Mastering Ethical Persuasion: Insights from Behavioral Science for Confident Communication

Tim Newman [00:00:00]:
Welcome back to Speaking with Confidence. The podcast helps you build the soft skills that lead to real results. Communication, storytelling, public speaking, and showing up with confidence in every conversation that counts. I'm Tim Newman, a recovering college professor turned communication coach, and I'm thrilled to guide you on a journey to becoming a powerful communicator. Today's guest is Patrick Van Der Burght. Patrick is a business partner of Dr. Robert Cialdini, who wrote the book the Psychology of Persuasion, which is considered by many top CEOs to be the best business book of all time.

Tim Newman [00:00:42]:
Patrick is a founding member of the Cialdini Institute and a Cialdini Institute licensed trainer and has been teaching ethical persuasion to professionals and teams since the year 2000. This helps them accelerate towards their personal and professional goals by by applying behavioral science and avoiding wasting time and resources on predictably inefficient communication. Patrick also co authored the book how to Hear yes more often in 2024 and has started his own podcast, Ethical Persuasion Unlocked. Patrick, welcome to the show. And I'm really interested to hear how your podcast is going because it's a lot of work.

Patrick Van Der Burght [00:01:19]:
It is, yeah. We were talking about that before. Yeah. Thank you for having me on the show. I've been really looking forward to this because there's so much ethical persuas that people can inject into giving a presentation. And we did our little pre chat and we just, I mean, our little pre chat was like an hour. We were getting along so well with the, with the ideas that were already floating with what we. What we could share.

Patrick Van Der Burght [00:01:42]:
So, yeah, really been looking forward to this.

Tim Newman [00:01:45]:
Yeah. It's always easier to talk with people when, when. When you're interested in what they're doing. And there's a lot of synergy that goes along with that and you're kind of thinking along the same. The same lines. And the whole idea of ethical persuasion, for me, when we talked about it, it's fascinating because I never really thought about it from the perspective that we talked about it. And we're really going to kind of get into that today, and I learned a ton. And I'm sure our listeners are going to learn a ton as we go through this.

Tim Newman [00:02:16]:
And you're a certified trainer under Dr. Cialdini, and if you're in the communication space or the leadership space, everybody knows who he is. I. He's kind of a big deal. But what first drew you to the persuasion science and how that connection with Dr. Cialgini actually come about for you?

Patrick Van Der Burght [00:02:40]:
Yeah, sure. So that takes Me back a bit. So the. That makes me feel old. Before the turn of the century. Yeah, how about that? I was a sales rep and I was selling scuba diving equipment. I worked for a wholesaler and I'm based in Australia in Melbourne. So I was looking after the states of Victoria, South Australia, and the island of Tasmania, which is a pretty decent size.

Patrick Van Der Burght [00:03:09]:
I mean, you know, Australia is about the size of the United States, so I had a decent chunk of that. So I was driving everywhere, my car was like a rolling university playing cassette tapes for those of us who still know what that is.

Tim Newman [00:03:22]:
Yes, sir.

Patrick Van Der Burght [00:03:22]:
And I was, I was visiting retailers and I'm easy enough to get along with and I was a dive instructor myself, so I loved working in that industry and I had a good relationship with my retailers, but I wasn't really, I don't think I wasn't really getting the growth in my territory that I think the amount of effort I was putting in should have produced. And I did see that some of my competitors managed to sort of wiggle their way into, you know, getting some larger orders and those sorts of things, sometimes based on, you know, sort of pretenses that weren't exactly ethical, let's say. And so I wanted to do better, but I didn't want to lie, cheat or deceive either. And so at the time, my boss had a business coach that was helping him to grow his business. And that business coach basically had the idea to train us sales reps to sort of be business coaches so we could help our retailers, which love diving but aren't necessarily good business operators, to help them grow their business. And so we did simple things like sales training and goal setting and those sorts of things. And anyway, this, this, this business coach, John McDonald's, his name was, I hope he's still around. But he was a mature gentleman back then.

Patrick Van Der Burght [00:04:37]:
He was local to Melbourne and he said, if you're ever in the area, any questions about, you know, what we're implementing, drop by. And so I don't know if you've ever met a Dutch person on holiday and you mistakenly say, if you're ever in the United States, a place to stay, come over to us. Don't say that to Dutch people. They turn up. That's right. And so, so did I. So I, you know, very soon I was in his office. I mean, I knew what this guy charged per hour.

Patrick Van Der Burght [00:05:06]:
So if you invite me to come and talk to you, I'll come. And so anyway, he sort of liked how I like to implement the strategies and if something didn't work, I wouldn't just dismiss it. I would go, what am I doing wrong here? What, how do I make this work? And he appreciated that in me. I'm, I'm sure, you know, when you teach other people how to do things, some people, you know, they just to give it one go and then give up on it. And John was lending me educational series, cassette tape sets, right? I mean now you can, you know, you can go to audio audible or you know, for a few dollars you can listen to amazing books. But right. 20 years ago, those eight cassette tapes for $1200, right. I was not uncommon.

Patrick Van Der Burght [00:05:49]:
And he, he lent me these series which was incredibly generous and valuable. And so I was listening to that anyway, there was this program called mind capture. Dr. Cialdini was on, there were two cassette tapes and I was hooked. As in, it's really interesting because behavioral science is interesting. Interesting, fascinating, funny and sometimes absolutely terrifying, but always interesting. And it's so potent, as in, and you don't need to lie, cheat little things. Just bringing the right pieces of information to the surface.

Patrick Van Der Burght [00:06:23]:
Anyway, make a long story short or shorter, I was faced with the challenge at work. I had taken on a new brand. It was a dry diving suit. And what I was, an awesome suit. And I used those suits in the past myself and best suit I ever dived in in terms of its makeup. But what I didn't know is that the year before they had a screw up and they changed the manufacturers of the inner membrane that's supposed to keep you dry. And they all delaminated and every single suit they sold last year had to be replaced. And I didn't know that.

