Interview: Roger Dooley, author of Brainfluence, on the practical marketing lessons from behavioural science

In this episode we talk with Roger Dooley author of Brainfluence. In a wide-ranging conversation, we start by covering the importance of focusing on making whatever behaviour you want to encourage as easy as possible. Then we move on to the importance of experimentation and how brands can work out which, of the many behavioural biases that have been discovered, they should prioritize. 

Transcript

MAF: [00:00:00] Welcome back to Behavioral Science for Brands, a podcast where we bridge academics and practical marketing. Every other week, we sit down and go deep behind some of the country's best brands and reveal the behavioral science that powers them. I'm MichaelAaron Flicker and 

RS: I'm Richard Shotton. 

MAF: And today we're sitting with Roger Dooley, international keynote speaker, author of two books.

Let's go! Amazing books, friction, the untapped force that can be your most powerful advantage and the bestseller brainfluence, a hundred ways to persuade and convince consumers with neuromarketing. Uh, let's get into it. So Roger, welcome to the show. We're very excited to have you. Uh, and our listeners love hearing, uh, people's stories and.

The background behind them. Maybe you could tell us a little bit about when you first learned [00:01:00] about neuro marketing when you first learned about the concepts of behavioral science. You're not classically trained as a marketer, as I was reading. 

RD: That's correct. I, but my roots there run deep. Strangely enough, the I originally studied as a chemical engineer of all things.

But while I was studying. Differential equations and fluid dynamics and all that stuff. I did take a course that didn't really fit with everything else. And it was called psychology of persuasion, which this was this was so long ago that it really predated influence. I think Chowdhury's influence book. I try to remember what text, if any, we used.

I could not recall that, but, uh, that kind of laid dormant for a few decades while I did engineering work and then marketing work and management work, uh, really came up by marketing chops. So, uh, on the job, I got into product management for a 50 million product line, uh, then [00:02:00] became director of strategic planning for that fortune 1000 company.

And, uh, just as my career really seemed to be taking off, uh, I. Bailed out of the corporate world to co founded direct marketing business, a catalog business. Uh, and that was really a, uh, an education marketing because we sort of had to figure it out ourselves. At that point, that was the most quantitative marketing that you had.

You could actually do things like A B tests. You could run square inch analysis and all sorts of things that really sort of led me into this, not gut feel marketing approach, but a more scientific approach to marketing. And things evolved over time. I was involved in multiple entrepreneurial ventures.

built a, uh, what became the biggest, uh, college bound website, uh, college confidential, and then sold that to the Daily Mail group some years ago. Uh, and, uh, while that was going on, I kind of rekindled my interest in the scientific side of marketing and in particular using neuroscience in marketing. And so [00:03:00] in the early days, relatively early days of the web, I I grabbed a domain, neurosciencemarketing.

com, and started writing there. And what I found was, uh, it got traction. People were paying attention, commenting. And, uh, so I was encouraged. I kept writing, led to my first book deal with Wiley for brainfluence and, uh, led to, uh, speaking gigs around the world. And that's pretty much what I've been doing ever since, uh, writing and speaking.

MAF: And, you know, when you go to your website and you take in so much of the material that you've put out, there's really a question of what is neuro mark? Uh, let me say it right. What is neuro marketing? Uh, maybe you could tell everybody a little bit about your definition and what is and what isn't. Uh, encapsulated here, 

RD: right?

And I guess my definition is a little bit more expansive than some people's original definition, although I think mine is coming more to vogue now. Originally, neuromarketing was [00:04:00] primarily using tools like FMRI or EG or biometric measurements to gauge people's responses to advertising to content to packaging and so on.

But even early on, I really felt that that was very limiting because, first of all, at that point, only the biggest brands could afford to do those kinds of studies. It was just too expensive, and to me, there was a whole world out there that needed some of these tools, and I began incorporating behavioral science because to me, it's all new to me.

Cool. a continuum. You're trying to market to your customer's brain more effectively. And some of the tools of neuromarketing are sort of trying to read that brain, if you will, and see, uh, uh, gauge those specific reactions, but also more general scientific research by the likes of, uh, certainly, uh, Dr. Bob Cialdini, uh, and many others.

