Hello and welcome to the science of Influence, 6 simple ways to get your clients to take your best advice. I'm doctor Daniel Crosby, chief behavioral officer at Orion Advisor Solutions, and I'm excited to share this presentation with you today, which is candidly perhaps my favorite presentation of all time. Just because I think it is so absolutely applicable to the lives of the advisors that we here at Orion serve. Now, there's a few reasons why I think this is so powerful. But one problem is we have to first learn to see ourselves as leaders. So today is going to be talking about persuasion, about influence effectively, about getting people to do what we want them to do. And this is a thread that runs through every part of your job. Because if you're a leader in your organization, what is leadership but eliciting the support of the group to work in service of a common goal? If you're trying to grow your business, grow your practice, what is that but persuading people to part with their hard earned dollars and cents and in order to to take part in what you what you're selling? And then if we want to talk about behavioral coaching, which is of course my favorite part of the conversation, what is behavioral coaching but influencing people to set aside their shorttermism, their fear, their greed, and to act in their longterm best interest. So influence is the thread that cuts through everything you do. So in order for you to fully embrace this, though, you have to start to think of yourself as a leader. And as we read in Kerry Patterson's 2008 book Influencer, We typically don't think of ourselves as influencers because we fail to see that the common thread running through most of the triumphs and tragedies of our lives is our ability to exert influence. So that's my first admonition to you today. Is to start to look at the world of work through the lens of influence, to start to look at how many of your daily tasks are are really just at their root persuasion and influence. And I think once you do that, you're going to grasp just how powerful what we're going to talk about today truly is. So keeping with this theme of this common thread. It can truly be said that influence sets the ceiling for your effectiveness. Now, this can be hard to hear at first because you've trained perhaps most of your life to be a financial advisor. You've learned all about the the best asset allocation strategies. You've learned all about financial markets. You you know what it inverted yield curve means. You know what a sortino ratio is. You've learned all these technical, analytical terms of your life, and you've learned to communicate these to clients in an effective way. But the fascinating thing to consider is that there is such a massive chasm between what we tell our clients and what our clients actually do that our influence our ability to get them to stick with. And to live that best advice, it really sets that ceiling on the effectiveness. We know from research across context, including financial advice, medicine, diet and exercise, that among people who seek out advice, people like your clients, less than half of those people actually set out to to apply the advice in the attended, intended way. So you may be giving fantastic advice, the best of advice around, but that advice is only as good or as bad as it is influential. And that's why we're going to spend some time today talking about the the pillars of influence. So I want to suggest a little reading from the outset. A couple of these books are mine. Influence is such a big part of of my work. That it's a thread that runs through everything that I do. So in personal benchmark, you'll you'll read about a goalsbased framework for influencing client behavior in the laws of wealth. You'll read about my 10 Commandments of investor behavior and the 10 things that I think clients need to do to be truly successful in the behavioral behavioral investor. You'll learn about that money, mind, and meaning of the brain, the body, the society in which we in which we move around. And how all of these impact our ability to influence our clients. But the book that we're going to spend the most time on today and the really the, the framework, the intellectual scaffolding for this conversation comes from the book influenced the psychology of persuasion by Robert Childini, doctor Robert Childini himself a very, very skilled psychologist based out of Arizona. So Doctor Chowdini has written candidly one of the best business books of all time. The Wall Street Journal recently named it to their top 75 Best Business books of all time. It's it's personally in my top five and it's absolutely a A must read. And so today I'm going to summarize some of the key tenants of Doctor Chowdini's book on route to helping you deliver financial advice that sticks. And becoming a leader in your organization and helping to grow your business with the science of influence. So before we begin today, I want to lay out our agenda for you a bit. We're going to talk about these six pillars of influence as they are outlined in Doctor Chaldini's book. And the interesting thing about these is that they are actually listed in the order of their efficacy. So the higher up the list, this thing, this pillar appears. The more powerful it is in shaping client behavior. So let's begin with number one, which is of course the most powerful of all these six pillars. That's reciprocity. The fact here is that clients return good for good and ill for ill, and humankind does this. We all want to be kind to people who are kind to us. And we are likely to seek out revenge to those who are not good to us. This is something that's very intuitive, but it's something that can be used to great effect in ways that we'll talk about it momentarily. The second consideration here is scarcity. People want what they can't easily have. People are motivated by exclusivity. Groucho Marx famously said that he would never want to be a part of any club who would have him right. We want to be a part of of unique things, clubs that are hard to get into, so to speak, and we can use that to our advantage. Thirdly, as you might expect, clients want to work with experts if they're going to turn over their hardearned cash to someone else. They want to ensure that you know what you are talking about, that you are an authority figure in your field. 