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Five Questions Over Coffee with Patrick Van der Burght (ep. 146)
Who is Patrick?
Patrick Van der Burght’s journey began over 25 years ago, when he first discovered the transformative power of understanding human behaviour and research. Awed by how empowering and effective these insights were—without the need to lie or cheat—he quickly became passionate about sharing them. Today, as a sought-after keynote speaker, Patrick relishes witnessing audiences experience their own “aha” moments, just as he did decades ago. His mission is to help others unlock their potential by waking up to the profound impact of his teaching, sparking realization, growth, and change wherever he speaks.
Key Takeaways
The Secret Science Behind Getting a YES—Without Being Manipulative
1/ Ever felt “icky” trying to get someone to say yes? Turns out, ethical persuasion isn’t about tricking—it’s about understanding human behavior. Patrick Van der Burght dropped some serious knowledge on this in his chat with Stuart Webb on “It’s Not Rocket Science.” 👀☕️
2/ Persuasion isn’t just for salespeople. It’s for anyone who wants their ideas accepted—bosses, parents, partners, even project managers. If you want to move people (literally and figuratively), these insights are gold.💡
3/ Fun fact: The World Economic Forum ranked leadership & social influence as TOP business skills for the next 5 years. And persuasion came in at #3 on hiring wishlists. Why? Because it’s POWERFUL.✨
4/ But here’s where most people mess up: They use random “strategies” or lengthy logical pitches, thinking more info = more yeses. Uh…no. Patrick Van der Burght: “You might accidentally talk people OUT of saying yes!” 😅
5/ Why? Nobel laureate Daniel Kahneman says our brains make 90–95% of decisions FAST and unconsciously (System 1)—not by analyzing facts, but relying on shortcuts.Your audience has an attention span SHORTER THAN A GOLDFISH. They won’t analyze your 2-minute pitch! 🐠
6/ The trick? Use the 7 Universal Principles of Persuasion (from Dr. Cialdini):
* Reciprocity: Give first—genuinely. Free PDF, no strings attached? Magic.
* Liking: Compliment, connect, be authentic.
* Unity: Create community bonds—“we’re in this together.”
* Social Proof: Show reviews, testimonials (the detailed ones count!)
* Authority: Let OTHERS introduce your expertise. It’s more credible.
* Consistency: Get small commitments first. People stick to what they start.
* Scarcity: Highlight what they’ll LOSE by not acting. We value what’s rare.
7/ Pro tip: Five-star reviews everywhere can actually REDUCE credibility. Aim for an average of 4.2–4.7. Realness wins trust! ⭐️
8/ If you’re endlessly pumping time & money in, hoping for incremental “yes” rates, STOP! Persuasion science can 10X your results—without hurting your integrity or reputation.
9/ Want to dive deeper into ethical persuasion and grab some of Patrick Van der Burght’s free stuff? Visit EthicalPersuasion.com or check out his podcast, “Ethical Persuasion Unlocked.”
10/ Last word from Patrick Van der Burght: “If you want those yeses that were always yours to have, learn the science.”
Ready to persuade with integrity?👇#EthicalPersuasion #SalesTips #Leadership #DrCialdini #BehavioralScience #Marketing #SmallBusiness
—Drop a comment: Which principle are you going to test out first?
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Transcript
Note, this was transcribed using transcription software and may not reflect the exact words used in the podcast.
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
ethical persuasion, persuasion techniques, sales strategies, Cialdini principles, reciprocity, social proof, authority, scarcity, consistency, liking principle, unity principle, behavioral science, Daniel Kahneman, decision making, system one thinking, system two thinking, attention span, sales psychology, B2B persuasion, ethical sales, lead generation, business coaching, influence tactics, customer testimonials, compliance, negotiation skills, persuasive communication, loss aversion, marketing psychology, consumer behavior
SPEAKER
Patrick Van Der Burght, Stuart Webb
Stuart Webb [00:00:32]:
Hi there, and welcome back to It’s Not Rocket Science. Five questions over coffee. I have in front of me my coffee. This is, this is going to keep me going as I’m chatting today to Patrick Vanderburg. Patrick is. Well, Patrick’s an expert in how you get to go, to get somebody to say yes ethically. Now, if you’ve ever been in sales, if you’ve ever been trying to help anybody understand the need to say yes, and you only feel dirty and somehow manipulative when you try and do it, this is getting somebody to do that by ethically helping them to understand how they are going to be benefited from, from your product, your service, from working with you. So, Patrick, I’m really delighted to welcome you here to talk about the.
Stuart Webb [00:01:20]:
This Cini method. And I’m doing delighted you managed to make a few minutes available to us in order to talk to us. So welcome to It’s Not Rocket Science. Five questions over coffee.
Patrick Van der Burght [00:01:32]:
Thank you for inviting me, Stuart. I’m excited to be here. And I remember quite clearly when I first was introduced to this and I was learning the insights and human behavior, the research, how amazing that was and how empowering that was. And I couldn’t believe how, you know, how potent, how powerful it is, and you didn’t have to lie or cheat to make it to work either. And I love seeing that in, you know, when I do a keynote and, you know, people are starting to wake up to the fact of what I’m actually teaching them, you see, the eyes go bigger and I know they’re having that same realization that I had, goodness, 25, 26 years ago. So while we can’t see our audience, of course I’m hoping those eyes are getting a little bigger in the, in the time that we’ve got together.
Stuart Webb [00:02:24]:
I absolutely agree with you, Patrick. And, and people, if you’re watching at the moment, look, please, if you have questions whilst we’re talking, or indeed after we finish, if you come to the recording of this and you’re interested in getting some more information and you wanted to understand, we’ll talk about how you can get some free stuff from PA Patrick. But also if you want to drop questions or comments into the chat below, we will answer them for you. So you get sort of free consultancy immediately from an expert like Patrick. So, but Patrick, let’s start by trying to sort of set the scene. Let’s understand what we’re talking about. You have been working in this field for a while, so what is it? Who is it you’re trying to reach. I, I mentioned salespeople, but it’s not just sales, is it? It could be anybody trying to sort of help understand a person problem and help sort of work with somebody who needs to better understand what they’re trying to do themselves.
Patrick Van der Burght [00:03:19]:
Yeah, ethical persuasion really is a soft skill that we all need. And as a matter of fact, the World Economic Forum did a study that they published last January looking at thousands of companies in terms of what businesses need moving forward in the next five years. And leadership and social influence was just another word of it. For, for ethical persuasion had been increased in priority from position number four, which was in the previous report, to position number three. And also another study done by CashNet, which was published by Forbes that looked at 17 million job listings in terms of what businesses are asking for in their new employees. And persuasion was also ranked there, number three. And it is a skill that helps us professionally, but also privately and simply put, whenever we’re trying to get an idea accepted or get somebody to buy into what we’re suggesting or asking for, and that can be sale, it doesn’t have to be whenever we’re trying to make that request and there’s someone in the middle that needs to agree with that. And you’re relying on your ability to be persuasive in terms of how quickly you will move to your goals or move to your boss’s goals.
Patrick Van der Burght [00:04:40]:
But that also applies privately. If you try to get your kids to clean up their room, you’ll need to be persuasive. And if you want your partner to really go to that holiday destination in the coming summer, then you’re going to have to be persuasive. So this comes back everywhere. And that’s the beauty of it. You can use it in both in business and privately and ethically without having to, you know, bend or tarnish your integrity.
Stuart Webb [00:05:09]:
So we’re talking about a way to help you get your message across to somebody to sell somebody on your idea. So you might be a project manager trying to persuade a customer or a team member in order to sort of meet your timeline. You might be a salesperson trying to sell your product. You could be the CEO attempting to persuade an entire company that the strategy you’ve got is worth coming. This is applicable to everybody. And I think it’s important to recognize, as you just said, that you don’t just use these skills at work, you use these skills when you get home from, get home from work. And you might find yourself in the situation where your partner is trying to Persuade you to eat that salad rather than the steak you want. So, you know, they are probably going to be wanting to try and sell you on something that you recognize probably is good for you, but you don’t want to go there.
Stuart Webb [00:06:00]:
So these are really important skills. So what is it you find that people have done? I mean, what are the, one of the routes people have tried? I mean, I’ve known that I’ve tried sort of, you know, processes. I’ve tried buying into people sort of, you know, this 16 step method to get somebody to say yes. And we’ve all tried these things. What is it they’ve tried to do before they come across something like you and the method that you’re, you’re now you’re no teaching.
Patrick Van der Burght [00:06:28]:
Well, I suppose we should recognize that of course, everybody tries lots and lots of different things to see what works. Right. And so in different industries we’ve bumped into particular things that we somehow were figured out that worked, strategies that worked. And we don’t really understand why they worked, they just do. And actually that’s exactly what Dr. Robert Cialdini, my partner, how he started with all this. He became a university professor in the late 70s and he was fascinated with the request process. What makes an individual say yes to another person’s request? And how can it be that I can make a request one way and get a small amount of yeses and I can ask basically the same request but in a different way and I get a lot more yeses.
Patrick Van der Burght [00:07:25]:
He was fascinated by that. And he realized at the time that there was, back then in the late 70s, there was already nearly 50 years worth of scientific research on persuasion. But it was all laboratory stuff, laboratory experiments and put somebody in a controlled environment and then sort of experiment on them. And so he realized that, you know, if he really wanted to know how, how this worked, he would have to go into the real world where the battles of persuasion and influence are fought every single day. And so he did something that was unheard of for a scientist at that time. He took three years off and he, he, with disguised identity and disguised intent, he enrolled in as many new employee training courses could possibly get access to. Because he, you know, like I mentioned, in every industry we figure out a lot of trial and error. We figure out some things that work for us.
