The Brainfluence Podcast With Roger Dooley

On this episode of Brainfluence, we explore how behavioral science can be utilized in both B2C and B2B marketing. Guest Nancy Harhut shares how campaigns that focus on emotional impact over product features can increase purchase intent. Video, text, and resources: https://www.rogerdooley.com/nancy-harhut-behavioral/ We also discuss information gap theory and how marketers can use it to pique interest, availability bias, and autonomy bias. We dive into how giving people choices can increase the likelihood of a buying decision, and how the use of the word "because" can increase compliance. In addition, we cover temporal landmarks, guiding customer choice, and the importance of coming off as engaged and interested in clients' work. Join us as we dive into these fascinating behavioral science principles and their applications in marketing. [00:00:00] Intro [00:00:44] Acceptance of Behavioral Science in Marketing [00:01:20] Skepticism in B2B Marketing [00:06:04] Autonomy Bias in Marketing [00:06:42] The Power of C

In this episode of Brainfluence, host Roger Dooley interviews Sam Tatam, Global Principal and Head of Behavioral Science at Ogilvy Growth and Innovation. Show notes, transcript & resources: https://www.rogerdooley.com/sam-tatam-evolutionary/ Tatam discusses his background in organizational and industrial psychology and advertising strategy, as well as his work at Ogilvy, where he and his team develop interventions and shape communications for some of the world's biggest brands and organizations. They also talk about Tatam's new book, Evolutionary Ideas: Unlocking Ancient Innovation to Solve Tomorrow's Challenges. The conversation covers various topics related to behavioral science and marketing interventions, including the power of quantity anchoring, the TRIZ framework, operational transparency, and the concept of choice.

In this episode of Brainfluence, host Roger Dooley interviews AJ Harper, an editor and publishing strategist, about her career as a developmental editor and ghostwriter, her new book, and the importance of understanding the reader as a character in non-fiction writing. AJ shares her insights and experiences in the world of writing and publishing, providing valuable tips for aspiring authors. Show notes & resources: https://www.rogerdooley.com/aj-harper-must-read/ During the interview, AJ and Roger discuss their intertwined book origin stories and their experience at a writer's retreat co-hosted by Mike Michalowicz and Michael Port. AJ emphasizes the importance of a transformational core message in non-fiction writing and marketing, and discusses editing for a deeper reader connection. She also encourages authors to do their own developmental editing before handing it off to a professional editor. AJ's expertise in developmental editing and ghostwriting shines through as she provides valuable advice for wr

Tom Peters is an author and legendary business thinker who has written 19 books. His new title is Tom Peters' Compact Guide to Excellence. It's a small book packed with short bites of wisdom curated by Tom to encourage a humanistic approach to business. In this episode, he explains why the most important decisions in business are promotions, and that often managers don't spend enough time on them or know how to do them correctly. He shares a technique for choosing the best candidate he learned in a conversation with an Indian general. The entire episode is packed with Tom's plain-spoken, hard-hitting wisdom. You'll learn why a company's front-line managers are the most important group in the firm. He explains why big companies rarely do things right, and that mid-sized companies are often the most valuable contributors to society and the economy. Show notes, resources, text and video: https://www.rogerdooley.com/tom-peters-compact-excellence/ 

In business, we have a bias for busyness. Doing something is always better than doing nothing, to most of us. Indeed, Brainfluence guest and management expert Tom Peters famously proclaimed "a bias for action" to be a key component of excellence. But, is it possible that doing nothing could sometimes be the best strategy? In today's episode, we welcome Jinny Uppal, who has studied the science of action-taking and discovered that constantly being busy can be counter-productive. Jinny has compiled her research into a book called IN/ACTION: Rethinking the Path to Results, in which she argues that taking breaks and being mindful can lead to more sustainable growth than constantly striving for progress. As a business consultant, investor, author, and speaker, Jinny now helps others achieve their goals without burning out. In this conversation, Jinny shares her own experience of shedding the busyness bias and embracing a more strategic approach to success, and explains the science behind the action bias and how we

Can you be authentically charismatic? Renowned behavioral investigator Vanessa Van Edwards has always been fascinated by the 'science of people'. A (famously) socially awkward person, Vanessa's first book Captivate, covered the problems we face in communicating with other people and provided science-backed ways to overcome them. Now with her new book, Cues: Master the Secret Language of Charismatic Communication , Vanessa helps us level up our communication skills by revealing the secrets behind charismatic communication. Show notes and resources: https://www.rogerdooley.com/vanessa-van-edwards-cues/    In today's episode of Brainfluence, Vanessa uncovers the two things that create charismatic personalities – warmth and competence. Competence cues involve the numbers, data, awards, certifications, or degrees that validate your knowledge. Warmth cues involve personal stories, anecdotes, case studies, gifts, funny videos, or the like that add trust, reliability, friendliness, and fondness to your persona. The b