Uh, has they've given us the tools, uh, to understand how your customers behave. And so I [00:05:00] began incorporating a lot of that into my writing. And so my simplest definition of your marketing is, uh, using our understanding of our customers brains work to market better. And. You know, originally I was maybe a little bit pushing the boundary, but then just before the pandemic, Nielsen, who was a large traditional lab based neuroscience company that was a market research company that was using the tools of neuromarketing to gauge consumer reactions, they Turned all of their staff neuroscientists into behavioral science trainers because they too saw that this was a natural evolution and since then, now, if you go to a, um, uh, neuromarketing, a conference, or you look at companies that do neuromarketing, they're typically, uh, incorporating a lot of behavioral science into what they're doing to because, you know, again, it's, uh, measuring is one part of it, but understanding how your customers brains work is another part of it.

MAF: And that was something I wanted to zero in on. I [00:06:00] think it's be a big interest to everyone listening. Originally, when I was reading about the work that you put together in my mind, it was about revealing what surveys and focus groups may not be able to directly take out, but then a lot of the work that you've written about is about how to make.

You're marketing more effective, so it's not just survey results. It's not just insights into the consumer. It's also how do we then make a better connection? Maybe you could talk a little bit more about that, 

RD: right? Well, you know, part of my direction was from I don't do a lot of consulting, but I have occasionally taken on some gigs.

And, uh, what would happen is I would get called into you. I'll do some newer marketing stuff, sprinkle some behavioral science dust on somebody's marketing because they weren't getting the results they wanted. And when I looked at what they were doing, it didn't really [00:07:00] need even behavioral science so much as some very practical insights as to how, you know, gee, people can't figure out what to click on on this page.

That's why you're not getting orders, not because it needs more behavioral science. So, you know, to me that, uh, it's, it's just been, uh, in, uh, evolution, and I'm all about practical. You talk about merging academic and practical, I'm definitely at the practical end of the spectrum. Uh, you know, if, um, uh, if through my writing or my, uh, speeches or other stuff that I do, uh, can help somebody market better, get better results with their customers, happier customers, more loyal customers.

To me, that's, that's the goal. Uh, how you get there, whether it's by, uh, understanding them better, by, uh, doing biometric measurements, or whether it is by applying more generally, uh, established principles of behavioral science, uh, the goal is the same. 

MAF: Is it fair to say that neuromarketing helps reveal insights and behavioral science helps to [00:08:00] make the creative more effective, or is that too broad of an oversimplification of the way we should look at it?

I don't know. 

RD: I think that's one way of doing it. I think that, um, you have multiple kinds of insights. You have, uh, neuromarketing or consumer neuroscience insights that are related to a, uh, very specific, uh, advertisement or piece of content or package or something, uh, and then you've got the more general insights that come from behavioral science research.

So to me, it's, it's just a continuum. If you, uh, did enough neuromarketing studies, you might be able to draw some conclusions about, uh, uh, human behavior from that.

RS: Roger, you've written a lot about friction. I mean, you've written a book called Friction and the need for, for businesses to eliminate it. Could you explain what you mean by, by friction? 

RD: Now, friction, I consider to be unnecessary effort, and it affects customer experience, it affects employee experience, even citizen experience, but from a [00:09:00] typical business and customer relationship, when things are easier for customers, like placing an order, they will be more likely to place an order.

Over the years, the number of abandoned shopping carts has stayed kind of constant around 75%. I haven't seen the latest data, but basically that means that Uh, you know, three quarters of the people that visit your website put stuff in their cart, but they fail to check out and when companies have researched why those shopping carts are abandoned, often, in fact, the majority of reasons are frictional in nature.

They, the customer had to, uh, had to, uh, Found the checkout process to be complicated. They had to go find their credit card. They had to set up an account with the company rather than being allowed to check out as a guest. Uh, you know, and all these things that are just this little bit of extra effort, doesn't seem like a lot of effort, you know, Amazon patented one click ordering and they defended that patent in court for years at great expense, just to get that one tiny little click advantage over their [00:10:00] competition.