Patrick Van der Burght [00:08:30]:
And so he collected all these strategies from all these different industries. And all these industries all, all told how different they were. Right? And the departments would tell them how different they were. As in the people in sales would say, oh, what we do in advertising is so, or what we do in sales so different than what they do in advertising. And the people in advertising would say, oh, what we do is so different than what happens in marketing. And marketing would do the same with hr. So they were all trying to convey how different they were, but Dr. Cialdini actually looked for what was it that was similar in those strategies.
Patrick Van der Burght [00:09:09]:
What is it that makes it work? So, you know, when you say, you know, what do people often try? I think we, we try a lot, a lot, a lot of different things and we waste a lot of time and resources and we sometimes bump into something that we, that we learn works and then we tend to go with that. The problem is that sometimes we also land on strategies that are not exactly ethical and then we’re risking our brand and our reputation, which nowadays can be very quickly destroyed. And what can also happen is that when we don’t know the science, that sometimes accidentally. And this happens so much more often than you’d realize, sometimes people use an argument and they’re actually very effectively working against what they’re trying to achieve. And so that happens all the time as well.
Stuart Webb [00:10:03]:
Yeah. So this is where we get to what I hope is going to be the valuable piece of advice that you’re going to live with. Leave with us Patrick. And, and for those people who are gonna, there’s, there’s some free stuff that we’re gonna put from Patrick in our vault. So if you go to systemize me forward slash free hyphen stuff, you’ll find some offers for, from Patrick where he’s gonna, he’s gonna be able to walk you through some of this stuff. But I’m gonna ask you. So, Patrick, what can you tell us about the ethical persuasion that Dr. Cialdini has? I’m not gonna say it’s discovered.
Stuart Webb [00:10:37]:
I mean, he’s, he’s, he’s using human psychology and he’s understanding human psychology. So he’s discovered how people react to this stuff and how you can use these persuasive methods. So would you mind just sort of giving that valuable sort of high level. How do you, how do you do this sort of thing so that people get interested? And then hopefully, as I say, we’ll, we’ll be, we’ll be grabbing hold of some of your free stuff. So just walk us through an example, if you like, of how do you get somebody to say yes ethically?
Patrick Van der Burght [00:11:08]:
Okay. So it all depends on the situation. So it’s hard to say, oh, this is one way how you do that. But I think.
Stuart Webb [00:11:14]:
Exactly.
Patrick Van der Burght [00:11:16]:
Or your audience would. Would gain a lot from if we first discussed how human beings actually make decisions. And then from there, it then starts making sense, why these principles are so powerful and we can do a quick run.
Stuart Webb [00:11:29]:
Great way of doing it. Great way of doing it. Great way of doing it. Yeah, absolutely. Okay, great.
Patrick Van der Burght [00:11:35]:
So when it comes to decision making, I’m going to lean on the work of a professor. Daniel Kahneman was a professor in psychology and a behavioral scientist, and he won.
Stuart Webb [00:11:45]:
A Nobel Prize, if I remember rightly.
Patrick Van der Burght [00:11:48]:
Absolutely. He won a Nobel Prize in 2002 in economics, which is a little unexpected. Right. Behavioral scientist wins Nobel Prize in Economics. I mean, what can you come up with in behavioral science that has such an impact on economics that you win a Nobel Prize for it? Well, a lot of his research was about decision making, and decisions shape economics. So that’s where the link is. So Daniel Kahneman explains, when it comes to decision making, your brain, your audience’s brain has two parts, System one and system two. System one is fast.
Patrick Van der Burght [00:12:28]:
It’s an unconscious brain. It operates outside of conscious control, and we use it for everyday decisions. It’s automatic, and it largely works on shortcuts, rules of thumb. So, for example, you’re shopping for something that you have no idea about how it works or what makes it a good product or not. And so you could delay your decision and you could go hit the books in the library, and for months on end, you could read books about that particular topic, then come back to the store and then make an educated decision. But chances are you haven’t got the time for that. So perhaps a shortcut pops up in the back of your head and a shortcut says expensive equals good.
Stuart Webb [00:13:14]:
Yes.
Patrick Van der Burght [00:13:15]:
Right. We’ve learned from experience. Often if we spend a bit more money, then chances are we’ll get something that’s better, lasts longer, better suited to purpose. And so in that moment, you might say, you know what? I’m just going to spend a little bit more money. And then I’ll probably have done the right thing. And you know what? That’s exactly what will happen. You will probably have done the right thing. Because these shortcuts, they stick with us because they work most of the time, but inevitably, they don’t work all the time.
Patrick Van der Burght [00:13:49]:
Sometimes expensive things are still rubbish, right? But it is very attractive to follow these shortcuts. The rule expensive equals good allows us a path to a quicker decision. Right? And so there’s other shortcuts like that. And intuitively, we know these as well. One for Example is if a lot of other people are doing it, then it must be the right thing to do. Right? And so that’s how system one works. Let’s move to system two for a moment. So system two, on the other hand, is a slow brain.
Patrick Van der Burght [00:14:28]:
Takes slow, you know, takes time to process. It costs a lot of energy, costs a lot of effort. And system two is conscious thinking. And because it takes a lot of effort, Daniel Kahneman actually referred to it as the lazy controller. It doesn’t actually want to engage. It’s quite happy to take the decisions of system one unless there’s, you know, alarm bells going off. So system two is our logical brain, right? It can look at all the information in the situation and then we can come up with the most rational decision based on that. So let’s say if we’re comparing two washing machines, or we need to make a decision, or somebody comes at us with a logical proposal for us to dissect that, we need system two.
Patrick Van der Burght [00:15:16]:
Great. Now there’s a caveat with system two. System two depends on our attention.
Stuart Webb [00:15:26]:
And.
Patrick Van der Burght [00:15:26]:
We have a limited budget of attention every single day. And so to give you an example, parking a car in a tight parking spot, that requires system two. You can imagine if you’re not paying attention, if you don’t have attention, you’re not going to do a great job parking a car in a tight spot. So Daniel Kahneman demonstrates back in 2002 that 90%, that’s 90. 90% of our decisions are made by System 1 automatically and outside our conscious control. And now it said that that’s more like 95%, possibly even higher. And so here a couple of problems bubble up. First of all, you might ask, why is this percentage increasing? Well, that has to do with our attention span.
Patrick Van der Burght [00:16:18]:
As I said, System two is reliant on attention. Our attention span was 20 minutes in the 80s. Do you know what the attention span of the famous goldfish is, Stuart?
Stuart Webb [00:16:30]:
Yeah, it’s a lot less than 20 minutes. And it’s very close to my attention span, which is about 22 seconds, 9.
Patrick Van der Burght [00:16:38]:
Seconds, supposedly for the goldfish. Our attention span is now 7 seconds. Yeah, we’ve been beaten by the goldfish. Right. And so system two relies on our attention. And so this, this brings us to the big problem that we have in business and privately as well. But let’s concentrate on business. When you’re sitting there and you’re thinking, okay, how am I going to convince this, let’s say in lead generation that doesn’t know me yet, how am I going to convince them to start communicating with me through, let’s say social media, post or flyer, you send out, that sort of stuff.
Patrick Van der Burght [00:17:21]:
Or maybe you’re thinking how when I’m actually doing a sales presentation to a person, group of people, how am I going to convince them that our product is right for them and, and you know, their trust is not misplaced in us. Right. And that they, they, they can avail themselves of, of our services or our product, be loyal to us. When we are con, when we are thinking about how we’re going to convince other people. You’re thinking that’s conscious thought. And so at that moment you’re using system two, your logical, rational part of the brain. And the problem is that that part of the brain tends to come up with the arguments, the rationale, why you should listen to me, why you should accept what I’m proposing to you. And that type of information would need system two in the other person to take care of it or to analyze it and to process it.
Patrick Van der Burght [00:18:22]:
And our audience doesn’t have the time for it anymore.
Stuart Webb [00:18:26]:
Our audience is using system one and they have seven seconds to grasp your message. And you’ve got a message which is two minutes long, haven’t you?
Patrick Van der Burght [00:18:35]:
Yeah. But also you raise information that just does not qualify as information System one can use as in a shortcut type of information.
Stuart Webb [00:18:48]:
Yeah.
Patrick Van der Burght [00:18:49]:
And so what happens is that we actually cause more uncertainty in our audience and they push back from you, from you and your wonderful genuinely good for them value proposal and they decide not to decide. And so I would argue that if you, I know, let’s say you make a thousand proposals, right. You get a certain amount of yeses out of those. And the other people didn’t go along with your proposal, your request. Right. So some people might have just straight out told you, no, it’s not for me. Other people might have told you other things. Oh, it’s too expensive, got to talk to my partner, come back next week.
Patrick Van der Burght [00:19:34]:
You know, all these sorts of things. I would argue that out of all the no’s you got, there is a much larger percentage than you can imagine that weren’t actually nos, they were indecision. And they could have been yes, had you provided the right types of information. And this is where the transition to the principles of persuasion come in. Is that the principles of persuasion the Dr. Cialdini identified or qualify as system one information. Does that make sense so far?
Stuart Webb [00:20:09]:
It certainly does. It certainly does. And you can see it, as you’ve said, in, in every situation where people are in this situation, they have thought and they start providing lots of information. You can almost watch business people, people who are buying services start to glaze over as they have to think, oh, I’m going to have to engage my brain, I don’t have time for this now. I would prefer not to have to all this information. So would you mind just going away please because I just don’t want to have to deal with this. Thank you very much. And that’s the end of the conversation, isn’t it?
Patrick Van der Burght [00:20:44]:
Yeah. And maybe, maybe in, I mean of course, to some extent we are of course successful, right? If we’ve been in business for a long period of time, of course we’re making money, we’re making profit, we’re making payroll, otherwise we wouldn’t been there anymore. So to some extent we’re successful because we figured out a couple of little strategies that have worked for us. But now imagine that your one little strategy is, or two strategies you might have uncovered is, is one out of a dozen that are one principles of persuasion. And there’s seven of those. There’s so many more strategies that would make it easier for people to make a yes decision. And so without it, you’re, you’re losing so much time, resources, competitive advantage, not knowing the science. It’s a, it’s a little bit like an architect trying to build a skyscraper without knowing the science.