The last time Eric Barker, we spoke about his book, 'Barking Up The Wrong Tree', the Wall Street Journal best-seller that taught us a science-based approach to success. Next, his brand new book called Plays Well With Others, is an invaluable guide that will help you achieve everything you want with your relationships – either by making them work, or helping you fail spectacularly! https://www.rogerdooley.com/eric-barker-plays-well/ Eric Barker uses science and research to explain how our brain understands and makes impressions of people. He gets into everything that wrongly influences our assessment of people, including confirmation bias from first impressions and, believe it or not, criminal profiling. Eric explains how instead to learn about people using values of empathy, similarity, trust, and emotion. He adds that the best way to understand someone is to make them feel connected and comfortable around you. Introducing a little bit of emotion and controversy in conversations, rather than playing safe, hel

For decades, market research consisted mostly of surveys and focus groups. Now we have a host of new tools to track our audiences – what they see, what they read, what they think and how they feel. Today's episode of Brainfluence features neuroscience-based marketing expert Benny Briesemeister. Show notes, links, resources, video & text versions: https://www.rogerdooley.com/benny-briesemeister-neuromarketing/ Benny discusses the science, evolution, growth, scope, and future of neuromarketing. He gets into the details of the most powerful neuromarketing technique, fMRI, its cost concerns, and how the marketing sector can better utilize it. Neuromarketing offers marketers the advantage of understanding the non-conscious drivers of human behavior and decision-making. To get a clearer picture of the transformative power of neuromarketing for business, tune in to this episode. [0:00] Intro [01:17] Large corporations use neuromarketing to increase sales. [03:40] Academic acceptance of neuromarketing [05:46] Del

Choice architecture, the way choices are presented to people, is often overlooked as an important influence on both big and small decisions. One of the world's most recognized researchers on decision-making, Eric Johnson, has studied choice architecture and its effects on behavior. Understanding how we make choices and improving their presentation helps us design better processes for many important situations. We are all choice architects, Eric says. Show Notes, Transcript, Resources: https://www.rogerdooley.com/eric-johnson-choice/ Book: https://amzn.to/3Jp7abM  Eric joins Brainfluence to dissect our roles as choice architects and explain how to change our choice architectures to arrive at better decisions. A well-designed choice architecture helps you to look beyond the easiest and most accessible paths or memory-based preferences. Eric also explains how default choices are formed, the 3 E's that make them, and how to not be blinded by them. You'll learn about how choice architecture applies to our most ba

What is “conation?” According to seasoned marketing and strategy leader Sandeep Dayal, conation is incredibly important in the marketing world. It refers to the desire or will of people to perform an action – it helps marketers assess what causes a customer to opt-in or out of a buying decision. Notes & Resources: https://www.rogerdooley.com/sandeep-dayal-branding/ Sandeep Dayal joins Brainfluence to explain purchase decisions, brand identity, brand positioning, customer-centricity, and customer experience for brands that want to find and sell to their audiences ethically. He breaks down the process of a customer’s buying decision, the three factors that affect the designing of empathetic brands, and the three principles of self-regulation for marketers, among other things. Recognition of the need to optimize customer experience continues to grow. As Sandeep explains, the better a customer’s mind is familiar with your brand’s offerings, the better the chances are they would buy from you. Make an effort to

Businesses today face the challenge of balancing their core values with the realities of the digital age — an age that has customers expect 24/7 access to brands. Surprisingly, the brands that put their customers first have survived even the worst phases of the pandemic, according to best-selling author and returning guest on Brainfluence, John Jantsch. Notes & Resources: https://www.rogerdooley.com/john-jantsch-engine/ John advocates customer-centric marketing and brings us lessons from his most recent book, The Ultimate Marketing Engine: 5 Steps to Ridiculously Consistent Growth. He talks about the importance of focusing less on generating “more” leads. Rather, you should enhance the buying experience of your existing customers to generate organic referrals and leads. He explains how strategically (and authentically) partnering with your top 20% customers does your business more good than investing in lead generation. John also reveals his 5-step marketing process that helps discover and map businesses

Dorie Clark joins us today on Brainfluence discuss her new book, The Long Game and  to explain why a long-term strategy is essential to help us achieve our goals in life. In this era of instant gratification, it’s hard to wait until a business strategy works or the results of practice start showing results. But, Dorie notes, success is a product of long-term consistency for example, a one-percentage daily improvement (as James Clear explained in Atomic Habits). This approach requires you avoid frequent changes. Rather, you must keep going and stick to a strategy that works for you. Creating mental space is essential on your path to success. If you stuff all your hours with work, not heeding the long-term implications of constant jam-packed days, you will never know if you’re heading where you want to. Listen to today’s conversation as Dorie and Roger discuss many more topics, including why you must create room for whitespace in your calendar and how to do that even if you don’t have schedule flexibility. Show

Dan Pink explores a new and surprising topic: Regret. We all have regrets, and usually we think of regret as something to avoid. Not so, says Dan. He explains how regret can be a positive force, the four categories of regret, and more. Show notes: https://www.rogerdooley.com/dan-pink-regret/ Video: https://youtu.be/Gx32A_c5Pyk