4th they want consistency and commitment. This actually has to do with clients wanting to be good to their word, and this is something that we can use to great effect. If we can ask someone to make a commitment, if we can get them started down the path, it becomes easy to keep them on that path and good behavior change begets further good behavior change 5th, let's talk about consensus. This is client's tendency to refer to other folks and to think as a herd. Now we think about this in markets sometimes as a negative. You know we've all seen instances in financial markets where where the the market acts as a collective perhaps entering into a crowded trade. That's ill advised, but it can also work to our benefit and we can use peer pressure and social proof to great effect for client to improve client outcomes as well. And then finally, clients want to work with people they like. Now that's no surprise, but what what may be a surprise is what makes you likable. So we're going to talk about the fundamentals of what makes someone likable here in just a moment and help you understand and emphasize like characteristics between you and your client on way on the way to a deeper connection. And let's begin with reciprocity. So the truth about reciprocity is that each of us moves through the world in a way with debits and credits in our mind. And these aren't financial debits and credits. These are actually debits and credits of of who has been good to us, who we owe a favor and who owes us a favor. I mean, simply think of of someone you perhaps had over for dinner recently. Maybe you had a family over for dinner, a friend over for dinner, or perhaps you paid for lunch or dinner. Perhaps you paid for lunch the last two times. Well, the next time you go out to lunch with that person, you're going to expect them to bring out their wallet. And if they don't, you're going to likely hold it against them. Because we all keep these debits and credits in our mind, and this is one of the most powerful ways that we can influence client behavior. The trick here? Is actually no trick at all. The trick here is to always be putting good in the world, to always be working for the benefit of our clients, and to be doing kind good things for them. Sending them an article, remembering their birthday, remembering special events, sending them a book that you read that you think might benefit them, or deepen their understanding of financial markets. Making an introduction that helps their business, taking them out for a meal. The list goes on and on. And what's fascinating about reciprocity is that it needn't be expensive. You know, we as an industry have have gotten in the habit of of sort of purchasing reciprocity through steak dinners and and and nice trinkets and golf balls and things like that. Swag from a conference. That's all the form of reciprocity. So. But what's powerful is to consider that something that's free something like noticing someone's new glasses, or noticing their haircut, or complimenting them, or sending them an article. All of these are forms of reciprocity that are at least as memorable as as some golf, golf balls, or or a T-shirt, and are far cheaper and far more impactful. But there's also ways in which we fail to leverage reciprocity. And I think certain parts of the country do this better than others. I think certain folks do this better than others. But I want you to think about something. I want you to think about a scenario in which you did something exceptional. For a client, you went above and beyond. For a client, you went the next level. You stayed up all night to help them reach a deadline. You know, you did twice the work that you normally do, and they're aware of that. And the client says to you, thank you so much for assisting me with that. That was so huge. Thank you. That was a huge help. I really appreciate it. Now pause for a minute and consider what you would say in return. Think about it for a minute. What would you say in return? Far too many of us would say something like it was no problem, it was nothing. Don't think another thing about it. We would sweep away that reciprocity. And in so doing, we have given away our leverage. We have given away the, the imbalance that that debit and credit imbalance. We've given it away. We've explained it away. By trying to sort of stick with the social nicety and say, hey, it, it was no big deal, it was no big deal at all. So what can we say instead? Because it's not exactly socially appropriate when a client says, thank you very much for us to say, you know, heck yeah, you you owe me one, you better, you better get me back. That's not socially appropriate either. So what do we say instead? Well, it turns out there is a way to maintain that reciprocity, that imbalance, if you will, while still being socially appropriate. You might say something when they say thank you so much. That was a huge help. You might say something like, no problem, because I know you'd do the same for me, or no problem. This is a longterm partnership, and I know you'll be there for me one day, right? Setting the stage, being socially appropriate, being kind, being generous. But also setting the stage for a give and take, rather than explaining away your hard work and your effort. So try that next time. Try that next time. I think many of us have a tendency to deflect, to explain away our hard work, even if we know that behind the scenes it was a very big deal. You don't have to be shy about owning that. Just make sure that you do it in a socially appropriate manner. So the second thing that we'll talk about is scarcity. And this is the fact that clients are motivated by exclusivity, right? We all want to be part of that elite club. We all want to be part of the Platinum Club. We all want to be part of the that rarefied air where we are special and we're different and we belong. So how can we cultivate scarcity in practices, right? I want you to look at the two diamonds on the screen before you, so let me set this up for you a little bit. One of these diamonds is worth $3.5 million. It's huge, absolutely huge. Real Diamond, natural diamond, three and a half, $1,000,000 worth. The other one is a CZ that is worth $35. OK, which one is the real and which one is the fate? See if you can spot it. So once you've chosen, let me just let you know that the one on the left is the fake. The one on the right is the real diamond, the one on the left is the fake. So did you choose correctly? And even if you chose correctly, did you just guess? Now be honest. Did you just guess? Because let's be honest for a minute. They look a whole lot alike. So how is it that something that costs $35, one of them is worth, you know, lunch at a fast food restaurant, the other one