Brainfluence

Today’s guest is a master at turning seemingly wild ideas into new realities and showing the rest of us how we can do the same. Awarded the Future Thinker Award from Thinkers50 and named the #1 person most likely to influence the future of management in both theory and practice, Nilofer Merchant has been called the “Jane Bond of Innovation”—and for good reason.

She has personally launched more than 100 products, netting $18 billion in sales, and has held executive positions at everywhere from Fortune 500 companies like Apple and Autodesk to startups in the early days of the Web. Her ideas have been featured in publications like the Harvard Business Review, Forbes, and Wired, as well as in her TED Talk, "Got a meeting? Take a walk."

In this episode, Nilofer shares insider expertise from her new book, The Power of Onlyness: Make Your Wild Ideas Mighty Enough to Dent the World, and explains how we can connect our ideas to the world around us and create change.

You can find show notes and more information by clicking here: http://bit.ly/2Fn4xGn 

Today we have a returning guest on the show! Denise Lee Yohn is an expert on brand leadership, a speaker and consultant, and a writer whose work appears in Fast Company, Entrepreneur, Knowledge@Wharton, and more. She is also the bestselling author of What Great Brands Do: The Seven Brand-Building Principles that Separate the Best from the Rest.

Denise's new book is Fusion: How Integrating Brand and Culture Powers the World's Greatest Companies, and she joins this episode to share insights from the book on how to create brand authenticity and on-brand customer experience. Listen in to hear her tips for creating purpose in your company, teaching employees to understand customers, and what it really takes to achieve brand-culture fusion.

You can find show notes and more information by clicking here: http://bit.ly/2FYKAH0 

Rohit Bhargava is a trend curator whose insights on trends, marketing, and the future have been utilized by dozens of the biggest brands and organizations in the world, including Intel, Under Armour, and the World Bank.

A marketing expert and the founder of the Non-Obvious Company, Rohit is also the Wall Street Journal bestselling author of five books on topics as wide-ranging as the future of business, building a human brand with personality, and why leaders never eat cauliflower. His newest book, Non-Obvious 2018 Edition: How To Predict Trends And Win The Future, features fifteen all-new trends across five categories, including Culture & Consumer Behavior, Marketing & Social Media, Media & Education, Technology & Design plus Economics & Entrepreneurship.

In this episode, Rohit shares his marketing insight and predictions for the future, what he looks at to determine if something is really a trend, and what you can do to become a better trendspotter yourself. Tune in to hear all that and more!

You can find show notes and more information by clicking here: http://bit.ly/2Fr1oG8 

Sam Mallikarjunan is the co-author of the book How To Sell Better Than Amazon, and he’s here today to explain what it takes to do just that. A Marketing Fellow at HubSpot and former Head of Growth at HubSpot Labs—the somewhat-secret experimental arm of the world’s #1 Sales & Marketing platform—Sam has seen firsthand what it takes to market effectively. He teaches Advanced Digital Marketing at the Harvard Division of Continuing Education and speaks across the country and around the world about startups, business, and marketing.

In this episode, Sam shares his insight on market testing and the importance of focusing the user experience. He also talks about how to use a free tool in order to gain a lifetime customer, as well as the main thing marketers should focus on if they really want to sell better than Amazon.

You can find show notes and more information by clicking here: http://bit.ly/2ET3n8m

Today’s guest is a developmental molecular biologist who has a lifelong fascination with how the mind reacts to and organizes information. Dr. John J. Medina is an affiliate Professor of Bioengineering at the University of Washington School of Medicine, as well as the author of the New York Times bestseller Brain Rules, a provocative book that takes on the way our schools and work environments are designed. He also wrote Brain Rules for Baby—a must-read for parents and early-childhood educators—and recently released his new book, Brain Rules for Aging Well.

In this episode, John discusses fascinating research on what improves people’s ability to recall information, how simple visual changes can trick our brains, and more. He also shares tips for making presentations more effective, as well as practical things you can do to keep your mind sharp as you age.