They understand how making the. Every aspect of the shopping process, checkout, of course, in particular, but every aspect of it as easy as possible gets people through that customer journey more quickly, and you get a lot more a lot more customers through it, and they, they understood that better than anybody else.

And I think one, uh, one of my favorite case studies that actually has kind of a postscript attached to it is zoom. You know, we got through the pandemic and in the pandemic, one brand became the. Generic term for any kind of video call or video conference. And of course that was zoom. It didn't matter if you're using Webex or Hangouts or anything else.

So you were on a zoom call, you were wearing a zoom shirt, the, uh, and the reason that happened was because zoom's ability to onboard customers. Was so much faster and easier than things like Webex, uh, or Microsoft products that, uh, when suddenly even corporate I. T. [00:11:00] departments who were committed to Cisco and Microsoft saw that they had to get 300 users on board by the end of the week, uh, it was like, Oh, heck with it.

Get on Zoom. You know, they can figure it out themselves without, uh, without having to contact us for support to get them through the process. And that's really what made Zoom. They were already. Going growing much faster than these big established companies and brands before the pandemic, but when the pandemic hit, it just accelerated the process through gasoline on a fire and they they became dominant to the point where almost not quite overnight, but you know, in the space of a few years, they had half the market.

And it's, uh, to me, that was a great example of how simply being easier than the competition, uh, led to not just growth, but disruptive growth. I mean, they, this was a tiny startup that ended up disrupting Microsoft and Cisco and Google. So to me, that, that's a great example, but, but, and the reason I attribute, uh, one, one reason, um, [00:12:00] for that growth was Zoom's mission statement, uh, for the first, I don't know, probably five or eight years of their existence.

It was make communications frictionless. Uh, and that was basically gave perfect clarity to every single person who worked at Zoom. If you are going to change the customer experience in any way, even the smallest way, is it going to make things easier or more difficult? Reduce friction or add friction.

And if you're going to be adding friction, then you're not going to do it. Doesn't matter if you're compliance or it or legal or a web designer or app developer, you know, you have to be focused on making things ever more simple and easy for the customer. And. As a result, they were perfectly positioned when COVID hit, but since then, I don't know about you all, but I've been having some actually kind of frictional issues with zoom where either suddenly I'm caught in some kind of, it logs me out and I can't get authenticated properly, or I'm late for a meeting and suddenly it decides to [00:13:00] push an update that I don't have.

I can't say update later. And the last time that happened, I was like. Just barely on time for meeting before this began, gives me this screen that got an update. So I'm updating the things in the update where things like Swedish language support and a new zoom icon. I mean, you know, this, this makes no sense to be Forcing customers to do that kind of stuff when obviously they, many of them are on a tight schedule, the, uh, so I just, for the heck of it, I checked their mission statement and it turned into some kind of corporate gobbledygook, uh, uh, about limitless human connection.

What does that even mean? You know, what, what clarity does that provide? So, uh, but yeah, there are, there are a lot of examples of companies that have prospered by making things easier. Uh, for their customers and, uh, simply, uh, look at Shopify. Their promise was a store in minutes. And they beat out products that were arguably better shopping cart products, better store products, simply [00:14:00] because a customer could get up and running super easily.

RS: So Amazon, Zoom, Shopify, those three examples all seem to be around removing real friction. But I know you've talked about the barriers of imagined friction as well. So, so what, what's the difference there? 

RD: Well, uh, you know, it depends. There's a perceived friction, which is like a higher cognitive load. So, uh, It's the, uh, when people, people unconsciously perceive that something is more difficult, uh, complicated wording, uh, long words, uh, uh, even imagery that's confusing.

All of these things are, um, potential barriers that people might not consciously report, but, uh, they're there. And so, uh, increasing the fluency of your, website, your app, everything else is important as well. [00:15:00] 

RS: And, um, in terms of any brands that have been particularly strong doing that, is there anyone that springs to mind for you?

RD: Oh, no, um, no, I'm, maybe, uh, you've got an example I wrote about. I'm not, uh, coming up with one instantly, Richard. 

