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Activate Your Audience!
Carlos Alvarenga - Mastering the Science of Persuasion for Impactful Communication
Join us as we delve into the realm of persuasive communication with none other than Carlos Alvarenga, the brilliant mind behind "The Rules of Persuasion." In this captivating episode, we unlock the mysteries behind turning persuasion into a skill that you can wield across any platform.
Carlos guides us through the intricate science of persuasive language, revealing how platforms like YouTube and Twitter each possess their own unique rhythms for enchanting diverse audiences. From dissecting iconic campaigns such as Nike's "Just Do It" to exploring the persuasive rhetoric of political leaders, our conversation traverses the landscape of persuasive leadership and the indispensable role of authenticity in crafting your message.
Explore the delicate balance between guiding and coercing. Discover why character and emotion, two out of the three macro components of persuasion, are pivotal in not only sparking interest but igniting action that endures - ultimately activating your audience. Join us as we navigate the ethical dimensions of persuasion and the importance of feedback in building meaningful connections in an increasingly digital world.
Equipped with practical knowledge, this episode is a treasure trove for anyone seeking to elevate their leadership, marketing, or personal influence with genuine conviction and finesse. Don't miss out on the opportunity to harness the power of persuasion and leave a lasting impact in both your professional and personal spheres.
Check out Carlos' book, "Rules of Persuasion," for further insights at: https://www.carlosalvarenga.com/new
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So today we speak with Carlos Alvarenga. He is a communication researcher, writer and coach, whose latest book, the Rules of Persuasion, explores the intricacies of persuasion across diverse mediums. With a rich background in management, consulting and academia, carlos brings a wealth of expertise to how business leaders can become more persuasive and influential communicators. Welcome to the Activate your Audience podcast, carlos.
Speaker 2:Luis, it's very nice to be here with you.
Speaker 1:Thank you for having me on your show. I'm excited to chat, especially now, with you know the sort of environment that we're in when persuasion communication has been again a trending topic, if you will. It's obviously a natural part. We communicate, but especially business leaders. So we'll dive right into it Now with your book, the Rules of Persuasion. It delves into the art and science of persuasion across various forms of communication. Right, so could you share some of the key principles from the book that businesses can apply to enhance their consumer engagement strategies or their tactics?
Speaker 2:even. I think the most important thing that I try to lay out in the book is that communicators should take from their mind the idea that this is the soft skill or something that you're kind of born with, or some amorphous trick that some people have. The metaphor used in the book is that persuasion is chemistry with language, and like chemistry, it has rules and it works in certain ways. And if you understand the rules of the chemistry of persuasion, then it actually becomes a very predictable thing, which then allows you to become better and better at it.
Speaker 2:I always find it interesting that whenever I coach anyone, I always say persuasion is dot, dot, dot, finish the sentence. And I've never had anyone answer the question with confidence. And I say I ask the question because it's very hard for us to be good at something that we can't define. So let's start with the definition and let's work from that. So my goal in the book was to take everything that I had developed from years of working with leaders and put that in a form that someone could read and understand what had come out of all this work.
Speaker 1:That's so awesome, yeah, and I think especially that visual of because words matter right, like in definition, sometimes we may be talking about one thing and if we are not defining it, especially from a coaching perspective, what is the thing that we're referring to? So I love how you painted that picture of chemistry with language and sort of like a lot of skill sets, technical mindset, you know, character, skill sets. There are things that can be sort of not only learn but processed right, and something like this, like a book, can give us these sort of tangible moments. So let's dig into that then, with a sort of the perspective that you have in your field and persuasion, specifically, specifically, how do you see the role that you know within our social media landscape, within the current state of communications, the new generation consumer attention we're talking about persuasion. How does this in our digital medium or just the lay of the land, currently play out?
Speaker 2:Sure, so I'll ask that question, because there's a whole chapter in my book about persuasion on social media. No-transcript talking to me, right? Who's speaking to me? And that could be a person, a school, a university, a government, an institution, a sports club, right? So who is communicating?
Speaker 2:The second is called argument. So what are the evidence? Facts, quote, unquote the hard stuff, right? Logic, witnesses, proofs that are being presented. And, lastly, is emotion. So how does somebody feel as you speak to them? These are the three modes.
Speaker 2:What I say in my book is that you can take each of these modes and break it into seven pieces, which makes 21,. I call them elements and what I say is take these 21 elements and they're like a heist of person to person, person to God, god to person. Is some combination of this 21 elements, right? So with that as background, my publisher said if you're right, then it must also work on social media. So why don't you look at that for the book? So in the book, I look at Instagram, wikipedia, youtube and Twitter, slash X, and what you find is that on every platform there's something called dominant media logic, which means that it tends to be driven by one of these three things. So X is driven by argument, for the most part right. It was built to argue.
Speaker 2:The way in which the algorithm raises your profile is you pick a fight with somebody famous. Hopefully they respond, which then lets you pick a fight with somebody even more famous. And by fighting with famous people, you move up. You know the power ranking right. Youtube is different. Youtube is about character. So what happens?
Speaker 2:I make hundreds of videos, some case thousands. A video could be good, a video could be bad. I don't want you to focus on a video, I want you to focus on me. A video could be good, a video could be bad. I don't want you to focus on a video. I want you to focus on me. I want you to like me, right, and so video people on YouTube go through great lengths to make themselves likable to you. So you will connect with the video creator much more so than any one given video.