You can find show notes and more information by clicking here: http://bit.ly/2EefDNm 

Today we have two guests on the show! Maryann Karinch and Jim McCormick are experts in body language and sales, and they are here to share how to read other people in selling or persuasion situations so you can present your case in a convincing way.

Maryann has been writing about body language for 14 years, building on her background in theater, where it was very important to be able to communicate emotions effectively and use correct body language. Jim's extensive knowledge of sales comes from his work shaping capital campaigns, sales strategies, and major donor programs for clients from the National World War II Museum to multiple international companies.

The pair combined their areas of expertise in their new book, Body Language Sales Secrets: How to Read Prospects and Decode Subconscious Signals to Get Results and Close the Deal, and they join us today to share tips and tricks you can use to improve your ability to sell. Listen in to learn what you should be doing from a body language perspective to increase your odds of closing the deal.

You can find show notes and more information by clicking here: http://bit.ly/2nyVT0v 

Would you trust a doctor who didn't understand physiology? An engineer with no knowledge of physics? Given how obvious those answers seem, it's surprising that so many companies trust marketers who don’t consider behavioural science.

Today’s guest, Richard Shotton, illustrated the absurdity of this fact with the above comparisons in his book, The Choice Factory, and he certainly has plenty of room to speak on the subject. After starting his career 17 years ago as a media planner and working on accounts such as Coke, 118 118, and comparethemarket.com, he now studies how findings from behavioural science can be applied to advertising.

Richard currently serves as Deputy Head of Evidence at Manning Gottlieb OMD, the most awarded media agency in the history of the IPA Effectiveness awards, and he writes about the behavioural experiments he runs for titles such as Marketing Week Campaign, Admap and The Huffington Post. He joins us in this episode to share his findings, how he has used them to increase campaign effectiveness, and more.

You can find show notes and more information by clicking here: http://bit.ly/2nbLveW 

We would all love to do less and get more done, but the question is: how? Morten T. Hansen is here to give us the answer based on his extensive research.

A management professor at University of California, Berkeley, Morten is the coauthor of the New York Times bestseller Great by Choice, and the author of the highly acclaimed Collaboration and Great at Work. His research has won several prestigious awards, and he is ranked one of the world’s most influential management thinkers by Thinkers50.

In this episode, Morten shares key behaviors that stand out among top performers, as well as tips for changing your habits to improve your own productivity. Listen in to learn how to make the most of your time, what to avoid in the workplace, and more.

You can find show notes and more information by clicking here: http://bit.ly/2rkS5Er 

Today’s guest has made it her mission to use behavioral science to improve inclusion and diversity. A behavior economist and expert in organizational change, Tinna Nielsen is the founder of the non-profit change-organization Move the Elephant for Inclusiveness, the co-founder of the non-profit Inclusion Nudges Initiative, and the co-author of the Inclusion Nudges Guidebook. She is also a strategic partner for inclusiveness and gender parity at the United Nations, and she collaborates with organizations, practitioners, and social entrepreneurs worldwide to redesign communities and organizations.

In this episode, Tinna shares the surprising truth about the unconscious snap judgments we all make, as well as the devastating experience that led to her realization of what it really takes to influence people to change their behavior. Listen in to learn what types of unconscious biases we all have, as well as how to prevent those biases from affecting our communities.

You can find show notes and more information by clicking here: http://bit.ly/2DkWaOI 

Have you ever thought about what brands in your life you can’t imagine living without? Maybe the thought of giving up your Apple computer gives you anxiety, or the idea of shopping anywhere other than Amazon makes you cringe. Those are the types of reactions that indicate how strongly we become attached to brands—if their marketing is done right. 

Today’s guest, Brian Sheehan, knows all about what it takes to create that kind of powerful brand attachment. Now the Professor of Advertising at the S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications at Syracuse University, he teaches courses in advertising, advertising management, advertising strategy, digital advertising, and international advertising. In this episode, he shares insights from his new book, Loveworks: How the World’s Best Marketers Make Emotional Connections to Win in the Marketplace, and explains what it takes to become a brand that consumers can’t live without. 

You can find show notes and more information by clicking here: http://bit.ly/2COKMdj