Six months down, six months to go. I hope you’re more than halfway to meeting your professional and personal goals for 2023. If that’s not the case, half a year is plenty of time to right the ship.

The second quarter was another busy one on my end. My big news was the TED Talk I gave in April. It was a bucket list item that’s now checked off. I had the opportunity to share a little about the science behind the pre-suasion process. I opened with the story about how I used pre-suasion to ask my wife to marry me. If you’ve not watched the talk yet, click here. And, make sure you watch to the end for a surprise.

Finally, you won’t see any emails from me in July. Jane and I are heading to Germany for a friend’s wedding then will spend time taking in the awesome views from the Alps. All play and no work!

Sincerely,

Brian

What’s Influence PEOPLE all about?

•       Why – Help you achieve more professional success and enjoy more personal happiness.
•       How – Teach you the science of ethical influence.
•       What – Speak, write, train, coach, and consult.
•       Who – Clients include leaders, salespeople, business coaches, insurance professionals, and more.

Here’s What’s New…

Speaking

In addition to my TED Talk, I was in Denver, Colorado, to keynote the annual conference for Continental Insurance Agency Alliance (CIAA) members. I also spent time in beautiful Sheridan, Wyoming. If you’ve not made your way to Wyoming, do so because the view of the stars at night is breathtaking!. I made the trip to do a keynote for the Association of Wyoming Insurance Agents.

Writing

Work continues on my next book. Originally I was going to call it His Story, My Story, Our Story: The Journey of a Marine and His Son. However, based on feedback from the developmental editor, we’re considering; Always a Marine: Eternal Lessons of Fatherhood, Sacrifice, and Service. The process has been slower than I anticipated so it’s not likely that the book will be out before year-end. But, good things come to those who wait! I believe based on the suggestions and changes, the book will have more impact for Marines, Marine families, as well as fathers and sons.

CLICK HERE for a another sneak preview

Podcasts

I posted a few new podcasts during the quarter. Here are a couple of recent episodes you should check out:

• Bill Ellis hosts What’s the Point. We discussed why influence and persuasion – done ETHICALLY – are essential elements for longevity of every successful business! That’s because influence is a LONG-TERM strategy whereas manipulation is a SHORT-TERM approach. Click here to watch the show on YouTube or click here to listen to the podcast..
• Ivan Farber invited me back on Conversations about Conversations to dive deeper into the principles of influence. After a short review of the principles, we looked at how to use different principles with different personality types using my DEAL Model. We also covered tips for becoming Listening STARS. You can join our conversation here.

Best of…

Below are recommendations for you when it comes to reading, listening, and watching. We may have different tastes but I’m confident you’ll get some takeaway ideas from each just as I did.

Read

Not By Might Nor By Power is a three part series on the life of Lonnie Frisbee. After watching the movie, The Jesus Revolution, I became very intrigued with Lonnie because he was at the heart of the Jesus movement of the late 60s and early 70s. Despite that, and my involvement in a church he was instrumental in helping to grow, I’d never heard of him. Lonnie traveled the world sharing the gospel and lived a fascinating life. However, he had a troubled past that continued to haunt him. His life is a picture of the reality that God can use anyone who has an open heart.

Listen

Hear Me Out is hosted by Celeste Headlee. It’s billed as “fair debate on issues that matter.” Each week Celeste interacts with a different guest on a variety of topics where they try to convince her of their point of view and she hears them out. Some topics include: Trashy TV Can Be Good For You, Don’t Celebrate The Trump Indictment, Policing Can’t Be Reformed And Needs To Be Abolished, and The Iraq War Was A Necessary Evil. Each show is about 30 minutes and they’re always thought provoking. If you want to stretch your thinking a bit, give this one a try.

Watch

The Game Changers is a Netflix documentary I stumbled on back in 2018, shortly after it came out. James Wilks, a UFC fighter, was injured in training so he decided to do some research to see if he could speed up his recovery. He was amazed (and so was I) by what he learned about changing from an animal based diet to a vegetarian diet. My wife had been a vegetarian for 25 years at that time but I had no desire to give up steak, chicken, bacon, and other animal based foods. That all changed after watching this documentary and I’ve been a vegetarian for nearly five years now. Wilks interviewed strength athletes, endurance athletes, Olympians, boxers, NFL football players, and more. The show presented the science behind animal vs. plant based diets and it was compelling. If you want to find out about the show before committing to watching it, click here.

