The Scott King Show” The Scott King Show is a sales and marketing podcast providing you a view into how sales and marketing leaders build their businesses. Join me each week and learn how these leaders are optimizing sales pipelines to influence and break through all of the digital noise in our lives.
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Arthur Samuel Joseph is the founder and chairman of the Vocal Awareness Institute. Arthur is widely recognized as one of the world’s foremost communication strategists and authorities on the human voice.
His voice and leadership training programs teach Communication Mastery through a disciplined regimen of specific techniques designed to cultivate an embodied and enhanced leadership and personal presence. He’s coached Angelina Jolie, Sean Connery, Tony Robbins, Stephen Covey, Jerry Rice, and many more.
In this episode, Arthur talks to me about what vocal mastery is and why we need it. He provides tips you can practice to warm up your voices and have a huge vocal presence. Arthur provides several client stories and a very heartwarming tale from his biggest transformation.
Sponsor
This episode is sponsored by Vocal Awareness Institute. Vocal Awareness is useful to everyone who speaks, but it can be even more powerful for those individuals with specific goals to have a vocal presence. Whether you are a sales professional, athlete, singer, politician, or stars like Angelina Jolie and Pierce Brosnan, Vocal Awareness has tools so you can capture audiences. Go to vocalawareness.com/scottking to see how to “Deliver Any Presentation Like a Pro” and receive $100 off of the Visual Voice pro by entering promo code 100OFFVVP.
Questions During Podcast
What is vocal mastery? Who is it for?
What are some routines or steps you recommend to become a better orator?
What did you learn from actors like Angelina Jolie, Sean Connery and who do you think made the biggest transformation?
How can those listening tell better stories and break through all of the noise?
Who or what do you listen to or read to get inspiration?
If you didn’t have any responsibilities at home or work next week what would you do with your time?
Arnold Huffman is the Founder and CEO of Digital Yalo, a digital content, communications and channel strategy agency. There he is building a team focused on creating compelling content that is informative and entertaining. Arnold’s background includes marketing, business development, and alliances in high tech and software.
In this episode, Arnold talks about finding marketing inspiration from other art forms and how these applications can help you create a fresh perspective.
Questions During Podcast
More content is being produced than ever before. How do brands break through the vendor fatigue?
You have to be differentiated, not only in your value prop but how you say it, how you present it and how you push it out. This requires atypical thinking to get outside of the rinse and repeat many marketers get stuck in. Look at the problem from a different angle. We use film, art, music, and sports to help inspire our clients thinking and to produce an atypical result. It also helps distill the hopes, dreams and ideas for a campaign or a website or an event into a singular emotional concept. Emotion delivers the best results, because it gets noticed in the market.
What is the best content you have seen in 2018? Why did you like it?
How do you see digital marketing, content and experiences evolving?
More impactful storylines and more interactive technology integrating into marketing campaigns will elevate your campaign. You may not make the best or most interesting product or service, but that doesn’t mean you can’t push it’s agenda with an interesting story.
White paper or video? Podcasts?
I’d produce all of them. You need written content for SEO and to be found. You need video for engagement. Content is like a mall. You never know which door of the mall someone will enter through or have a preference for. Marketers need have all the doors ready for people to enter and engage.
What can brands learn from emerging disruptive brands?
Watch HOW those disruptive brands get your attention. There is a very short window to grab attention. It’s like an iceberg. The apex of the iceberg is above the waterline and that is the window you have to get someone’s attention. Don’t weigh them down with all the details of the product or service. That happens later in the marketing funnel once you have them interested. You should constantly bubble the best of the best from the bottom of the iceberg to above the waterline to make an impact. Elevating your vibe will differentiate your company and gain attention.
Who or what do you listen to or read to get inspiration?
What do people ask your advice on?
If you didn’t have any responsibilities at home or work next week what would you do with your time?
Closing thoughts?
Contact Arnold
10 Places You Should Be Using Video – George B. Thomas
jeudi 18 octobre 2018 • Durée
In this episode, I talk with George B. Thomas. George is a recovering youth pastor, former pub bouncer and is currently an evangelist at Impulse Creative. He is a video marketing ninja and an inbound marketing Jedi with every HubSpot certification one can have. George and I talk about why you should be using video and where you should be using it. He mentions many tools, sites, services and experts to help you build your video toolbox so please take a look at the show notes for these and the 10 places you should be using video. I hope his infectious energy moves and inspires you to do more. Please welcome George B. Thomas.
5 Reasons you should be using video
Simplify the complex
To educate potential customers
Be superhuman
Disarm your potential customers
Invoke emotional response
10 places you should be using video
In prospecting early in your sales cycle
Use video for personalized introductions
Use videos in follow up emails vs. long copy
Put videos on your landing pages
Put another video on the thank you page after conversion
Use video in your proposals
Use video in your contracts to explain terms of services
Use video in online meetings
Use video in your chats or chatbots
Place teaser videos on your blog posts
Questions During Podcast
Why should we be using videos?
Where should we be using videos?
What do you teach in your video workshops?
What do people ask your advice on other than video?
Leadership Traits for a Growth Mindset – John Murphy
jeudi 11 octobre 2018 • Durée
John Murphy is an executive coach helping business owners, senior executives and management teams deliver what they are capable of. John’s background in the corporate world and as an entrepreneur enables him to make a difference to CEOs, Senior Executives, and Business Owners.