Speaker 2:Like, my son loves this thing called Lion, something. It's going forward, and it's these two Italian guys who make videos about food. Right, and some videos work, some don't, but the two guys are super funny and so he just likes watching them make fun of food right, and so it's character driven instagram emotion because it's visual. You can't present complex logic, but you can't present a picture and pictures tend to stimulate emotion. So instagram different by really sentimentality, right x by argument, due to character. So the same thing that you see in other places. When you take a step back from social media and in fact, in the book, I analyze the five most popular tweets of all time. At the time I wrote the book, right right, I walked through exactly what the formula is for each one. You know one's by tabloid bozeman when he died. Obama has one, musk has one, biden has one, I think. Obama has two out of the five. And so, uh, if, if you, if you take the formula, you see that exactly at work, even if something as short as a tweet.
Speaker 1:So, that is fascinating. What about linkedin there? What is the sort of character?
Speaker 2:LinkedIn is fascinating because it began as a kind of digital CV right, it was a digital resume and somewhere along the line it's become sort of very corrupted right, and it's become up to people to post. I went to this training you get the sense that for the most part, it tends to be character building. Okay, as I analyze LinkedIn and I've talked to some people who are really LinkedIn experts much more than I am for the book and it's people who are presenting content about themselves. Right, I went to this training, I met this person. I graduated from this class. I support this cause. Right, people for the most part don't make complex arguments because nobody reads it. On LinkedIn, you see a little bit of emotion here and there. Right, I saw one that I kept, which was somebody had posted a picture of a gentleman who had been a pilot in World War II. He had a sign that said help me get 10,000 likes. Right and so that has nothing to do with business, right and so that has nothing to do with business right.
Speaker 2:This is somebody making this emotional appeal for this veteran who wanted a bunch of likes, so you see that kind of creep in. In talking to somebody the other day about LinkedIn, he said to me LinkedIn hates this and you're going to get, and whether the LinkedIn algorithm is really counterintuitive, how it works behind the scenes. He said the only thing it's good for is what he called MBRs, which are Mutually Beneficial Relationships. That's what it was built for, that's what the algorithm now tunes it for, and so that's what it's really useful for. Almost every other piece of content is routinely ignored, which is remarkable, right? I could ask most people name me three things that you found really insightful on LinkedIn, and I've never heard anybody name anything.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, I mean it depends Cause, like on some, from what I'm hearing you say, it sounds like there's maybe even a status approach with LinkedIn which is sort of like, if you look at corporate, like there's the latter and there's maybe a status, but it's tied to, as you said, mutually beneficial. Um, that would make sense from a like value add of the platform, right?
Speaker 2:well, by the way, one of the seven elements of character is status, which is power of speaker relative to audience, and you're 100 right? If you go to the table, you'll notice that one of the one of the 21 items has to be status, and it is very much a part of how LinkedIn operates, especially in market or sales-driven content. Yeah, that tends to be typically somewhere in the message. There'll be some element of that at work, you're right.
Speaker 1:That makes sense. Now with that, like I mean, are some of them more macro, like within the three right? You said the character, the argument, the emotion. Does Aristotle tie that to, or do you to like the who, what? Why Is that part of that?
Speaker 2:It's part of. Certainly. Who is character right? Who's talking to me, right? The what is often argument so what do you want me to do? And then why?
Speaker 2:Typically is a combination of argument, but it could be any of the three. One of the fascinating things is that people think you need all of them and I go. You don't. I go. In the book there are 40 QR codes that take you to YouTube to show you videos, right? Whether it's music, painting, examples from movies. I use movies a lot when I teach, and so sometimes it's one thing, but it's done so well or one of two things with so much skill and so much power that that becomes fantastically effective. Sometimes you get a synthesis Like, for example, I talk a lot about Just Do it, the tagline from Nike, which typically comes up as the best or one of the top five taglines of all time, and I make the point in the book that the reason this is great is that it's all three right. It is argument, technically, a counter argument. You explain to Nike why you don't feel like working out and Nike says okay, understood. My rebuttal is just do it.
Speaker 2:There is also character. The weak person stays in bed in the dark. The weak person skips the gym. Are you weak or are you strong? If you're strong, just do it.
Speaker 2:And then there's emotion, right? Don't you want to be a winner? Don't you want to feel the thrill of victory, the endorphins as you cross the finish line? Right? And in fact, I make the point that, to my knowledge, nike has never run an ad on the benefits of exercise. That's true, assumed to be true. It's ads are emotional and I show people the very first just do it ad, which is called the stack ad. It's a gentleman, 83, walter stack, running through san cisco and it's a beautiful day and he's happy, and he's 83 years old and he's a triathlete. And you go, you know, don't you want to be like? Well, he's 83 and he runs, 83 years old and he's a triathlete. And you go, you know, don't you want to be like? Well, he's 83 and he runs a marathon every day. Yes, I want to be like well, right, that's an emotional thing. And 50 years later, it still rocks, right? This tagline?
Speaker 1:So true, because it was perfect from the word go right, that is so true, and I mean, even if you look at so, I hear two things pop out of there. It's just like conciseness, right, Like directive. But I love, as you mentioned, you know, breaking down those components. But say, any strong political campaigns like the, you know, make America great again, sort of anything that is charging but also has activated these audiences. They're short, they're quick and I never thought of it that way, obviously, like it breaks down as well.
Speaker 2:Yeah, sorry, luis, you used such an important word, which is activate, right. So I wrote my book for two reasons. I wanted to answer two questions. The first one what exactly is persuasion? Because I ordered some books from Amazon three years ago and none of them were about it. They were about influence and manipulation. They weren't really about this one word. What do you mean by this, right? And which is why I went back to Aristotle? But I also wanted to understand what exactly happens when someone's frustrated. What does that mean? And I talk about that in the book, and it's about energy. So what happens? Right?