One of the most interesting people I've had on Brainfluence is Wired co-founder Kevin Kelly. He's a renowned futurist, a perpetual gadget guru, a serious photographer, and an even more serious traveler. His latest project doesn't fit our usual conversation topics, but, as expected, his insights are fascinating. Book link: https://amzn.to/33rqNzv Show notes link:  Kevin Kelly, co-founder of WIRED and renowned futurist, has toured Asia for over half a century. Not only has he witnessed its changing culturhttps://www.rogerdooley.com/kevin-kelly-vanishing/e and landscape, but he’s also captured his experience in 9000 photographs, later compiled into 1000 pages of his most recent book, Vanishing Asia. Kevin set off for Asia in 1972 with a film camera. With no remote idea about Asia or its culture, he started to document the traditions that eventually seemed “disappearing even from first sight”. He put together the results from his privileged journey (as he describes it) in his three-volume book, which speaks every

In today’s episode, we are joined by Nathalie Nahai, an international speaker, author, and consultant whose work explores the intersection between persuasive technology, ethics, and the psychology behind evolving consumer behaviors. Nathalie talks about the concept in the book Business Unusual, the importance of trust for consumers today, the meaning of eudaimonic culture, and examples of companies with eudaimonic culture. She also shares some insights on similarity and social identity, virtual work, what we can do to be better at virtual meetings and, building trust virtually. Tune in to learn more about building better customer relationships and a successful, sustainable organization. Show Notes: https://www.rogerdooley.com/nathalie-nahai-unusual/ ‎ Key Moments: [01:43] The concept of the book Business Unusual [03:14] The importance of trust for customers today [05:37] The dissonance between the experience for the customers and the internal marginations of the company [07:35] Eudaemonic culture [09:22] Exa

Cass R. Sunstein is currently the Robert Walmsley University Professor at Harvard. He is the founder and director of the Program on Behavioral Economics and Public Policy at Harvard Law School. In 2018, he received the Holberg Prize from the government of Norway, sometimes described as the equivalent of the Nobel Prize for law and the humanities. In 2020, the World Health Organization appointed him as Chair of its technical advisory group on Behavioural Insights and Sciences for Health. From 2009 to 2012, he was Administrator of the White House Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs. He’s co-author with Richard Thaler of the best-seller NUDGE. Sunstein's new book is  SLUDGE, which builds on the ideas in Nudge and describes how bad processes, whether unintentionally bad or bad by design, waste billions of dollars and untold hours in effortful citizen and customer experience. Sunstein joins Brainfluence for a lively discussion of sludge, friction, and how to make the world a better place.

Joining Roger on today’s show is the highly energetic and informative Andrew Davis. Andrew Davis is a best-selling author, keynote speaker, and wealth of knowledge in marketing, public speaking, customer experience, and building a powerful legacy. Not to mention, Davis has also produced for NBC and The Muppets. Throughout this fascinating episode, Davis reveals his first-hand experience of adapting to virtual events in light of the COVID-19 pandemic and discusses the importance of production quality. The influential marketing expert also shares the secret to becoming an in-demand speaker, offering valuable advice on how to captivate and delight your audience. Key points covered throughout the episode include:  Show Notes Page:  https://www.rogerdooley.com/andrew-davis-referable/ [0:40] - Introduction to Andrew Davis.[1:24] - Embracing virtual events and presentations.[2:06] - Andrews’s top three learnings of creating successful virtual experiences.[5:17] - The creation of The Referable Speaker.[8:29] - The fo

Thomas Zoëga Ramsøy is the CEO and Founder of Neurons Inc, a global leader in applied neuroscience. A neuropsychologist with a Ph.D. in neurobiology and neuroimaging, Thomas has worked with leading universities like Oxford, Cambridge, Stanford, and Harvard, using a combination of psychology and neuroscience to understand what drives our choices and behaviors. In this episode, we discuss how Neurons’ eye-tracking tool works, the circumstances where eye tracking can really make a difference, and when you should consider combining this technology with other neuromarketing tools. Listen in to learn how organizations can harness the power of neuromarketing (without the often hefty price tag) and how the pandemic has had a lasting impact in the neuromarketing space. You can find show notes and more information by clicking here: https://bit.ly/36ZeyZN

Juliet Funt is a keynote speaker and advisor to Fortune 500 companies. She’s the founder and CEO of the efficiency firm Juliet Funt Group and an evangelist for expanding the potential of companies by unburdening their talent from busywork. She has also put her insights into a new book, A Minute To Think: Reclaim Creativity, Conquer Busyness, and Do Your Best Work. Listen in as Juliet explains what white space is and why it is so important to enhance productivity in the workplace and get away from the hustle culture that has so many of us feeling burned out. She also shares some of the small ways that white space can be incorporated into your day, why we need to break the assumption that white space is only for recuperation, and tips on how to get away from living in your inbox so you can be less frazzled and more productive. You can find show notes and more information by clicking here: https://bit.ly/2VZ1n8X