Ted Lasso is an Apple TV series that had its finale in May. The show follows the trials and tribulations of Ted Lasso, an American football coach who goes to England to coach a soccer team. His positive, can do attitude is corny but infectious. The characters and their development are wonderful and so are the life lessons Lasso also imparts to everyone he meets. Heck, I want to play for Ted Lasso, or at least be in his circle of friends. The show also delves into many important life issues, including mental illness. Overall, the show was excellent, good wholesome fun. I wish there were more shows like it. The only negative thing I can say about the show is that it’s only three seasons.

Brian Ahearn

Brian Ahearn is the Chief Influence Officer at Influence PEOPLE. An author, TEDx speaker, international trainer, coach, and consultant, Brian helps clients apply influence in everyday situations to boost results.

As one of only a dozen Cialdini Method Certified Trainers in the world, Brian was personally trained and endorsed by Robert Cialdini, Ph.D., the most cited living social psychologist on the science of ethical influence.

Brian’s first book, Influence PEOPLE, was named one of the 100 Best Influence Books of All Time by Book Authority. His follow-up, Persuasive Selling for Relationship Driven Insurance Agents, was an Amazon new release bestseller. His latest book, The Influencer: Secrets to Success and Happiness, is a business parable designed to teach you how to use influence at home and the office.

Brian’s LinkedIn courses on persuasive selling and coaching have been viewed by more than 500,000 people around the world!

No article this week…just a great opportunity you won’t want to miss out on!

Spring is a time for new things to pop up and grow. This spring something new sprang up besides blooming flowers. The Cialdini Institute came into existence.

Robert Cialdini is known as “The Godfather of Influence” for good reason – he’s the most cited living social psychologist in the world on the science of ethical influence. More evidence for that well-earned title is that more than seven million people around the world have read his books.

Despite his great success, people are clamoring for more! To accommodate the wishes of his fans across the globe, to help spread the good news about ethical influence, and to preserve Cialdini’s legacy, The Cialdini Institute was created. A good friend and fellow Cialdini trainer, Bas Wouters, is heading up the new organization.

Here’s the most exciting news of all – this week, on June 15 and 17, Dr. Cialdini will host free 60-minute seminars. You’ll get to learn from the master himself!

Want to see a short preview of what you’ll learn? Click here to watch a three-minute video where Cialdini talks about decision triggers and how one small change led a grocery chain to increase the sale of some products by 100%.

To register for one of Cialdini’s sessions, click here.

Brian Ahearn

Brian Ahearn is the Chief Influence Officer at Influence PEOPLE. An author, TEDx speaker, international trainer, coach, and consultant, Brian helps clients apply influence in everyday situations to boost results.

As one of only a dozen Cialdini Method Certified Trainers in the world, Brian was personally trained and endorsed by Robert Cialdini, Ph.D., the most cited living social psychologist on the science of ethical influence.

Brian’s first book, Influence PEOPLE, was named one of the 100 Best Influence Books of All Time by Book Authority. His follow-up, Persuasive Selling for Relationship Driven Insurance Agents, was an Amazon new release bestseller. His latest book, The Influencer: Secrets to Success and Happiness, is a business parable designed to teach you how to use influence at home and the office.

Brian’s LinkedIn courses on persuasive selling and coaching have been viewed by more than 500,000 people around the world!

The following is the transcript from a live podcast episode I did for Andrea Pass on her show Access Success. If you want to sign up for her upcoming live shows, click here.

Thank you very much and welcome, everybody. I’m excited to share a little bit with you. As Andrea indicated, my area of expertise is influence and Robert Cialdini is the most cited social psychologist on the planet. He has been studying this for almost 50 years, and I had the privilege of learning directly from him. We focus on what are called Principles of Influence, research-based approaches from social psychology and behavioral economics that can make it easier for people to say yes to you, when you tap into them ethically and correctly. 

Principles of Influence

There are six universal principles. We’ll start with liking. We all know this; people prefer to say yes to those they know and like. Next is reciprocity, the feeling of obligation to give back when someone first gives to us. Then we have authority; we defer to people we view as experts. Social proof is that natural tendency we have to follow the lead of others, especially those we see as similar to ourselves. Fifth is the principle of consistency. This tells us people generally want to act in ways that are consistent with what they believe, what they’ve said, and what they’ve done. And finally, there’s scarcity; the tendency to value things more when we see they’re rare or going away. 

When we talk about building a brand and then really trying to promote that brand on LinkedIn, there are three principles which are most important to focus on. The first is authority. If somebody sees you have real expertise, they are more likely to engage with you. It’s incumbent upon us to make sure that our expertise is out there so everybody knows about it. It does no good to be an expert if people don’t know about your expertise. 