In this episode, I talk with John about instilling behaviors and enabling leaders to align and create a growth mindset amongst teams. We talk about how to clarify business goals amongst global teams to create engaged employees that can execute with agility and continuous improvement.
The results you are getting are a consequence of the actions you are taking. Those actions are a consequence of your behavior and your mindset. If you want to change the actions in order to change the results, you have to change the behavior and the mindset.
Questions During Podcast
What do executives tell you their greatest challenges are?
What challenges do they have that they don’t tell you about?
If teams don’t know their priorities, do they realize it?
What is the root cause when teams are not work
How do executive teams need to address these challenges?
As teams become physically disconnected in current work cultures, how do leaders know their teams are moving in the same direction?
Who or what do you listen to or read to get inspiration?
What do people ask your advice on other than leadership?
If someone had a question for you, what is your preferred method to be contacted?
Kathleen Hessert (@kathleenhessert) has invested over 30 years working with premier sports and entertainment brands from Peyton Manning and Shaq to ESPN, Big ten network, NBA, and the NFL. Kathleen recognized the leagues and sports teams focused on current aging fans and lacked understanding on how to enlist and build young fan bases for the future. She guided these brands to develop programs to engage younger audiences and to ensure they became lifelong fans. Her work led her to develop WeRGenZ.
WeRGenZ is a research-based Teen Think Tank of more than 1000 kids. Its goal is to give voice to and “amplify the voices of the generation” that already spends $44 billion annually in the US and influences $600 billion in family spending. By 2020, GenZ, NOT Millennials, will be 40% of the US population. The rules that govern their lives will govern all of our lives. Those born after 1995 (the first true digital natives) are changing the way we consume information, adopt and use technology, evolve our economy into a token or cash-based economy. They embrace and expect diversity from brands and in fact will be the first predominantly non-white U.S. generation. GenZ’ers also think globally and have a well developed social conscience. Their backyard is the world, not a street address.
In this episode, I talk with Kathleen about GenZ’s influence will have on the future and what companies and employers can do to properly recruit and engage this group.
Questions During Podcast
How did you get into covering Gen Z?
Who exactly is Gen Z?
How much influence does Gen Z have on purchasing?
What is your opinion on how technology effects this generation?
What will happen to these kids when they enter the workforce?
What companies are investing in Gen Z?
How would you recruit Gen Z employees?
What are employers doing that repel these young workers?
Building High Performing Work Cultures – Lee Caraher
jeudi 20 septembre 2018 • Durée
Lee Caraher ( @LeeCaraher ) is the founder and CEO of Double Forte PR & Digital Marketing, a 15-year-old national agency that works with beloved and up-and-coming consumer, technology, and wine brands. An acclaimed communication strategist, Lee is known for her practical solutions to big problems.
Lee has a reputation for building cohesive, high- producing teams who get a lot done well and have fun at the same time. She is a straight talker who doesn’t hold too many punches, although she does her best to be pleasant about it. Her big laugh and sense of humor have gotten her out of a lot of trouble.
In this episode, I talk with Lee about her book, “The Boomerang Principle.” The book describes Lee’s experience and advice on rehiring employees and building lifetime loyalty amongst your current and past employees. We talk about how to create high-performing work cultures ready for the future.
Questions During Podcast
Why is the title of your book, “The Boomerang Principle?”
I read a lot about the “gig” economy. How can you maintain loyalty if talent wants to go from job to job?
How do executive teams need to address these challenges?
Why did you write this book? Was this an issue you had before?
What makes an employee leave and come back? Don’t they leave because they feel undervalued?
What companies have cultures that keep employees coming back?
Who or what do you listen to or read to get inspiration?
What do people ask your advice on other than business advice?
If you didn’t have any responsibilities at home or work next week, what would you do with your time?
Dr. Brynn Winegard (@DrBrynnWinegard) is a world renowned business brain expert. She is a full-time professional keynote speaker who combines brain and business science to dissect, redevelop, and augment how we work. Dr. Winegard teaches about persuasion and influence from a brain perspective and provides several actionable tips.
In this episode, Brynn talks to me about neuro selling and how our brains receive messages on visual and subconscious levels. I ask her how sales and marketing professionals can most effectively communicate and not waste resources in areas where our audiences are inattentive. Brynn provides advice on how we can build new relationships on subconscious levels by acknowledging the SCARE model: Status and social capital, Control and choice, Autonomy and ambiguity, Relationships and connectedness, Equity and fairness.
Questions During Episode
What exactly can sales people practice in order to dig into the subconscious levels of their audience?
What are some things that we can that we can do in a web meeting to grab a hold of some of the subconscious decision criteria and pull those in our favor when selling?
What should we do and what should we not do?
How can we really make the best use of to go deep into the attention that we are getting at that moment?
How can we best build relationships on a subconscious level?
What do you believe is the most common connection that you make with someone else when you’re first meeting them?
Contact Dr. Winegard
Podcast Transcription
So when you say dig into the subconscious, what exactly do you mean and what exactly can I do about it?
What are some things that we can that we can do virtually to grab a hold of some of the subconscious decision criteria and pull those in our favor?