Patrick Van Der Burght [00:06:57]:
So I'm going into my retailers, happy as Larry. It's, oh, look what I've got, right? And my retailers are like, I mean they liked me because they knew me already, but they laughed at me. They go, we're not touching that again after the drama from last year. And so here I was, I've got this awesome product now. Was awesome or again. And, and my retailers don't want to have a bar of it. And so to. I can't quote him exactly, but what's his name from the Martian, the movie, right? I'm going to have to science this really hard.

Patrick Van Der Burght [00:07:32]:
And so I looked in the situation, what's there, what can I use? What I've learned from Dr. Cialdini in these tapes. And to make the long story shorter, within 18 months we were market leader. And so ever since, you know, I've loved and Been fascinated with this topic. I reached out to Dr. Cialdini that goodness, I'm so passionate about your work, love to share it over here. And he said, listen, provided you tell people where it came from, good luck with your endeavors. And so ever since I've been teaching the industries that I was into, you know, how this works and of course did more training over time, but I always, I remember that feeling of, you know, when the penny drops and you go, are you serious? It's that simple.

Patrick Van Der Burght [00:08:19]:
And this is how it works. And I love seeing that in an audience when I've got whole bunch of people in front of me and we go into the science of human decision making and then into the principles. You see the eyes get a little bigger and I go, you what? Right. And so I'm hoping to, we can't see it right with our audience today, but I'm hoping there'll be similar sort of experiences happening to those, you know, listening to this podcast as well.

Tim Newman [00:08:45]:
And I'm sure. So let me follow up with that just so everybody can get a really good understanding of that. I mean, you describe yourself as an ethical persuasion specialist. What does that mean in practical terms for someone who's a general person in everyday business communication, maybe communicating on a stage, but just in common terms so everybody understands what we're really talking about here.

Patrick Van Der Burght [00:09:11]:
Right. So I help people to be ethically more persuasive using behavioral science so that when we make a request of someone and this absolutely doesn't have to be sales related, of course, typically in organizations where I come in first is a sales department because that brings money in the till. Right? But if you're trying to, whenever you verbally communicate with someone and you need to cooperation from the other person, you will be reliant on your persuasive abilities, which we all have to a large or small extent. And so it doesn't matter if you're trying to get somebody to buy your product or service. It doesn't matter if you have a team of people and you want your team to follow or do as you asked or buy into a vision that you have. What if you're the boss of the company? How do you get your managers to follow along with the vision that you've developed? Especially if maybe you followed a vision in the past and that hasn't worked out. So how do you get them to stay loyal to you? And then of course, you know, with your expertise, when we're pitching something to an audience or when we're speaking, when we're on stage, how do we get our message across? For them to buy into it, to believe or accept what it is we're saying or recommending, and then for them to stay true to that decision even after you leave or someone else comes in and trying to change their mind. Right.

Patrick Van Der Burght [00:10:45]:
So this has a massive impact on our success rate. And because most people don't know that there's a science how people make decisions, they waste copious amounts of time, resources and competitive advantage. Because, because they're not communicating in a way that lets the available yeses come to the surface, that we're genuinely there and available. And so they're wasting all this time, resources and competitive advantage. It's not like we're trying to manipulate people or try and get people to say yes when it's not within them. If you have something you're sharing, a product or service you're sharing, that's just not good for them, they're not going to say yes. But as we'll get into, often when people say no to you, it's not actually no, it's indecision. And that is responsible for a lot of wasted success.

Tim Newman [00:11:45]:
That's a really, really, really good point. It's no doesn't necessarily mean no. That's a, that's a, that's a key point that I think probably needs to.

Patrick Van Der Burght [00:11:56]:
Be.

Tim Newman [00:11:59]:
Said more often so that not only do the people that are doing the selling, and I'm using airframes, quote, selling here as well as the people that are being sold to. Think about it from a different perspective with kids.

Patrick Van Der Burght [00:12:15]:
Right.

Tim Newman [00:12:16]:
I mean, it's no different than raising kids and trying to get them to understand why, why you have some of the rules that you do, why, why you want them to do the things that you want them to do. It's, it's really falls into this as well. And when they, and when they don't. Right. I mean. Go ahead.

Patrick Van Der Burght [00:12:38]:
Yeah. No, I was just going to say you're right. You're spot on. This, this isn't just professional. This is a life skill. It works professionally and privately. Right. With your kids getting to do their homework, clean up their room.

Patrick Van Der Burght [00:12:52]:
Right. Or buy into, you know, a philosophy, a vision that you have for the family, your partner. Right. I mean, if you got these ideas of that you want to go to a certain country on a holiday or something, well, you have to convince people. Right. So this comes back everywhere.

Tim Newman [00:13:09]:
Exactly. Now let's take it another step. Okay. 90% of the decisions come from the intuitive brain. How does that understanding Change, you know, the way that we. The way that we should communicate that or the way that we should communicate, period.

Patrick Van Der Burght [00:13:30]:
I think maybe this would be a good time for us to dive a little bit into the science of human decision making. Would that be a good idea, Tim?

Tim Newman [00:13:36]:
Yeah.

Patrick Van Der Burght [00:13:37]:
All right, cool. All right, so I'm going to lean on the work of Professor Daniel Kahneman, who died in 2024, unfortunately. But he was a professor in psychology and a behavioral scientist, and he won a Nobel Prize in 2002 in economics, which is a bit unexpected, right? I mean, normally you win a Nobel Prize for making an extraordinary contribution to that field. So what did a behavioral scientist come up with that had such an impact on economics?

Tim Newman [00:14:15]:
Economics.

Patrick Van Der Burght [00:14:15]:
And it was because a large part of his work was about the decision making process. And so he basically disproved something that old economics thought was the case. Old economics thought people are logical, rational creatures, and we would therefore use logic and reason to formulate our decisions. And Daniel Kahneman proved that that was wrong, and that largely got him the Nobel Prize. So when it comes to decision making, Daniel Kahneman says the brain, your brain, your audience's brain, has two parts, System one and system two. System one is fast. It's an unconscious brain that works automatically. And it's always.

Patrick Van Der Burght [00:15:00]:
It's sort of outside of our con. Sorry, it's outside of our conscious control. And it helps us make a lot of decisions. And it often works based on shortcuts, rules of thumb. So for example, you want to buy something that you don't know too much about, and you could delay your decision. You could go to the library and read books on that particular topic. You could go and do some courses and some workshop about whatever this thing is you want to purchase or make a decision about. And then five months later, you could come back to the situation and make an educated decision about this topic.