RS: Um, yeah, anyone that I always think about, um, when you talk around simplicity of language, uh, I think Berkshire Hathaway and Warren Buffett are amazing examples. There's a wonderful free tool that you may have used called Hemingway.

And you can put blocks of text into this free tool and it will tell you the reading age. And if you take A big fund provider like Blackrock or a management consultant like KPMG. If you put their annual reports into the, um, into the system, the reading grade is postgraduate. But if you put Warren Buffett and Berkshire Hathaway's work into, into the system, the reading age will be around 14 or 15.

[00:16:00] It's an extreme example of someone taking a very, very complex matter. And writing it very simply and, you know, well, the results speak for themselves in terms of Berkshire Hathaway, but it's a, I think they're an extreme example of breaking with the category invention of complex language and 

RD: confine it You know, so many financial products, Richard, they have these, uh, complex disclaimers and they have lengthy explanations.

You know, if you look at some of the FinTech startups that have grown very quickly, they have figured out a way of complying with the law. without, uh, shoving, uh, paragraphs and paragraphs of tiny text in the face of the customer. In fact, uh, one of my, uh, favorite examples of, uh, the sort of cognitive load type friction is, uh, instructions for, uh, uh, medicines important, uh, uh, where doctors will say, okay, you've got to take this at certain times and so on.

Uh, they found that people were less likely to comply with these important medical [00:17:00] instructions. When they were printed in a hard to read font, uh, compared to, uh, you know, an easier read font, simply the font size. And of course, language counts too. You point out the contrast between, uh, you know, typical, uh, financial companies and Warren Buffett.

Uh, you know, that's the same thing applies. You know, if, if you tell people what they're supposed to do and it's long and complicated and in small print, they're not going to do it. 

RS: So if you were advising, uh, Uh, brand. How would you advise them to spot and then change some of these pieces of friction? Are there any tactics that you've found to be be useful?

RD: Well, yeah, you know, actually one is maybe a little counterintuitive. Before you look at your, I mean, you can look at your own stuff and with a critical eye and probably spot this if you view it through a friction lens or through friction goggles, which is the term I use. But the first thing that somebody can do is start keeping a friction log themselves when they encounter a Uh, an [00:18:00] effortful experience on someone else's website in their mobile app, even in a retail environment, they're trying to get something done and, you know, they can't figure out what to do next, or it's not working the way they expect, make a note of that.

Just, you know, jot it down. Uh, if you paper and, uh. You know, Google, Doc, whatever your preference is, just make a note of that, because what you're doing when you start recording examples of friction and other people's experience, you're training your brain to see more friction. And when you look at your own experience, then you're more likely to spot these things, because I think often people underestimate something and say, well, it's only a few clicks, you know, it's a few keystrokes, doesn't matter.

You know, if you look at the really successful companies like Amazon or Uber, for that matter, uh, you know, they figured out how to do things with the fewest possible clicks, keystrokes and everything else. They don't, uh, they understand that every little tiny bit of effort is important where so many people will [00:19:00] underestimate that.

And it's, it's particularly difficult because sometimes, and I've talked to people, uh, uh, in many companies around the world and they say, yeah, we get it, you know, that we know this process is bad. But, um, management doesn't think that's important. You know, it would, it would take money to redesign that and they don't want to spend that or it's, it's in the roadmap for three years from now.

So it's, there, there's a battle going on. And, uh, you know, even sometimes when, uh, people can see it in the organization, uh, they don't, uh, they, they aren't able to fix it. Something else that of course you can do is, uh, ask your frontline people, what customers complain about. I guarantee you the people who are taking the phone calls or text chats from customers, they know what is frustrating the customers where they're trying to look up, do something online on the website and they can't.

And then, of course, you have to finally have to call into the support line because you can't do it on the website and get this recording, uh, suggesting you go to the website to do whatever it is you want to do, which is really, [00:20:00] really annoying. You know, if, uh, if you simply ask those people, or if you're big enough, you can do, uh, uh, an analysis of all the text and transcripts of conversations and whatnot, but, you know, find out what people are complaining about and you'll find those points of friction in your customer experience.