How can we really make the best use of to go deep into the attention that we are getting at that moment?
How can we best build relationships on a subconscious level?
What do you believe is the most common connection that you make with someone else when you’re first meeting them?
Marketing Continues to Become More Difficult – Michael Redbord
jeudi 14 juin 2018 • Durée
Michael Redbord ( @redbord ) is the General Manager of the Service Hub at HubSpot. Prior to that, Michael scaled the HubSpot Customer Support team from 20 people in a single office with single-language phone support to more than 200 people powering a global, multi-lingual, multi-channel support experience. In doing so, Michael turned HubSpot’s customer support team from a cost center to a profit center and one of HubSpot’s greatest engines of growth, with an unimaginable revenue retention rate of over 100%. Essentially, the revenue the sales and marketing teams generate is worth more because of the customer success team. Michael is a noted writer, speaker, and former competitive classical pianist — in case you’re looking for a conversation starter.
Questions During Podcast
What do you consider the biggest challenge for CMOs and marketers today?
How do marketing teams need to address these challenges?
How have you seen digital marketing or digital experiences evolve over your time at Hubspot?
What reports or data points or KPIs do you monitor in order to optimize?
What steps are you optimizing today?
What was one of your most successful moment? What do you brag about?
What is the toughest support case you had to battle while at Hubspot?
What did you learn from that and how do you avoid that from happening again?
How do you manage references and reviews?
Who or what do you listen to or read to get inspiration?
What do people ask your advice on?
If you didn’t have any responsibilities at home or work next week what would you do with your time?
How I Received 10,000 On-line Reviews – Brian Greenberg
jeudi 7 juin 2018 • Durée
Brian Greenberg has founded businesses in e-commerce, marketing, and financial services. He has generated over $50 million in revenue from his businesses but has been called has been called The Salesman Who Doesn’t Sell. He has also collected over 10,000 on-line reviews and testimonials from his customers.
In this episode, Brian explains his process on how he obtains so many online reviews and how much money this is worth to him. He talks about patterns he has identified and what he does when he receives a poor review.
Questions During Podcast
How did you get 10,000 on-line reviews?
Who manages this for you?
What is your process?
Have you identified any patterns of how people contact you?
Describe a time when you received a bad review. What did you do about it?
What did you learn from that and how do you avoid that from happening again?
Who or what do you listen to or read to get inspiration?
What do people ask your advice on?
If you didn’t have any responsibilities at home or work next week what would you do with your time?
Your Brain is the Puppy or the Puppet Master – Ulli Appelbaum
jeudi 31 mai 2018 • Durée
Ulli Appelbaum ( @FirstThetrouser ) is an international marketing and brand strategist. He is an expert in coming up with fresh perspectives to position a brands, products and companies. Ulli has developed a strategy exercise into a technique he calls Positioning-Roulette. Positioning-Roulette is a culmination of 1200 case studies provided as 26 flash cards. The flash cards promote creative thinking and facilitate a conversation from various perspectives.
In this episode, Ulli talks to me about creative thinking, branding and biases and limits we place on ourselves when looking looking at brands, reading news and interacting with services and brands.
Questions During Podcast
What is Positioning-Roulette?
Where dis the 1200 case studies come from?
What is some of the feedback resulting from the roulette exercise?
Why aren’t business people more creative and what can they do about it?
What can brands learn from successful marketers?
What was one of your most successful campaigns? Why was it successful?
Describe a time when a project you were overseeing did not go well?
What did you learn from that and how do you avoid that from happening again?
Who or what do you listen to or read to get inspiration?
I listen to a lot of music. Gene Simmons of Kiss is a branding master and is an excellent inspiration. Kiss’s shock and awe, gets your attention and engages you. As far as marketing inspiration and boundaries, I read every page of Fast Company.
People ask my advise on changing the game and looking at sales and marketing from a different perspective. This is why I find inspiration in film, art, music and sports to energize ideas from other industries or applications.
If I am not working I am hanging out with my kids, listening to music or exercising.
Dare to be different to reach a different result and get off the marketing hamster wheel. Defy. Fly.
Dr. Brynn: People don’t buy what you do, they buy why you do it. I think if you really get thinking of the depth of that then what am I in this business for? It’s really because what I discovered from my research and training was that, most people don’t know how to use their own brain.
Dr. Brynn: The idea is that with neuro selling, we’re trying to look at the brain-based principles of the brain. What’s true about the neuro functionality of the human brain in general that we either have a misconception about? One of the things of course is or at least I could make sure to mention is how distractible the brain is and the idea that where I usually start without that is that the human brain is 5% conscious, 80% sub-conscious, and 15% completely unconscious. What we typically do in the sales process is we typically sell to the conscious brain with rationality and logic and with facts, and figures, and data, and studies and key studies when in fact, that part of the brain is your study that you sent me and a lot of the studies out there. I mean, it is a very small portion of the brain. It is, by the way, 5% at a maximum, so your conscious brain is much closer. We think just something closer to 1% which basically means that it is highly distractible, it’s not listening, it is highly distracted constantly, highly distractible and distracted. It’s small; it has a very short attention span. It doesn’t actually make decisions anyway, so it doesn’t really matter if you, as a salesperson, when you approach your prospect or when you’re talking to a client. Or even and I, this is how to get away from like the sales aspect of things. Sometimes, they talk about the three B’s; believing, buying and then buying-in the idea that those three B’s, you’re always looking for one of those three B’s from everyone you meet all day long. You want them to either believe in you, buying into your ideas, or buy what you’re selling. Even many times, you might be on the subway, you might be in a library; you want them to believe and buy into social norms as an example. So when we are in the library, you think, “Well, I have no relationship to the person at the corner.” When in fact, you’re hoping that they believe in the social normative structures. That means that they would stay quiet in this environment as an example.