is worth, you know, a fairly comfortable retirement. So how is it the two things that look so similar can be so dissimilar in value? Well, the answer is of course, scarcity. CZ is synthetic. It's easy to make more of. It is not at all scarce. A large diamond of this shape and this character and this quality requires a confluence of rare occurrences to to Co occur to form this. It takes time, it takes pressure, it takes the right confluence of substances, and all of these things are rare. So it's incredible to think that two diamonds that look so similar can be so dissimilar in in practice, in in reality. And so now think about your practice. Are you leveraging scarcity? What can folks get when they work with you that they can't get anywhere else? So there's a couple of natural ways to leverage scarcity. You see this, I think, on infomercials, right? You see this on sort of lowbrow advertisements, I think you see things like. Operators are standing by for a limited time or limited time offer, right? We we emphasize limits on a supply or time associated with an offer. This is a little bit higher brow, right? We we might reward a desired behavior if it happens within a specific amount of time. I mean, there may just be natural deadlines with which you could impose some sense of urgency. But this last one is really the bread and butter. Of successful advisors everywhere. And that's highlighting the uniqueness of given persuasive appeal. This is highlighting what makes you different. Can you answer the question, what can a client get from you that they can get nowhere else? And as a hint, it's not financial planning, it's not objective advice, it's not being a fiduciary. All of those things are wonderful. All of those things are high quality. They are much needed, but they are not differentiating to the degree that I'm talking about here. There are over 300,000 other advisors in in America. Most of them provide financial planning, holistic advice, you know, impartial advice. Many of them are fiduciaries, right? Many, many 10s, perhaps hundreds of thousands of them are fiduciaries. It is not enough to say that you offer those things. You should be able to say definitively what can someone get from working with you that they can get nowhere else. If you can't answer that question to your satisfaction, I'd encourage you to huddle with a coach, with the rest of your team, with someone with your clients, even to help them help you delineate what it is that's unique about your business. And if you can't, I think it's time that you work to be able to answer that question. Now, there's another way that we can leverage scarcity that I think many of us fail to execute on because many of us were raised by parents who taught us what that if you don't have something nice to say, you shouldn't say anything at all. That's what. That's what my parents taught me. If you don't have something nice to say, you shouldn't say anything at all. And that's usually true. That's usually true. It's usually true that we should be optimistic and upbeat. But there's one place in which we may need to be very, very honest about the the the negative, about the downside. So let's, let's apply this to the context of trying to make a sale, trying to develop new business and be persuasive in that respect. We're sitting with a potential client and I think what most of us do. Is that we emphasize upside because our parents taught us to be positive. The world taught us to be upbeat and then positive. And that's good, right? So we say, you know, Mr. and missus client, I hope that you'll work with me because working with me will ABC benefit will accrue to you if you're able to work with me. We emphasize the upside that is well and good and you should continue to do that. But what we also need to do is to talk about scarcity. We need to talk about risk. We need to talk about missed opportunity. You know, failure to work with me, you know, failure to work with an advisor might lead you to XYZ risks. You know, we find that people who, you know, go it alone are susceptible to ABC risks. Now, it's not as easy to talk about that, right? It's not quite as smooth as talking about the upside. But one thing that we know from behavioral finance is that people are two and 1/2 times more motivated to avoid a loss as they are to gain an upside. So while people may be somewhat enthusiastic about the upside benefits of working with you, they are likely very, very enthusiastic. About the things that you can protect them from, so be sure to emphasize that. What can you know? What can a risk mitigation strategy do for them? What could the appropriate level of insurance do for them? What could a safety bucket? What could a well diversified portfolio protect them from? What could good advice protect them from? All of this is really, really powerful stuff, more than twice as powerful as selling. Merely upside. So the advice here is when making a sale, when developing new business, emphasize upside and downside in equal measure. So now let's talk about authority. Authority is of course the the desire for clients to want to work with someone who knows what they're doing. They want you to be authoritative. They want you to be knowledgeable. And and and thoughtful about how you are managing their money. In a word, they want you to be an expert, but it's a little bit tricky because when you go to a conference, right, I'm a frequent conference beat. When I go to a conference, I don't introduce myself and I don't introduce myself because that would be weird. It would be weird for me to go up to the podium and say I'd like to welcome myself to the stage. Here's a list of my accolades. You know, here's why you should listen to me. Here's how many copies my books have sold. Like that would be a very, very strange thing. And you would think I was an obnoxious person, right? You would think I was. I was a braggart. You would think I was overconfident and you would immediately be be turned off by that. And so it's a little bit tough because on the on the one hand. We know that we want to be seen as an authority in our client's eyes, but on the other hand, we know that we don't want to be seen as as a braggart or as overconfident. So there's a way around this. The way around this is the easiest way around this is if you work as part of a team. If you work as part of a team, make sure you are constantly building up the other people on your team. Every single person on your team, make sure that when clients are around the other people on your team, everyone from support