The Brainy Business | Understanding the Psychology of Why People Buy | Behavioral Economics

By Melina Palmer

Business Social Sciences

What's The Brainy Business | Understanding the Psychology of Why People Buy | Behavioral Economics about?

Consumers are weird. They don't do what they say they will do and don't act how we think they "should." Enter Melina Palmer, a sales conversion expert with a personal mission to make your business more effective and brain friendly. In this podcast, Melina will take the complex concepts of behavioral economics (the study and science of why people buy - or not) and provide simple, actionable tips you can apply right away in your business. Whether you're a small business or thriving corporation, Melina's tips can help your business increase sales and get more customers.

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258. Making Concepts Tangib...

01.31.2023

Today’s episode is all about making concepts tangible (what that means and why it matters in life and business). I am so excited to refresh this episode for you today because it shows how I was excited about something I ...

The Brainy Business | Understanding the Psychology of Why People Buy | Behavioral Economics episodes:

01.31.2023 258. Making Concepts Tangible: An Introduction to Cognitive Semiotics (Refreshed Episode) Today’s episode is all about making concepts tangible (what that means and why it matters in life and business). I am so excited to refresh this episode for you today because it shows how I was excited about something I ...
01.27.2023 257. Happier Hour with Cassie Holmes In today's conversation, I am joined by Dr. Cassie Holmes. Her fantastic book Happier Hour was named a "must-read" of 2022 by Forbes AND by the Next Big Idea Club. The Washington Post also profiled it as one of their ...
01.24.2023 256. Incorporating Habits Into Your Business Strategy (Refreshed Episode) Habits are foundational to everything we do. When we think about habits we tend to think about the “bad” ones, things we want to change but there is so much more to it. Our brains run on habits, and without ...
01.20.2023 255. Your Favorite Episodes of 2022 2022 was a great year for me and The Brainy Business. And, being this is a “best of” episode…here are some of my “best” moments from the year. I traveled to Amsterdam to speak at the fantastic IIEX Europe conference ...
01.17.2023 254. Partitioning: Why Size Matters (Refreshed Episode) I love partitioning! It is such an under-discussed concept, which is why I decided to refresh this episode from 2019 for you here today. Partitioning is closely related to friction or sludge, but it isn’t exactly the same. While an ...
01.13.2023 253. Define & Apply Framework, with Troy Campbell You’ve heard him before discussing the “Science of Cool” in 2021, and I’m thrilled to say that Dr. Troy Campbell is back. And, because it’s fun to keep things interesting, Troy and I are flipping the script in today’s episode. ...
01.10.2023 252. Priming (Refreshed Episode) Today’s episode is all about priming. This is something I talk about all the time, so if you have heard me speak or have read my books, or have been listening to the podcast for a while, chances are this ...
01.06.2023 251.The Fun Habit with Mike Rucker In today's conversation, I am joined by Dr. Mike Rucker, author of the brand new book, The Fun Habit, which just came out a couple of days ago on January 3, 2023. Mike is an organizational psychologist and charter member ...
01.03.2023 250. Temptation Bundling: Your Secret To Success (Refreshed Episode) Today’s episode is all about temptation bundling, and before we talk about what that is, can we take a minute to celebrate the milestone that is this episode?! This is the 250TH EPISODE of The Brainy Business podcast!!! What an ...
12.30.2022 249. Using Motivation and Happiness Science to Make 2023 Your Best Year Ever Happy (almost) New Year! This is the last episode of 2022, coming out on December 30 – and what a year it has been! My second book, What Your Employees Need and Can't Tell You came out in October, and ...
12.27.2022 248. How to Set, Achieve & Exceed Brainy Goals (Refreshed Episode) Today’s episode is all about brainy goals — how to set them and think about them to put you on a path to success, instead of inadvertently setting yourself up to fail. Now, you would never intentionally set up goals ...
12.23.2022 247. A More Just Future, with Dr. Dolly Chugh In today's conversation, I am joined by Dr. Dolly Chugh. Dolly is a social psychologist and management professor at the New York University Stern School of Business where she teaches MBA courses in leadership and management. Dolly is well-known for ...
12.20.2022 246. Past, Present, and Future Biases (Refreshed Episode) Today’s episode is another refresh from the series I did on “All the Biases” back in 2019. Two weeks ago on episode 242 we had the one on numbers-based bias called “Math is Hard” and this week is all about ...
12.16.2022 245. Behind the Scenes of Behavioral Scientist and Evan Nesterak In today's conversation, I am joined by Evan Nesterak, the co-founder and editor-in-chief of Behavioral Scientist, a nonprofit digital and print magazine that examines the world through the science of human behavior. Previously, he led the Mindset Assessment Project, an ...
12.13.2022 244. Decision Fatigue (Refreshed Episode) Decisions are everywhere — we are making them all day long. Even if you know you are making a lot of decisions, you probably don’t grasp the full weight of them. Think about yesterday, how many decisions can you remember ...
