Master the Art of Persuasion With Expert Christopher Phelps, Us Ceo of Cialdini Institute

Christopher Phelps and Darren Smith dive deep into the psychology of persuasion. Explore the powerful principles that can help anyone improve their persuasion skills.

From understanding Robert Cialdini's six principles to actionable insights on how to apply persuasion in sales and business, this conversation is a must-watch for anyone looking to influence effectively and ethically.

Click the image above to watch the video on YouTube

 

You Can Read the Full Transcript Below:

Darren A Smith:

Welcome to the World Stickiest Learning. I'm Darren Smith, and I'm here with Chris Phelps. Chris, how are you doing?

Christopher Phelps:

Very good, Darren. How you doing?

Darren A Smith:

Hey, I'm good. You've just managed to solve a problem for me where I've got a stream of light from my light and, and Chris was saying, we'll put a post-it note sort of here, and you've just cracked it. It's been a problem for two years. We're off to a great start.

Darren A Smith:

So in this podcast we are talking about persuasion, influence, those types of soft skills. I'd like to start with a question, which is why should we and the people listening and watching listen to you when we talk about persuasion?

Christopher Phelps:

Yeah, that's a great question. Um, so just to give you a little bit of my background, uh, I was very fortunate, uh, and unfortunate at the same time. So I'm a dentist, uh, by trade. Uh, grew multiple dental practices in Charlotte, North Carolina, where I live on the East coast. And, um, had made this bold move of selling two of my best offices, uh, to free up my partners to be happier elsewhere, as I like to say, and took over my two struggling practices, the worst ones, so I could get back to being me, right? Get back to doing it my way. And I felt like if, if, if I could put my, all my efforts into those two baskets, so to speak, that I could do more with those two offices than what I was being held back with, with the four, right?

Darren A Smith:

Okay.

Christopher Phelps:

And so when I did that and I made that move, I then realised maybe that wasn't so smart, because now you're stuck with not the ones that were making money, the ones that are costing you money. , uh, one of which was a brand new dental practice that was costing me 70,000 a month, us in expenses, but only taking in 35,000 a month in revenue. So you don't have to be a math expert to realise that's not a good check to write each month, right? So, but what it was was a powerful motivator for me to stop, uh, procrastinating on the problems of these practices or ignoring them, right? And, and deal with them. The problem was I just didn't know what the root cause of the problems were. Okay. And so your brain is funny in that sense. That's why it procrastinates, that's why it ignores the problems, because if it doesn't understand the root cause or doesn't feel like you have the capability to solve the problem, that's what it does to quote unquote protect you.

Christopher Phelps:

Right? Well, at this point, knew I had to do something and dig into it. And I was fortunate that a friend of mine invited me to a business seminar, and the keynote speaker was the, the godfather of influence himself, Dr. Robert c Cini. And, you know, Cini is a professor of emus, of Mark, uh, psychology and marketing at Arizona State University. Uh, he wrote the book, influence of Psychology of Persuasion over 40 years ago, and that's what he's built his name and research around is this whole idea. And after he, he gone on stage and talked about those six principles. There was one of them in particular that was like my aha moment that I was like, yeah, that principle right there, that one is the root cause of all of my problems in my practices. Okay? So I knew he was, was in, he was an authority, right?

Christopher Phelps:

This guy had the answer. So I sought him out and, uh, went out to Phoenix, Arizona. Uh, I did a two day training on persuasion and influence with him and his team. And then I found out that they had a certification program so that you could actually go deeper in your knowledge. And they only take, you know, a couple people every few years out of the thousands that apply. And I was fortunate that they accepted me into the family, so to speak. And so I actually got to train under Dr. Cini directly for over a year and basically went and took these principles and this behavioural science research that I've been studying with him. And I went back to my practices and kind of use them as my laboratory, if you will, experimenting, right? Hey, if I kind of worked in this study in this scenario, maybe it might work with my patients in this scenario. Lemme try it. Well come to find out not only did we have some significant results that year, but each of those practices grew by a million dollars each three years in a row. Okay?