We’re always looking for believing, buying and then buying from everyone that we’ve interacted with or in the midst of all day long. Because of that, I think it’s really important then to conceptualize coming away sort of from the sales narrowed edge, “Hey, we are looking for compliance from people all of the day.” If that’s true, then what do we need to know about the human brain in order to be better at actually getting them to comply with us non-coercively right? Because you can’t, the guy in the corner of the library, you can’t go up to and twist his arm. What we do is we apply peer pressure and normative pressure around our cultural understanding of what, how to behave, and how to act in a library. And so all of those decisions about how to act and how to be and how to gain compliance from others, that’s all decided in the subconscious brain. It’s all decided in a push from the brain that you don’t have direct control over. I mean, certainly when it comes to, as an example, how to sell better, we have to really dig deep into the subconscious but then the second piece is the conscious part of the brain which is where most of us try to sell to you is small, not listening, distracted, and distractible.
Dr. Brynn: Yes, so part of it is that the subconscious we think it’s a neuro and atomically 80% of the brain but probably close to a 99% of your processing power. One-quarter of your entire subconscious is dedicated to visual processing as an example. When we look at the subconscious, we realize that, in fact, the vast majority of those neural networks are for visual processing which means that seeing really is believing. What you show and what you do speaks volumes way louder than words. We often tell our clients, our customers, our children to eat their broccoli, when in fact, our clients and our customers what our product does and our kids eat their broccoli. But we don’t show them what the product does or us eating the broccoli and so, I think that’s a really critical piece. The other thing is that most communication, 93% of communication is non-verbal, it’s visual. It’s what you can see, it’s what you can feel, it’s the aura, the energy a person has.
I think a lot of sales process in today’s age has come in through, even if design thinking etcetera. It’s come through technological or digital media. The challenge with that is that it’s hard to activate the human brain or human subconscious with, granted that visual media, it’s hard to activate that brain when they can’t really experience the person on the other end. I would say that email marketing is worse than telephone marketing. And telemarketing worse than video conferencing, and video conferencing, and video conferencing is worse than in-person meeting and so on. That’s the idea there, is that the subconscious is one-quarter visual but the vast majority of it neural network are dedicated to social processing. So if you look at the subconscious, it’s about 80- If the subconscious is 80% of your brain, 80% of your subconscious is dedicated to social networks which we totally underestimate for some reason. And so in neuroscience, we always say that social processing is king. And the idea there is that it dictates more decisions than any other subset of things so more than emotions more than you know physiological needs, safety needs etcetera. Our arch-man say it that the social grain dictates more decisions than survival. I mean, and people think, “What? No, I care more about surviving than what Joe, keeping up with the Joneses, except that if you look at like even Maslow’s hierarchy which has been totally dismantled, you look at the fact that he said, “Physiological safety, social esteem, self-actualization in that order.”
Think about the number of times that people will endanger themselves for social purposes, or race their cars, they’ll go snowmobiling, or do really dangerous sports as an example. They’ll starve themselves to fit in. They will go into debt in order to keep up with the Joneses. They will compromise sociological safety, even esteem needs, in order to fit in socially. And so what we see is, in fact, first of all, Maslow didn’t know enough about the actual human brain function. But second is that what we what we need to consider when we want compliance out of somebody believing, buying in or buying the three B’s, we really need to consider their social processing cues. And so what do they, how do they perceive us socially? What are their social needs? How is the social interaction going? And a lot of that can’t be taken how you when in e-mail things can escalate really quickly because you can’t tell tone over text.
The whole idea that in order to be able to really communicate with someone, they really need to be able to monitor and you’ll need to be able to monitor their physical cues, their body language, their kinetics, their kinesthetics. The idea that so much of what they’re really communicating to you is coming through visual cues that are not themselves verbal. I think we forget that all the time. The fact of the subconscious is visual, it’s social and then the third portion that I, and I speak about this a lot is that, if you look at, so if the whole brain is 80% subconscious, 80% of that subconscious is social, one-quarter of which some of which are social, but one-quarter which is visual. Then inside the social brain, about 80% of the social brain is regulated by emotion and emotional sub centers and emotional networks. And so the emotional brain, if and so, I almost I usually show it like a set of Russian. You know those Russian nesting dolls?
Scott: Yes. I forgot what they’re called but yes, I got it.