Patrick Van der Burght [00:21:40]:
Right. The results are not going to be so great. But yeah, the problem is with a lot of, or with everybody that doesn’t know the science, they don’t actually know, they’re in agony. They have no idea that, you know, and they, you know, they might do lead generating efforts and just pour more money in it to create the same small results, just more of them just because they invested more in it. But if you actually use the science, your success rate would be where it really should have been all that time. And so by learning some science we can actually get the yeses that were always ours to have.
Stuart Webb [00:22:17]:
Do you know, I’m very aware of the fact that too many times people are not necessarily. And it comes back to a background that I’ve got in science as well. People don’t test their ideas, they just, they just look at it and go, well, that worked, we’ll do more of the same. And sometimes doing more of the same is crazy because you will get the same results, only bigger. And, and if the results you have got is only a tiny, tiny increase in your percentage profit and you pour more money at a strategy and you get a Tiny. Another small increase, then that’s not really tested to sort of find the best way, is it? That’s just sort of, okay, I’ve done one thing, I’m going to try and get the same result, but. But I’m doing it the same way. You can’t get a different result by just carrying on doing the same thing.
Stuart Webb [00:23:04]:
I’m very. But I’m really bought into the idea that you’ve sort of given us here, which is about scientific testing, about, you know, using these methods to actually trial these things to make it work for us.
Patrick Van der Burght [00:23:15]:
Yeah, and you hit an interesting point on the head there that, you know, sometimes we hear things and, you know, bless us for doing this interview and podcast. People might get some ideas from there, from here, and I hope they use it and hope they profit from it. But there’s a lot of subtle nuances that, you know, if you pick up a little bit of a clue from something, you might be doing something that works and it works a lot better than you used to do. And then you’re sort of, oh, great, now I’ve got it. But you don’t actually understand the subtle nuances that it would amplify the effects. So you’re still missing out. So you might be thinking, oh, yeah, oh, yeah, reciprocity, we got to give people stuff, right? Most people have figured that out, but the amount of people that get that wrong is enormous and easy. Example, there’s lots of businesses that have a, you know, a free ebook on their website, right? Oh, we have a wonderful ebook for you.
Patrick Van der Burght [00:24:13]:
Just put your name in and your email address. We’ll send you the download link. Our gift to you. Nice try, but that’s not going to activate reciprocity, because reciprocity, a gift that’s given a gift, is something that comes without a requirement that needs to be met.
Stuart Webb [00:24:33]:
Yes. Right.
Patrick Van der Burght [00:24:34]:
And so name and email address first, then we’ll send you the download link. That was a reward. Right. And so people feel like they’re paid for that ebook with their email address, which you’re likely going to put on your newsletter. Right. So, and I’m not saying that, you know, a free downloadable ebook is not a good lead generator. I’m just saying if you think that’s going to activate the power of reciprocity, then you’re making a big mistake. What instead, or maybe complementary to that approach would work.
Patrick Van der Burght [00:25:05]:
Well, to activate reciprocity is to have a simple PDF with, I don’t know, let’s say you’re in finance or let’s say retirements or something, right? You might make a checklist that says, listen, if you’re looking to retire in the next 10 years, these are the 15 things that you should not fail to get lined up now so that you, you know, you’ve got your eggs lined up as you move into the future for a good retirement sort of a thing. And then put that on your website and just tell people, just right click and download, no email required now. It’s a gift, right now. It builds that reciprocity and that feeling that, you know, that was really nice. That was, that was a, you know, that was interesting and valuable information. And so next time when you come with another request, I know which might be, hey, we’ve got a big webinar on, come join us.
Stuart Webb [00:25:55]:
Now.
Patrick Van der Burght [00:25:56]:
You’re going to be empowered by that principle of reciprocity.
Stuart Webb [00:26:00]:
Brilliant, Patrick. And you’ve just given us a few examples. I need to remind people, if they want to get more of this stuff, go to Systemize me Free stuff. You’ll see some stuff that Patrick’s got which we’re putting in there, which you will really love. Patrick, what is it? I mean, this was, this has been a big part of your life for 25 years. But, but this isn’t something that you sort of just discovered out of accent. How did you come to sort of understand what Dr. Cialdini is doing and, and, and really start your journey in understanding the ethics and ethical way of persuading people to that.
Stuart Webb [00:26:41]:
Yes.
Patrick Van der Burght [00:26:44]:
I found my way to it when I was a sales rep quite a while ago. I was selling scuba diving equipment wholesale to retailers and I was based in Melbourne in Australia. And so I was looking after Victoria, South Australia and Tasmania, which is a decent clump of land. And I was putting in a lot of effort. I loved what I was doing. I was a dive instructor myself and so I was sort of doing what I loved. I was every day I was talking to people who had the same passion as me. So it was a great job to be in, but I sort of felt that for the amount of time I was investing in it, I wasn’t seeing the growth in my territory that I thought I should have seen.
Patrick Van der Burght [00:27:24]:
And sometimes I saw my retailers falling victim to dodgy promises and stuff from other sales reps and I didn’t want to do that sort of stuff either. So I wanted to be better at my work, but I didn’t want to lie or cheat either. And yeah, timing, I suppose, was perfect. My boss, the wholesaler, he got the services of A business coach, which is of course good. And he got some strategies and insights on how to grow his business. And part of that was that, well, back then at least, scuba diving retailers are lovely people and they love, they have a passion for what they do, but they’re not necessarily great business people. So the idea was to train us sales reps into sort of a low level business coach where we can do exercises and goal setting and strategies and that sort of stuff with our retailers, help them grow or double their business. And then by definition we would double our business with them, probably more because of course, reciprocity.
Patrick Van der Burght [00:28:29]:
Right. They’d feel indebted to us and probably stock more of our stuff. And so anyway, business coach was based in, in Melbourne. And he said, John McDonald’s gentleman’s names, name was. And he said, listen, Patrick, with all these strategies that we’re explaining, if you ever have any questions, we’re just here in Vermont, just come by the office and we can have a cup of tea and discuss it. And Stuart, I, I don’t know if you’ve ever met a Dutch person on holiday and then by mistake you say, listen, if you’re ever in our neck of the woods, right, you need a place to stay, come on over, you can stay with us. Don’t do that with Dutch people. They turn up and so did I.
Patrick Van der Burght [00:29:13]:
So I was visiting John and so I was, you know, I was asking question he liked because often people, you know, they might implement a strategy and it doesn’t work straight away and then dismiss it straight away, right, Instead of saying, hey, what am I not doing, right? Why I’m not getting the results that we should be getting. And he really liked that because I would come back and ask these questions and he started lending me educational series on cassette tapes, you know, things that used to cost twelve hundred dollars or twelve hundred pounds, expensive stuff. And so I was borrowing this stuff and anyway, there was a series called Mind Capture of an event that happened in Los Angeles and Dr. Cialdini was on there with two cassette tapes and it blew me away. I just love the science behind it. Human behaviors, interesting, funny, hilarious, sometimes absolutely terrifying, but always fascinating. And then I was, I had a challenge at work and I used that with a particular brand that had a bit of, a bit of difficulty. And basically within 12 months we were market leader with that brand.
Patrick Van der Burght [00:30:18]:
And so, yeah, I was converted for life.
Stuart Webb [00:30:21]:
As I say, brilliant, Patrick, that’s this great story, but I have the impression, and maybe this is just me that you currently are thinking he’s still not asked me that killer key question that he should have asked me by now. Well, I don’t know what that killer key question is, so I’m going to ask you to tell me. Well, what’s the killer key question I should have asked you by now? And obviously, once you’ve asked the question, you need to answer it for us.
Patrick Van der Burght [00:30:50]:
Well, I think you failed to ask me. Or I was. I said I was going to run down it, but we didn’t get to it. Let’s do a rundown of the seven principles, what they mean in some quick.
Stuart Webb [00:31:00]:
Please do, please do.
Patrick Van der Burght [00:31:04]:
All right, so there’s seven universal principles of persuasion. Why do we call them universal? Because they work in all. All cultures, all languages, and all countries. That is in itself amazing and very powerful because our cultures are intermixed and it’s much easier to do business with people in other countries. So this is a skill that works everywhere and with everyone. All right, so there’s seven of those principles in no particular order. Let’s start with reciprocity, because we mentioned it already. So reciprocity works on the rule, the shortcut that people tend to want to give back the same type of behavior that was first given to them.
Patrick Van der Burght [00:31:50]:
Right. If I invite you to my birthday party, well, then really you ought to invite me to your birthday party. Right. If I remember your birthday with a card or a gift, well, then you should remember mine. And so in the context of compliance, we are more likely to say yes to people that we owe. Okay, so that’s great. And as I mentioned, a lot of people in business think they know it, but don’t actually know it. And so they dive into that not actually doing it.
Patrick Van der Burght [00:32:20]:
Right. So a good thing to help you is to ask yourself, how can I help this person genuinely? Not as a mechanism to produce reciprocity, to just be helpful, to be valuable and look after that person. Person. And often just being a interested and caring person is already a great step towards being persuasive. So that’s reciprocity. Let’s say. I already gave you an example of how we could use that. So let’s move on.
Patrick Van der Burght [00:32:51]:
Liking is another principle. We like people that are like us, who like us and who like us and say so.
Stuart Webb [00:33:03]:
Yeah, Right.
Patrick Van der Burght [00:33:04]:
So to unpack that a little bit, we like people that are like us means we like people that are similar to us.
Stuart Webb [00:33:13]:
Yep. Yep.