Patrick Van Der Burght [00:15:41]:
Well, that's lovely, but most of us don't have the time to do that, Right. So the shortcut might surface in our subconscious in terms of, you know what? Expensive equals good.

Tim Newman [00:15:56]:
Yes.

Patrick Van Der Burght [00:15:57]:
We've learned that most of the time, if we spend a little bit more money, we often get something that's better quality, lasts us longer, better suited to purpose. And so expensive equals good is a shortcut that allows us to make a quicker decision. If I'm buying this monitor, these speakers, this front door for my house, if I don't know too much about it, you know, what if I just spend a bit more money than I was thinking I would be spending, I then I'll probably get something that's better. And you know what? That's exactly right. Because we've learned from experience that this, this rule works most of the time, not always most of the time. That's why we'd say system one is error prone, because it works on these shortcuts and it sometimes gets it wrong, but it works most of the time. And that's why it's very convenient to take these shortcuts. All right, so on the other side, we have System two.

Patrick Van Der Burght [00:16:54]:
System two is a logical, rational part of the brain. This works slowly. This costs a lot of effort to run. And Daniel Kahneman refers to it as the lazy controller. It often doesn't even want to engage unless it's forced to. It's quite happy to take the recommendations from System one. Now System two. We need System two to, let's say, dissect a logical argument or, you know, let's say compared to washing machines that you're looking at buying or something like that.

Patrick Van Der Burght [00:17:34]:
And so the caveat with System two is that it requires our attention. It doesn't work if we don't have attention. And all of us have a limited budget for attention. And so Daniel Kahneman demonstrates in 2002, like you highlighted, 90% of our decisions are made by System 1 on autopilot, automatically, subconsciously. Later studies say that that's now 95%, we're getting even higher. And that means that that logical part of the brain is only in charge of, let's say, 5% of the decisions. Now, here lies a couple of truths. First of all, why is this percentage increasing? Well, that has to do with our attention span.

Patrick Van Der Burght [00:18:25]:
We live as in what Dr. Cialdini would call the most inflow, information overloaded, stimulus saturated environment that has ever existed on the planet. Right, right. And so we have so many decisions to make. We rely more on these shortcuts, otherwise we can't get through the day. And so this attention span of ours, this is also reducing in length. We used to have attention span of 20 minutes in the 80s. You might be familiar with the story of the goldfish and it having an attention span of nine seconds.

Patrick Van Der Burght [00:19:02]:
Our attention span is now seven seconds. Right. And we've all been there. The Internet had a big impact on us. Right. We get a lot of information, a lot of access to things, so we could, yeah, more decisions were, you know, across our path. But the smartphone was sort of the final nail in the coffin, I suppose. You know, you take that thing off flight mode, you unlock it, you want to Make a phone call.

Patrick Van Der Burght [00:19:24]:
Right. Immediately, 26 apps are popping up because they want your attention. That's 26 decisions you have to make if you need to interact with them. Goodness, you might open one right now. There's a message from him, message from her. You know, this takes you to an article, a video. Twenty minutes later, you put the phone down and you go, I forgot what I was doing that thing up for.

Tim Newman [00:19:44]:
Exactly. It happens to be five or 10 times a day.

Patrick Van Der Burght [00:19:48]:
Exactly. Right. You didn't even last seven seconds. Right. Two seconds you were already gone. Yeah. And so this explains why this percentage is increasing now. The other thing it highlights is that.

Patrick Van Der Burght [00:20:07]:
When we, when we're thinking about how are we going to convince someone, let's bring this back to speaking. Right? So if you're going to pitch to this audience and you've got, I know you've got this. Concepts to bring across or in a viewpoint that you have an opinion, or maybe you're standing on stage selling, you might think, okay, how am I going to do that? How am I going to convince these? What should I bring up that makes sense? Right. For them to justify that they should agree with what I'm proposing. When you're doing that, you're using conscious thought. And so you are at that time using System two, you're using your attention, conscious thought, your operating System two, the ideas that you come up with, the information that you come up with that is generated by System 2 tends to be information that requires System 2 in the other person to process it and they don't have the time for that anymore. And so when we overload them with lots of rational reasons why you should listen to me or why you should accept what it is I have to say, as it's better for the environment, it saves you money, all these sorts of logical, rational reasons, we're actually creating more uncertainty in our audience and they decide not to decide. And so what happens is that with your approach, you get a certain amount of yeses.

Patrick Van Der Burght [00:21:48]:
And of course, we know that, especially people in business have been in the same industry for a long period of time, they all complain about the same thing. Selling seems to be getting harder.

Tim Newman [00:21:58]:
Harder.

Patrick Van Der Burght [00:21:59]:
Right. And that's right. It's a great observation. That's because that percentage of system 2 being in control is getting less, it is getting harder. But what happens, you get a certain amount of yeses with your approach. And the rest you would say, well, the rest of the people said no, because I certainly didn't buy into my vision, followed me, stayed loyal to Me bought my product or my service. But a whole bunch of those people that told you no in one way or another, they could have been a yes because they weren't really a no. They were indecision.

Patrick Van Der Burght [00:22:33]:
And that explains why the impact of using ethical persuasion science can have such a big impact. Yeah, I can give you a couple of examples. T Mobile, right? Big telecom company in the States and Europe. They had phone packages on their website and they were in the wrong order by reordering those phone packages. The most expensive package that was there, Sales went up by 34.4%. By making a change, Bose, right, We all know gorgeous hi Fi equipment. They had a new hi Fi system that they were launching. Very excited about it.

Patrick Van Der Burght [00:23:17]:
They're advertising. People had made an advertising campaign for it, brochures, posters, that sort of stuff. And they launched it to the loyal followers, right, that people should be easiest to sell. And sales were disappointing. And they actually asked Dr. Cialdini to look at the ad and he recognized that it was a very technical ad, which is old System two. But you know what? Bose's audience really likes all the technical sort of stuff. But the headline that they had put above it, their people thought that that was really going to help them sell.