MAF: It's an interesting call to action, Roger, because it also makes you think about human experiences, not just websites, you know, as you were talking, I was thinking about the ordering experience at so many quick service restaurants and then ordering at Chick fil a where they meet you at the car with an iPad.

And there's a different ethos that comes through the way that they interact with you and it just feels very different. It's disruptive in, uh, reducing friction in a completely different way. That's not about clicks and websites and conversion rates has brought it to mind for me, 

RD: right? Well, you know, people will like self [00:21:00] service if it's very easy.

Okay, if you can do something with zero effort yourself, then that's great. But the problem is a lot of companies try and push people into self service modes, like grocery checkouts, where you've got to be weighing produce and figuring out codes and stuff. Uh, and that's very inefficient for people. They know that a human cashier.

I would know the code for bananas, and they'd be able to get that thing weighed, you know, off the scale in half a second, where you're there fumbling around, trying to look it up and such. And Chick fil A is a good example. I've got a Chick fil A just very close to my house, and there is always a line there, because people want to go there.

I mean, the parking lot's always full. Uh, you know, other restaurants in the area simply just don't see that kind of, uh, popularity. 

MAF: That's right. I thought I might, uh, I thought I might change our conversation a little bit and bring us to another area that I found, uh, your writing and thinking really compelling.

[00:22:00] And that's the difference between. Uh, looking at academic studies and running tests on your own or running tests that you can control. We spend a lot of time on our podcast, looking at the work of others and then calling up academic studies that, uh, that can teach us something about it. And, and I think it's really interesting to think about.

Where you'd recommend people to run their own tests, where you think academic studies can be of value. We'd just love to hear you talk a little bit about it. 

RD: Okay, well, you know, actually, this really relates to the bigger field of neuromarketing, because neuromarketing studies are basically tools to predict what customers will do.

And unfortunately, you're a few steps removed, you know, from what customers are actually doing, despite if they're, you know, in a chair with a Uh, GUI, EG cap on their head, looking at the screen, uh, and then you're trying to predict what's this person going to do in the supermarket when they're presented with this thing, you're, you're, [00:23:00] there's, there's quite a gap there, but, um, uh, you know, to me, if you have the ability, and this would be particularly true for say, Um, well, websites that have a fair amount of traffic, uh, you know, instead of trying to predict behavior using your marketing studies, if you can do a B tests or multivariate tests, but this way you're actually measuring not you're not predicting what people do, you're measuring what people actually do and where behavioral science fits in is, uh, that's a great place to create your hypotheses to test.

So, Uh, you're trying to improve conversion on your website. You could say, well, gee, maybe I should add social proof to it. Uh, uh, and you'll show how many customers have bought this product and how they rated it. And you can test that, you know, you can show half your, uh, visitors, uh, the version with, uh, social proof from the others without, and you can see if one converts better.

And you know, it's, uh, this is why Amazon has been so successful. They are constantly. Doing tests on every little [00:24:00] detail on their website. You know, when was the last time Amazon redesigned their website? You think never, right? But it's evolved and it's constantly evolving because they're constantly testing and I'm sure after a few years, they go back and they retest stuff just to see if, you know, customers have behavior that has changed.

So, you know, to me, if, if you have the ability to do a simple. Now even, it can even be done at low volume. I recall, uh, uh, Tim Ferris, the podcaster and author, uh, who used to test his book covers by, uh, dummying up a couple of alternate covers and going into a bookstore, like a Barnes and Noble, and putting, uh, both covers on the front table and seeing which one people picked up first.

Uh, now that's not very scientific, but you know, if you do that a few times and there's a clear preference, it might actually be valid. So you don't necessarily have to have, you know, a million website visitors a week to get good data. You just have to sort of frame your test properly and, [00:25:00] uh, you know, see, see what happens.

You know, if it's a You know, near 50 50 split, well, you're not going to draw any conclusion from a low volume test, but it's, you know, to me, if you can test, and unfortunately, there are a lot of situations where you just can't do an easy split test of some kind, but if you can, it's great. 