Speaker 2:You see an ad and, assuming it's in your language and you can understand the visual rhetoric, then I make a choice Do I engage with it or do I not engage with it? If I engage with it, then what happens? There's a reaction, right, and so a good communicator, a good message, begins to create, release energy. You, as the audience, must contribute to that reaction. If you don't, it never finishes. So now I contribute energy. If enough energy is contributed, the message comes to life. You are persuaded.
Speaker 2:What happened, I tell people, with Trump, is this Sometimes an audience charges energy and it's looking for a place to put it Right, like a real battery. Energy wants to go someplace, right. Current wants to move, but it needs the right chemistry. If you put an A battery with a D cell, it's not going to work. So Trump came along and his particular, unique chemistry, which no one has been able to replicate, tapped into a battery, this huge cell of energy, and it released immediately. And even he, I believe, was surprised by the force, and it's a force that's still pushing him through. And I've said it to people for years. They underestimate him, they underestimate his rhetorical power. And I said he, unless something dramatic happens, will win this election. And I think that the force that he generates in that audience, which is based on his character and on their emotions, is much stronger than what anybody else has. So that's why people audition right To replace him. But chemistry is different. It only works with him.
Speaker 1:Wow.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's that's.
Speaker 1:That's interesting in terms of breaking down that chemistry and looking at a character like that and, as you mentioned, I love how you put the two components of an audience, like we said, needs to be activated At the end. Anybody can be speaking something, can be even speaking truth, or even policy that matters, or a message that is important, but if it doesn't meet a charge, right, and if there's not that activation, it goes nowhere speech at the convention to put him on the map.
Speaker 2:Yeah, right that they had, because of eight years of george bush, a certain psych population had built up this charge right, looking for someone different. Obama shows up, give us his famous speech and everything changes. Why? Because this chemistry connected with that other type of audience and suddenly he's propelled to the white house right in a couple of years.
Speaker 1:That is so, so key. Now, in terms of your background, let's shift into the management and consulting sort of pedigree, if you will. How do you believe that effective leadership is tied into the practices of persuasion as you've seen it in those fields academia, management, or even in business in general?
Speaker 2:I'll make two points, and it'll be about business. The first one is there's a fine line between persuasion and coercion, right? So persuasion is getting you to willingly do something. It's not manipulation, it's not tricking you, it's not giving you a gift and then asking you for a favor. Right, it is, through the right chemistry, getting you to willingly believe something is true that you believe is true.
Speaker 2:It's very easy to get that wrong and I've seen example, for example, where an executive thinks he's persuaded, but it's really coarse. For example, I work for you and you see me in the hall and you say hey, carlos, I just read this great book called the Rules of Persuasion. It's the best thing ever. You need to read this book. You need to read this book. Quote unquote. Are you persuading me to read the book? Are you coercing me to read the book? I'm going to feel coerced. You think it's persuaded.
Speaker 2:Now, the funny part is I tell people, if you walk out the door and your ideas, your initiatives, your beliefs, your values walk out with you, you're probably coercing. If you were at the door and your ideas, initiatives and plans survived, then you've persuaded. And I saw time and time again someone who thought that people bought into their plan. The minute they left because they left or got fired, everything they were planning went with them. So who was persuaded right? The other thing is this To a person the people left coaching business and it happens to be with leaders too, because nonprofit CEOs are the same they love argument. And so they were told you shouldn't be part of the story, which is wrong, and they either tried to use emotion and failed or never tried because they don't understand it. So I say persuasion is like a ship with three masts and three sails, but people only have one sail up argument, and it's doing all the work. It's tattered Ship, isn't going very slowly, you know very quickly. So what I do is say, look, let's lower the argument sail, let's open the character sale, let's open the emotion sale and watch it go much faster while giving the poor argument sale a break Right? And so it's remarkable how business people will not talk about themselves, will even conceive that they're part of the persuasion chemistry or they're terror of emotion.
Speaker 2:Executives are afraid of emotion most of the time and they don't understand how to use it. Once they understand how it works, then suddenly they go wow, I didn't know. That's why I say. It's almost always just sitting right in front of you. Once you see that it's there, you pick it up, you use it and suddenly you go, wow, I'm so much more it up. You use it and suddenly you go, wow, I'm so much more persuasive than I was, and you go. Well, it's because you've opened the sails right. The wind did the rest, not you, and so, uh, it's, I think, sailing and persuasion a little bit. It's an interesting analogy. Because you're not pushing the boat, the wind is all you gotta do is open the sail and you go wherever you gotta go.
Speaker 1:The same thing happens here that's beautiful, because I I definitely see how it becomes more of uh again, less enforced, right, like you said, it's not cajoling, it's not uh coercion, but it's also going to last.
Speaker 1:Right, there's a lot of fear based behind the sort of uh, let's make this happen, either out of manipulation you see it with kids, right, like a parent, a hard parent, you know they may have a straight and narrow person, but then is that the person who's, as an adult, as a known individual going to bring grandchildren back to the house, right? Or even as a leader, or or as somebody with an initiative? Are you going to be the, the person, like you said, that the idea not only extends past the life of, say, this campaign or this individual, but really, like stands the test of time I think you alluded to, is it's a skill or some sort of practice, or over leveraging in a certain area that is limiting the conducive sort of workflow of it? Right, having those three sales up seems to be mutually beneficial for the leader, the organization to not be overwhelmed, and also those who are actually carrying the message out, activating the audiences, putting forth the change that needs to happen.