Patrick Van der Burght [00:33:14]:
Then we like people that like us, which is the opposite of what sales typically teaches you. Sales teaches you if you want people to buy from you, then you should do what you can so that people like you. You got to be likable, and that’s not wrong. But if I get the feeling that you really like me, even if I don’t, not quite sure about you, if I get the feeling that you genuinely like me, well, then I’m safe with you, aren’t I? Because people that like you look after you, right? And then like you and say so that is compliments, right? So. And actually, on my podcast, we just released an episode about liking. And so, you know, one of the messages in there was pay someone a compliment. Try it. First person you see today, look for anything, anything’s game, what they wear, tie, nails, earrings, hair, shoes, whatever, just whatever you genuinely like.
Patrick Van der Burght [00:34:15]:
Pay them a compliment, watch what happens. It could be your kids, could be your wife when you come home, Pay them a compliment, watch what happens. All right, so it’s liking unity. Unity is often confused with liking. And unity is also the last principle that Dr. Cialdini added. Unity is about a feeling of being part of the same community. If we feel that we’re, let’s say, from the same town, or this, sometimes we’re from the same country, if we’re in another country or if we co create, if we make things together, we feel we have a bond between us and that inspires favoritism.
Patrick Van der Burght [00:34:56]:
And the favoritism can make you hear. Yes, a lot more often. Very powerful principle.
Stuart Webb [00:35:02]:
Yeah.
Patrick Van der Burght [00:35:03]:
All right, then we have social proof. Most people know the term social proof. The reason you know it is because Dr. Cialdini came up with it. Used to be consensus before that, but it was a little bit unclear. So he came up with the term social proof. Social proof means that we follow the actions of others, especially when they are numerous, when the others are similar to us, and when we are uncertain, that basically means we follow the crowd. Brain research actually shows that for a lot of people, the pain centers in the brain light up when we are out of step with what other people are doing.
Patrick Van der Burght [00:35:43]:
It’s painful for some people to not follow the crowd, but it also makes sense, right? If a lot of people are doing something, if a lot of people run away, it’s probably not a good idea.
Stuart Webb [00:35:52]:
You should run away.
Patrick Van der Burght [00:35:53]:
Yeah, exactly. So in business, we’ve caught on the fact of testimonials, right? As in most people are now collecting testimonials. That’s great. And if you think that that’s valuable for your business, well, then you’re correct. And that falls under ethical persuasion, provided they’re genuine. But in terms of social proof. You’re only using one little strategy out of probably more than a dozen different approaches when it comes to social proof. So there’s a lot more like that where that came from.
Patrick Van der Burght [00:36:24]:
Maybe a little insight in terms of testimonials. 98% of online shoppers say that detailed online reviews are an important factor on when deciding what and where to buy. The key to remember there is detailed, right? So if you ask somebody to leave you a review, I think it’s perfectly ethical to ask them to leave a bit of a detailed review. We imagine a restaurant and they go, yeah, food was great. That doesn’t feel so genuine. Right. But when we have more details, oh, the pumpkin was just cooked to perfection and the servers were so nice. And Sally the waitress, he was so funny.
Patrick Van der Burght [00:37:08]:
Right. More detail now we believe it more. What’s more.
Stuart Webb [00:37:16]:
One of the fact, one of the, one of the things you find in the, in the, in the reviews where people have bought them in for one, for want of a better word, is there’s that lack of detail which makes you feel as though they’re not genuine. And you immediately look and go, they’re probably all fake, aren’t they? Because there’s just no detail there which makes you feel as though that person actually was in that situation.
Patrick Van der Burght [00:37:37]:
Yeah. And did you, Stuart? We all want our customers to be completely happy and over the moon with the products and services we’ve provided. Right. And so we all want them to leave a five star review, you know, in relation to what they’ve experienced with us. But this, all these reviews are going to be boiled down to an average number, right? As in this business has an average score rating of so much. What would we want that average score rating to ideally be? What do you think?
Stuart Webb [00:38:12]:
We all want it to be a 5, don’t we?
Patrick Van der Burght [00:38:15]:
I want it to be a 5. But is a 5 average review score most realistic, As in the most persuasive range for an average score is 4.2 to 4.7, 4.8, 4.9 and 5 are seen as too good a deal. Right? Nobody is this good. You got all your friends to leave five star reviews. You deleted the bad ones. Even if that’s not possible, people don’t know, right? So it lacks credibility where 4.2 to 4.7 has credibility and it’s still for most people high enough to want to deal with that company under 4.2 has credibility. But this is getting too low for people to want to deal with. So yeah, next time you get a two or Three star review, right? Don’t take it so bad.
Patrick Van der Burght [00:39:16]:
If your average score is Moving towards that 4.7, you’re in the perfect place.
Stuart Webb [00:39:21]:
Place.
Patrick Van der Burght [00:39:22]:
All right, so social proof. Moving on then. We have authority as number five. Authority is that we follow the act, so we follow the advice of people that know genuinely more about a particular topic than we do. As in, we follow experts. That’s why it helps to bring in expert opinions that support your proposal. But you, you yourself, you are also an expert in your own field. And so you also need to have a way to convey that to other people.
Patrick Van der Burght [00:39:56]:
And the truth is that once you’re face to face with people, you have lost the opportunity to talk about your credentials. And people try, you see it all the time, right? Oh, I’ve got a master’s degree in this and I’ve done that and I’ve done this, right. And while we do that because we want our audience to, to respect what we’re saying, to process our words with the gravity that they deserve, but the subconscious of our audience goes, you are full of yourself. We lose on authority and we lose on liking. It’s lose, lose. So we have to arrange for those credentials to be conveyed before we meet someone. Which is exactly the reason why, you know, when you step on the stage as a speaker, there’s normally a master of ceremonies, an emcee that introduces who you are. So authority is raised and people process the words you say with the gravity they deserve from the beginning.
Patrick Van der Burght [00:40:59]:
If you fail to do that properly, then you might be talking to somebody for an hour and you may establish over time that you do have that authority. But that means that they didn’t process your words as well, the beginning. So you’ve lost that. All right, so that’s authority. Authority is also about believability. Then we have principle of consistency that is powered by the fact that we feel an internal pressure to want to stay true to past actions and statements that we’ve made. You know, sometimes, you know, online, when you’re filling in an online form, it questions, right? Let’s say there’s 10 questions to fill in. If you list all those questions in one row and then the submit button, a lot less people will fill out that form.
Patrick Van der Burght [00:41:47]:
They’ll just navigate away where if you break that form up in say three, four pages and you give people two, three things to fill out and then click next, it is much harder to now stop because they’re already done some right. So you’re using that consistency principle to get your form filled out. Which is again, just another behavior. So consistency, very, very powerful principle. And then last one is scarcity. So scarcity tells us that we value things more when they are less available. We all have that fear of loss within us. And if I can give a, let’s say a power tip to your listeners, and this would probably be it, have a look at your own communication, listen to your salespeople, what are they saying? Read your own brochures, read the index page of your own website.
Patrick Van der Burght [00:42:45]:
And when it comes to you expressing what your product or service is going to do for the other person, the other party, are you describing it in terms of what they stand to gain from having your product or service? As in, you’re going to save money, you’re going to get there faster, it’s good for the environment, it’s good for your children, right? These are all gains. Gaining language. While psychology teaches us that people are easily twice more motivated by the potential of losing something than gaining that exact same thing. So instead of using gain language, we should start to use the avoidance of loss. What don’t they get if they don’t get your product or service? Right? Without this, you’re going to lose more money, you’re going to take longer to get there, you’re going to lose competitive advantage. Right now we’re talking about what we tend to lose. And you’ll find that people will be, you know, far more take that message to heart. So that’s a bit of a quick rundown of the seven principles.
Stuart Webb [00:44:03]:
Patrick, you’ve been so generous with that and I can think of, well, if people haven’t already started rewriting their website, they should do. Patrick, thank you so much for being so generous with that. I really appreciate everything you’ve just said. I had not come across that last principle and many of the others I had heard, but the last one I really thought suddenly, hey, that is a real power tip. So I’m really grateful. If nobody takes anything else away from here, the fact that we should be talking about loss, I mean, it is often something that I do talk to people about, which is in your proposals. Say, what is the risk of not going with this proposal by just say, for instance, making no decision. But making no decision means you are losing time or you are losing the potential to actually make a difference.
Stuart Webb [00:44:52]:
So that is a huge new one that I’m going to be building into my own, my own persuasiveness now. Thank you so much for being so generous and for spending this much time with us. Look, I’m just going to say once again, go, go and find, go and find the, the vault. There’s some great stuff in there from, from Patrick that systemizes. That’s S y s T M I S E me free hyphen stuff. And if you don’t mind, I send out an email once a week with, with brilliant guests like Patrick who are coming onto the show so that you can dial into the absolutely brilliant training. This is, this is, this is real business training you’re getting. So go to Systemize me, subscribe, fill out that form you, you will get for that one gift to me of an email address, an invite to come and spend time with people like Patrick and knowledge of this sort of thing that Patrick giving away and trying to help you do things.
Stuart Webb [00:45:51]:
Patrick, thank you so much for being with us today and spending so long explaining that I cannot thank you enough for giving us so much of your time. And I really want to say you have persuaded me to go and do something today and give back more than I’m giving at the moment. So thank you for that. Wonderful.
Patrick Van der Burght [00:46:09]:
That’s great. It was great to be here. And yeah, if people want to know more, they can of course Visit my website, ethicalpersuasion.com and I’ve also started my own podcast channel, Ethical Persuasion Unlocked. And so if you want more of what you’ve heard today, then it’s also a great place to start. But please remember that to develop application skills and confidence, you are going to have to do and your team some formal training. You’re not going to get that from just watching videos and listening to podcasts.
Stuart Webb [00:46:39]:
Both of those resources are in the vault. So please, if you didn’t get those things, go to the vault. You’ll find them there. Patrick, thank you so much for being here. Really appreciate it and I look forward to going and practicing more of this stuff myself.