Dr. Brynn: I think that’s what they’re called. Not Russian nesting dolls? Okay, anyway but yes, the idea that here we have the subconscious inside of which is the vast majority of social, inside of which is the vast majority emotional. That emotional brain is really the brain that’s making all the decisions. When we look for believing, buying-in, and buying from people, the three B’s. Those decisions are coming from and through the emotional brain which has interplay with the social brain, which is entirely enveloped in the subconscious brain. Think about your average sales process. Usually, it starts with an email, follow-up with a phone call, and requests a coffee. It usually starts with data has a lot of scientific insights, has proof points, or case studies or other fact-based rational. What you would consider to be rational data points out, when in fact, the conscious brain that processes this rationality is totally distracted and not listening to you.
The emotional brain is the one making the decision. Very typically, the content of your email, the content of your phone call even has very little for the decision making part of the brain. The part of the brain that’s actually going to make the decision about believing, buying-in, or buying. And so I kind of start there with it in the neuro selling stuff to say, “You know, people, humans, our brains are misunderstood. It turns out we’re not as rational, a genetic free-willing logical as we’d all love to be free and free agents of our own accord kind of thing as we’d all like to be. We’re actually a lot more emotional and a lot more socially geared than we conceptualize ourselves as being and that we acknowledge another people. It really does take, as I mentioned, that deep dive into the subconscious which is those components to allow us to understand what those portions are. And then, once we know that these takeaways are infinitesimal. Then we can start to really, at granular levels, get to and pick apart our approach to our prospects, our approach to our clients and customers. Sometimes, it’s not even a client or a customer. It’s the kid we’re trying to get to eat broccoli. Suddenly you’ll realize that the way to get them to comply with us, the way to get them, to influence them. We’ve gone about it all wrong this whole time. A lot of the prevailing logic is not how it’s not what neuroscience would tell us.
Scott: Well it sounds like we have a lot of things working against us especially with our time is in more in demand and we’re connected virtually. We can’t all get together at the same time. I’m really curious about, maybe, from a neuroscience perspective on a sales perspective, what can we do to take advantage of the biggest bang for the buck? If all of these decisions are made emotionally and on a subconscious level, and we’ve got to speak, for instance, on a video call because I don’t have the time to invest to go fly somewhere if it’s another city or something or drive across town whatever someone may be selling.
Is there anything that we can do? What should we do and what should we not do?
Dr. Brynn: Yes, I think it’s a great question. The first thing, I just want to just like the very first part. There’s actually a really great research that shows that the human brain has, our attention span, has actually decreased over the last 10 years. What’s true is that technology has changed over the last seven years more than it has changed over the entire history of the earth preceding it. So what that means is the human brain is really struggling, to your earlier point, to keep up. It’s really struggling to pay attention to not feel overwhelmed and so, we see skyrocketing levels of things like anxiety, depression, psychosomatic disorders, and cancer because those are the stress-related diseases in psychopathologist. And of course, I mean, it’s rampant among teenagers, especially who are digitally addicted. It’s rampant even among digital immigrants like myself; they call us, who weren’t born necessarily when the internet was around. But the idea is just that, it’s really hard to maintain our attention and our focus and not feel distracted, overwhelmed, and stressed out.
And so to your point then or to your question; what do we do online if we need to operate online? What do we do you in order to be more effective for people and give the brain what it needs? I think part of that is when one of the answers that’s emerged certainly from the literature and out there, is the need for authenticity and that big capital letter A word. Authenticity is a huge one. Authenticity in your brand, meaning, authenticity in your brand message and authenticity in the messaging and communications that you’re doing within and amongst your community online. I think that’s really critical and people want to see behind the veneer. They want to see that, certainly, for person brands and even for a blockbuster consumer packaged goods consumer brands, they want to see authenticity. A level of humanness there that isn’t just the new media old tactics. They want to see new tactics in the new media. I think one of the key pieces is having a human touch to it. Being very authentic in your messaging, in your content, in your communication style, even in your level of responsiveness. The idea that someone has a challenge with American Airlines, American Airlines will tweet right back and give them whatever, upgrade them or give them a response to their problem. The idea around, that’s a classic kind of a good example of just being–
Scott: Yes, I did that Monday.
Dr. Brynn: Did you?
Scott: Yes.
Dr. Brynn: What did you do?
Scott: So I was on the flight and my TV screen didn’t work, so I just took a picture and send it to American Airlines. They always tweet me back. Years ago, I wrote a story about my son’s first flight. I wrote a story and they posted it on their social feeds and it went viral amongst like this aviation website and stuff like that. It did it. It humanized their brand because I called the social media team. I was like, “Hey, who runs this?” I met Stephanie. I forgot her name but I’d post to her Twitter profile. I still remember her from years and years ago. But it did until I wrote the story on my blog about how you can humanize your brand using online media. So I get it and I try to be as authentic as possible. I mean, I a personal podcast, it’s my own voice even though I have crazy Texas accent sometimes but I think that is the key, and I think people missed it. They’re too busy with getting more attention and they’re not diving deep into the attention that they are getting. I think that’s, on a neuroscience level, I’ve got to be somewhere close but that’s the kind of battle that we fight as online sellers. What happens is everyone is so easily distracted and you get some time with that customer prospect and you’re not making the best use of that time. I’m really curious if we are online and we are on the phone, however, basically not in person. Because in person, you do get those, you get to the body language and you can read that and you can adjust, whereas, online you can’t. That was my line of questioning.