Speaker 2:You're exactly right. I was working in Brazil one time and somebody told me something interesting. Their quote was it was joking, said Brazilians will do nothing for a company, they'll do anything for a boss, all right. And what I took to me was if they believe in the leader, they'll do anything. They're not motivated because I work for I don't know, bimbo Bakery or whatever. That wasn't a thing, right? And of course he's a stereotype a little bit, because I'm a Latino and there's always that we're very emotional.
Speaker 2:But it's true. How many times have you heard somebody say I walked through a wall, through that person? Right, and it's because that person's character is the reason you show up every day. Even if you don't think about it that way, you're really following a person, not an argument, right, and probably some emotional component as well. And I think that it's remarkable again how, when I ask somebody, I ask leaders to explain to me okay, why should I do what you want me to do? And they give me all these reasons and I go yeah, but if I replace you with somebody else, the reasons are the same. So why should I follow you? And I go go tell me something about you? Like, go back into your life. Because of the seven elements and characters like, the most important is origin. For some strange reason, where we come from, where the character was created. Right, and tell me something about where you're from, what you believe in, that formed you, that connects to what you want me to do. And they just sit there a couple of minutes in silence and they go well, there was this one thing and I go okay, tell me that story. Suddenly, that thing becomes the reason I should do what you want me to do. Ten times out of ten. I give example after example. Where the first version was a whole bunch of reasons, the second version is an insight into that person. And because of that insight I want to follow, right, I want to believe what you believe.
Speaker 2:And I say in the book that persuasion to me, anyway, isn't about sales, not at the core, right, the core to me goes something like this I don't know, you live in Austin. Let's just think Austin is the world's best place. It's just amazing. There's no reason why anybody should live anywhere else. And then you're at the airport and you meet somebody and they go. Well, I grew up in Austin, born and bred. I just think it's the best place.
Speaker 2:At that instant, you two are united in your love of Austin, and so you become a community, and that is human nature. We want others to love what we love, believe what we believe, honor what we honor. And that's why persuasion is fundamental. And when you think of it that way not as buying or selling or tricking or whatever, but it's just like you and I are going to be united in a common belief, suddenly the authenticity, the power of the chemistry goes through the roof and people will follow you into almost anything right, and that's what great leaders either have or learn right. They're either born with it or they'll learn. Most people learn it. A few are sort of born with it right. But that's the key. It's not that complicated really.
Speaker 1:That's awesome. And, with thinking back, to say the reason, right, like you said, if you swap out the individual and the reasons are still there. I think that's a lot of times, at least the rationale, but also sometimes I don't know if it's a blind spot of like. Well, even if we're talking about manipulation, right, if you are like telling your kids or you're telling your employee or you're telling a client like this is why you need to do this, because you actually know and believe, believe and know that it is the best for them. How do you separate that? Because it sounds like maybe there's a again, your intentions are good and maybe you do know best. Maybe you don't right, but maybe your intentions are really good and you know that your kids should brush their teeth because it will help them not rot. You know your clients should invest your money here because they've been over leveraging in this area, but it's still. Maybe the only tool you've learned is the. I know, so just do it.
Speaker 1:How do you help people? Or what would you recommend for somebody to understand? If it's a, is it a flag that's up too high? That is not, you know, being properly used? Is it another flag that needs to be? How do you sort of help them see that blind spot? If that's what it is to reposition from a, even though it's a positive intention, even though it's a sale, let's do it into more persuasion instead of cajoling and it's a really interesting question.
Speaker 2:You're the first one to ever ask me this question and it's a great question, because trust me has two forms right or or. Or listen to me has two forms. There's the coercive form, which is I'm tired of talking to you, I'm cutting this off, just go do it. Right, I'm done. Okay, I'm the boss. Whatever, do it Okay.
Speaker 2:But there is the trusting because of who I am, which is character. Trusting because of who I am and what you know about me is persuasion. Trusting because I'm the boss is coercion. And so this is why people and I'm a father of two boys right, and I've seen it again and again in coaching and in business, when you use the word do this because I say so and it was built on character and what you know about me, it works. When it's built on I write your check, or if you don't, you get fired or whatever, the person's going to do it.
Speaker 2:But don't even think for a moment. They've been persuaded, they've been coerced and or manipulated or scared, right, you have frightened them. Again, all forms of coercion, right. Either through some negative outcome if they don't do what you say and how many times have you seen this in business where that just backfires on you sooner rather than later. Right, I always say coercion always buys a round trip ticket, right, it will come back to you sooner or later, probably when you least expect it.
Speaker 2:Suddenly you'll find how many times have I seen this where you thought everybody was on the train and nobody was. They were on the bus stop waiting for you to get fired or moved or whatever, right? So you're a pain to them. This is much more common than it is uncommon. So, yeah, if you're going to pull the trust me card or do it because I say so, this is one other benefit of having built a character as a persuasive formula, because when you have to do that, it works. And I've seen it again. I've lived this. I've had bosses who over-communicated to me about who they were and then, when they didn't have time for that, they would say can you just do this, carlos? And you know what I thought? I thought I know who you are, I know you don't ask these kinds of things unless it's serious. So I don't question it. I go into what I have to do, but you have to earn that.
Speaker 1:And then how do you, on the second part of that, check for the blind spot, right? So say, a well-meaning boss who does have the character but maybe hasn't shown it. Is it a flag issue?