The second principle is social proof. There’s this tendency for us as humans, when we notice a lot of people are doing something, we tend to think that it might be the right thing to do. If somebody sees that you have lots of followers and connections on LinkedIn, that’s a signal that you must be worth following. The association is most likely because you have expertise and that’s why people want to be connected with to you. They want to learn from you. 

The third principle is scarcity. Scarcity comes into play if you can position yourself in a way that people recognize they might not be able to get what you offer from anybody else or any other organization. So here is my example; Robert Cialdini is the most cited living social psychologist in the world, so I talk about that all the time. I gain credibility because of my association with him. When I let people know there’s only a dozen people in the world who’ve been personally certified and endorsed by Cialdini, that’s big! That fact narrows down the choices that people might be looking at if they wanted to learn about influence. My target market is insurance because that’s where I spent the bulk of my career. When I can say I’m the only person in the insurance industry who is certified by Robert Cialdini, that makes me something they cannot get elsewhere. 

This is what you want to be thinking about. If somebody has a need, and they look at all that you offer, and then realize they can’t get that anywhere else, you’ve set yourself apart. Then the question becomes, how do we utilize a tool like LinkedIn to start making that happen? I’m going to do a screen share, because some of the things I’ll be talking about you’ll be able to see on my homepage. 

Your LinkedIn Profile

When I work with people, and I’m encouraging them on different aspects about LinkedIn, first and foremost is a good profile picture. We are social beings, and we will feel more connected to somebody we see as a real live human being as opposed to an avatar. Having a professional picture with a nice smile, conveys something about you, hopefully expertise. Even though ties are not a big thing anymore, I still have the picture with the tie and usually I’m wearing my glasses. I know glasses and a tie convey something professional. 

Next thing to be aware of is your banner. My banner has my logo, my branding slogan (Helping You Hear Yes!), and it has a couple of my books. Right away, people are going to be able to make the connection in terms of what I do at Influence PEOPLE – it’s about “Helping You Hear Yes!” 

As we start moving down, when you get to my name, I have my designations tag to it. Right below that I give a very clear and concise message about what I do. I’m an author, a coach, and a consultant. I’m a Cialdini certified trainer, and what I do is I help clients use the science of influence for better business results. Now, somebody may have questions, but that’s a good thing, right? If they start asking questions, I get an opportunity to go deeper on what I do. The more questions they ask, the deeper I go. 

You can see below that I talked about sales influence leadership, persuasion, and I put the insurance industry. Even though it’s said, “The world is my oyster,” when you’re trying to brand yourself, you can’t be all things to all people. I have lots of clients that are outside of insurance, but typically they find me. That’s because of my association with Robert Cialdini and they want somebody who might be able to help them implement his principles of influence. 

However, when I do my marketing, I’m focused on the insurance industry. It’s what I know best. I have more than 30 years in the industry, so I have instant credibility in that space. Potential clients think, “Okay, the guy knows what we do and probably how we do it.” I’m able to marry my understanding of influence with things that are going on in the insurance industry. 

Everything you see on my LinkedIn page has been thought through meticulously and I update it regularly. I constantly go back as I’m learning, to see if there’s something I can change that would help me be more effective, that would convey my expertise a little bit better, or show more social proof. 

Now for social proof. You can see I have 19,333 followers. I’m just a regular guy and when I started on LinkedIn, I hadn’t written any books, or really done a whole lot. But I meticulously look to build my profile. I want to share a few things I do because, as people see more people connected to you and following you, that’s a signal that maybe they should connect with you too. 

Making Connections

First thing I do is I accept anybody who reaches out to me. If they don’t put a personal message like, “I found you because I read Robert Cialdini book, I send a message back and write, “How did you find me?” I do that because I want to know why traffic is coming my way. But it also allows me to get to be social. If we have a little banter back and forth, then the principle of liking might come into play. They might think, “Hey, he’s a real guy. He answered my message and we have something in common.” If they like me and feel connected, that’s going to make the person look more closely at the content I publish.

The second thing I do if I want to move into an organization, before I ever make any kind of pitch, I’m going to start connecting with people in that organization. And it’s usually easy because I can say, “Joe, I’m reaching out to you because we have so many connections in common. I’ve been in the insurance industry for more than 30 years. If you’re open to it. I’d like to connect with you.” Every request to connect has a personal message. And that ups my odds of getting that yes. I do that because I’m establishing a beachhead with that organization, so when it comes time to start promoting myself and marketing to them, they see that I have lots of connections with their employees. 

Another tactic I use happens when I go to conferences. If there’s an app conference organizers use that lists conference attendees, I will reach out to every single one of them. I’ve been to conferences where there have been 400, 500, or 600 people, and every person I could find on LinkedIn, I reached out to with a personal message. 