12.09.2022 243. Is “The Devil You Know” Really Better? Ambiguity / Uncertainty Aversion Today is all about the aversion that humans have to uncertainty and ambiguity, our fear of the unknown, and how it can cause us to choose something we are familiar with even though it may not be in our best ...
12.06.2022 242. Biases -- Math Is Hard (Refreshed Episode) Today’s episode is one that originally aired on June 14, 2019, as part of an 8-part series I called “All the Biases” which took hundreds of biases and sorted them into different categories. Because our brains are complex interconnected webs, ...
12.02.2022 241. Behavioral Science in the Wild with Dilip Soman In today's conversation, I am joined by Dr. Dilip Soman, coauthor of Behavioral Science in the Wild. Dilip is a Canada Research Chair in Behavioural Science and Economics and serves as a Director of the Behavioural Economics in Action Research ...
11.29.2022 240. Pain of Paying: Everything Your Business Needs To Know (Refreshed Episode) Today’s episode is all about the pain of paying. This episode originally aired as number 59 in August of 2019. It was formed from a paper I had found and researched before I started doing interviews on the show. I ...
11.25.2022 239. Charities and Nonprofits: Does Behavioral Science Work the Same? with Luke Freeman In today's conversation, I am joined by Luke Freeman, who is the executive director of Giving What We Can, an organization dedicated to creating a culture where people are inspired to give to the world’s most effective charities. Giving What ...
11.22.2022 238. Reciprocity: The Amazing Power of Giving (Refreshed Episode) Today’s episode is all about reciprocity, one of my very favorite concepts and approaches to life and business. For me, it is natural to give first and I enjoy being generous. I don’t recall the specific names of the love ...
11.18.2022 237. Solving Modern Problems with a Stone Age Brain In today's conversation, I am joined by Dr. Douglas Kenrick and David Lundberg-Kenrick to talk about their new book, Solving Modern Problems with a Stone-Age Brain. As you will hear about in the episode, they are a father and son ...
11.15.2022 236. Gratitude or Happiness: Which Comes First? (Refreshed Episode) Today’s episode is all about the brainy benefits of gratitude. At the end of the year, I always like to do episodes about reciprocity, gratefulness, happiness, and planning…and this year is no different. One thing that is new this year, ...
11.11.2022 235. Great Brands Care About People, with Dr. Tessa Misiaszek In today's conversation, I am joined by Dr. Tessa Misiaszek, coauthor of Branding That Means Business. Tessa is an instructor with Harvard Professional Development Programs, as well as a Professor at Hult International Business School. She brings extensive experience developing ...
11.08.2022 234. What is Value? (Refreshed Episode) Today’s episode is all about value — what it is, what it isn’t, and why it matters for businesses. Value is something you hear about a lot, but it isn’t necessarily something that we intuitively get or what drives our ...
11.04.2022 233. Wait…There’s a System 3? featuring Leigh Caldwell In today's conversation, I am joined by Leigh Caldwell, the founding partner of Irrational Agency. He is a behavioral economist and pricing expert with more than 10 years of experience in applying behavioral science commercially. He is the creator of ...
11.01.2022 232. Leveraging the Power of Prefactual Thinking (Refreshed Episode) Today’s episode is all about prefactual thinking. Prefactual thinking is closely related to counterfactual thinking, which was episode 68 of the podcast, and this episode originally aired as number 71. In its simplest form, counterfactual thinking is our “what ifs” ...
10.28.2022 231. Branding That Means Business with Matt Johnson Today I am very excited to have Dr. Matt Johnson back on the show to talk about Branding That Means Business, a new book he has co-authored with Dr. Tessa Misiaszek (who will be on the show in a few ...
10.25.2022 230. How To Create a Brainy Brand (Refreshed Episode) Today’s episode is all about branding — and specifically, my insights for how to incorporate brain science and behavioral economics insights so you can have a brainy brand that resonates better with your potential customers, clients, members, etc., and is ...
10.21.2022 229. How Vulnerability Loops Make Team Communication More Effective Many companies and managers have prided themselves on being strong, always showing confidence in the face of any crisis, and ensuring that people never show weakness or vulnerability. But is this the best approach? Does unwavering strength make a team ...
10.18.2022 228. Game Theory: Behavioral Economics Foundations (Refreshed Episode) Today’s episode is all about the fascinating world of game theory. This episode originally aired on August 23, 2019, and was episode 62 of the podcast. There are a couple of reasons I’ve selected this to be our refreshed episode ...
10.14.2022 227. Quit: The Power of Knowing When to Walk Away, with Annie Duke In today's conversation, I am joined by Annie Duke, a former professional poker player (widely known as one of the best female players in the world) who also has an impressive and fascinating background in psychology, which she will talk ...