Speaker 2:Is it raising more of that character flag? What other ways can you help them know what they don't know in terms of properly positioning that? Persuasion Status becomes an issue here. Right, because if you work for that person, it can be difficult because you don't feel like I don't have the status to explain this to you. This is where a peer, a coach, somebody, right, a trusted person, can come in and say listen, the way you're handling this, right, you think you're persuading, you're handling this right. You think you're persuading, you're not right, you're on a different track and you've lost sight of that. And, by the way, how many people do this? But then so do brands. Right, it comes to us all the time. Right, they think they've got a persuasive formula. It really isn't right. It comes across as phony or it comes across as sentimental Advertising.
Speaker 2:Most of it isn't very good, and I studied this and I wrote it in the book. When somebody nails it, we remember it because it's so rare, right? And how many people still remember think different from Apple, right? Or some of these other classic campaigns, and they were often character-based. That was an emotion-based campaign, right, there was nothing logical about think different. It was 100% emotion and character, be like picasso, be like you know balancing, uh, and. But when brands get it right, it's because that chemistry lands like nike and suddenly it's there.
Speaker 2:The problem is that's hard to do, it takes work. You have to understand chemistry and how it operates right, and that's one of the things that I find that, again, great marketers have an innate knowledge of this. Like, certainly there are people who are really good at this, just naturally. But even if you're not, once you learn it it's like lab class again in college. You took chemistry in college. You know, two people in that class were probably chemists. Right, they could have done the rest of us for reading the instructions. Hey, I still got my result. I had to follow the recipe, but I still got my result.
Speaker 2:The same thing happens with persuasion. Yeah, two out of 10 are going to do it automatically, but that doesn't mean the other eight can't. If you follow the rules, the chemistry works and there's the result. So I think when you have a situation when someone has sort of lost supply, I think it's very important that you have someone who can come to you and say listen, the modality you've chosen, the way you've approached this, this is a lesson in life right in general, of who can correct you and say I'll say, liz, is that like real chemistry?
Speaker 2:Most chemistry, like medicine, doesn't work in any way. Right, it needs temperature or a certain kind of person. Some is better in a pill, some in a liquid, some in an injection. The thing goes with persuasion, right? And when people are struggling with a message, I think whether you're a brand or whether you're a person, you say okay, what must fundamentally be true for this to work? For Nike, a fundamental truth is exercise is good for the human body. If that were debated, forget about, well, it's stack, right, it only works because that's a given quote, unquote.
Speaker 2:And I've found many cases where I've come in and worked with somebody that they were working on false assumptions. They assumed these two or three things and the message wasn't landing. And we take a step back and say, well, this message depends on these three things being true and the audience doesn't buy that. So you better address that first, then the chemistry will work. And really phenomenal organizations at the top of their game. And yet they assume something is true for the message for the chemistry to work and it doesn't land. And it wasn't the message, it was that you were delivering a message that should be delivered in a capsule, right through an injection. Right message, wrong delivery. So these two things are related.
Speaker 1:So it sounds like being open to feedback is part of, you know, an important part of that right, like whether it's having your counsel or a coach, but also like being aware of, like there's a loop and even as an organization, if we are constantly following, say, what we've always done right, the status quo or even just culture. There needs to be some sort of either guardrails or just a council of sorts to let you know where and when you are sort of not in tune, right.
Speaker 2:Absolutely. Look, my wife's a scientist and he works with real chemistry and she'll tell you the formula is never right at first. Try, okay, ever it's experimentation. And so and they, they, you go out and get reviewed. Your paper has checked by a bunch of people to make sure your chemistry is right and if you got it wrong, go back and fix this. Do that. The same thing happens with this I.
Speaker 2:I was coaching somebody as much's the CEO of a health care startup and she has to convince doctors to work with her. So we came up with a formula and I said you got to go, try this now. Use it, test it two or three different places, tweak it. When we meet next week, I want you to tell me how the experiment went, what worked, what didn't. We may need a little bit more of this, a little bit more of that. So feedback is important because persuasion requires experimentation. Right, it's hard to nail it right. The just do it's are kind of strange things. Most of the time. You got to go through version after version as you adjust to get it just right. And then, boom, right, there's a one that works and suddenly everything is great. So I think that you're right.
Speaker 2:It's feedback, but then also iteration is the word we use in business right of yeah okay, it's not quite right, don't just stop because it's sort of right, make it perfect, get the chemistry right, and it's usually it's something that it's one or two more steps and suddenly, okay, now I see it, there it is. It's amazing how small changes it's like again, like real chemistry. Sometimes everything is right but you're missing the catalyst, the little thing that triggers the reaction. And I've seen it again and again where somebody brought me a formula and I go well, it's good, but there's something missing. You know, let's go in the lab, right, and then finally you find, well, if you add a little bit of this, and then boom, there's the energy.
Speaker 2:So it's almost never like a wholesale reworking, it's usually tweaking and adding a missing ingredient. That's most of the time. When I think back to all the projects I've done, we almost never threw the whole thing away. We almost always adjusted percentages and or added something that had been left on the shelf and then boom, right, there's the energy that we're looking for yeah, and that sounds a little bit more um, palpable right, or at least a bit a bit less, a bit less right.
Speaker 1:You are not so much needing to get it right the first time. You have a reiterative process which, again, we understand it cognitively. But I think it's important to just live that that, little by little, an organization, an individual, a leader can improve with the reiteration, and there's always this sort of like tweaking and adjusting, because I'm sure it's not a one size fits all either. So that that is also, I think, some pressure off of the shoulder of like we have to get it right has to be this component. No, it's a process, right.