staff to the very top of the organization. Make sure that you are emphasizing their history, their years of experience, their level of expertise, what they're good at, why you enjoy working with them, their personality, whatever right be building up those other people. Knowing that they will do the same in turn for you because of reciprocity, which we talked about from the outset. So building up someone's other, someone else's authority makes you look kind and generous and thoughtful. Building up your your own authority in too direct a way makes you look obnoxious. So what if you're a solo advisor? What if you're alone? What if you don't work as part of a team? Well, there's certainly no shame in humbly acknowledging things like your level of of expertise, the years you have spent in the market in in this profession, the the extra letters behind your name, the certifications you've got, the CE you've you've engaged in, like this course to serve your clients better, all of that, all of that is powerful. But you have to do it humbly. So the easiest way? Build each other up in groups. The 2nd way is to just humbly acknowledge those individual efforts to serve your clients well and to become an authority. Now, to demonstrate how powerful this concept is, I want to talk to you about some interesting research, and I want you to think so. Imagine that, that that heaven forbid that you're having heart problems. And that you have to go speak to a cardiologist. You're given two options. You can choose a cardiologist with five years experience or you can choose a cardiologist with 20 years of experience. Which would you choose and why think about it. So if you're like most people, you, you probably chose the the cardiologist with 20 years of experience. There's a very intuitive appeal to this. We want to work with the Doctor Who has a little Gray hair. We want to work with the cardiologist who has seen some things and has had the the many decades of experience. But in fact, the research suggests that cardiologists with five years of experience are actually much better because they're more up to date on the cutting edge research tools and techniques. But what's fascinating is. But even when respondents, even when patients are told that, hey, you know, you really should prefer the the doctor with five years of experience, they still prefer the 20 years of experience. So it's a powerful thing that that drives our clients. They want you to be authoritative. So write a blog, start a podcast, get featured in media outlets. Make all of these things known to your clients. Let them know about the CE that you're taking the extra designations that you're pursuing. All of this is powerful evidence of your authority, and authority is a powerful driver of client behavior. So I think for many years, maybe, perhaps in the in the old school, we tried to buy this authority. We tried to wear this authority on our wrist. Right. With a fancy watch or a fancy suit or a flashing car or a club membership or something like that. I think that was sort of the route of the the old school advisor. But what's interesting now is that research in the clients shows that that's very, very unimportant to clients. In fact, in many cases it's almost a turn off. Because they go, well, where are my fees going? You know my fee. Are my fees going to buy fancy club memberships and and fast cars and inexpensive watches? What matters to clients today is education. And I know I'm preaching to the converted here because you're on this call, you're watching this webinar. So I know that education matters to you, but that is what matters to your clients. They want those letters behind the name. They want evidence of of continuous striving to to educate yourself and stay on top of industry trends and have a little experience under your belt. So congratulations on being here. Congratulations on on being part of this. Now go emphasize it to your clients. The final thing I'll talk about with respect to authority is with authority and honesty. Because we have a very intuitive sense that that no one and nothing is perfect. We know that no business can do everything. We know that no person can do everything. We know that no one is good at everything they set out to do. So there's actually some interesting research on authority and honesty and how they can be paired for maximum influence. Let's say that you specialize in one in one piece of the financial advice world, but that you don't do much with taxes. For example, if a client comes to you with a tax question and you want to appear authoritative to them, you want to appear expert to them. What should you do? Well, one route to go down would be to him and Haw and try to piece together and answer. Right. To try and say, to try and pretend like you know effectively. But it turns out that that does a great deal to erode trust and erode the sense of authority. Clients can smell that from a mile away. They know you're being disingenuous, and they know that you are not in fact authoritative on the tax question, that that's up for debate. The other thing, and the thing that I'd recommend and that the research recommends. Is that you be honest about your lack of authority in that given area and that you follow that up quickly with something that you are good at. You know, taxes aren't really my thing, but I can make a referral for you there that will treat you very well. But if you want help with comprehensive financial planning and investment management, I'm your person, right? I'm I'm the go to for these things. This isn't something I'm expert at, but I'm going to put you in good stead. I'm going to put you in good hands. This actually increases your authority, right? This increases your authority. Your client is better served and you have developed a a better sense of trust. I don't know if you've ever had this experience. I absolutely love it when I go to a restaurant and I ask I'm about to order something. I'm about to order the fish. Let's say I'm about to order the fish. And and the the server says to me, you know what, don't do it. It's not good, right? Don't do it. It's not good. Don't get the fish. But if you get the steak, you won't regret it. It's fantastic that. I love that your clients love that too. They are used to businesses trying to oversell them. They are used to businesses trying to do anything to make a sale. And if you can be honest about your limitations and equally honest about your strengths. You will build authority in the minds and hearts of your clients. So the next pillar of influence