Patrick Van der Burght [00:46:53]:
Wonderful.
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Who is Patrick?
Patrick Van der Burght’s journey began over 25 years ago, when he first discovered the transformative power of understanding human behaviour and research. Awed by how empowering and effective these insights were—without the need to lie or cheat—he quickly became passionate about sharing them. Today, as a sought-after keynote speaker, Patrick relishes witnessing audiences experience their own “aha” moments, just as he did decades ago. His mission is to help others unlock their potential by waking up to the profound impact of his teaching, sparking realization, growth, and change wherever he speaks.
Key Takeaways
The Secret Science Behind Getting a YES—Without Being Manipulative
1/ Ever felt “icky” trying to get someone to say yes? Turns out, ethical persuasion isn’t about tricking—it’s about understanding human behavior. Patrick Van der Burght dropped some serious knowledge on this in his chat with Stuart Webb on “It’s Not Rocket Science.” 👀☕️
2/ Persuasion isn’t just for salespeople. It’s for anyone who wants their ideas accepted—bosses, parents, partners, even project managers. If you want to move people (literally and figuratively), these insights are gold.💡
3/ Fun fact: The World Economic Forum ranked leadership & social influence as TOP business skills for the next 5 years. And persuasion came in at #3 on hiring wishlists. Why? Because it’s POWERFUL.✨
4/ But here’s where most people mess up: They use random “strategies” or lengthy logical pitches, thinking more info = more yeses. Uh…no. Patrick Van der Burght: “You might accidentally talk people OUT of saying yes!” 😅
5/ Why? Nobel laureate Daniel Kahneman says our brains make 90–95% of decisions FAST and unconsciously (System 1)—not by analyzing facts, but relying on shortcuts.Your audience has an attention span SHORTER THAN A GOLDFISH. They won’t analyze your 2-minute pitch! 🐠
6/ The trick? Use the 7 Universal Principles of Persuasion (from Dr. Cialdini):
* Reciprocity: Give first—genuinely. Free PDF, no strings attached? Magic.
* Liking: Compliment, connect, be authentic.
* Unity: Create community bonds—“we’re in this together.”
* Social Proof: Show reviews, testimonials (the detailed ones count!)
* Authority: Let OTHERS introduce your expertise. It’s more credible.
* Consistency: Get small commitments first. People stick to what they start.
* Scarcity: Highlight what they’ll LOSE by not acting. We value what’s rare.
7/ Pro tip: Five-star reviews everywhere can actually REDUCE credibility. Aim for an average of 4.2–4.7. Realness wins trust! ⭐️
8/ If you’re endlessly pumping time & money in, hoping for incremental “yes” rates, STOP! Persuasion science can 10X your results—without hurting your integrity or reputation.
9/ Want to dive deeper into ethical persuasion and grab some of Patrick Van der Burght’s free stuff? Visit EthicalPersuasion.com or check out his podcast, “Ethical Persuasion Unlocked.”
10/ Last word from Patrick Van der Burght: “If you want those yeses that were always yours to have, learn the science.”
Ready to persuade with integrity?👇#EthicalPersuasion #SalesTips #Leadership #DrCialdini #BehavioralScience #Marketing #SmallBusiness
—Drop a comment: Which principle are you going to test out first?
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Transcript
Note, this was transcribed using transcription software and may not reflect the exact words used in the podcast.
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
ethical persuasion, persuasion techniques, sales strategies, Cialdini principles, reciprocity, social proof, authority, scarcity, consistency, liking principle, unity principle, behavioral science, Daniel Kahneman, decision making, system one thinking, system two thinking, attention span, sales psychology, B2B persuasion, ethical sales, lead generation, business coaching, influence tactics, customer testimonials, compliance, negotiation skills, persuasive communication, loss aversion, marketing psychology, consumer behavior
SPEAKER
Patrick Van Der Burght, Stuart Webb
Stuart Webb [00:00:32]:
Hi there, and welcome back to It’s Not Rocket Science. Five questions over coffee. I have in front of me my coffee. This is, this is going to keep me going as I’m chatting today to Patrick Vanderburg. Patrick is. Well, Patrick’s an expert in how you get to go, to get somebody to say yes ethically. Now, if you’ve ever been in sales, if you’ve ever been trying to help anybody understand the need to say yes, and you only feel dirty and somehow manipulative when you try and do it, this is getting somebody to do that by ethically helping them to understand how they are going to be benefited from, from your product, your service, from working with you. So, Patrick, I’m really delighted to welcome you here to talk about the.
Stuart Webb [00:01:20]:
This Cini method. And I’m doing delighted you managed to make a few minutes available to us in order to talk to us. So welcome to It’s Not Rocket Science. Five questions over coffee.
Patrick Van der Burght [00:01:32]:
Thank you for inviting me, Stuart. I’m excited to be here. And I remember quite clearly when I first was introduced to this and I was learning the insights and human behavior, the research, how amazing that was and how empowering that was. And I couldn’t believe how, you know, how potent, how powerful it is, and you didn’t have to lie or cheat to make it to work either. And I love seeing that in, you know, when I do a keynote and, you know, people are starting to wake up to the fact of what I’m actually teaching them, you see, the eyes go bigger and I know they’re having that same realization that I had, goodness, 25, 26 years ago. So while we can’t see our audience, of course I’m hoping those eyes are getting a little bigger in the, in the time that we’ve got together.
Stuart Webb [00:02:24]:
I absolutely agree with you, Patrick. And, and people, if you’re watching at the moment, look, please, if you have questions whilst we’re talking, or indeed after we finish, if you come to the recording of this and you’re interested in getting some more information and you wanted to understand, we’ll talk about how you can get some free stuff from PA Patrick. But also if you want to drop questions or comments into the chat below, we will answer them for you. So you get sort of free consultancy immediately from an expert like Patrick. So, but Patrick, let’s start by trying to sort of set the scene. Let’s understand what we’re talking about. You have been working in this field for a while, so what is it? Who is it you’re trying to reach. I, I mentioned salespeople, but it’s not just sales, is it? It could be anybody trying to sort of help understand a person problem and help sort of work with somebody who needs to better understand what they’re trying to do themselves.
Patrick Van der Burght [00:03:19]:
Yeah, ethical persuasion really is a soft skill that we all need. And as a matter of fact, the World Economic Forum did a study that they published last January looking at thousands of companies in terms of what businesses need moving forward in the next five years. And leadership and social influence was just another word of it. For, for ethical persuasion had been increased in priority from position number four, which was in the previous report, to position number three. And also another study done by CashNet, which was published by Forbes that looked at 17 million job listings in terms of what businesses are asking for in their new employees. And persuasion was also ranked there, number three. And it is a skill that helps us professionally, but also privately and simply put, whenever we’re trying to get an idea accepted or get somebody to buy into what we’re suggesting or asking for, and that can be sale, it doesn’t have to be whenever we’re trying to make that request and there’s someone in the middle that needs to agree with that. And you’re relying on your ability to be persuasive in terms of how quickly you will move to your goals or move to your boss’s goals.
Patrick Van der Burght [00:04:40]:
But that also applies privately. If you try to get your kids to clean up their room, you’ll need to be persuasive. And if you want your partner to really go to that holiday destination in the coming summer, then you’re going to have to be persuasive. So this comes back everywhere. And that’s the beauty of it. You can use it in both in business and privately and ethically without having to, you know, bend or tarnish your integrity.
Stuart Webb [00:05:09]:
So we’re talking about a way to help you get your message across to somebody to sell somebody on your idea. So you might be a project manager trying to persuade a customer or a team member in order to sort of meet your timeline. You might be a salesperson trying to sell your product. You could be the CEO attempting to persuade an entire company that the strategy you’ve got is worth coming. This is applicable to everybody. And I think it’s important to recognize, as you just said, that you don’t just use these skills at work, you use these skills when you get home from, get home from work. And you might find yourself in the situation where your partner is trying to Persuade you to eat that salad rather than the steak you want. So, you know, they are probably going to be wanting to try and sell you on something that you recognize probably is good for you, but you don’t want to go there.
Stuart Webb [00:06:00]:
So these are really important skills. So what is it you find that people have done? I mean, what are the, one of the routes people have tried? I mean, I’ve known that I’ve tried sort of, you know, processes. I’ve tried buying into people sort of, you know, this 16 step method to get somebody to say yes. And we’ve all tried these things. What is it they’ve tried to do before they come across something like you and the method that you’re, you’re now you’re no teaching.
Patrick Van der Burght [00:06:28]:
Well, I suppose we should recognize that of course, everybody tries lots and lots of different things to see what works. Right. And so in different industries we’ve bumped into particular things that we somehow were figured out that worked, strategies that worked. And we don’t really understand why they worked, they just do. And actually that’s exactly what Dr. Robert Cialdini, my partner, how he started with all this. He became a university professor in the late 70s and he was fascinated with the request process. What makes an individual say yes to another person’s request? And how can it be that I can make a request one way and get a small amount of yeses and I can ask basically the same request but in a different way and I get a lot more yeses.
Patrick Van der Burght [00:07:25]:
He was fascinated by that. And he realized at the time that there was, back then in the late 70s, there was already nearly 50 years worth of scientific research on persuasion. But it was all laboratory stuff, laboratory experiments and put somebody in a controlled environment and then sort of experiment on them. And so he realized that, you know, if he really wanted to know how, how this worked, he would have to go into the real world where the battles of persuasion and influence are fought every single day. And so he did something that was unheard of for a scientist at that time. He took three years off and he, he, with disguised identity and disguised intent, he enrolled in as many new employee training courses could possibly get access to. Because he, you know, like I mentioned, in every industry we figure out a lot of trial and error. We figure out some things that work for us.