Speaker 2:I've. I've never seen it be 100 percent, go ready to go after only one shot Right, it's never. Right, it's it's. I'm a writer, so you fall in love with your own words sometimes and if you ever go through editing process where somebody goes, no, that's really nice, but I need you to cut that whole five pages out, and you're like chopping up an arm, right, I don't care, it doesn't work. So destroying your like cat not destroying, but like abandoning your own work in in the creative process. Maybe it's the hardest thing creatives do, right, because sometimes you just think really nice, but it just doesn't work here. So put it on the shelf, be honest about it. And so that's the hard part is that it's saying I love this formula, but it just isn't the right formula and I gotta let it go. So, like I said, it's it's almost never it's all wrong, it's almost always a little bit too much of this need to bring this back and you're probably missing something like the emotional piece.
Speaker 2:Like the great question for me is always everybody I don't care what the thing is right, whether it's a nonprofit or profit, commercial brand, whatever it's like explain to me what emotion, and I'm telling you that most people can't. So, okay, like even today, right, I'm here as a guest, so you say I stopped talking. What exact emotion do I want you to feel if I did my job, right, right, so, for me it's curiosity, that's it, nothing else. I mean the other things I hope, I think I'm somewhat useful as a critic, right, I think it'd be worth listening to. But if I had to boil it down to one thing, I just want you to be curious and go well, okay, that's interesting, let me go check out who this guy is, let me go check out this book. That's all I can ask for, right? So, but it's remarkable how many times I ask that question.
Speaker 2:People have spent five days on this speech, we spent three weeks on this message, or two months on this ad, or whatever it was, and I just asked that one question what emotion did you want me to feel? And they can't answer the question. And you go wait a minute. Then. Then you're not, the work isn't done. And once you go, well, I actually wanted to feel. And I go no, that's not really it, you really want this. And they go yeah, that's what I'm looking for. Okay, now, how are you planning to create it? Then we figure out how to create it, then we test it. Yeah, the emotion was there. Now it works right. So that is one of my favorite questions. Just a real simple thing. If you're ever working with somebody who has a speech or a family member or even writes anyone you know and just ask that one simple question, the sound stops, your voice goes silent. What do you want me to feel If they can't answer that question? Start right there.
Speaker 1:And that's a great point to also be like for the perfectionist in us, or maybe the analysis, paralysis or even the it needs to get done Like that's. I love how you said then what is more work that needs to be done? Right, or if that is the emotion there, then let's do it, let's launch it, let's ship it. Um, let's pivot back to some of what you mentioned earlier with where brands, as you mentioned, sometimes cajole or or coerce, where we're talking about transparency and honesty. How do you sort of parlay persuasion in that a bit more? And can you discuss maybe the importance of ethical persuasion a bit more in building these long-term consumer relationships, parental relationships, leadership relationships?
Speaker 2:Yeah, here I'll bring up a word that I talk about in the book, which is authenticity. It gets used a lot, but I don't think it's used correctly. Most of the time I make the argument that we should think of authenticity mathematically. What does that mean? It means that, let's say, I make a claim that I'm from Philadelphia. Right, and this is critical to my business, to my brand or just to me. For this moment, to persuade you, I need to be in Philadelphia. So I make this claim, because you're not a cynic, you say, okay, great, I believe you. So I give you a Philly score of one 1.0. As I started talking, I mix up the name of the river. So I go now you're at 0.8. Then I didn't know that there's a Rocky statue Whoa, that's worth 0.3. So now I'm a 0.5. I never had a cheesesteak 0.2.
Speaker 2:By the time I finished talking, you don't believe I'm from Philadelphia. But the opposite happens. I don't mention Philadelphia at first, although it's important. I mentioned the Penn Boathouse, I mentioned Pat and Gino's Terminal Market, right, the Franklin. Suddenly you go hey, you're from Philadelphia. And I say born and bred. So now my score goes from zero to one, that's it.
Speaker 2:So what does that mean. It means authenticity refers to claims made about your character that the audience can verify. So what do brands do can verify. So what do brands do? They make claims about their character that the audience either cannot verify or doesn't believe, and the whole thing is doomed. And so and you see this happen again and again right, and executives do this you walk into a stage and they go I'm so excited to be here for this, five days of death camp training. No, you're not, we're not, you're not, I don't want to be here. You don't want to be here. Just say we're all here because we have to be here, let's just get through this. No, you're better off saying that than this fake call to emotion, of excitement, which I know it's not true. And you're going to walk off the stage anyway and go. What are we doing? We're stuck here for three days. You're not right. And so? But back to the brand question, this issue of making claims about your character. The audience must be able to verify them or believe them for the entire rest of the message to work. And if there's one thing that brands get wrong, let's say there are two big things. One is appeals to emotion that fall flat constantly. It's remarkable to watch Super Bowl right or important ad events and look at the emotional appeals and how often they fall flat Again. And these are like the best advertisers with all the money in the world, the best budgets and they and it just it's just nowhere near close and you go look, if you had just changed this thing, like well, it would have worked if you're so close, and then with executives who make appeals based on character that fail because they under, they don't trust the audience.
Speaker 2:In my book I talk about two movies. I talk about Schindler's List and Semi-Private Ryan. This is my case study between sentimental versus emotion. Private Ryan sentimental ending, schindler's List emotional. Now think about those two things.
Speaker 2:Same director, same cinematographer, same composer, I think, two different personal designers, but both movies end in a cemetery. Both movies take a start in the present. Well, the start in the scene ends starts in the past and in the present. Both movies end with a site of a grave Right. Both movies are about World War II.