Dr. Brynn: I think there’s something if we look at the data. If we look at the research and we really, if I take it to its nth degree, the most extreme version, really push the envelope of what that research says. It basically says that we should not be selling at all. That selling itself is completely a manipulative and power imbalanced thing to even try to do. What basically, from a brain science perspective, we should be doing or attempting authentically to foster, our friendships. Because what it turns out is that humans much prefer in-group, in-tribe affiliation especially when it comes to transactions where they stand to lose or there is a risk. Instead of, it’s almost as if you’re prospecting calls shouldn’t have anything to do with your product if anything. We talked about this earlier but it’s not what you sell but why you’re selling it, and more specifically, forget why you’re selling it even. Why they need to be your friend? Why do we need to be affiliated at a personal level? It wouldn’t work with everyone and everyone’s approach to going about it would be different. But at the fundamental level, basically what it says is that the human brain only will be compliant with buy, believe, or buy into someone that they trust. Someone they trust is someone they like, and someone they like is effectively a friend. There are loose definitions of friend. I don’t mean your bosom buddy that you’re necessarily going to play squash with every Saturday, but I mean, effectively that people will look for friend vs. foe.
A friend is someone that they want to work with. Instead of calling and saying, “Hi, I’ve got this air conditioner and it’s going to be the quietest best machine in the world.” You would call and say, “Hey Joe, do you, how do you feel about I don’t know Trump or whatever.” You strike up a conversation with that person. Nothing to do with air conditioners at all necessarily. That is not at all prevailing wisdom or logic. That’s not at all how we approach it. I think that’s really pushing the envelope in terms of what the information says, but basically, the idea is just that the human brain wants to transact preferentially with people that, with people, first of all, that’s the humanization factor and secondly with people that they like. And so even big business, when you look at B2B, you’ll often hear about the stories of one sales guy goes to another company and he takes with them all of his accounts. You hear the story over and over again and the reason for that is because he might be moving from AT@T over to Sprint but the truth is, is that all of his accounts are just people at those other organizations, at Time Warner, you name it. He is just taking; of course, he takes his accounts with him. It’s not that when he moved over to Sprint, AT@T stopped liking Time Warner. It’s more that when Peter decides to move from AT@T over to Sprint, the people who like him and trust him over at Time Warner or the person who likes him and trust him and probably played golf with him last weekend because they’re buddies is obviously going to move their business over to Sprint.
And so what I think is interesting is that, effectively, what we learn is that the human brain does business with people that it likes. That is really, that would change, I think, the narrative that you’re trying to strike with or the dialogue rather that you’re trying to strike with your prospects, with your community, and with your potential target market because you’re now not trying to strike up a dialogue about what you sell or about what you can provide them. You’re trying to strike up a dialogue about how it is that you two are similar and how it is that you two are in-group and how it is that you two are from the same tribe and how you can be trusted and you are in fact what you could be categorized as a friend.
The second thing, Scott, and this is I think a really important component. The fact that all the brain science would show us that reward, so getting good value for our money let’s say in a service procurement choice that we are looking for that we know we need. We know we need phone services as an example. Who is our provider? Is it AT@T or Sprint? Well, one of the challenges is while you might go at Sprint because you feel you get good value for money. But then the second thing is that are good high-quality service. The pleasure, if you will. The spike that we see in prospects happiness is pretty limited, pretty minimal. There’s this little blip on the radar. A little blip on the graph, if you will, you’ll have, “Okay, that was a good happy transaction. I’m pleased that I did it.”
Fast forward, if what happens is you don’t please the prospect but instead the brain gets feeling threatened, that blip on the graph is like a dip that lasts for days. Say, differently, if you do something really great for our customer, they’re going to be happy for an hour. If you do something really threatening for a prospective customer or they perceive you to be threatening somehow like they’re about to lose their shirt on your service plan or they feel as though you’re an inferior product and keeping up with the Joneses won’t be possible, they feel a huge spike in their threat levels. That threat, once that’s activated, lasts much longer. It can last for days, so good one hour of pleasure, bad days of pain.
Scott: It’s kind of when you go to a restaurant and if you have a good meal, you don’t tell anybody but if you have a bad meal you tell everybody.
Dr. Brynn: Right, and the adage, historically and I don’t know where. If this is corroborated by research but we used to say it back in the day about marketing. A satisfied customer says nothing and the unsatisfied customer tells 10 people.
Scott: Yes.
Dr. Brynn: Unfortunately, that’s the truth is that pleasing them has very limited effects but displeasing them has a very longstanding effect. One of the models in neuroscience that has been popularized and it’s heavily used is what’s called, the SCARF model which like a scarf, around your neck. I don’t use that model or I don’t call it that. I call it the SCARE model because that makes a lot more sense to me. It is basically the five things, S-C-A-R and E .The five things that we conceptualize, if not, mutually exclusive are collectively exhaustive of the human experience around how the brain detects social threat and reward. Said differently, these are the five things you need to not threaten in a human in order to have them not have that threat response which is your first line of defense towards getting them to believe, buy-in or by getting them to comply with you.