Patrick Van der Burght [00:08:30]:
And so he collected all these strategies from all these different industries. And all these industries all, all told how different they were. Right? And the departments would tell them how different they were. As in the people in sales would say, oh, what we do in advertising is so, or what we do in sales so different than what they do in advertising. And the people in advertising would say, oh, what we do is so different than what happens in marketing. And marketing would do the same with hr. So they were all trying to convey how different they were, but Dr. Cialdini actually looked for what was it that was similar in those strategies.
Patrick Van der Burght [00:09:09]:
What is it that makes it work? So, you know, when you say, you know, what do people often try? I think we, we try a lot, a lot, a lot of different things and we waste a lot of time and resources and we sometimes bump into something that we, that we learn works and then we tend to go with that. The problem is that sometimes we also land on strategies that are not exactly ethical and then we’re risking our brand and our reputation, which nowadays can be very quickly destroyed. And what can also happen is that when we don’t know the science, that sometimes accidentally. And this happens so much more often than you’d realize, sometimes people use an argument and they’re actually very effectively working against what they’re trying to achieve. And so that happens all the time as well.
Stuart Webb [00:10:03]:
Yeah. So this is where we get to what I hope is going to be the valuable piece of advice that you’re going to live with. Leave with us Patrick. And, and for those people who are gonna, there’s, there’s some free stuff that we’re gonna put from Patrick in our vault. So if you go to systemize me forward slash free hyphen stuff, you’ll find some offers for, from Patrick where he’s gonna, he’s gonna be able to walk you through some of this stuff. But I’m gonna ask you. So, Patrick, what can you tell us about the ethical persuasion that Dr. Cialdini has? I’m not gonna say it’s discovered.
Stuart Webb [00:10:37]:
I mean, he’s, he’s, he’s using human psychology and he’s understanding human psychology. So he’s discovered how people react to this stuff and how you can use these persuasive methods. So would you mind just sort of giving that valuable sort of high level. How do you, how do you do this sort of thing so that people get interested? And then hopefully, as I say, we’ll, we’ll be, we’ll be grabbing hold of some of your free stuff. So just walk us through an example, if you like, of how do you get somebody to say yes ethically?
Patrick Van der Burght [00:11:08]:
Okay. So it all depends on the situation. So it’s hard to say, oh, this is one way how you do that. But I think.
Stuart Webb [00:11:14]:
Exactly.
Patrick Van der Burght [00:11:16]:
Or your audience would. Would gain a lot from if we first discussed how human beings actually make decisions. And then from there, it then starts making sense, why these principles are so powerful and we can do a quick run.
Stuart Webb [00:11:29]:
Great way of doing it. Great way of doing it. Great way of doing it. Yeah, absolutely. Okay, great.
Patrick Van der Burght [00:11:35]:
So when it comes to decision making, I’m going to lean on the work of a professor. Daniel Kahneman was a professor in psychology and a behavioral scientist, and he won.
Stuart Webb [00:11:45]:
A Nobel Prize, if I remember rightly.
Patrick Van der Burght [00:11:48]:
Absolutely. He won a Nobel Prize in 2002 in economics, which is a little unexpected. Right. Behavioral scientist wins Nobel Prize in Economics. I mean, what can you come up with in behavioral science that has such an impact on economics that you win a Nobel Prize for it? Well, a lot of his research was about decision making, and decisions shape economics. So that’s where the link is. So Daniel Kahneman explains, when it comes to decision making, your brain, your audience’s brain has two parts, System one and system two. System one is fast.
Patrick Van der Burght [00:12:28]:
It’s an unconscious brain. It operates outside of conscious control, and we use it for everyday decisions. It’s automatic, and it largely works on shortcuts, rules of thumb. So, for example, you’re shopping for something that you have no idea about how it works or what makes it a good product or not. And so you could delay your decision and you could go hit the books in the library, and for months on end, you could read books about that particular topic, then come back to the store and then make an educated decision. But chances are you haven’t got the time for that. So perhaps a shortcut pops up in the back of your head and a shortcut says expensive equals good.
Stuart Webb [00:13:14]:
Yes.
Patrick Van der Burght [00:13:15]:
Right. We’ve learned from experience. Often if we spend a bit more money, then chances are we’ll get something that’s better, lasts longer, better suited to purpose. And so in that moment, you might say, you know what? I’m just going to spend a little bit more money. And then I’ll probably have done the right thing. And you know what? That’s exactly what will happen. You will probably have done the right thing. Because these shortcuts, they stick with us because they work most of the time, but inevitably, they don’t work all the time.
Patrick Van der Burght [00:13:49]:
Sometimes expensive things are still rubbish, right? But it is very attractive to follow these shortcuts. The rule expensive equals good allows us a path to a quicker decision. Right? And so there’s other shortcuts like that. And intuitively, we know these as well. One for Example is if a lot of other people are doing it, then it must be the right thing to do. Right? And so that’s how system one works. Let’s move to system two for a moment. So system two, on the other hand, is a slow brain.
Patrick Van der Burght [00:14:28]:
Takes slow, you know, takes time to process. It costs a lot of energy, costs a lot of effort. And system two is conscious thinking. And because it takes a lot of effort, Daniel Kahneman actually referred to it as the lazy controller. It doesn’t actually want to engage. It’s quite happy to take the decisions of system one unless there’s, you know, alarm bells going off. So system two is our logical brain, right? It can look at all the information in the situation and then we can come up with the most rational decision based on that. So let’s say if we’re comparing two washing machines, or we need to make a decision, or somebody comes at us with a logical proposal for us to dissect that, we need system two.
Patrick Van der Burght [00:15:16]:
Great. Now there’s a caveat with system two. System two depends on our attention.
Stuart Webb [00:15:26]:
And.
Patrick Van der Burght [00:15:26]:
We have a limited budget of attention every single day. And so to give you an example, parking a car in a tight parking spot, that requires system two. You can imagine if you’re not paying attention, if you don’t have attention, you’re not going to do a great job parking a car in a tight spot. So Daniel Kahneman demonstrates back in 2002 that 90%, that’s 90. 90% of our decisions are made by System 1 automatically and outside our conscious control. And now it said that that’s more like 95%, possibly even higher. And so here a couple of problems bubble up. First of all, you might ask, why is this percentage increasing? Well, that has to do with our attention span.
Patrick Van der Burght [00:16:18]:
As I said, System two is reliant on attention. Our attention span was 20 minutes in the 80s. Do you know what the attention span of the famous goldfish is, Stuart?
Stuart Webb [00:16:30]:
Yeah, it’s a lot less than 20 minutes. And it’s very close to my attention span, which is about 22 seconds, 9.
Patrick Van der Burght [00:16:38]:
Seconds, supposedly for the goldfish. Our attention span is now 7 seconds. Yeah, we’ve been beaten by the goldfish. Right. And so system two relies on our attention. And so this, this brings us to the big problem that we have in business and privately as well. But let’s concentrate on business. When you’re sitting there and you’re thinking, okay, how am I going to convince this, let’s say in lead generation that doesn’t know me yet, how am I going to convince them to start communicating with me through, let’s say social media, post or flyer, you send out, that sort of stuff.
Patrick Van der Burght [00:17:21]:
Or maybe you’re thinking how when I’m actually doing a sales presentation to a person, group of people, how am I going to convince them that our product is right for them and, and you know, their trust is not misplaced in us. Right. And that they, they, they can avail themselves of, of our services or our product, be loyal to us. When we are con, when we are thinking about how we’re going to convince other people. You’re thinking that’s conscious thought. And so at that moment you’re using system two, your logical, rational part of the brain. And the problem is that that part of the brain tends to come up with the arguments, the rationale, why you should listen to me, why you should accept what I’m proposing to you. And that type of information would need system two in the other person to take care of it or to analyze it and to process it.
Patrick Van der Burght [00:18:22]:
And our audience doesn’t have the time for it anymore.
Stuart Webb [00:18:26]:
Our audience is using system one and they have seven seconds to grasp your message. And you’ve got a message which is two minutes long, haven’t you?
Patrick Van der Burght [00:18:35]:
Yeah. But also you raise information that just does not qualify as information System one can use as in a shortcut type of information.
Stuart Webb [00:18:48]:
Yeah.
Patrick Van der Burght [00:18:49]:
And so what happens is that we actually cause more uncertainty in our audience and they push back from you, from you and your wonderful genuinely good for them value proposal and they decide not to decide. And so I would argue that if you, I know, let’s say you make a thousand proposals, right. You get a certain amount of yeses out of those. And the other people didn’t go along with your proposal, your request. Right. So some people might have just straight out told you, no, it’s not for me. Other people might have told you other things. Oh, it’s too expensive, got to talk to my partner, come back next week.
Patrick Van der Burght [00:19:34]:
You know, all these sorts of things. I would argue that out of all the no’s you got, there is a much larger percentage than you can imagine that weren’t actually nos, they were indecision. And they could have been yes, had you provided the right types of information. And this is where the transition to the principles of persuasion come in. Is that the principles of persuasion the Dr. Cialdini identified or qualify as system one information. Does that make sense so far?
Stuart Webb [00:20:09]:
It certainly does. It certainly does. And you can see it, as you’ve said, in, in every situation where people are in this situation, they have thought and they start providing lots of information. You can almost watch business people, people who are buying services start to glaze over as they have to think, oh, I’m going to have to engage my brain, I don’t have time for this now. I would prefer not to have to all this information. So would you mind just going away please because I just don’t want to have to deal with this. Thank you very much. And that’s the end of the conversation, isn’t it?
Patrick Van der Burght [00:20:44]:
Yeah. And maybe, maybe in, I mean of course, to some extent we are of course successful, right? If we’ve been in business for a long period of time, of course we’re making money, we’re making profit, we’re making payroll, otherwise we wouldn’t been there anymore. So to some extent we’re successful because we figured out a couple of little strategies that have worked for us. But now imagine that your one little strategy is, or two strategies you might have uncovered is, is one out of a dozen that are one principles of persuasion. And there’s seven of those. There’s so many more strategies that would make it easier for people to make a yes decision. And so without it, you’re, you’re losing so much time, resources, competitive advantage, not knowing the science. It’s a, it’s a little bit like an architect trying to build a skyscraper without knowing the science.