Speaker 2:One fails because it becomes sentimental hokiness, which is Ryan. One succeeds it's a powerful emotional moment at the grave of Asken, schindler, so even Spielberg and he who's been criticized roundly for this movie right for this ending, because it's a weakness he has of being sentimental. Even he gets it wrong. So Even he gets it wrong. So if he can get it wrong, this is a master of his craft, right? How much more do we have to work when we use emotion if we're going to use it as a brand to try to get it right? And so I think that this is the key thing there, right?
Speaker 2:If you're going to make claims about yourself, do it in an authentic way. For example, saying I'd love to go to Philadelphia. I've never been there. It seems such a cool place from what I've seen, I'd be really curious about this. Or I always wanted to see the Rocksteak, whatever. That's such a much more authentic claim to make about yourself that I don't know it, but I'd like to know it. I don't know you, but I'd like to know who you are, than to pretend like I know you because I read your profile on LinkedIn. You don't Okay, so why claim that you do? And I think brands they make claims about themselves or about their knowledge of an audience that underpin their message, and the audience intuitively knows this is wrong. So I immediately tune out.
Speaker 1:That's powerful. Yeah, I think that's something that we could always, as you said, comparing it to a great right like Spielberg, to you as an individual, as a company. Why wouldn't you need to focus that and I think that's a great way to sort of think about that, especially the point system right in terms of building the authenticity and trust. Pivoting to our last question what emerging trends or insights do you believe will shape or are shaping the current landscape when it comes to communication and leadership, and how can businesses maybe stay ahead of the curve with leveraging, maybe, this timetable and the persuasion process that you've outlined?
Speaker 2:I think there are two things. One is we are inundated with sentimentality because of social media. Okay, one reason why sentimental ads that might have worked back in the 80s or 90s don't work today is that people are saturated, they're bombarded with here's my puppy, here's my kitten, here's me feeding the homeless, or whatever, right. And so there are these virtual signaling and there's emotional appeals that, especially the younger you are, the more you get can become numb to this. So to use emotion today has become a little bit harder, I think, because there is this inundation, right, of sentimentality that has been overused. It's like when they say we develop a resistance to certain you know antibiotics. It's kind of the same way. Here again, the chemistry modifier reappears because you've been exposed to so much bad persuasion attempts with sentiment that sometimes you can lose the good ones, right? The other thing is what's happening with AI? Because the way in which the automation of I wrote a book called Persuasion Factories you can hire companies or bots, whatever to deliver messages to you, right? The volume of messages that we're exposed to is exponentially higher, and that has certain effects on people that they can become. It's called message blurring, where somebody can deliver a message to you and you're not aware of it's happening subconsciously. It's like if somebody walked up to you and gave you a little shot at the airport and was so slight you didn't even know, but they had injected a little thing into you. So, you see, this happening today, where just the sheer amount of messaging that we're exposed to which has never been like this in the history of the world has certain characteristics and phenomena that are still being worked out, and I still think we don't understand. When you see these hearings about Facebook or about TikTok, right. I think underneath this is this idea that the sheer level of sheer volume of messages that kids are exposed to today, or all of us are exposed today, is much higher than it used to be. So then, if you have to break through this right, even at the most basic level somebody was saying the other day that it used to be that to then, if you have to break through this right, even at the most basic level, somebody was telling me the other day that it used to be that to reach a sales contact right or a potential customer it was 10 years ago it was four or five touches, quote, unquote. Today it's twice that. To tell you, it's 10 to 12, right, which means that we're let's assume we're simple and we double every 10 years. In 10 years it'll be 18. Let's say it's not. Let's say it's. It's like a rhythm or some other. We don't think we're talking about 15, 20, 25, 30.
Speaker 2:What does advertising look in the world where it takes 30 touches to get somebody to even recognize that you're sending a message? So I think that the phenomenon of social media is one of it's made using emotion harder, requires more skill. Again, why all these ads fail? Because it wouldn't work. 10 years later it doesn't work anymore, because that was before. People saw a billion messages on Facebook or whatever.
Speaker 2:And then the sheer volume and what it does to our ability to process any one message. It's like a voice, right. If one person is talking to you, okay, if there are a thousand people talking to you, then how do you process the one that you really want to hear? And I think that's an interesting. That's a very academic-y sort of question, right for the communication theorist, but it's a really interesting one, I think. And I think on a practical level, if I were a marketer, I would at least just consider that fact For sure. That sentiment is you used. So if you're going to make an emotional appeal, think about it carefully. And then also, where does your message lie in? Almost like the multiverse right To use this term right Of other similar messages that are out there, and which version of that multiverse are you and why should the consumer or the audience care?
Speaker 1:that's super helpful no, that's for sure. I think definitely the overload and, yeah, just the way that even new minds are being programmed right, that the new consumer age, or even just all of us that have been just so oversaturated by not even just emotional itself but just the number of things vying for our attention.
Speaker 2:So that's like. There is, I believe, in this theory of imprinting, of of persuasion imprinting, which is, which means to me that when you're kids, what persuades you when you're young tends to persuade you when you're older. There's a kind of and I haven't worked this theory out completely yet, but I do have this theory that I think that there is a kind of imprinting that happens. And so what does that mean? It means that typically, a generation has a different imprinting.