RS: I really like the point you made around using behavioral science to come up with the ideas.

for testing. There's a, there's a wonderful quote from Isaac Newton, uh, where he said something along the lines of, if I've seen further than other people, it's only because I've stood on the shoulders of giants. And you could think about the work of Robert Cialdini or Dan Ariely, Katie Miltman, you know, they're the giants out there rather than just coming up in a dark room with lots of ideas in your own.

Why don't you take the findings that have already been established, maybe in different areas. Put them into your testing pipeline, and you'll expedite the [00:26:00] process. You'll get quicker to the, to the best possible results. So I love this idea of using behavioral science to, to fuel your pipeline of tests.

RD: Right. Well, actually there's, um, big, big companies do that too. I've been lucky enough to know, uh, two of the Global behavior science team leaders at Walmart and, uh, that's actually the corporation. So they handle Walmart and Sam's Club and what they did was pretty much what you just described, like a business leader would come to them with a problem.

They're trying to convert more in store customers to do something, or they're trying to do something on their website. And what their process was. To immediately, okay, we understand the problem. Now we go to the literature and see what kind of interventions might possibly work. And then instead of designing a big app or something, uh, they would pilot it in the simplest way possible.

Like they'd send one of their team into a store with a clipboard to sort of simulate what the app might do and just see, [00:27:00] okay, what did we learn from this? You know, is this going to work or not? And then they could either scale it up or disregard the idea. 

RS: So for, um, people are thinking of, uh, taking ideas from the, the literature and using them as ways to solve a challenge.

On one hand, it's brilliant. There are thousands upon thousands of studies out there. But that variety can mean it can be quite confusing. How do you or what would you recommend people do to get to the right experiment for their, for their problem, the right idea for their problem? 

RD: Well, I think, uh, Richard, I'd start with the ideas that have been proven time and time again, because as we know, uh, there's been kind of a replication, uh, crisis in behavioral science, uh, with some, uh, apparently fake data, but more often than just a, a study that had some really interesting, compelling result.

Could not be replicated when it was done in a different environment. And so what it really means is not that the, in most cases, not that the [00:28:00] original researchers were somehow faking their data, but rather, uh, they tested it on, you know, 25 undergrads, uh, at a particular university. And then they extended this insight to the whole of humanity.

And surprisingly enough, that doesn't always work. So, uh, you know, sometimes it replicates, uh, well, other times, well, okay. Each, each attempt to replicate maybe gives you a little bit better understanding, but some things, uh, like, uh, Cialdini's seven principles, uh, have been tested not only in labs, uh, but, uh, you know, uh, by tens of thousands of, uh, commercial studies, uh, you know, where try social proof.

Hey, it works or no, it didn't work. And, uh, you know, all of the, uh, you know, so those are, yeah. Well established principles that work most of the time. But again, that's why you have to test because as effective as social proof is for most situations, it doesn't work. I've talked to conversion experts who are routinely [00:29:00] working with lots of companies, putting things on their website.

They understand the behavioral science principles and they'll test social proof of test authority, like, you know, expert recommendations and such. Uh, they'll. And say that, well, 90 plus percent of the time, social proof is going to work, but maybe one time out of 10, it doesn't. Sometimes it even hurts. And you can understand why that might be.

You know, if you're selling a luxury product, you don't, people want to think they've got the only one. They don't want to think that, wow, There's lots of other people who have this kind of product, uh, or this specific product, you know, then it's less exclusive, but regardless, it's still important to test, but you can use those, um, establishes, I think, probably, uh, some of the more common cognitive biases like loss aversion, for example, uh, you know, These are things that have been established time and time again.

You get to some of the more. Uh, specific things like, hey, uh, this particular experiment showed that [00:30:00] a, uh, red, uh, sans serif font, uh, worked better for a price than, you know, a black serif font. Okay. Uh, you know, maybe that's true, but you'd probably want to, uh, see if that replicated because it's, it's just a little bit too specific, maybe.

MAF: I think the other thing that was really exciting, Roger, about what you said before with your Walmart example, is that big companies, small companies, everyone can get in the market and test. This is not something that you need massive budgets for. Lots of people that listen to our podcast are brand owners, company owners.