10.11.2022 226. Change Management: It’s Still Not About the Cookie (Refreshed Episode) Today’s episode is a very special one, it is our first-ever edition from the vault. What does that mean? Well, for one thing, we now have TWO episodes of The Brainy Business coming to you each week, starting with this ...
10.07.2022 225. What Your Employees Need and Can’t Tell You Today is a very exciting day, as it is the last episode before I’m officially a multi-book author, because my second book, What Your Employees Need and Can’t Tell You will officially be out and hitting mailboxes on Tuesday, October ...
09.30.2022 224. Inequity Aversion: That’s Not Fair! A Behavioral Economics Foundations Episode Today we are digging in on inequity aversion – which is featured in chapter 12 of my new book, What Your Employees Need And Can’t Tell You, titled “That’s Not Fair!” Fairness is a fascinating topic and one that is ...
09.23.2022 223. Negativity Bias: Cockroaches and Cherries, a Behavioral Economics Foundations Episode Today we are digging in on negativity bias, which is featured in chapter 9 of my book, What Your Employees Need and Can’t Tell You. I also talked about this when Adam Hansen was on the show back in episode ...
09.16.2022 222. How To Test Nudges In Your Ads and Social Media, with Phill Agnew In today's conversation, I am joined by Phill Agnew, host of the Nudge podcast. Phill and I have gotten to be friends over the last couple of years and I've been honored to have been a guest on his podcast ...
09.09.2022 221. How to Have Difficult Conversations About Race, with Kwame Christian In today's conversation, I am joined by Kwame Christian, who I believe is our first 3-peat guest! (Though Dr. Marco Palma from the Human Behavior Lab at Texas A&M; has technically been on the show three times, once was part ...
09.02.2022 220. Cobra Effect: No Loophole Goes Unexploited, a Behavioral Economics Foundations Episode Today, we get to talk about a very fun concept known as the cobra effect or the cobra problem. It is something I included in my upcoming book, What Your Employees Need and Can’t Tell You, and I was very ...
08.26.2022 219. Using Behavioral Science in Marketing with Nancy Harhut Today I am very excited to introduce you to Nancy Harhut, cofounder and chief creative officer of HBT Marketing. She loves getting people to take action and specializes in blending best-of-breed creative techniques with behavioral science to prompt response – ...
08.19.2022 218. Do Nudges Work? with Michael Hallsworth In today's conversation, I am joined by Michael Hallsworth, managing director for the Americas division of the Behavioral Insights Team, or BIT. Michael was on the show nearly two years ago in episode 125 when he was sharing about his ...
08.12.2022 217. Changing Health with the “EATS” Model and the Healthy Behavior Institute Today I’m joined by Scott Schutte and Dr. Janine Stichter, co-founders of the Healthy Behavior Institute. Scott is a personal trainer, weight loss behavior coach, gym owner, and fitness educator who has successfully guided thousands of people on their fitness ...
08.05.2022 216. Unity: Cialdini’s 7th Principle of Persuasion A little over a year ago, in episode 157 of The Brainy Business, I was honored to have Dr. Robert Cialdini join me on the show to talk about the new and expanded version of his book Influence, which has ...
07.29.2022 215. Questionstorming at KIND / Mars with Beatrix Daros In today's conversation, I am joined by Beatrix Daros, Global Consumer Intelligence Director for Mars, and today we are talking mostly about a project we worked on together for KIND snack bars around healthy snacking and checkout/impulse buying in grocery ...
07.22.2022 214. The Power of Regret with Daniel Pink In today's conversation, I am joined by Daniel Pink; author of five New York Times bestsellers, including his latest, The Power of Regret: How Looking Backward Moves Us Forward (which is the focus of our conversation today). His other books ...
07.15.2022 213. Common Errors in Financial Decision Making with Dr. Chuck Howard Today I am very excited to introduce you to Dr. Chuck Howard, an Assistant Professor of Marketing in the Mays Business School at Texas A&M; University. In his research, Chuck asks questions like, “Why do consumers so often underpredict their ...
07.08.2022 212. That Time I Went Viral… with Dr. Daniel Crosby Before I introduce you to this week's guest, I want to take a moment to celebrate a very special anniversary...two days before this episode airs, on July 6, 2022, we celebrated the four-year anniversary of The Brainy Business Podcast! Four ...
07.01.2022 211. Corporate Social Responsibility Programs (That Work) with Wiam Hasanain Today I am very excited to introduce you to Wiam Hasanain. Wiam is a seasoned social impact consultant, with 20 years of experience operating at the intersection of policy reform, societal development, behavior change, and civic engagement. She is a ...
06.24.2022 210. How Minds Change with David McRaney Today I am very excited to introduce you to David McRaney, you may have heard of his first book You Are Not So Smart which is an international bestseller that is now available in 17 languages. He went on to ...
06.17.2022 209. Achieving Hyper-Performance with Dr. Agnis Stibe Today I am very excited to introduce you to Agnis Stibe, a 4x TEDx speaker, MIT alum, YouTube creator, globally recognized corporate consultant, and scientific advisor. He is the Artificial Intelligence Program Director and Professor of Transformation at EM Normandie ...

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