that we'll talk about is consistency and commitment. So this is the very natural human tendency to want to be as good as our word, to want to do what we have promised to do. And your clients are no exception to that. They want you to ask them to make commitments, believe it or not, and they want to honor those commitments once they've made them. So the most fascinating early research on consistency and commitment was done in the 60s in California. And it was done in a fascinating way. And it came to, it came to show us what we now know is the foot in the door technique. So researchers broke a group of California stay at home, parents into two groups. So the parents who were primarily women, they called them and said in the first instance, can we come send some folks to your house? Can we send some men to your house to rummage through your drawers and do sort of an ethnography on all the different cleaning products you use in your house? Won't take a couple hours, 5 or 6 minutes at your house digging through your drawers. As you might expect, this is jarring. This seems kind of dangerous. And almost every single one of them said no, you know, absolutely not. You're not sending some random, you know, random strangers to my house to look at my cleaner. But in the second group, something fascinating happened. They called this group of housewives. They called them and said, you know, excuse me, we would like to take, we'd like to ask you to take a 2 minute interview on your cleaner usage. So the individual would tell them for two minutes on the phone, you know, I use this cleaner. I don't use that cleaner. And at the end, the researchers said thank you very much, we thank you for your commitment to a cleaner world. Now, two weeks later, the researchers called back the same participants in this Group B study, most of whom had consented to this two minutes study. And they said. You know, Missus Jones, would you allow us to send a group of men to dig through your drawers and take a deeper dive on your cleaner usage as part of your ongoing commitment to a cleaner world? And would you believe it? Most of them, almost all of them said yes. Now what is the difference? It's a crazy ask in both. In both instances, right? It's a really difficult ask. So what is the difference between Group A and Group B? Group A was hit, you know, out of the blue cold. With this request. Group B was primed and was asked to make a small commitment before being asked to make a larger commitment. There is a huge and obvious lesson in here when it comes to us helping our clients. Many times when a client comes into our office, we see the end from the beginning. We see where they need to go. We see the amount that they need to save, and we hit them with that all at once. Well, okay, welcome. Thanks for coming in today. You need $2,000,000 to retire and to someone who's, you know, 30 or 35 years old has just begun. Yeah, you know, making a decent income has just begun to set aside a little money. Whatever that number is. It sounds impossible. It sounds insurmountable. And that ask is really demotivating. It's as demotivating as as asking to send a group of strangers to their house, and it's just as jarring. So what we need to do instead is to ask for consistency and commitment from our clients. And I want to talk a little bit in the next slide about how we do that. So how do we do this? Well, the first thing that we have to do is we have to make change incremental, right? We have to make it incremental. We have to think about this ultimate goal. We see where this plan needs to go and we need to subdivide that into 10510 fifteen, whatever the appropriate number is of smaller, more incremental chunks. The first ask we're going to make of them is not some enormous number that they need for retirement. It's going to be something like, let's have a conversation. Then the next ASK is, why don't you read this White Paper, you know? Then the next ASK is, why don't you attend an event? Then the next ASK is let's get started on a plan. Let's up your savings a bit. Let's take a little more risk. Whatever that looks like. You know the drill. You know how to do this better than anyone. But whatever that looks like, it needs to happen incrementally. Each ask should be 10% hard to quantify, but call it 10% harder than the previous ASK. And every time they reach one of those goals, they should be complemented profusely. You should complement them, you should encourage them. You should show them this past history of success and rather than being overwhelmed by an outsized goal. They will be encouraged by slow and steady progress. The other thing that I want to ask you to do it is to consider making behavioral policy statements. So this is a very formal sounding thing that is in fact very intuitive and very easy to do. So you likely have had to sign some kind of investment policy statement on behalf of your clients. You show this to your clients to say. These are the rules that we are going to follow in the management of your assets to ensure that your assets are managed in a in a safe and cogent manner. But what we haven't asked clients to do is to sign anything in return or to make any commitments in return. And we know from the behavioral finance literature that this is a two way journey. That not only do do we need to be sound in our judgment and in our decision making, which is candidly easy to do since we're bound by rules and regulations and fiduciary and and other responsibilities. We need to ask them to make commitments too, because we can be doing everything right and that client can fall well short of their goals if they are not adhering to. A system of policies and procedures around their behavior. That is that is just as important as how we are managing their money. So if you want an example of this, I'd encourage you to check out my book the laws of wealth. The first half of the laws of wealth is really just a big drawnout investment policy statement. I made this comment at a conference a while back and someone said, well, what would your investment policy statement look like? And I said, oh, that's a good, that's a good question. And so I put it together and it includes things like you can't do this alone that explicates the power of working with an advisor and the the benefit that accrues from getting that external advice. It includes things like if you're excited about, if you're excited about an investment, it's probably a bad idea where I lay out some of the research around how fear and greed lead to poor decision making. And