Those five things are; S status and social capital. People like both of those things and don’t want either one of those things threatened. As an example, if you’re an inferior service provider that you think, as I mentioned earlier, you don’t think it’s going to help you keep up with the Joneses. They’re going to immediately have this little twinge of, “Ugh, that’s not good enough for my neighborhood. I can’t buy it.” Said, differently, if as an example, that service provider is going to provide them with such quality and value-added service that they feel like all their friends would be super envious. This is a great example of the type of service that this person procures. Then, it’s probably easy to do in the product categories. I don’t know why I went with service, but anyway. That is likely then to give them a little blip in their emotional state of, “Oh, that’s going to elevate my perceived social capital and make me look like I’m of higher status in the world.” So, the first one is the S. That’s the thing that we want to grant and we want to not threaten.
The second thing is the C. It’s what we call control and choice. The idea that we as humans love both of those things. Both of those things are often a complete fallacy that we have control and that we even have a choice. There’s this whole logic around the idea that in actual fact, we’re running according to conditioned programs and this whole concept of control is really a fallacy, however, people love to believe that they have both control and choice which is free agency, free will as an example. When in fact, if you threaten either one of those things. If you tell them either, they’re going to sign a really lengthy contract that gives them absolutely no control over their service provision and no ability to back out they’re not going to love that. If you give them, they walk into your store and you only have two mobile devices available, that’s not enough choice for them so they’re going to feel like you’re limiting their choice as a service provider, as well as, that really lengthy contract as well as control over their future. Definitely, you don’t want to threaten a sense of control and choice.
The third is what’s called autonomy and ambiguity, the A of the SCARE Model. Autonomy, people love the human brain. I should say, in fact, really appreciate a sense of autonomy. It does not like ambiguity, so most people if you present them with ambiguous service provision or an ambiguous contract or ambiguous results that they’re going to get. “Well, we might give you telephone service but we might not.” People don’t like that level of ambiguity. They’ve, so whatever you do mitigate a sense of ambiguity, and then provide them with a sense of autonomy. Provide them with a sense of, “Hey, you can move from you no contract. Come love us. If you don’t love us, you can switch at any time. You have free will, free agency, and autonomy to do that. That is something that the human brain really likes.
The fourth thing is the R, is relationships and connectedness. Relationships is the R in the SCARE Model. It’s basically the idea that humans like to be related, connected, and embedded. That we are tribalistic social species that likes to be able to feel as though we have a home, and we are safe, and we belong to somebody, and into concentric circles. Immediately to our spouse and then to our nuclear family, and then to our neighborhood, and then to our extended family, and then to our school or our job or workplace, you name it. In concentric circles, we like to feel embedded, connected, and related to people. That’s really the opposite thereof social isolation. It’s the number one predictive factor for things like depression and anxiety. People who feel socially isolated for some reason will often show up with factors if not, a complete diagnosis they will show up with factors on anxiety and depression scales. The human brain is looking for relationships, connectedness, and embedded-ness, a sense of belonging.
The final thing, the E is equity and fairness. This is the F is where, typically, you hear this before doing the SCARF Model. The idea is just that the human brain has an on-going cheat sheet inside of its head that is constantly keeping up tabs with what’s fair, what’s equitable with who owes you. This is also the human motivation behind not wanting to owe, so never a debtor or a lender be as a saying. Sometimes here, the idea is just that we don’t like imbalances in owing-ness or in a sense of indebtedness. Definitely, something to mitigate with potential prospects, clients, customers, anyone. Second is we want to ensure that they’d be all positively like we are equitable and fair in our dealings, in our contracts, in our provision of services, in our purveying of broccoli on the plate. What we’re trying to get is the brain, the human brain to feel as though it’s definitely not threatened in any of those five categories and that it is. And so, just quickly again, the SCARE model stands for; status and social capital, control and choice, autonomy and ambiguity wherein we like autonomy and not ambiguity, relationships connectedness and embedded-ness where which in wherein we like all of those, and then equity and fairness is the fifth one. We like both equity and fairness in our dealings and in our service provision in the marketplace.
Scott: Well, I have about a billion follow up questions but we don’t have time for that. What I’m really curious is I’m going to jump back a little bit about your concentric circle example. Then, I want to go back to what you talked about why you do it. It’s not what you do but why you do it. So first, if we all live in these tribes and we’re trying to maintain social equity in all that with the SCARE model, how do integrate two circles? So If I want you to go and if I want to break in and I’ve got to build trust with some other person. I’ve got to do this on all these different levels. What’s the best way? How do I integrate circles? That calls a battle. Calls it like a good relationship versus a bad relationship?
Dr. Brynn: Yes, I mean, I think- Well, first of all, is just according to the SCARE model is just ensuring that you don’t threaten their status, their control, their autonomy sense of fairness but going back to what we talked about earlier. I think establishing a human connection, one of the things and with an authentic appeal of some kind. One of the things that I talk about sometimes is definitely showing up in person is helpful, making really good eye contact ensuring that you are establishing with the similarities are between the two of you. I sometimes joke that every conversation between two strangers always goes the same way. It’s like, “Hi” “Hi” “How are you?” “Hi, I’m good.” ‘Where you from?” “Oh, I’m from Rochester.” “Oh my goodness, my cousin’s from Rochester.” “Really? Great.” The conversation is totally innate and benign like what a boring small talk conversation. But what’s happening is that the human brain is trying to figure out how similar we are. Every conversation between two strangers goes the exact same way. We drive as fast as humanly possible towards similarity between us. That’s really to be able to flag that we are a friend and not foe and that we are in-tribe and that we are in-group and that we are relatable.