Speaker 2:What persuaded the people from the 40s did not persuade people in the 60s, as we know, the 60s did not persuade the 40s did not persuade people in the 60s, as we know, right, the 60s did not persuade the 80s. So every generation there's a new persuasion imprinting that occurs right Through technology and through mass media, and so as the next generation of consumers comes online, the Zers, like my youngest son, I wonder, like, what is the imprint on him? Which formula, what chemistry, right, it's sort of like the base chemistry of that generation, and that's a really interesting question because it's different, right? If we saw the millennials quote unquote shift into this sense of personhood and who am I, right and needing to feel good about my work, just kind of this stereotype of the millennials, well, that was, let's go back to 15 years, where the message they were getting when they were little kids persuade them that that's how they should look at work or consumerism or brands, right, which then led to a whole bunch of brands that understood this or landed in the wreck, like Allbirds, right, or whatever. And so that led to a whole bunch of brands that understood this or landed in the wreck like Allbirds or whatever.
Speaker 2:And then, boom, there it is. There's the mix right. So, as the next generation comes along, an interesting study to me would be how has their persuasion imprinting who, who and how did it occur? Because that will predict which brands and which messages will succeed when they are consumers. Right, and that's something that's a theory that I've just been working on, but I haven't done the work on, but I'm I have a high confidence that if we looked at this, we'd find something definitely, and I wonder if any of those repeat, like other trends, right, like you talked about maybe a subliminal message back in the days, you know it'd be the subliminal analog message.
Speaker 1:Now it it's a bot. Or even I heard a branding marketing professor talk about recently how they he was talking to the White House about the AI threat Right From, say, and he's saying, you know, with young men who are lonelier, the weaponization of, say, foreign enemies using things like porn, like ai girlfriends to have you know, homeland, like scary stuff, of ways that programming or not, as you know, catastrophic, a way that a brand will start to not persuade but coerce in these sort of ways because of how they've been programming. So both the ways that will work and both the ways that will be, you know, things to watch out for will be a fascinating discovery.
Speaker 2:You're right. There was a great article in the New York Times a few months ago, I think, about six months ago about a woman who had spent time with a chatbot and she said I know it's fake, I know it's some software, but I like it, right, I like it, I like talking. It asked me how was your day Are? How was your day? Are you doing? Okay, and like, that's so wired into us, right, that we, even if it's the robot asking you this, we still well, you know, robot, what can I tell you? It was a bad day at work. So, but study yourself. Let's say they tune this and they get this right.
Speaker 2:And now you go oh, here's your friendly, I don't know Tesla robot or Tesla bot, right, tesla bot doesn't talk to you about Teslas, it just wants to be your friend. So Tesla bot says hey, you know you're late. Was your car not working? Well, because you know Tesla makes this great thing called the Model Y, right? And so first Tesla bot becomes part of your life, then Tesla becomes part of your life, and I don't think we're that far away from the Tesla bot. I think within five years, you're going to see brands put out agents, right, that will try to build personal relationships with consumers as a step one. And now we're into the character side of the book, right, which is really interesting.
Speaker 1:And the emotion side of the book Right, so could. Could Nestle have a million Nestle bots talking to kids within the next?
Speaker 2:decade? Absolutely, that's something to watch out for. That's fascinating. I'm excited.
Speaker 1:Never, never a lack of things to look to look for ever, ever. I'm excited to, to dive into the book, so let me um kind of go at a high level what stood out for me and then just please fill in anything I might have missed. Um. So the first thing was chemistry, uh, language, right, the language of chemistry as it pertains to persuasion, not being the soft skill that you're born with, something that you can learn, and, as your book outlines, the, the three sort of macro approaches of the character, the person that's giving the argument, the argument itself, and then the emotion, giving us a good sort of mental model to see how this can be learned, right. The second point is activation is key the two prong approach for the communicator and then the audience actually activating to it.
Speaker 1:I think that was a good call out Um. Third, I got the difference between persuasion and coercion. Understanding those two is important if you want your message to last. And then I think, finally, just you know, authenticity. It's about, um, the character that your audience identifies within you. And again, back to sort of not only having um something that is standing the test of time but will be morally and, you know, for the benefit of the audience as well as for the speaker, something to really land on. Anything else you would want to add to some of our takeaways?
Speaker 2:Yeah, only just this concept of verifiability when it comes to authenticity, right, that if you make claims about character, that they are consistent. I've talked to people recently I find interesting, who say I'm going to vote for Trump not because I agree with him, but because I see that Biden was lying about Palestinians or something. So, which is an interesting phenomenon Like, even though I don't agree with him, his character claims are seen as authentic. It's strange enough, right Whereas this other person who may have been what they wanted or liked, suddenly rejects that. It retroactively wipes out that entire history. Right again back to the. If you make a claim about your brand or yourself, do it in such a way the audience can will, either believes it or can verify it. Do it over time and you build a tremendous amount of persuasive power perfect.
Speaker 1:I love that well. Thank you so much, carlos. Where can people learn more about you? And uh, pick up the book my website, carloslosavarangacom.
Speaker 2:So you go there, you can learn about the book, you can read about other books and you can even reach out to me. So you can just send me a note and say I liked the book, I didn't like the book or I wanted to chat, and you can connect with me through the contact at carlosavarangacom, and I always reply to people who send me notes.
Speaker 1:Perfect Well thank you so much. Carlos resides in Bethesda, maryland, with his wife, also a research and physician at the National Institute of Health, and their two sons. His insights on ethical persuasion to the evolving landscape of digital communication and the rules of persuasion promises to enlighten with actionable strategies for activating your audience and driving meaningful connections. Thank you so much for being on, carlos, looking forward to our next chat Absolute connections.
Speaker 2:Thank you so much for being on, carlos, looking forward to our next chat. Absolute pleasure, thank you so much. Thank you to everyone who's listening. I'm grateful for your time. It's been a treat to be here.