And their marketing teams, and everybody wishes they had bigger budgets. But, I mean, you shared a beautiful example. You can get into market and test something, uh, with a clipboard, and just looking at what happens in the store. 

RD: Right, well, exactly. And I think, you know, certainly, uh, you know, Fortune 50 companies can afford to have a behavioral science team on staff of, uh, you know, [00:31:00] PhDs, uh, uh, but, uh, you know, every company.

Uh, can pick up, uh, uh, Cialdini's books, Kahneman's book, uh, Richard's book, my book, uh, and get that level of understanding. Now, is that the equivalent of a graduate degree, uh, in, you know, uh, behavioral economics? Well, no. But, uh, but you've certainly got some, uh, very accessible starting points. And I think that, uh, you know, all of the books I mentioned are written in a way that, You don't have to be a PhD to understand them.

Uh, you can be a business person and marketer and immediately start drawing good conclusions. Fantastic. Fantastic. 

RS: Well, that's, I mean, I think that's been a brilliant, Roger. So if you, um, if you had to give one piece of advice to, to marketers in terms of using behavioral science, what would, what would that be?

RD: Hmm. Well, I think use it for one. You know, that's, that's the key thing. You know, you have, you want to be familiar with the basic principles. [00:32:00] I just enumerated a few of those, you know, read, read a book or two and, uh, accept the fact that this stuff works because you will probably run into resistance where, you know, you propose something.

If you're not the leader of your organization, You propose something and your boss or boss's boss says, nah, you know, people don't think that way. I'm, you know, I'm not influenced by that. Uh, uh, so nobody else is, uh, you know, that kind of, uh, uh, lack of knowledge is hard to fight. So it's a challenge, but nevertheless, uh, you know, get familiar with the principles and, uh, you know, then, then try them.

And as soon as you start showing results. You know, if you can show, hey, uh, we employed this, uh, principle, uh, in this ad, and look, it converted 25 percent better than the ad that did not have that, uh, uh, behavioral science principle in it, uh, then, uh, you're building your own credibility, and you'll get a license to do a lot more stuff, and maybe more aggressive stuff.

MAF: Brilliant. Brilliant. Well, thanks so much, [00:33:00] Roger. We always ask our guests a closing question. Um, a favorite thing that you're reading or watching, something that got you thinking. We're always looking for new inspiration. We're always looking for new ideas. This could be something academic, something in pop culture.

What's got Roger Dooley, uh, hooked right now? 

RD: Hmm. Uh, right now, I'm not sure. I guess so. One, I'll, I'll cite a book that I've just re read, and, uh, that is Trust Factor by Paul Zak. The, he's the oxytocin researcher, but he wrote a book about trust in businesses and the importance of trust. And to me, that, uh, that really had Oh, a lot of great insights.

The book is it's sold well, but it hasn't achieved a massive traction, which I think is unfortunate because many, many companies have the issues that are described there and could benefit from those insights. And I mean, [00:34:00] other other folks have written about trust to there's a Stephen Covey Junior. I haven't written a book about trust, but I've been.

Included it in, uh, in friction because of trust is a friction reducer, especially inside an organization. When you trust your people, you don't need as many bureaucratic processes. You don't need as many forms or layers of approval that speeds up the organization, and it also speeds up your customer service.

MAF: Amazing. Well, thanks so much for joining us today. We're going to take some of the, uh, the studies and the books that you referenced, Roger. We're going to put them in the show notes for everybody. So folks that are visiting the website can, uh, learn more about Roger, his books that he's published. And of course, uh, the things we've spoken about today on the show and for everyone listening at home, we ask, uh, For you to send in thoughts, comments, uh, things that you wanted to learn more about, and we'll look forward to [00:35:00] covering them in an upcoming episode.

Until next time, I'm MichaelAaron Flicker. 

RD: And I'm Richard Shelton. 

MAF: Roger, thanks so much for being with us. 

RD: Thanks for having me on the show. It's been a lot of fun discussing things. 

MAF: Take care.

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