The thing that we would typically follow up with is further relatable facts and further relatability, so driving towards similarity, driving toward relatable-ness. What is similar between us and then, therefore, how is that relatable? How does that relate on a human level? That might be two mothers witness that they children, they start talking about that. Or you and I start talking immediately about our proprietorships and our business. Or other people will talk about what they have in common, and so, that commonness is a really opportune space too. If we almost picture it like Venn diagrams or concentric circles, a really opportune fruitful soil for integrating two different spheres of one’s associations or embedded-ness. Then I think, again, kind of going back to being in person as much as possible and really allowing them the full depth of experience. The 93% of communication that’s non-verbal and the mirror neuron system which can only activate in person in real time. I mean, if you’re really interested. If it’s a really hot prospect or I mean, we notice inherently, but the hottest prospect you’ll probably ever have is, pardon the pun, is your partner like your spouse. You would want to do that by telephone, e-mail, a video chat. If you want to do that in person obviously. I think when you look at the hottest prospects out there. When you look at the quality of the relationship that you’re trying to strike out, I think that it’s really important to be as human as possible. Remember that really, technology is a tool but it can’t mitigate the relationship. You still have to show up to that actual relationship and that’s the key piece. I mean, for all the brain science out there, I can distill it down to the fact that you need to have a relationship and that is human. The human brain is human. The brain is a very human thing and it’s looking for relationships and relatedness.
Scott: All right, so with that I’ve got to get one last question and it’s a personal question. I did not prepare you for this today. Outside of neuroscience, like outside of your speaking engagements and all that what you’re primarily known for.
Dr. Brynn: That that is such a good question, Scott. You didn’t prepare me for it. I don’t know totally the answer I would wonder if I think maybe it is just that I’m a bit of a, it’s either that I’m a business person. I see a business opportunity and things and a lot of people are business people. I mean, you’re in business and most people are so there’s that’s a point of connection for sure and I’m always kind of so interested in it. It could also just be sort of a natural and fundamental and this is a little. I’m unfortunately it is a little bit of brain science but, a natural and fundamental interest in the human state of mind. I was asked this question interview not in an interview not long ago where they asked me, “Well when brain science why brain science?” I said, as a little kid, I was two years old. They asked me I want to be, I said neurosurgeon. The psychometrist did not believe that I knew what that was so they were like, “Tell her to ask what that is.” And so, I said, “Oh yeah, what I want to do when I grow up is help people with their brains.” Apparently, it’s just always been who I am. I think, what’s true is that probably like in a kind of my job, my business, to your point being on stage, I think I walk through the world fundamentally curious about other people’s psychological states, neuroscientific states, neurological states. It’s very interesting to me. I’ve always since I was two years, I’ve been obsessed with the idea that you have this computer inside your head and it operates. It’s the epicenter of all action-reaction, personality thought ideas, faith, your perception of reality; everything is sort of in this cranium of yours. The fact is, is that’s just like infinitely interesting to me. I think, to your point, it’s really nothing to do with my business. My business did become my passion but, because otherwise, I would have been a marketing professor for the rest of my life. [laughs] I think, I mean, I made this business my passion but that’s really is. My point of connection is just a fundamental interest in humans and in their brain.
Scott: Yes, I would say you made your passion your business?
Dr. Brynn: Totally, yes. Did I say that wrong?
Scott: Yes, the way you said, “I made my business my passion.” I was like I kind of knew what you’re in but that–
Dr. Brynn: No, I did not mean that. I meant, what you said. I made my passion my business for sure. That came out of insight too from the mentor of mine who said like, “You can’t deny who you are. This is who you really are. You can sit around in a marketing department at a university for the rest of your life but it won’t be honoring everything that you’ve really thought about.” That’s a very human, talk about authenticity, talk about humanness, talk about connectedness, relatedness, embedded-ness. I mean, that’s really for me. It was a sudden eureka moment where you thought “Yeah, I’ve trained all 14 years to do this one thing and I’ve worked in corporate marketing for tech for 12 years at that point full time.” I thought “Geez.” Actually, in the end, you know what? I am a brain science nerd and I have to be true to that. I have to honor that. There’s value for others in that. I get out there and help people use their brains better in a business context and in whatever your daily business is. Whether that’s feeding your kids or trying to run your little proprietorship or run a multinational, multibillion-dollar company. I mean, there are insights for you about that and I’m passionate, I think, about having them realize that they, there is a better them inside of them. There’s a better computer. There’s a better, there’s more functionality in this computer that you’re running. That is riveting to me
Scott: I love it. Well, thanks so much, Brynn. If somebody had a question for you based on their brain or their internal computer, what is the best way for somebody to ask you a question?
Dr. Brynn: Yes, it’s DrBrynn.com, super simple. D-R-B-R-Y-N-N.com and then, all of my social hand, I’m on all the social platforms as @DrBrynnWinegard.
Scott: Perfect. Well, thank you so much for talking to me again. I really enjoyed it and I’d probably going to listen two or three times.
Dr. Brynn: Thank you, Scott. Yes, it’s always a joy to talk to you. Please do call anytime. I love it. Thank you.
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