Patrick Van Der Burght [00:23:49]:
But it had an element in it, and I see this all the time, it had an element in it that subconsciously and very persuasively persuaded people not to do what they were asking, right? To not buy. And so all Dr. Cialdini was is to take that element out or replace it for an element that actually worked in Bose's favor. And sales went up by 45%. This is massive. Recently at the Institute, we were talking about a particular case where there's an online retailer and they have a certain amount of. I think they were selling water bottles, right? Now there's so many. 17 different colors or something like that.

Patrick Van Der Burght [00:24:29]:
And I mean, there's so much stuff we can talk about, but if we present people with more than five options, that's too much. We risk choice, stress, right? Where people. It gets too hard. I get on Netflix every evening, right? You look for just too hard. I watch something that's old, right?

Tim Newman [00:24:47]:
Yeah, exactly.

Patrick Van Der Burght [00:24:47]:
It's just too much good new stuff. And so they reduced the amount of water bottles to five colors and sales went up by 77 times, not percent, times 7700% increase in sales. So this can have a big impact. Does that make sense?

Tim Newman [00:25:10]:
It makes huge sense. I mean, think about it. From when you go to a restaurant, you. When you go to a restaurant and the restaurant's menu is seven pages, Come back in 20 minutes, and I'm probably going to end up with the same thing. I get everywhere. I'll probably get a Caesar salad and a hamburger because there's too many things to choose from.

Patrick Van Der Burght [00:25:37]:
Just keep walking to an ice cream shop.

Tim Newman [00:25:41]:
Well, I mean, I don't know if you, if you had it in Australia, but we had, you know, growing up, we had, we still have Baskin Robbins, but it was Baskin Robbins 31 plus. 31 plus flavors. And sometimes they would have different flavors than normal. So you, I mean, I never, I would never try and just give me strawberry. Just, you know, and it really is that. It's. We sometimes I think we make it more difficult really than it needs to be. Stay in your lane.

Tim Newman [00:26:10]:
Like, like you brought up Bose as a. For example. So I've got Bose noise canceling headphones that I wear. Probably the only time I really wear them is when I'm traveling on flights. They're perfect. I mean, I mean, if they were to come out with a new set tomorrow, the ones I bought three years ago, I probably, I would probably buy them just for whatever it is. They're probably going to be better because they're both. That's it.

Tim Newman [00:26:37]:
You don't really have to sell me too much on. You don't have to get into the technical aspects of it.

Patrick Van Der Burght [00:26:45]:
Yeah. All right. Shall we dive into how the principles of persuasion works, how we can use that on stage?

Tim Newman [00:26:53]:
Yeah, let's talk about the principles. Let's start with reciprocity, because especially with communication, you've got to have that. You've got to have that back and forth, that give and take.

Patrick Van Der Burght [00:27:07]:
Yeah. So there's seven principles. I don't know if we'll be able to touch on all of them, but maybe if we list them. So we've touched on them briefly for each of them. Seven principles. They're universal. What that means is they work in all countries, all languages and all cultures. And that's very important.

Patrick Van Der Burght [00:27:28]:
Now this is, you know, in terms of a skill, this is something that works for everybody who's inside your culture. Because, of course, our cultures are very intermixed. Right. But it also, it's so easy now to do business or speak somewhere in other countries. Right. So this is a skill that works everywhere. All right, so seven principles. So reciprocity, as you raised, is one of those.

Patrick Van Der Burght [00:27:53]:
So reciprocity teaches us that us human beings, we have a need to give back to people the same type of behavior that was first given to us. And the reason that sort of being trained into us, because when we were children, we were always taught that, you know, it's not nice to take without giving in return. Actually, we got rather mean names for people that always take and are given return. Right. We call them moochers or Ingrades or Dr. Cialdini would say teenagers. Right. And so that's reciprocity.

Patrick Van Der Burght [00:28:31]:
So in terms of compliance, people say yes, more readily to people that they feel they owe. And that's why reciprocity is so powerful. Liking is another principle.

Tim Newman [00:28:43]:
Well, with reciprocity, you know, it's the way I look at it as well is, is if you're always providing value. I mean, if you're always, if you always can, can give the person you're talking to or the, or the audience value. I mean, they're, they're so much more willing to, to, like you said, to give back, but you have to lead with value. That, that, that's, to me, that's, that's, that's critical.

Patrick Van Der Burght [00:29:05]:
Yeah. Which in a way is what you're doing, providing this podcast to everybody. Right, Right. All these useful information from you and from your guests. And so, you know, people appreciate that. And so, you know, when you, let's say, send out a call and say, hey, I'm running this webinar, please come. The fact that people, you know, they feel they owe you something. Right.

Patrick Van Der Burght [00:29:28]:
You'll have a larger success rate in getting people to turn up.

Tim Newman [00:29:31]:
And they know they're going to get good value out of that. They're going to get more great information too.

Patrick Van Der Burght [00:29:35]:
Right? Yeah, because you're in that habit of sharing up front, which is exactly awesome. All right, so next principle is liking. So people like to deal with people that they like, which is not rocket science, but to get a little bit more nitpicky and fine tune that a little bit. People like to deal with people that they feel like them. So think about that for a moment. You can step on a stage and you can go, okay, I have to be likable. Sure, that helps. Right.

Patrick Van Der Burght [00:30:13]:
But it's actually more powerful if your audience feels that you genuinely like them. Because if you like them, well, then they're going to be safe with you. Right. Because if you like them, you're going to look after them. That's what people do that like each other. So that's actually more powerful than being likable. And people like people who like them and say so.

Tim Newman [00:30:41]:
Yes.

Patrick Van Der Burght [00:30:43]:
Long way around to say people like compliments, genuine Compliments. We can circle back to that. I'm hoping you're taking notes on what you think your audience likes the most out of this. And we can circle back to that. Okay. All right. Liking. Next principle could be unity, which is the seventh principle that was introduced to us last in 2015 by Dr.

Patrick Van Der Burght [00:31:04]:
Cialdini after additional research. So unity is often confused with liking. Liking is about. Oh, sorry, and I forgot to mention that people like people that are similar to them.

Tim Newman [00:31:16]:
Yes.

