What if we told you that we know how you could develop a superpower? You can. We know you can because the method for it it was developed by a Yale’s assistant professor of marketing that was once a door-to-door salesperson and someone who has performed open-heart surgery on a pig.

 

The superpower you can develop is influence and it is essential if you want to make changes in your organization. As champions of Customer Experience, we don’t need to tell you how crucial it is to get people to change. Influence and consensus building can help you get there, and our guest will tell you how. 

 

In this episode, we talk with climate philanthropist Zoe Chance (zoechance.com) Ph.D., author of Influence is your Superpower: The Science of Winning Hearts, Sparking Change, and Making Good Things Happen. Chance shares with us why she wrote the book, some constructive criticism for the Customer Experience movement, suggestions for a winning strategy, and step-by-step instructions for how to gain support for your ideas. 

 

Key Ideas to Improve your Customer Experience

One of the reasons Chance wrote the book was because she felt like other tactics written by thought leaders for influence were too transactional. Her methods are softer and built upon a foundation of mutual benefit. In fact, she jokes that her agent wanted to call the book Influence for Nice People. While she rejected the title, she doesn’t reject the premise and hopes that she can do some good with her strategies. Climate change is a topic so important to Chance that she is donating half of the profits from her book to go to 350.org, a global network of climate activists seeking change through the power of ordinary people. 

 

Here are a few other key moments in the discussion:

 

• 02:19  We introduce Chance and some of her accomplishments, including the aforementioned open-heart surgery performed on a pig.
• 05:52  Ryan asks Chance why she chose such a well-written about topic like influence for her book, and Chance explains why she had more to say on the topic.
• 13:05  Chance explains that the psychology behind influence is the same whether you are convincing people to go to a restaurant or resolving a multi-million-dollar purchase.
• 17:17 Chance explains to Colin the two big ideas she has for why some organizations do not address the improvement they need in their experiences the way he would like. 
• 21:43  We discuss the intention-behavior gap and how it plays a significant role in influence and getting people to change.
• 23:46  Chance shares her secret to influencing group decision, including the step-by-step strategy for “working around the roots,” as the Japanese say.
• 29:36  Ryan asks Chance about the chapter she has on saying no, and what she says about it might surprise you—it has a lot more about getting people to say yes than you might think. 

 

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Customer Experience Information & Resources

LinkedIn recognizes Colin Shaw as one of the 'World's Top 150 Business Influencers.' As a result, he has 290,000 followers of his work. Shaw is Founder and CEO of Beyond Philosophy LLC, which helps organizations unlock growth by discovering customers' hidden, unmet needs that drive value ($). The Financial Times selected Beyond Philosophy as one of the best management consultancies for the last four years in a row. Follow Colin on LinkedIn and Twitter.

Click here to learn more about Professor Ryan Hamilton of Emory University. 

Why Customers Buy: As an official "Influencer" on LinkedIn, Colin writes a regular newsletter on all things Customer Experience. Click here to join the other 35,000 subscribers. 

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