that good good investment decision making is boring and slow and and sort of not that exciting. It includes things like you control what matters most right. We know that clients look to externalities. They look to what the president's going to do or what the Fed's going to do or macro events in the in the global economy. And we know that that doesn't matter nearly as much as as micro actions on their part. Like maximizing their saving, taking appropriate risk, and retaining a longterm focus. So whatever your behavioral policy statement looks like, it doesn't have to be fussy or formal. It can just be something that says, look, here's what I'm going to do, here's what I need you to do. I need you to remain calm. I need you to stay the course. I need you to be my partner and be honest with me, whatever that looks like. For your purposes, I think it's a powerful, physical way. To reinforce that this is a two way St. so let's talk now about consensus. So again we know that we've talked about hurting in financial markets. We know that there's a million examples of herd behavior leading people to make poor decisions, but there's actually ways in which we can use this consensus seeking effect as part of human nature. And make it work to our benefit. Now to understand the the roots of consensus, we really need to understand a bit about how the brain works. So your brain accounts for 2 to 3% of your body weight, but it accounts for somewhere from 2025% plus of your caloric expenditure in in any given day. And so the trick here is your brain is very hungry. Your your brain has outsized power and it's really, really inefficient. And so our body is always looking for ways to put the brain in cruise control. And one of the ways that we can do that is by seeking out the opinions of other people, seeking out the opinions of other people, or building consensus. This is something that we are always going to look for. So how can we get our clients to seek out this consensus and the right way and and then what is the wrong way? Because like it or not, this is going to happen. So let's talk about the wrong way. There's research that shows that when folks are hooked up to an FM RI machine, so this is a brain, a brain scan, and they watch cable financial news, which I want you to think about. I won't name names. But I want you to think about prominent talking heads on cable financial news. They're often melodramatic. Sometimes they're yelling and screaming and punching the air, right? So, I mean, it's not, it's not a it's not a Placid affair when you're watching cable financial news. But what's fascinating is when clients are hooked up to these FM R I's and they're watching the cable financial news, the parts of their brain associated with critical thinking and decision making. Actually go to sleep. They actually, they actually go dormant, the parts of their brain associated with critical thinking and decision making. So here is someone loud and boisterous on the screen yelling and screaming at you and your brain is being lulled into complacency. Now it seems a little weird until you think about it. What's happening is you are offloading those decision making faculties on to someone else. You know, the person on the screen says, says I should buy, you know, stock A or stock B. Fine. That's good enough for me because I have other worries now. We don't need to think about it. The trick here is though, we can have the same impact on our clients, but they will get that from somewhere if they don't get it from us, right? They're going to get this consensus effect. They're going to put that brain to sleep. They're going to stop worrying about this. They can get it from Reddit. They can get it from the cable financial news or some sort of melodramatic think piece online, or they can get it from you, someone who knows their family, someone who knows their risk tolerance and their goals and their hopes and dreams. So we need to be as present and as loud as those other negative voices in their life, using this consensus to help get them to think the right way. Now this is one of my favorite things, because when we think about consensus, it becomes easy for us to say, you know I'm just one person, right? How do I leverage the power of consensus when I am just one person? Well, from the Childini book that we talked about earlier today, influence the psychology of persuasion comes a really, really cool study on how consensus can be used in the most private of places. So think about the last time you stayed at a hotel and likely you saw some sort of placard, you know, somewhere in the bathroom. That said, you know the Marriott would encourages you to to reuse your towels to help us save the environment, right? You saw something like this, and if you're like me, you probably ignored it because for me, when I'm staying in a hotel, I want to live like Led Zeppelin. If only. That means just using a bunch of towels, right? I want to. I want to be as comfortable as possible. I I'm not at home. It's this other place, and I just want to be very, very comfortable. And I don't, you know, perhaps care very much about what the sign of the placard says. So sure enough, towel reuse in this sort of simple ask. It is only 16%, but let's take it to the next level. What about, what about when they ask? People to reuse the towels and they invoke the presence and the decisions of other people. So in a second condition they say, you know, please help us reuse the towels. Almost 75% of the guests in in this hotel reuse their their towels. We hope you will join them. Now think about how this has been reframed. Now you have been positioned relative to other people. If you don't choose to reuse your towels, you are now in the bottom quartile of sort of thoughtful, kind, generous people. You've been positioned relative to other people, the card has told you. Other people made this choice. We hope you'll make it too. And what's even more fascinating is when they invoke the actual room right, the room you're staying. So please, reuse your towels. 