Patrick Van Der Burght [00:31:17]:
All right. That's part of liking. Unity is about a feeling of community that we both feel part of. And so localism, as in if we came from the same area, went to the same school together. Right. You've had that. You're sitting in the airport talking to someone and wow, they went to the same school as you a year before, year after, or something. Right.

Patrick Van Der Burght [00:31:40]:
And all of a sudden you got this familiarity towards each other. Well, you could have that with the next person you got a business deal with, but not if you don't do any homework. Right. So we need to find out if there's a community that we feel part of. Co creation is also part of unity. If we can work together on something, we have ownership of it together and we're more loyal to that. Okay, then let's go to Social proof. This is one most people are very familiar with.

Patrick Van Der Burght [00:32:09]:
Right. When we shop online, we look at reviews from other people and review scores. That's a whole different cool topic to talk about. But if in your business, you're collecting online reviews and you think that that's important and awesome, well, then I applaud you for doing it in the first place. But. But let me slap you awake that there's so much more in Social Proof than just getting reviews. Equally powerful stuff. So Social proof is powered by the rule that people follow the leads of others, especially when we are uncertain and when the others are numerous and similar to us.

Patrick Van Der Burght [00:32:53]:
All right, so real quick, if I'm doing a pitch to an audience. All right, let's do this. Let's say you're pitching to a group of, let's say, mature women and your service or your idea, there's other people that have gone before them that have used that service or product in the past and they've really liked it. And so you've got a whole bank of testimonials that you could share with people. That's awesome. Great. We should collect those. Now, if you present to this audience of mature women 5 testimonials of mature men that used your product or service and were happy with it.

Patrick Van Der Burght [00:33:37]:
It's still good, it's still social proof, but you can feel it, right? If I presented five testimonials of other, other mature women who used your product or service, it's more similar to them and therefore instantly more powerful. So you can, right?

Tim Newman [00:33:54]:
They get it.

Patrick Van Der Burght [00:33:55]:
You, you can screw that up, right? You can, you can just go with the five testimonials that you really like because they're stuck in your PowerPoint, right? Or you could be a detective of persuasion and go, who am I talking to? What social proof have I got to match? Right, so that's social proof. Then we have the principle of authority. So authority is about getting your credentials across. And so people follow the leads of others who have genuinely more knowledge and expertise on a particular topic. And that makes sense, right? Because we can't know everything. So if there's someone in the room who knows more about this than we do, it makes sense to follow their advice. But you are, of course, as in everybody in your audience, you are an expert or an authority in your particular topic. So how do you get that to come across? The problem is, and I see this often go wrong.

Patrick Van Der Burght [00:34:51]:
People step on a stage and then basically they go, let me tell you the 35 reasons why I'm so awesome and you should listen to me, right? And they're going real off their master's degrees and which university they went to and all that sort of stuff. And we do that because we feel, well, if you, if you understand that I really know my stuff, then when it comes to you, you believing or buying into what I'm presenting to you, you're going to buy in more because I've shared that with you. But the painful truth is that when you do that yourself, your audience, even just subconsciously goes, you are full of yourself. You lose on authority and you lose on liking. It's lose, lose, lose, lose.

Tim Newman [00:35:38]:
And you know, listen to a podcast saying, doing a little bit of research on this, you know, especially when you're dealing with Gen Z right now, you, you're not getting anywhere with Gen Z if you start talking from authority. You're just, you're not going anywhere with them. So you, you have to find a different way to communicate your authority other than telling them how, how much experience you have and how good you are at doing it, whatever it is.

Patrick Van Der Burght [00:36:10]:
You need a socially acceptable way to get your credentials across. Social sciences teach that, right? That's part of ethical persuasion. So in a speaking environment, we're of course familiar that if you're part of an event. There's an emcee. Right. The master of ceremonies is going to introduce you. Right. People were in for a treat today.

Patrick Van Der Burght [00:36:35]:
We've got Patrick Vanderberg coming to tell us a little bit about ethical persuasion science. Now, Patrick has done this and that, and he's certified by that and that. Right. And so they do that for us, and that is socially acceptable. Now, it's not taken as me being boastful. So that's one way that we can get our credentials across. Another element of authority is also our believability. Just because you say something doesn't mean that it's automatically believed.

Patrick Van Der Burght [00:37:06]:
And so there's ways how we can use pieces of information to instantly establish ourselves as a trustworthy source of information. And that is exceedingly powerful. When you're trying to present to an audience, you want them to buy into what you're presenting. Again, I'm happy to circle back to some of this stuff, but I can literally talk about this for hours, so you'll have to steer us when I get to the end of the list, where you want to go back to. So authority we've covered, then there's two left. Principle of consistency. Consistency teaches us that people feel an internal pressure to want to stay true to past actions and statements that they've made on a particular issue. Sorry, I'm just looking on my.

Patrick Van Der Burght [00:37:57]:
Yeah, I've got it. I've got a little cheat note. I don't want to quote, research and say something that's incorrect. Right. So I got my little cheat notes here. I've got one from a speaking perspective that I can relate. It's one of my favorite studies. There is an.

Patrick Van Der Burght [00:38:11]:
An audience that's being presented to by a very persuasive, energetic person who teaches them or tries to get them to formulate a decision about a particular topic. At the end of the talk, the audience is split into three groups. 1/3 of the audience is asked to make a decision about what was just presented and keep the decision in their head. Another third of the audience is asked to make a decision about what was just said and to write it down on a magic pad. Do you know what that is, Tim? A magic pad, Kids?

Tim Newman [00:38:47]:
Yeah, yeah. The iPad or the tablet, whatever you want to call it.

Patrick Van Der Burght [00:38:52]:
Yeah, Not. Not a tablet. Older stuff. You know, you've got kids, they've got these toys and you can draw on it.

Tim Newman [00:38:57]:
Oh, right.

Patrick Van Der Burght [00:38:58]:
And then Etch a Sketch.

Tim Newman [00:39:00]:
Maybe. Maybe.

Patrick Van Der Burght [00:39:02]:
Yeah, I've heard of that term as well. Right, okay. Yeah, yeah. So you draw on it and then you move the slider across and whatever you've written or drawn is gone. Right. And you can start over. Great. Great toy for kids and their creativity.