I know that sounds like a lot of work and you’re right, it’s time consuming. But once you find a rhythm, you can move pretty quickly through 40 or 50 connection requests at a time. When I do this, I reference something like, “We were both at the ABC conference” or “If you attended my talk at XYZ, I hope you enjoyed what I shared.” That gets a lot of connections, and it also gets a lot of comments coming back my way. When those people start writing, “Wow, I loved what you shared,” they’re thinking more highly of me and become more likely to engage with my content. Another benefit, the odds of us potentially connecting for business down the road increases because I brought top of mind because of the personalization. 

What if there’s no app? If you can get a hold of a list that works too. Some organizations will publish a list in advance. If they do that, I might say, “Bob, I’m going to be speaking at the XYZ conference. I’m going to talk on this topic. I hope we get an opportunity to meet but if we don’t let’s at least stay connected here.” I use that same message for each person, but I always put their name in the request to connect. That’s how I effectively have been growing my network. 

Growth begets growth, like a snowball going downhill. Once people start seeing the connections, they want to start connecting with you and it becomes easier to keep building your network. 

Again, tap into authority, clearly displaying your expertise and how you can help people. Next, use social proof by getting people to recognize that lots of other people are engaging with you. That’s a signal to them that they should probably engage with you too. And don’t forget to position yourself using scarcity. Even if you’re in an industry where lots of people do what you do, you might have a scarcity opportunity on things like, your certifications, your experience, background in various roles or with different companies. There may be a host of things that, when you bring them together, give the impression that nobody else can give exactly what you offer. This becomes another compelling reason for people to want to engage with you. 

As noted earlier, being social on social media is important. I send lots of personal messages, whether I’m connecting, or whenever someone connects with me. I also make it a point to respond to comments on my social posts. I make sure at a minimum I like and write, “Thank you for sharing your thoughts.” People want to know they’re interacting with a real human being. That’s on us to make it happen. 

Post Content Regularly

The final thing that I’ll share about utilizing LinkedIn; I post every weekday and occasionally on weekends. I’ve been blogging weekly for more than 14 years so after my blog goes live on my website on Monday, I drop the post into LinkedIn as an article because I know some people won’t want to leave LinkedIn to go to a website. As a result, I’m get many more eyes on my articles. 

On Tuesday I post what I refer to as “social media marketing.” It might be a picture of me with a quote and then I’ll expand on the sentiment in the post.

Wednesdays I typically repost the blog posts from earlier. I do this because, with people in different time zones around the world, they may not have seen it when I originally shared it on Monday. 

On Thursday I put out a podcast, video, or something else that’s media driven. 

Friday is for repurposing old blog posts as LinkedIn articles. If I wrote something 10 or 12 years ago, it’s not likely a lot of people read it or remember it. 

All of the content that I regularly put out creates an impression; this guy knows what he’s talking about. He’s continually talking about how to use influence and an ethical way to improve business results and personal life. 

Final Thought

My final thought on content has to do with repurposing what you create. I started to realize after many years, I could use old blog posts to create a book. That led to my first book, Influence PEOPLE. With my second book, I had a great start because I’d written lots about selling. It became the foundation for Persuasive Selling. My encouragement is to think about how you can use your content, not just in the moment, but down the road. 

There are lots of creative ways to make sure what you’re an expert on is continually getting out in the world. If people are looking at your content and thinking, “Wow, you’re putting out a lot of content, you seem really busy, and see you all over LinkedIn, that creates a sense that this is a person who knows what they’re doing. That increases people’s desire to want to connect with you or potentially bring you in. 

Brian Ahearn

Brian Ahearn is the Chief Influence Officer at Influence PEOPLE. An author, TEDx speaker, international trainer, coach, and consultant, Brian helps clients apply influence in everyday situations to boost results.

As one of only a dozen Cialdini Method Certified Trainers in the world, Brian was personally trained and endorsed by Robert Cialdini, Ph.D., the most cited living social psychologist on the science of ethical influence.

Brian’s first book, Influence PEOPLE, was named one of the 100 Best Influence Books of All Time by Book Authority. His follow-up, Persuasive Selling for Relationship Driven Insurance Agents, was an Amazon new release bestseller. His latest book, The Influencer: Secrets to Success and Happiness, is a business parable designed to teach you how to use influence at home and the office.

Brian’s LinkedIn courses on persuasive selling and coaching have been viewed by more than 500,000 people around the world!

