right? I don't know many people that are round down, but we try to round up a little bit and squeeze a little bit more out of that bottle. But to understand that, you know, you might actually be inadvertently turning people away from what you're trying to turn them on to, again, the ethical persuasion. I do understand that. I really do like that.

SPEAKER_00 57:20

Yeah, and even if you round it down, you'd still shoot yourself in the proverbial backside. All right. Consistency. Consistency works because we feel an internal pressure to want to stay true to past actions and behaviors that we've made. I'd love to share a little bit of research. It's not related to RTO, but it's an interesting example. So the Canadian Cancer Association was doing some research and they were having their annual collection period. And so the week before the collection, they went to suburbs and they went to every other door, right? So let's say they went to house number one, then they would skip one, and then they'd go to house number three, skip four, and then go to five, and so on. And they would approach those people in every other house and ask them and said, Listen, you know, next week we're starting our collection period for the Cancer Association. Would you be willing to accept a little lapel pin that you can wear on your clothing this week? And it just says, you know, support your local cancer association. Um, would you be willing to wear that to create some awareness leading up to our collection next week? And nearly everybody said, Yes, yes, of course, give me the pin, I'll wear that, right? Because people are genuinely supportive of cancer associations. Right. So most people did that. Now, a week later, they came back to actually do the collection. And then, of course, they went to every house. So the question is when it happens to the donations, who was more readily willing to donate when they came to those houses? Well, the houses that they didn't approach the week before, 47% of those made a donation. Of the homes where people had gone on record as being favorable to the Cancer Association, 76% of them made a donation. Right? Because we gave them an opportunity or they were given an opportunity to take an active public statement that they supported the Cancer Association. When then later the request came, a lot more people, um, you know, it was harder to say no to. So we need to look for opportunities to either figure out what people have said in the past was important to them, or to give them opportunities to reveal to us what is important to them. And as you know, I've got my own podcast, Ethical Persuasion Unlocked. If you go to episode eight, I'm talking to one of my colleagues, and he runs dental clinics. He had a patient intake form, right? Like most dentists have. They put a question on there to reveal what was important to people, as in link to the principle of consistency, a single question that the patient answered. And that increased case acceptance by I think it was 33.5% across across four clinics. And case acceptance is what a dentist calls it when the patient says, Yes, I will do what you recommend, dentist, right? 33.5% because of a single question using the principle of consistency. Uh talk about powerful. All right. Um last one on scarcity. We value things more that are scarce, that are rare, that are dwindling in availability, that are limited in time or limited in quantity. So we that's ingrained in us. As in from an evolutionary perspective, this makes a lot of sense, right? If I have a certain amount of resources, when I get more resources, well, that's nice. But if I lose resources, that could be deadly, right? Could be fatal. Um so we pay more attention to what we stand to lose. And so this seems to be a bit counterintuitive to communicate like this. When we look at most business proposals, if I listen to your sales team, when it comes to the benefits that somebody will experience, we have a nasty habit of telling people what they stand to gain. Where if we just rephrased it of what people would stand to lose if they didn't get this product or service or accept our proposal, then that would be more persuasive. And I give you a quick punchline with that or another piece of research. There was a company who did home investigations for how well they were insulated. And then based on that assessment, people would be told what the financial consequence or impact of that would be, right? And they had an opportunity to insulate their house fully. Half of the people were told, and of course the value would vary per house, right? But let's say a dollar a day for this example. So half of the homeowners were told, if you insulate your house fully, you'll be able to save a dollar a day. The other half of the people were told, if you fail to insulate your house fully, you will lose a dollar a day. It's the same dollar, right? But a hundred and fifty percent more people choose to insulate their house fully under the loss instruction instead of the gain. Wow. So your audience, yeah, wow, your audience would do well to I don't know, tape yourself, listen to what it is you're saying, read your website. And I'm not saying you have to use loss aversion in every opportunity, but most people don't use it at all. So yeah, we need to talk about the avoidance of loss more than what we tend to gain out of something.

Pete Shau 1:03:00

Well, I mean, Patrick, going into this last leg, I'm gonna tell you there's a lot of things on those seven principles that actually apply to a lot of what we have to do. So I'm gonna go back to my sales force and talk to them a little bit and kind of tweak a few things and make it happen. I do have something of a lightning round where I asked some quick questions, and I wonder if you can uh you can go with me with that right before we close out. See how I go. All right, so number one, if you only had one principle to use right now, in your opinion, which one matters most?

SPEAKER_00 1:03:33

That's uh common question, but not so easy to answer because it depends on where I am in the in the process. You know, I explained the relationships, uncertainty, motivating into action, depending on where I am, one principle will be more powerful than another. But I have always appreciated the principle of authority. Authority, authority acts on us in a way that we can often not even detect that it's acting on us. Not that we should misuse that, but I somehow have always respected this about the principle of authority. And how, for example, and I do a whole episode on this on my podcast, how we dress, how we look has an impact on how people perceive us. And if they don't know us, research shows that they will literally formulate an opinion about you in under a second. And so if you don't present well or you don't have proper manners, right, or you have bad manners, it could be game

Lightning Round And Best Next Step

SPEAKER_00 1:04:30

over straight away. So that is something before you even open your mouth, you gotta get that right.