75% of the guests. We stayed in this room. We used their tiles compliance jumped a further 5% to 49%. So we basically tripled compliance, right? We tripled compliance just by invoking this idea of other people. Now can you do this in your life with your clients? If it's just you, if it's just you in a room with your clients, can you use the unseen they? Well, if they can do it in the bathroom, right? I mean, the bathroom in a hotel is the the most private of all places. You're in there, you're undressed, you're by yourself. It is the the most private of all places. So if they can influence behavior with the unseen day in a hotel bathroom, you sure as heck can do it in your office, right? So how do we do this? How do we invoke the unseen day? Well, first, whatever we're recommending to a client, right? Maybe we're talking to them about the power of behavioral coaching and financial planning. Maybe we're talking to them about the the specifics of our investment allocation. But whatever that looks like, we begin at the top, begin high level and talk about the institutions that agree with you, right. If we're talking about behavioral coaching, we can say, you know, here in our practice. We lead with behavioral coaching. We believe what we lead with decisional guidance and behavioral coaching, because this is an approach that has won three Nobel prizes. Okay, you have their attention now. If it's good enough for the Nobel Prize committee, it's probably good enough for them. Next you might invoke an individual expert, right? Perhaps you've seen the book. Thinking fast and slow by Daniel Kahneman in your local, you know, airport bookstore. Perhaps you read it in there. He talks about how people are 2 1/2 times as upset about a loss as they are happy about a comparably sized gain. And my job as your advisor is to make sure that that disconnect doesn't wreck your financial future, that asymmetry between risk and reward preferences doesn't wreck your financial future. So again, now you've invoked an institution, the Nobel Prize committee. Next, you invoke the individual expert. Finally, excuse me, third, you might talk about their peers. You know, when I bought this house, my wife and I were giving our realtor the hardest time. We were awful clients. We'd asked to see, you know, many, many houses hadn't bought one. And I know our realtor was getting frustrated with us. And when we came to this neighborhood, into this home. She drives us through this neighborhood and says I want you to take a look because this is the premier neighborhood in Atlanta for well educated young professionals who want the best school system for their kids. Now think about what she did to me there. She flattered me, right? She put me in a box that I didn't want to get out of, said I was young and well educated, right. I want to be both of those things. You know, and then she said, this is a place where people go and they care about their kids, so you want to be young, educated and care about your kids all day long, right? She said other people have made this decision and it worked for them. So help within the bounds of appropriate compliance structures, right? Help your clients understand how this has worked for people like them. And then finally talk about how it's working for you. You know, if you're an advisor, talk about how you have your own advisor. To help you make sense of your life, if you're eating your own cooking from an investment perspective, talk about how the portfolio you're recommending to them is the same type of portfolio that you are in, the same type of portfolio that you trust your clients to. So just like with the hotel example, we have leveraged the unseen day. It could be you and one other client and you have invoked. You know you've invoked. Warren Buffett, the Nobel Prize committee, Harvard research, people like them and your own experience. This is indeed a massive cohort that's going to be really, really powerfully influential to them. So the final of these pillars, the final of these six pillars of influence that childini talks about his liking and and unsurprisingly, we want to do business with people we like, but who do we like? Well, we like people who are like us. We like people who are like us. So one of the coolest things about my job at the Center for Outcomes has been getting to meet really awesome advisors who are going about their practices in a totally new way. And two of the ones that have really stuck with me, one was a practice. Built all around first responders serving first responders, police, fire EM T's right. This advisor serves first responders because his father was a first responder who never had financial success, who sort of let the money slip through his hand, who didn't understand markets and saving and all the mechanics of of of meeting those financial goals. And so as a child this, this gentleman said, look, when I grow up, I'm going to serve people like my parents who did so much good in the community and then didn't take care of themselves. And so how powerful is that? How powerful is that story? And if you are a first responder, do you want to work with, with that person who's who's like you and who understand your life story or do you want to work with Brand X advisor who's who knows nothing? About the life of of being a police officer or or working for the fire brigade, right? Which one would you prefer? Of course you want the person who's like you. A second large practice had been built around serving yoga practitioners, and when you think about, you know, people with lots of money, yogis and yoga practitioners are are perhaps not at the top of your list, but these folks had built an incredibly successful practice. Around us serving yoga enthusiasts, it turns out many of them are are quite well off. They're wonderful clients and they bond around this common shared enthusiasm for yoga. So it doesn't have to be one of those things for you, but think about what are the things you like? What are you like? And how can you let that idiosyncrasy? How can you let that, that singularity, that that unique thing about you lead in your practice? So there's another trick to who we like, right? We like people who possess a couple of qualities very, very consistently. So we like people who are physically attractive. Now, if you're not, you know, model good looking like I'm not. Never fear. Right. The research is unequivocal that when we talk about physically attractive, we basically mean people who are well grouped, right? People who are put together, people who are clean, people who are nicely dressed. OK, so that's table stakes, I think for most advisors. But just know the research is unequivocal that we like people who look good and present as well put together. Second piece of research that we find is that we like people who pay us compliments. Now, a funny piece of a funny little asterisk in the in the research is that we like people who pay us compliments, whether or not they're perceived as sincere. So people love flattery so much. People love compliments that so