Patrick Van Der Burght [00:39:15]:
So one third of the audience is asked to formulate a decision, write down what their decision in on on the magic pad and then delete it. Nobody saw it, Right. They just wrote it down and gone. Okay, interesting. The other third of the audience, they're asked to make a decision about what was presented on, write down their opinion or their decision on a piece of paper, put their name on it, and hand it in to the researchers. Now, another speaker comes on talking about the same topic, different angle, also very persuasive, trying to change the opinions of the people in the audience. Question is from the audience, who was loyal to their initial decision. Right.

Patrick Van Der Burght [00:40:00]:
And this. I love this stuff. So the people that just kept the decision in their head, they were most willing to change their opinion. 50% of those stayed true to their original decision. The people that wrote it down on a magic pad are in series. What difference can that make? Right. They just wrote it down. Juice gone, Nobody saw it.

Patrick Van Der Burght [00:40:27]:
Right?

Tim Newman [00:40:27]:
Right.

Patrick Van Der Burght [00:40:28]:
68% of those stay true to their original decision. Wow. Right. 18% increase. What about the people that wrote it down on a piece of paper and handed it in to the researchers? Out of that group, 89 stayed true to their original decision. Now, think about that for a minute. Right? It's if you're pitching to an audience, if you're promoting an idea to an audience, if you can have a 39% effective increase in the amount of people, that will stay true to what you've told them, that's a massive increase, right?

Tim Newman [00:41:12]:
It is, Right, Right.

Patrick Van Der Burght [00:41:13]:
That's powered by the principle of consistency. The people that kept it in their head, it wasn't a statement, it wasn't an action. The people that wrote it down, it wasn't public, but it was still an action.

Tim Newman [00:41:30]:
An action.

Patrick Van Der Burght [00:41:30]:
So that made them more loyal to it. But those who wrote it down and handed it in, now it was active and public, and so they were even more loyal to their decision. So when we talk to an audience, we often, you know, we ask questions of the audience. You know, good to get some audience participation.

Tim Newman [00:41:51]:
Right.

Patrick Van Der Burght [00:41:51]:
And so it's nice, you know, when people raise their hands to questions and that sort of stuff, if you can ask them to answer a question, which is a commitment, really. Right. As in it could be at any sort of topic. Right. I mean, let's say you're going into an environmental Direction. Right. And you need a corporation to do something. At the end of that message, you could start off with saying, okay, who here thinks that the environment is important for us and we need to look after that? And you raise your hand and all the hands go up, because, of course, everybody cares about the environment.

Patrick Van Der Burght [00:42:28]:
Right. So Dave now made an active and public statement that this was important to them. Their buddy next to them saw them raise their hand. The person behind them that they don't even know saw them raise their hand. Now, when later, 45 minutes later or 10 minutes later, when you come with your proposal, which is good for the environment, it becomes harder to say no, right?

Tim Newman [00:42:55]:
Yes.

Patrick Van Der Burght [00:42:55]:
I mean, inside of them, that would have the same motivation, same care about the environment, but the fact that they made it public now, sort of, they get that internal pressure. Does that make sense?

Tim Newman [00:43:07]:
Yeah, makes a lot of sense. And like I said, it's the action. It's just like anything else. I think when you want somebody to write their goals down, that's the first step in making them happen, because you've taken that action, and then you have to post them. Now you've taken a second step to do that. Right. And so the more you get somebody to do. Do something, to act, like you said, actively do something, the harder it is for them to go against that or to step back from it.

Patrick Van Der Burght [00:43:41]:
Yeah. Actually, in my podcast, in my first episode, I highlight another study in relation to goal setting. And it's a shocking realization if you go through that. But, yeah, so that's consistency. So we want to organize for our audience to have an opportunity to publicly state about their values or what they think is important to them, so that when our proposal at the end aligns with what I said was important to them, which I think is highly ethical for you to craft something that meets their needs. Exactly. Then that aligns it more with them, and they're more likely to follow through with that decision. All right.

Patrick Van Der Burght [00:44:27]:
And then lastly, we got the principle of scarcity, which intuitively, we know how that works. When things are less available, we perceive them to be more valuable. And I just love this study. They had two jars with cookies. Right. Sorry, but they had these cookies. Cookies are all the same. Right.

Patrick Van Der Burght [00:44:50]:
And so they had one jar. They put 10 cookies in the jar, and they ask half of. Half of the people to take one cookie out of the jar that had 10 cookies in it, taste it, and then, you know, give an opinion about, you know, how good quality it was, how much money they might be able to be sold for. If there were, you know, qualitative cookie and those sorts of things and the taste, right? So half of the audience took that cookie out of a jar with 10. The other half of the audience got the exact same cookie from the exact same or same size jar, but it only had two cookies in it. It's the same cookie, Right. How could this make a difference? Right. So it's the only difference.

Patrick Van Der Burght [00:45:33]:
Right. The first group takes one cookie out of ten cookies and the other group takes one cookie out of where there's just two cookies. You know where I'm going with this, right? Of course, the people that took the cookie out of a jar that only had two in it valued it more. It could fetch a better price, it was higher quality.

Tim Newman [00:45:51]:
All these ideas, so much better.

Patrick Van Der Burght [00:45:54]:
Every. Well, everything was perceived to be more valuable. But Tim, not the taste. Scarcity makes us value something more, but it doesn't change our experience of it. So when it came came to how good is this cookie? Both groups rated it the same. It was everything else in relation to value that had changed. And so with scarcity, why this works is that this goes back to sort of primal times, right? If you have a certain amount of resources, gaining more resources is nice.

Tim Newman [00:46:36]:
Yes.

Patrick Van Der Burght [00:46:36]:
But if you lose resources, that could be deadly, right?

Tim Newman [00:46:43]:
Yes.

Patrick Van Der Burght [00:46:43]:
Could be dramatic. So we're far more in tuned to what we stand to lose than what we stand to gain. Now, I would bet that probably 95% of your audience, if they're talking and they're standing there talking to a group of people and it doesn't matter if they're selling something or if they're pitching an idea, I would bet 95% of them would be highlighting what their audience tends to gain from moving in your direction, either buying it or the service, or buying into your vision or your movement. They're using gain language. It's good for the environment, it saves you money, you get there faster. And research will indicate that if you just used language that highlighted the avoidance of loss, you could easily be twice more effective with your language. So we need to mix it up a bit. Instead of saying what people tend to gain if they do this or go along with this, we should highlight what they will not get or what's it.