Pete Shau 1:04:34

Well, it it was the last one you did, right? The dress for yes.

unknown 1:04:38

Yeah.

Pete Shau 1:04:39

No, I actually like that episode. I was I was looking at that. If you guys need something to look at, look up his podcast because I think the Ethical Persuasion Unlock podcast will give you a couple pointers that you actually need to do. What's the most insightful piece of research you've come across on how persuasion actually works?

SPEAKER_00 1:04:57

Oh, there's so I've got so many favorites. One that I like, which is linked to scarcity, is a study done in relation to the sale of Australian beef. One this was a PhD student of Dr. Cialdini, and he wanted to use his own company to for his uh for his theses. And he had a big company selling Australian beef to uh United States. One third of the audience of his clients were were getting the standard appeal. As in uh what was it again? We have a certain allotment of beef. Is it it is of such and such a quality? We think this is a good time to buy. How many train loads of beef car loads would you like to purchase? That due to certain weather conditions in Australia, there's likely to be a shortage of Australian beef in the near future. We think this is a good time to buy. How many carloads of beef would you want? In the first instance, I think it was 10 carloads of beef were bought on average. When it was mentioned that there was a pending shortage of Australian beef. 24 carloads of beef were bought, right? Doubled the amount of sales. But the third group were told that there was a certain allotment of beef, it was of such and such a quality. And I should tell you that, you know, certain weather conditions in Australia, there's likely to be a shortage of Australian beef in the near future. And I should also tell you that that information has come to us from our exclusive sources in the Australian National Weather Service. Right now, not only the beef was scarce, but the information that the beef was scarce was scarce. Right? What happened under those circumstances? I could be off a couple of carloads, but I've got it in front of me now. 61 carloads were bought on average. So the punchline in that is if you've got new information, get on the phone, get on the email, get on, you know, go meet people and tell them about it. New information is more persuasive than old information. It's not like wine, it doesn't age over time. It's more like bread. It's good when it's warm.

Pete Shau 1:07:03

Last quick question: one thing that every RTO sales associate should start doing tomorrow.

SPEAKER_00 1:07:13

Studying persuasion, for goodness sake. There's a science to how you can be as successful as you were really meant to be by just knowing how this works. It's fun to learn, it helps you in business, it helps you privately, and you know, it helps you to stop wasting time, resources, competitive advantage that was really yours to have. So, you know, as for an individual, right? You can, yes, you can listen to this episode, and I hope it empowers you, and I hope you use the stuff that we've shared, and hopefully it'll show you that this stuff is easy to implement. You can read Dr. Cialdini's book, but research also says you'll lose 90% of it within a week, as in with all sorts of reading that is, if there's no follow-up, you lose 90%. So invest in yourself and do some formal training. We have Dr. Cialdini's flagship course that I facilitate. We do that online, and that's only a 20-hour investment. It's not like a three-year university course. So it's not that hard to learn this. And it's a lot more fun when you do this earlier in your career and let it work for you than if you figure it out halfway in your career and realize how much success you've wasted.

Pete Shau 1:08:21

Absolutely. So, what I want to say is I've had you, Patrick. I'm so glad to have you on the podcast. How can somebody find your information, find your books, find you uh if they're looking to get a hold of you?

SPEAKER_00 1:08:34

Uh yeah, thanks for asking. So, of course, I've got a website, ethicalpersuasion.com.au. And there's also some complimentary materials there. Just uh follow the prompts in the menu bar. And guess what? There's a downloadable ebook you can make your own, and you don't even have to put your name or your email address on it. You can just right-click and download. Uh, there's also a seven-day email challenge. Of course, we do need your email address for that. And then, of course, there's a podcast, Ethical Persuasion Unlocked, that you can find in all the usual places. Just do yourself a favor and realize that that is not a course. I share a lot, but there's so much more to it, and you'll be losing out on so much more if you thought that that was I'm actually trying to teach you there. I'm trying to excite you in the podcast. And of course, you can find me on uh on places like LinkedIn and all the usual social media. So if I can uh assist anybody with their you know becoming more persuasive or helping with their teams, of course, we can do a discovery call and have a bit of a chat and how we can best co-create a learning solution for you and your organization.

Pete Shau 1:09:41

Thank you so much to Patrick Vanderbert for being on the show all the way from Australia

Resources Website And Final CTA

Pete Shau 1:09:45

and sharing these seven principles of ethical persuasion with us. Listen, if you guys want more content like this, make sure you go onto my website. It's the RTO Show Podcast.com. There you can subscribe to the podcast, you can subscribe to the new letter, you can buy some swag. That helps out the show. And if you want to be a sponsor, you can get some information on there as well. We're everywhere you want to be, including social media with Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, YouTube, X Now, and TikTok. And I will tell you guys as always, thank you so much, Patrick, for being on the show and sharing this knowledge with us. Get your collections low to get your sales high. Have a great one.