Darren A Smith:

Wow.

Christopher Phelps:

So, and this is doing, uh, the timeframe of this, by the way, is 2008 to 2010 when in the United States that was during our housing crisis, right? Which a similar economic turmoil like we're experiencing now with inflation and whatnot. So a time period when more dentists went bankrupt in the states than in the history of dentistry, we're growing millions of dollars a year. Okay? Okay. So automatically, because of that experience and the training with him, I drank the Kool-Aid , right? I saw the benefit of this stuff and the power of it.

Christopher Phelps:

When you stop making your strategies around the excuses people give you after they've said no , and you back it up and you start making your strategies around what they're really using to make the majority of their decisions. So that's what child Dini's principles tap into, right? That's at the heart of what they speak to. So why take this for me? Well, because number one, I've studied this from the man himself. Uh, number two, I've lived it, okay. Uh, I've used it in my own businesses. And then number three, I've helped countless other dentists, dental practices, as well as large corporations outside of dentistry and other industries tap into the power of these principles as well. Uh, so I've helped others see the same kind of benefits and result I have.

Darren A Smith:

Wow. Okay. I'm hooked . Now, before we come to the questions, 'cause you and I talked, um, let's ask top 10 questions I'd really like to know. Just gimme an example of one thing you changed in your practice that made the growth through this.

Christopher Phelps:

Yeah. Well, here's a simple one, right? So when we normally present an options, uh, treatment options to a patient, uh, we were actually treating them and I was trained in dental school to take them what I call up the stairs, right? So the options start low and go high, right? Mm-hmm . So for instance, if somebody was missing a single tooth, uh, the options would be do nothing, right? Leave the tooth gone, uh, do something we call a removable partial denture. So have a fake tooth that comes in and out, plastic tooth do a bridge, which is something that stays in place and kind of connects the teeth around the space. So it looks like the tooth is there. Um, and something called a dental implant, right? So we replace the single tooth that way without hurting the neighboring teeth, right? So in the past, we would present something to that effect. We'd say, Hey, do nothing, do this partial, do this bridge or do this implant. Okay?

Darren A Smith:

Yeah. Got it.

Christopher Phelps:

Well, one of the things we learned in persuasion is this thing called contrast and how, uh, what you say first sets the stage for how people perceive the next thing you talk about, and then the next thing you talk about and the next thing. So when my financial team would come in and go over those options, let's say it was, uh, $2,000 for the first option. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Uh, $4,000 for the next option, or $6,000 for the, for the high-end implant option. Okay? Each number they hear sounds worse and worse and worse in contrast when you take them up the stairs. Yeah. So one simple thing you can do is just flip the order, don't end with your most expensive item, start with that in your presentation and take people down the stairs as well. Right? There's a reason they say nature likes to take the path, at least resistance.

Christopher Phelps:

We want to take the path of least that takes less energy, right? So going down actually means that more people are automatically slated to say yes to not only your ideal option, but every other option underneath. So they actually did this in, in a study in dentistry where, uh, doctors were taking people up the stairs in this scenario, and then they ha half the time that's what they did. And then the other half of the time they flipped the coin and started high and took them down low. And we would all agree that if price was the sole motivating factor of why people said yes, then it doesn't matter what order you presented in right?

Christopher Phelps:

Up or down, you either have the money or you don't. Okay? Well, they ask these doctors, well, how much of an increase in sales of your most expensive, in this case $8,000, uh, product needs to occur for you to think this was a really good experiment? And they were thinking, man, if we had a 20% increase in sales of our most expensive product, that would be great for this year. And so I usually ask the people that same question, think about you and your industry. How many of you would love a 20% increase in your most expensive product that you sell? Right? Well, by starting high and going low, just that one little move, 540% increase in sales of the $8,000 treatment option.

Darren A Smith:

Wow.

Christopher Phelps:

One 20.

Darren A Smith:

And I love that it's so simple from going downstairs. I've just written it down.