Tim Newman [00:47:58]:
Going to cost you if you don't do it. If it's going to cost you this to do it, what's going to cost you if you don't do it?

Patrick Van Der Burght [00:48:06]:
Right.

Tim Newman [00:48:06]:
I mean, that's another that gets people really upset. Oh my gosh, I can't lose that Much. Some of these things are really so simple that it's hard to believe that we have to be told and convinced to do them. Let's look at, take consistency as a. For example. Even if you were to say, you know what, I know I wrote this down, that this is what I would do, but I've changed my mind, and this is why I changed my mind, how does that also relate to the likeness factor going up? How does it also relate to the idea of the social proof going up, especially with somebody who has some credibility? Let's just say you're on stage and you're talking about, let's take your wetsuits as a. For example, your dry suits, for example.

Patrick Van Der Burght [00:49:11]:
Right.

Tim Newman [00:49:12]:
You know what? I really liked this brand before and it really had a problem, and I've changed my mind. So now I think this brand is better. But this brand over here changed the way they did their manufacturing, changed the materials, and it's back on top. So I really do believe that this is the better brand. Your honesty and your reasoning, even though you're still being consistent in what you're doing, what you're saying has elevated some of these other, other steps as well. So you're, you're, you're, you're building that, that credibility by, by being able to do those things.

Patrick Van Der Burght [00:49:57]:
It's interesting you raise that. So sometimes I'm going a little bit off, off the speaking stage, I suppose, but sometimes we, we make a statement about a political party that we align with or a country we align with or something we align with, and then things change. Right. But because we made that statement earlier, we still feel that we need to stick to our guns sort of a thing. So now we're on a path where we kind of don't want to be. And so what you highlighted was actually spot on. If we. Because we might worry that if we change our tune that others will think poor of us.

Patrick Van Der Burght [00:50:45]:
Right. Because this is also what. Just like with do not take without giving in return, which is reciprocity with consistency. We also have nasty names for people who say they will do one thing and then when it happens, they do something totally different. Right, We.

Tim Newman [00:51:03]:
Exactly.

Patrick Van Der Burght [00:51:03]:
Then we're unreliable, and we don't want to be seen as unreliable.

Tim Newman [00:51:07]:
So that's one of the worst things.

Patrick Van Der Burght [00:51:11]:
Yeah, exactly. But if we bring to the attention that new information has come to the surface, and based on that and other, let's say, values that are important to us, we're now changing our direction. Now we're still being consistent and our audience Other people also accept that. Right. So if you said, oh, this particular political person, right. I thought they had great ideas and I was really an advocate for that. But yeah, now it comes to light that, you know, they've sort of been up to a few dodgy things and they're also put some policy forwards which, you know, my values really don't align with. And so based on that, I'm changing my vote, let's say, change my mind.

Patrick Van Der Burght [00:52:00]:
Right. And now our audience will go, okay, you're still following your values consistently. Does that make sense?

Tim Newman [00:52:07]:
Right, right. And again, it increases that likeness factor. It increases some of those other pieces in there that will draw them to you and trust you more. Coming back to the again, the whole way that we make those decisions, let's talk real quickly about that liking thing again. Liking and unity, it's interesting to me for any number of different reasons, especially in the era of social media, we didn't grow up with social media. We grew up with talking to somebody face to face. How is it that we put so much value in people that we don't know what they say about us? And how does that come into play in this process?

Patrick Van Der Burght [00:53:13]:
Well, we want to be liked. And so at a very basic level, you know, when you put up a social media post and you get 2 likes and on another post you get 14 likes, there's your answer, right? You were liked more and you grow a little, you're happier. Because we like people that like us and say so. And so, you know, this whole business of giving somebody the thumbs up, that's somebody making a compliment. And in a way, right, if you're trying to connect with someone on social media, right. If you send them a message and go, I've got this great product, this great service, and I think it'll really align with what you're all about. Can we have a meeting? Right. Chances are they'll ignore the message, right? First of all, there was nothing persuasive in that message.

Patrick Van Der Burght [00:54:01]:
It's a whole different story. But there was no relationship, right?

Tim Newman [00:54:05]:
Right.

Patrick Van Der Burght [00:54:05]:
They didn't know you didn't like you. Where if you, let's say, followed that person first genuinely and went into their social media feed and when there were posts that they made that you genuinely liked them or liked that post, you of course like the post. But you might also engage with a message on that post, maybe ask a question that enables that person to then sort of dive in a little deeper about that topic. Right? Because we all know that if you, if you write three Words, as in, great post. That doesn't really help somebody with the social media. If you write a paragraph, all the algorithms go, ooh, hang on, there's a real conversation happening. And so you are helping them to achieve their goal, which is also liking. And you're complimenting them on their post, you're engaging with them.

Patrick Van Der Burght [00:54:55]:
So if you've been doing that for a couple of weeks and now you send a message, say, hey, I've got this great product, great service, I think it will really align with you. Could we catch up for a quick call? The chances that they'll say yes to you will have been significantly increased because you've been building that relationship a little bit through that liking.

Tim Newman [00:55:17]:
Yeah, that's a phenomena that I understand it, right. But I have. I've got a hard time wrapping my head around that. We put so much internal value to it. That's the piece that I really struggle with. I understand the concept, I understand why it works and how it works. But from an individual perspective, the value that we put on that I struggle.

Patrick Van Der Burght [00:55:46]:
With, it is hard to understand. And that is also the reason why if you, let's say, if you do market research and actually, let me tell you one more story. It's one of my favorite case studies of research. The aim of this exercise was they wanted to get people to reduce energy consumption at home. And so they had four appeals that they had developed. It's good for if you save money, save energy at home, it helps the environment. There was one. Second one was, if you save energy at home, it's good for future generations, right? Also very important reason.