Patrick Van der Burght [00:21:40]:
Right. The results are not going to be so great. But yeah, the problem is with a lot of, or with everybody that doesn’t know the science, they don’t actually know, they’re in agony. They have no idea that, you know, and they, you know, they might do lead generating efforts and just pour more money in it to create the same small results, just more of them just because they invested more in it. But if you actually use the science, your success rate would be where it really should have been all that time. And so by learning some science we can actually get the yeses that were always ours to have.
Stuart Webb [00:22:17]:
Do you know, I’m very aware of the fact that too many times people are not necessarily. And it comes back to a background that I’ve got in science as well. People don’t test their ideas, they just, they just look at it and go, well, that worked, we’ll do more of the same. And sometimes doing more of the same is crazy because you will get the same results, only bigger. And, and if the results you have got is only a tiny, tiny increase in your percentage profit and you pour more money at a strategy and you get a Tiny. Another small increase, then that’s not really tested to sort of find the best way, is it? That’s just sort of, okay, I’ve done one thing, I’m going to try and get the same result, but. But I’m doing it the same way. You can’t get a different result by just carrying on doing the same thing.
Stuart Webb [00:23:04]:
I’m very. But I’m really bought into the idea that you’ve sort of given us here, which is about scientific testing, about, you know, using these methods to actually trial these things to make it work for us.
Patrick Van der Burght [00:23:15]:
Yeah, and you hit an interesting point on the head there that, you know, sometimes we hear things and, you know, bless us for doing this interview and podcast. People might get some ideas from there, from here, and I hope they use it and hope they profit from it. But there’s a lot of subtle nuances that, you know, if you pick up a little bit of a clue from something, you might be doing something that works and it works a lot better than you used to do. And then you’re sort of, oh, great, now I’ve got it. But you don’t actually understand the subtle nuances that it would amplify the effects. So you’re still missing out. So you might be thinking, oh, yeah, oh, yeah, reciprocity, we got to give people stuff, right? Most people have figured that out, but the amount of people that get that wrong is enormous and easy. Example, there’s lots of businesses that have a, you know, a free ebook on their website, right? Oh, we have a wonderful ebook for you.
Patrick Van der Burght [00:24:13]:
Just put your name in and your email address. We’ll send you the download link. Our gift to you. Nice try, but that’s not going to activate reciprocity, because reciprocity, a gift that’s given a gift, is something that comes without a requirement that needs to be met.
Stuart Webb [00:24:33]:
Yes. Right.
Patrick Van der Burght [00:24:34]:
And so name and email address first, then we’ll send you the download link. That was a reward. Right. And so people feel like they’re paid for that ebook with their email address, which you’re likely going to put on your newsletter. Right. So, and I’m not saying that, you know, a free downloadable ebook is not a good lead generator. I’m just saying if you think that’s going to activate the power of reciprocity, then you’re making a big mistake. What instead, or maybe complementary to that approach would work.
Patrick Van der Burght [00:25:05]:
Well, to activate reciprocity is to have a simple PDF with, I don’t know, let’s say you’re in finance or let’s say retirements or something, right? You might make a checklist that says, listen, if you’re looking to retire in the next 10 years, these are the 15 things that you should not fail to get lined up now so that you, you know, you’ve got your eggs lined up as you move into the future for a good retirement sort of a thing. And then put that on your website and just tell people, just right click and download, no email required now. It’s a gift, right now. It builds that reciprocity and that feeling that, you know, that was really nice. That was, that was a, you know, that was interesting and valuable information. And so next time when you come with another request, I know which might be, hey, we’ve got a big webinar on, come join us.
Stuart Webb [00:25:55]:
Now.
Patrick Van der Burght [00:25:56]:
You’re going to be empowered by that principle of reciprocity.
Stuart Webb [00:26:00]:
Brilliant, Patrick. And you’ve just given us a few examples. I need to remind people, if they want to get more of this stuff, go to Systemize me Free stuff. You’ll see some stuff that Patrick’s got which we’re putting in there, which you will really love. Patrick, what is it? I mean, this was, this has been a big part of your life for 25 years. But, but this isn’t something that you sort of just discovered out of accent. How did you come to sort of understand what Dr. Cialdini is doing and, and, and really start your journey in understanding the ethics and ethical way of persuading people to that.
Stuart Webb [00:26:41]:
Yes.
Patrick Van der Burght [00:26:44]:
I found my way to it when I was a sales rep quite a while ago. I was selling scuba diving equipment wholesale to retailers and I was based in Melbourne in Australia. And so I was looking after Victoria, South Australia and Tasmania, which is a decent clump of land. And I was putting in a lot of effort. I loved what I was doing. I was a dive instructor myself and so I was sort of doing what I loved. I was every day I was talking to people who had the same passion as me. So it was a great job to be in, but I sort of felt that for the amount of time I was investing in it, I wasn’t seeing the growth in my territory that I thought I should have seen.
Patrick Van der Burght [00:27:24]:
And sometimes I saw my retailers falling victim to dodgy promises and stuff from other sales reps and I didn’t want to do that sort of stuff either. So I wanted to be better at my work, but I didn’t want to lie or cheat either. And yeah, timing, I suppose, was perfect. My boss, the wholesaler, he got the services of A business coach, which is of course good. And he got some strategies and insights on how to grow his business. And part of that was that, well, back then at least, scuba diving retailers are lovely people and they love, they have a passion for what they do, but they’re not necessarily great business people. So the idea was to train us sales reps into sort of a low level business coach where we can do exercises and goal setting and strategies and that sort of stuff with our retailers, help them grow or double their business. And then by definition we would double our business with them, probably more because of course, reciprocity.
Patrick Van der Burght [00:28:29]:
Right. They’d feel indebted to us and probably stock more of our stuff. And so anyway, business coach was based in, in Melbourne. And he said, John McDonald’s gentleman’s names, name was. And he said, listen, Patrick, with all these strategies that we’re explaining, if you ever have any questions, we’re just here in Vermont, just come by the office and we can have a cup of tea and discuss it. And Stuart, I, I don’t know if you’ve ever met a Dutch person on holiday and then by mistake you say, listen, if you’re ever in our neck of the woods, right, you need a place to stay, come on over, you can stay with us. Don’t do that with Dutch people. They turn up and so did I.
Patrick Van der Burght [00:29:13]:
So I was visiting John and so I was, you know, I was asking question he liked because often people, you know, they might implement a strategy and it doesn’t work straight away and then dismiss it straight away, right, Instead of saying, hey, what am I not doing, right? Why I’m not getting the results that we should be getting. And he really liked that because I would come back and ask these questions and he started lending me educational series on cassette tapes, you know, things that used to cost twelve hundred dollars or twelve hundred pounds, expensive stuff. And so I was borrowing this stuff and anyway, there was a series called Mind Capture of an event that happened in Los Angeles and Dr. Cialdini was on there with two cassette tapes and it blew me away. I just love the science behind it. Human behaviors, interesting, funny, hilarious, sometimes absolutely terrifying, but always fascinating. And then I was, I had a challenge at work and I used that with a particular brand that had a bit of, a bit of difficulty. And basically within 12 months we were market leader with that brand.
Patrick Van der Burght [00:30:18]:
And so, yeah, I was converted for life.
Stuart Webb [00:30:21]:
As I say, brilliant, Patrick, that’s this great story, but I have the impression, and maybe this is just me that you currently are thinking he’s still not asked me that killer key question that he should have asked me by now. Well, I don’t know what that killer key question is, so I’m going to ask you to tell me. Well, what’s the killer key question I should have asked you by now? And obviously, once you’ve asked the question, you need to answer it for us.
Patrick Van der Burght [00:30:50]:
Well, I think you failed to ask me. Or I was. I said I was going to run down it, but we didn’t get to it. Let’s do a rundown of the seven principles, what they mean in some quick.
Stuart Webb [00:31:00]:
Please do, please do.
Patrick Van der Burght [00:31:04]:
All right, so there’s seven universal principles of persuasion. Why do we call them universal? Because they work in all. All cultures, all languages, and all countries. That is in itself amazing and very powerful because our cultures are intermixed and it’s much easier to do business with people in other countries. So this is a skill that works everywhere and with everyone. All right, so there’s seven of those principles in no particular order. Let’s start with reciprocity, because we mentioned it already. So reciprocity works on the rule, the shortcut that people tend to want to give back the same type of behavior that was first given to them.
Patrick Van der Burght [00:31:50]:
Right. If I invite you to my birthday party, well, then really you ought to invite me to your birthday party. Right. If I remember your birthday with a card or a gift, well, then you should remember mine. And so in the context of compliance, we are more likely to say yes to people that we owe. Okay, so that’s great. And as I mentioned, a lot of people in business think they know it, but don’t actually know it. And so they dive into that not actually doing it.
Patrick Van der Burght [00:32:20]:
Right. So a good thing to help you is to ask yourself, how can I help this person genuinely? Not as a mechanism to produce reciprocity, to just be helpful, to be valuable and look after that person. Person. And often just being a interested and caring person is already a great step towards being persuasive. So that’s reciprocity. Let’s say. I already gave you an example of how we could use that. So let’s move on.
Patrick Van der Burght [00:32:51]:
Liking is another principle. We like people that are like us, who like us and who like us and say so.
Stuart Webb [00:33:03]:
Yeah, Right.
Patrick Van der Burght [00:33:04]:
So to unpack that a little bit, we like people that are like us means we like people that are similar to us.
Stuart Webb [00:33:13]:
Yep. Yep.