much, they'll even take it when it's seen as having an ulterior motive. But of course, I'm not here today to encourage you. Not to give false praise to your clients, but just know that people love compliments. They can't get enough of it. So look right. Look for what's different in your clients lives. Look for you know when they get a new car. Look for when they get a new haircut or new glasses. Look for you. Know when they've when they've been extra kind or gone out of their way to do something you know, wonderful for someone in your office. Whatever it is. Pay a compliment, pay a compliment when they stick with the hard thing you ask of them. Whatever that looks like, be sure to compliment your clients. The third thing is something I want you to start to look for the next time you go to a conference and see a presentation. So often professional speakers will will start off with some sort of joke, some sort of lighthearted self deprecation. And that is because it forms a bond between a speaker and an audience, because we love people who make us laugh. Now, your clients don't want to work with the clown. They don't want to work with someone who's unserious about their money. But money is consistently at the very top of the list of things that stress out Americans, right? Every single year since we've started to measure it. Money is our number one stressor in America. So if you can bring appropriate levity to your life, right? If you're with the financial lives of your clients. You will be in really, really good stead. And the final one is is also the most ignored. It's also the most powerful. We like people with whom we share a common struggle. We like people with whom we share a common struggle. So we identify with people who have been through something that we are going through and who have made it out the other side. So this is where there becomes a bit of a call for for intimacy and disclosure and vulnerability on your part, to be honest as appropriate, about tough things that you have been through and and how you came out the other side. You know, perhaps it's trouble with a kid, perhaps it's a divorce, perhaps it's a financial problem. Whatever it is, perhaps it's just, you know. Screaming babies and and changing diapers. You know, whatever it is, right? It doesn't have to be this grand life defining struggle, but if you've been through something that someone is currently going through and you've made it out the other end and you can empathize with that, that's a powerful, powerful form of liking. Now, the other thing that I would encourage you to do here is to become a bit of a personal Sherlock, a bit of a personal brand Detective. Every single one of US brands ourselves the way that we cut our hair, the clothes we wear, the language we choose, where we choose to go to college, where we worship, who we hang out with, the car we drive. Every single one of these things is a clue about human nature, and people are always dropping bread crumbs about who they are, because this is the ultimate human drive to it is to be understood. More than anything else, people want to be understood. And if you can understand your clients, you will have a client for life. So pick up the bread crumbs that they are putting down. Look for things in their life. The picture they have in their office, right the the the branded shirt they wear, the car they drive, you know, the the football team they love. Whatever it is, take an interest and ask. Okay, there's there's really two ways to play this. If you see a similarity, emphasize it. You like the same baseball team, right? You like the same football team. It seems silly and it kind of is right. It's it's not a a life defining thing to to both cheer for the same sports team. Yet it is shown to be very good at knitting people together. People really see that as strong common ground. But what if you have a client who is different from you in every respect? You know that you, you just don't, on the surface, have much in common. Can you not serve that client now? No, of course not. But the thing that you need to do is just ask. Just take an interest. Let's say they're into all sorts of hobbies and things that you have no idea about. Don't pretend to know. Don't pretend to be into those things too. Just take an interest. Ask them, find out and watch the magic happen. So I I want you to take just a moment now that we've completed these six and I want you to do a little bit of a self audit on these these six, right. So I want you to ask these questions. I want you to write them down if you will and and write down how you think you're doing on. So let's talk about the reciprocity piece. What specific things have you done for your clients to put kindness out in the world? What favors have you done for them in the recent past that would build that reciprocity? Let's talk about scarcity. What can your clients get from you that they can get nowhere else? Let's talk about authority. How are you demonstrating that expertise in your field? Are you creating original content? Are you hosting webinars like this? Are you constantly pursuing more and better education? OK, think about these things. Think about all of these these six, right? Think about liking, right. Are there specific affinity groups that might benefit from my services? Do you have your equivalent of the first responder or the yoga practitioner? Right. So for all of these six things, I want you to do a little bit of a self audit. And I want you to choose the area in which you are the weakest. And I want you to choose the area in which you are the weakest. And I want you consistent with our principle of incremental improvement. I want you to pick just one area, not 6. And I want you to improve on one thing in one area, then revisit that list and work on your next weakest area. So in closing here, I I hope that you'll check out Doctor Chaudini's book as well as my books. That I think will be a nice compliment as you try and learn about this world of behavioral finance and the world of influence and persuasion. Indeed, this is the thread that runs through everything you do. It's how you sell and grow your business. It's how you lead and guide people within your organization, and it's how you keep your clients. From succumbing to their worst impulses at the wrong time. It's a powerful thread and there's a well defined science to it. So I'm thankful for you for being here today, and I hope that this is the first step on a long journey towards being more effective and more influential. Thank you so much. _1713504632312