Patrick Van Der Burght [00:56:28]:
Third one was, hey, if you save energy at home, it saves you money. It's maybe the most logical reason. And the third one was, hey, you should save energy at home because your neighbors are already saving energy. So those were the four appeals. Now, that was sent to a focus group. So they spend a lot of money in a focus group with the question. And I'd love your audience to do this with me right now, right? If those four messages, if one of those landed in your letterbox, right, Fell on your doormat, if it popped up as a video on YouTube or you're watching something else, right? It's good for the environment. If you save energy, it's good for your children, future generations, saves you money.

Patrick Van Der Burght [00:57:13]:
Or you should save energy because your neighbors are already doing so. If one of those messages landed in your field of view, which one of those four do you think? Don't think about anybody else, just you. Which one of Those four, do you think would have the biggest chance of changing your behavior with the thermostat right now, they did this with this, with this focus group. And so the vast majority of people in the focus group said environment, right? As in. Yeah, yeah, if, if, you know, if that message came to me, that'll, that'll probably swing it for me, right? That, that's probably why I go, yeah, I really ought to, you know, turn the air conditioning down a little bit more. After that was future generations, but it was nearly about half of environment. And closely after that also, of course, less than half of environment was saving money. And, well, the fact that my neighbors are saving energy.

Patrick Van Der Burght [00:58:14]:
I mean, if my neighbors jump off the bridge, I don't jump off the bridge either. Right, right. Neighbors ranked. Almost nobody almost voted for that right? Now, why I love this case study so much is that if that was your business, right. If you've invested money in a focus group based on those answers, when you now going to Invest, I know, 50,000, $100,000 in an advertising campaign to achieve what it is you're trying to achieve. Well, you would go with the environmental message, right, Based on what you've learned, because that ranked the highest in the focus group. But in this case, they didn't do that. They sent all four messages into the environment anyway.

Patrick Van Der Burght [00:58:53]:
One suburb, I don't know, 50,000 people got the environmental appeal. Another suburb got the future generations. Another suburb saves you money. And another suburb got the. Your neighbors are already saving energy. And now we watched to see in which suburb do we actually see the behavior that we're after? What's the winner compared to what the focus group said it would be? The focus group said environment. Absolutely right. Future generation saving money, about half of that.

Patrick Van Der Burght [00:59:24]:
And almost nobody voted for the news of the neighbors, where in reality, those three did not hardly rank with actually changing behavior. It was the suburb that we're told about, the neighbors, where we saw all the change in behavior. We achieved the results. And that leads me to the point that because you ask, you know, you've got a hard time or people can have a hard time wrapping their head around that this has such an impact. The thing to remember is that unless you know the science, we have very little idea of what changes our behavior. And that's why it's completely pointless going to a focus group and asking them, what do you think will change your behavior? People don't know what actually changes their behavior. And that's also empowering. If we know this science, then you can go like I did with the dry diving suits.

Patrick Van Der Burght [01:00:20]:
What have I got here? What is genuinely there? Can I use reciprocity? Can I use liking? And now you're using your system to your logical brain to come up with the pieces of information that allow System 1 in your audience's brain to make an easier. Yes. Decision. And that's where we get all the results.

Tim Newman [01:00:45]:
That's amazing. Especially with that one when, when you flipped it, when they sent it out to the different, you know, subdivisions, I figured it saves me money, would be number one. Because everybody really only cares about themselves. Right. But that's not even, that's not even. That's. It's fascinating. Just, just fascinating, isn't it? It is.

Tim Newman [01:01:08]:
Well, Patrick, thank you so much for spending some time with us today. Tons of great information and we could go on for, for another, you know, two or three hours with this. But where can people connect with you to, to get more information?

Patrick Van Der Burght [01:01:21]:
Sure. And thank you for asking. Of course I have a website, ethicalpersuasion.com au because I'm in Australia. There's also some complimentary things I can give you access to and maybe we can do that, put a link in the show notes as well. Yeah, if you're on the website anyway, go to Navigation bar free. We have a downloadable ebook and don't worry, no name or email address required. You just right click and download. There's also a seven day email challenge where you get a nugget of persuasion gold delivered to your inbox every day.

Patrick Van Der Burght [01:01:56]:
I have started, as you mentioned, my own podcast and it's called Ethical Persuasion Unlocked. Focuses on persuasion but also business growth in general. And it's just sort of kicked off. We've got the first episodes up right now and I would seriously urge you to listen to the first four, especially the second one dives much deeper into the science of human decision making, which I'm sure your audience will find fascinating. And of course people can find me on social media. And the book I wrote, how to Hear yes, More Often, is also very beneficial. It's a practical look at how to use persuasion science. So if you haven't got Dr.

Patrick Van Der Burght [01:02:36]:
Cialdini's book yet, nice idea to buy those two books together. Influence and how to Hear yes, More Often. So you got the sort of background information, it doesn't quite quite teach you how to use it in practice. Right. You really got to do some formal training to do that. And of course that's what I'm available to do for individuals even. And of course also teams, keynotes, workshops or more dedicated training.

Tim Newman [01:03:03]:
I will put all those links in the show notes. I've got a bunch of them. I'll make sure that we get them all. But again, Patrick, thank you so much for the time and all the great information that you gave us. Tons of value in this episode and we'll talk to you real soon.

Patrick Van Der Burght [01:03:21]:
That'd be great. And if somebody gets something from this episode, given that Tim and myself have shared so much with you, I know what Tim would love to see is some evidence that you like these episodes. We were talking before, right? Sometimes it's hard to hear what our audience appreciates. And so if you've listened to this and you've enjoyed this, head to Tim's social media feeds and put a comment somewhere. You can say, listen to an episode of. Listen to the episode with Patrick and just let him know that you appreciate what he's sharing with you.

Tim Newman [01:03:56]:
And Patrick, I do appreciate that because like you said, a lot of times we don't really know. We see the numbers of, of when they're listening and that, that sort of thing. But anytime we can get some feedback, we, we love the feedback. Love it.

Patrick Van Der Burght [01:04:12]:
Awesome.

Tim Newman [01:04:13]:
You take care of yourself and we'll talk real soon. Be sure to visit speakingwithconfidencepodcast.com to get your free eBook, the Top 21 Challenges for Public Speakers and How to Overcome Them. You can also register for the Formula for Public Speaking course. Always remember, your voice has the power to change your work. We'll talk to you next time.