Patrick Van der Burght [00:33:14]:
Then we like people that like us, which is the opposite of what sales typically teaches you. Sales teaches you if you want people to buy from you, then you should do what you can so that people like you. You got to be likable, and that’s not wrong. But if I get the feeling that you really like me, even if I don’t, not quite sure about you, if I get the feeling that you genuinely like me, well, then I’m safe with you, aren’t I? Because people that like you look after you, right? And then like you and say so that is compliments, right? So. And actually, on my podcast, we just released an episode about liking. And so, you know, one of the messages in there was pay someone a compliment. Try it. First person you see today, look for anything, anything’s game, what they wear, tie, nails, earrings, hair, shoes, whatever, just whatever you genuinely like.
Patrick Van der Burght [00:34:15]:
Pay them a compliment, watch what happens. It could be your kids, could be your wife when you come home, Pay them a compliment, watch what happens. All right, so it’s liking unity. Unity is often confused with liking. And unity is also the last principle that Dr. Cialdini added. Unity is about a feeling of being part of the same community. If we feel that we’re, let’s say, from the same town, or this, sometimes we’re from the same country, if we’re in another country or if we co create, if we make things together, we feel we have a bond between us and that inspires favoritism.
Patrick Van der Burght [00:34:56]:
And the favoritism can make you hear. Yes, a lot more often. Very powerful principle.
Stuart Webb [00:35:02]:
Yeah.
Patrick Van der Burght [00:35:03]:
All right, then we have social proof. Most people know the term social proof. The reason you know it is because Dr. Cialdini came up with it. Used to be consensus before that, but it was a little bit unclear. So he came up with the term social proof. Social proof means that we follow the actions of others, especially when they are numerous, when the others are similar to us, and when we are uncertain, that basically means we follow the crowd. Brain research actually shows that for a lot of people, the pain centers in the brain light up when we are out of step with what other people are doing.
Patrick Van der Burght [00:35:43]:
It’s painful for some people to not follow the crowd, but it also makes sense, right? If a lot of people are doing something, if a lot of people run away, it’s probably not a good idea.
Stuart Webb [00:35:52]:
You should run away.
Patrick Van der Burght [00:35:53]:
Yeah, exactly. So in business, we’ve caught on the fact of testimonials, right? As in most people are now collecting testimonials. That’s great. And if you think that that’s valuable for your business, well, then you’re correct. And that falls under ethical persuasion, provided they’re genuine. But in terms of social proof. You’re only using one little strategy out of probably more than a dozen different approaches when it comes to social proof. So there’s a lot more like that where that came from.
Patrick Van der Burght [00:36:24]:
Maybe a little insight in terms of testimonials. 98% of online shoppers say that detailed online reviews are an important factor on when deciding what and where to buy. The key to remember there is detailed, right? So if you ask somebody to leave you a review, I think it’s perfectly ethical to ask them to leave a bit of a detailed review. We imagine a restaurant and they go, yeah, food was great. That doesn’t feel so genuine. Right. But when we have more details, oh, the pumpkin was just cooked to perfection and the servers were so nice. And Sally the waitress, he was so funny.
Patrick Van der Burght [00:37:08]:
Right. More detail now we believe it more. What’s more.
Stuart Webb [00:37:16]:
One of the fact, one of the, one of the things you find in the, in the, in the reviews where people have bought them in for one, for want of a better word, is there’s that lack of detail which makes you feel as though they’re not genuine. And you immediately look and go, they’re probably all fake, aren’t they? Because there’s just no detail there which makes you feel as though that person actually was in that situation.
Patrick Van der Burght [00:37:37]:
Yeah. And did you, Stuart? We all want our customers to be completely happy and over the moon with the products and services we’ve provided. Right. And so we all want them to leave a five star review, you know, in relation to what they’ve experienced with us. But this, all these reviews are going to be boiled down to an average number, right? As in this business has an average score rating of so much. What would we want that average score rating to ideally be? What do you think?
Stuart Webb [00:38:12]:
We all want it to be a 5, don’t we?
Patrick Van der Burght [00:38:15]:
I want it to be a 5. But is a 5 average review score most realistic, As in the most persuasive range for an average score is 4.2 to 4.7, 4.8, 4.9 and 5 are seen as too good a deal. Right? Nobody is this good. You got all your friends to leave five star reviews. You deleted the bad ones. Even if that’s not possible, people don’t know, right? So it lacks credibility where 4.2 to 4.7 has credibility and it’s still for most people high enough to want to deal with that company under 4.2 has credibility. But this is getting too low for people to want to deal with. So yeah, next time you get a two or Three star review, right? Don’t take it so bad.
Patrick Van der Burght [00:39:16]:
If your average score is Moving towards that 4.7, you’re in the perfect place.
Stuart Webb [00:39:21]:
Place.
Patrick Van der Burght [00:39:22]:
All right, so social proof. Moving on then. We have authority as number five. Authority is that we follow the act, so we follow the advice of people that know genuinely more about a particular topic than we do. As in, we follow experts. That’s why it helps to bring in expert opinions that support your proposal. But you, you yourself, you are also an expert in your own field. And so you also need to have a way to convey that to other people.
Patrick Van der Burght [00:39:56]:
And the truth is that once you’re face to face with people, you have lost the opportunity to talk about your credentials. And people try, you see it all the time, right? Oh, I’ve got a master’s degree in this and I’ve done that and I’ve done this, right. And while we do that because we want our audience to, to respect what we’re saying, to process our words with the gravity that they deserve, but the subconscious of our audience goes, you are full of yourself. We lose on authority and we lose on liking. It’s lose, lose. So we have to arrange for those credentials to be conveyed before we meet someone. Which is exactly the reason why, you know, when you step on the stage as a speaker, there’s normally a master of ceremonies, an emcee that introduces who you are. So authority is raised and people process the words you say with the gravity they deserve from the beginning.
Patrick Van der Burght [00:40:59]:
If you fail to do that properly, then you might be talking to somebody for an hour and you may establish over time that you do have that authority. But that means that they didn’t process your words as well, the beginning. So you’ve lost that. All right, so that’s authority. Authority is also about believability. Then we have principle of consistency that is powered by the fact that we feel an internal pressure to want to stay true to past actions and statements that we’ve made. You know, sometimes, you know, online, when you’re filling in an online form, it questions, right? Let’s say there’s 10 questions to fill in. If you list all those questions in one row and then the submit button, a lot less people will fill out that form.
Patrick Van der Burght [00:41:47]:
They’ll just navigate away where if you break that form up in say three, four pages and you give people two, three things to fill out and then click next, it is much harder to now stop because they’re already done some right. So you’re using that consistency principle to get your form filled out. Which is again, just another behavior. So consistency, very, very powerful principle. And then last one is scarcity. So scarcity tells us that we value things more when they are less available. We all have that fear of loss within us. And if I can give a, let’s say a power tip to your listeners, and this would probably be it, have a look at your own communication, listen to your salespeople, what are they saying? Read your own brochures, read the index page of your own website.
Patrick Van der Burght [00:42:45]:
And when it comes to you expressing what your product or service is going to do for the other person, the other party, are you describing it in terms of what they stand to gain from having your product or service? As in, you’re going to save money, you’re going to get there faster, it’s good for the environment, it’s good for your children, right? These are all gains. Gaining language. While psychology teaches us that people are easily twice more motivated by the potential of losing something than gaining that exact same thing. So instead of using gain language, we should start to use the avoidance of loss. What don’t they get if they don’t get your product or service? Right? Without this, you’re going to lose more money, you’re going to take longer to get there, you’re going to lose competitive advantage. Right now we’re talking about what we tend to lose. And you’ll find that people will be, you know, far more take that message to heart. So that’s a bit of a quick rundown of the seven principles.
Stuart Webb [00:44:03]:
Patrick, you’ve been so generous with that and I can think of, well, if people haven’t already started rewriting their website, they should do. Patrick, thank you so much for being so generous with that. I really appreciate everything you’ve just said. I had not come across that last principle and many of the others I had heard, but the last one I really thought suddenly, hey, that is a real power tip. So I’m really grateful. If nobody takes anything else away from here, the fact that we should be talking about loss, I mean, it is often something that I do talk to people about, which is in your proposals. Say, what is the risk of not going with this proposal by just say, for instance, making no decision. But making no decision means you are losing time or you are losing the potential to actually make a difference.
Stuart Webb [00:44:52]:
So that is a huge new one that I’m going to be building into my own, my own persuasiveness now. Thank you so much for being so generous and for spending this much time with us. Look, I’m just going to say once again, go, go and find, go and find the, the vault. There’s some great stuff in there from, from Patrick that systemizes. That’s S y s T M I S E me free hyphen stuff. And if you don’t mind, I send out an email once a week with, with brilliant guests like Patrick who are coming onto the show so that you can dial into the absolutely brilliant training. This is, this is, this is real business training you’re getting. So go to Systemize me, subscribe, fill out that form you, you will get for that one gift to me of an email address, an invite to come and spend time with people like Patrick and knowledge of this sort of thing that Patrick giving away and trying to help you do things.
Stuart Webb [00:45:51]:
Patrick, thank you so much for being with us today and spending so long explaining that I cannot thank you enough for giving us so much of your time. And I really want to say you have persuaded me to go and do something today and give back more than I’m giving at the moment. So thank you for that. Wonderful.
Patrick Van der Burght [00:46:09]:
That’s great. It was great to be here. And yeah, if people want to know more, they can of course Visit my website, ethicalpersuasion.com and I’ve also started my own podcast channel, Ethical Persuasion Unlocked. And so if you want more of what you’ve heard today, then it’s also a great place to start. But please remember that to develop application skills and confidence, you are going to have to do and your team some formal training. You’re not going to get that from just watching videos and listening to podcasts.
Stuart Webb [00:46:39]:
Both of those resources are in the vault. So please, if you didn’t get those things, go to the vault. You’ll find them there. Patrick, thank you so much for being here. Really appreciate it and I look forward to going and practicing more of this stuff myself.
Patrick Van der Burght [00:46:53]:
Wonderful.
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