I meant to start my weekly blog post late last week but here I am, Monday morning and I’m just getting started. The irony is, I’m writing about procrastination. In my defense, I’ve been busier than normal. I was in Denver last week for work, then Jane’s birthday was this weekend. However, the bigger issue was writer’s block, just not knowing what to write about this week.

After doing my normal morning walk on Saturday, I sat down outside to enjoy a beautiful spring morning. I listened to a podcast and the guest talked about procrastination towards the end of the show. As he spoke I recalled seeing his Ted talk on the subject.

The more I listened, the more I thought about the psychology of procrastination. Much of it has to do with scarcity. The principle of scarcity is the human tendency to value things more when you think they are rare, or diminishing, going away. 

Deadlines are a form of scarcity. When there are no deadlines, many of the things we’d like to do, we never end up doing. However, when there is a deadline, quite often we wait until the last moment to frantically finish things.

Real Life Example

This was probably no more evident than when you were in school. You might’ve had all semester to write a term paper but you waited until the last few days to take care of it. Certainly, there were other assignments that needed to be completed during the semester, but the reality is you could’ve set aside a little bit of time over a long period to complete your assignment. Doing so would have removed much of the stress that comes with the mad rush towards a deadline.

Fortunately, there’s another principle of influence that can help avoid the stress that comes with procrastinating up to a deadline. Consistency is a well-documented psychological principle highlighting the fact that humans feel better about themselves when they live up to their word. When we tell someone we’re going to do something, we feel better about ourselves when we follow through. The icing on the cake is, we also look better to those to whom we committed.

When you come up to an assignment that has a deadline you have a couple of choices. First, ask the person you’re responsible to for a timetable with deadlines. Your next best option would be to break down the assignment yourself. Put it into manageable parts that will need to be taken care of sequentially. After doing that, create deadlines for each individual task for personal accountability. 

Research on Deadlines

Here’s proof that procrastination isn’t a good option and should be avoided if possible. Dan Ariely, a behavioral economist from Duke, and author of several books including The Upside of Irrationality, looked at ways students respond to deadlines. He divided his students into three groups. 

• Group 1 had no deadlines. All they had to do was turn in three papers by the end of the semester. 
• Group 2 chose their due dates. They could have chosen to submit all three papers on the last possible day, or they could set up any deadlines throughout the semester. Most set their own timetables and didn’t default to the last possible date. 
• Group 3 was given deadlines by Ariely.

Which group do you think had the best grades? Logically it should have been those who could wait till the last day because that meant they could spend the most time on each paper. However, that wasn’t the case and they had the worst grades. Procrastination usually wasn’t helpful. This is why I don’t believe people when they say, “I operate better when a big deadline approaches.” I think that’s learned behavior coupled with justification.

The group that determined their due dates performed better than those who waited until the final day. Apparently, some pressure was a good thing and procrastination was held at bay.

The group that performed the best were the students who had three deadlines imposed on them by professor Ariely. Apparently, humans respond well when called to do so.

When it comes to applying yourself over time versus cramming, consider this example. Nobody crams for a marathon. If you have an intention of completing 26.2 miles, and want to do it well, you will create a plan and do your best to adhere to the timetable laid out. Why should we think it’s any different from other tasks in life?

Bonus Idea

Here’s one final idea around consistency. If you want to strengthen your resolve to hit whatever deadline you have, share the deadline(s) with someone such as a professor, a boss, or coworker. This is important because you’ll feel worse about yourself having shared with someone what your intention is, but then not following through. 

We’ve all had the experience of setting internal deadlines or goals (New Year’s Eve Resolutions) and when we don’t hit them, while we might feel a little bad, you don’t feel nearly as bad as when you told someone else what you planned to do.

Conclusion

The human brain is amazing! The more you understand how your brain works, and use that knowledge to your advantage, the greater your possibilities. 

So what are you waiting for?

Brian Ahearn

Brian Ahearn is the Chief Influence Officer at Influence PEOPLE. An author, TEDx speaker, international trainer, coach, and consultant, Brian helps clients apply influence in everyday situations to boost results.

As one of only a dozen Cialdini Method Certified Trainers (CMCT) in the world, Brian was personally trained by Robert Cialdini, Ph.D., the most cited living social psychologist on the science of ethical influence.

Brian’s first book, Influence PEOPLE, was named one of the 100 Best Influence Books of All Time by Book Authority. His follow-up, Persuasive Selling for Relationship Driven Insurance Agents, was an Amazon new release bestseller. His latest book, The Influencer: Secrets to Success and Happiness, is a business parable designed to teach you how to apply influence concepts at home and the office.

Brian’s LinkedIn courses on persuasive selling and coaching have been viewed by more than 500,000 people around the world!