Welcome to our latest episode! Today, we’re thrilled to have Dr. Christopher Phelps, an accomplished entrepreneur, general dentist, and Amazon best-selling author, Dr. Phelps is renowned for his expertise in ethical influence and persuasion, having received his Cialdini Method Certified Trainer (CMCT) certification under the acclaimed behavioral scientist Dr. Robert Cialdini.
In this episode, Dr. Phelps shares his journey of growing his dental practice revenue by 10X and his deep understanding of influence strategies that have led to significant success in his various ventures. Dr. Phelps delves into the seven principles of ethical influence and how they can be applied to achieve personal and professional success. He also discusses how he has utilized these principles to scale his dental practice and other businesses, including Golden Goose Scheduling and The Phelps Institute. Additionally, Dr. Phelps explores the power of ethical marketing, the importance of persuasion in business, and how creating the right mindset in clients can lead to better outcomes.
If you’re looking to understand the science behind influence and learn practical strategies for scaling your business, tune in now to gain invaluable insights from Dr. Christopher Phelps. This episode is packed with actionable advice that you won’t want to miss!
HIGHLIGHTS OF THE EPISODE
00:24 – Guest intro Dr. Chris Phelps
03:00 – The significance of ethical influence in business
05:45 – Overview of Dr. Robert Cialdini’s seven principles of persuasion
12:00 – How Dr. Phelps applied these principles to scale his dental practices
16:30 – The impact of creating the right mindset in clients
20:00 – The role of ethical marketing in scaling a business
24:30 – How to implement persuasion strategies effectively
30:00 – The power of pre-suasion and its applications in business
34:00 – Final thoughts and how to get in touch with Dr. Phelps
If you found this episode substantial and want to dig deeper into real estate, or maybe you want to discover better investment opportunities, be sure to check out www.tempofunding.com.
CONNECTING WITH THE GUEST
Website: https://cialdini.com/
Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dr-christopher-phelps-2b48b718
Email: chris@cialdini.com
Full Transcript:
Intro: Welcome to the BigMikeFund Podcast, where you’ll learn about advanced wealth building strategies from real estate investing to creating massive ROI and secure retirement profits. So pour yourself a cup of coffee, grab a notepad, and lean in. Because Big Mike has got the mic, starting now.
Mike Zlotnik: Welcome to the BigMikeFund Podcast. I’m the Big Mike, Mike Zlotnik and today it is my pleasure and a privilege to welcome Dr. Christopher Phelps. Hi, Chris. How are you?
Dr. Chris Phelps: Good, Mike. How you doing?
Mike Zlotnik: I’m doing well. Thank you so much for coming on a podcast. Let me introduce you formally. Dr. Christopher Phelps is CMCT, CPT. I don’t know what these things stand for, but I’m just acknowledging them.
He’s an entrepreneur, general dentist, and an Amazon best-selling author of the books, Grow Your Dental Membership Plan and The COMPLETE Book On Dental Marketing. He is a certified Kolbe Trainer and is also an expert in the science of ethical influence and persuasion having received his Cialdini Method Certified Trainer (CMCT) certification under acclaimed behavioral scientist, Dr. Robert Cialdini.
Combining his skills as a dentist, entrepreneur, and expert in ethical persuasion, Chris founded and built multiple companies such as Golden Goose Scheduling, The Phelps Institute, Dental Membership Direct and Sunrise Dental Solutions. His current focus is growing Cialdini Institute as US Chief Executive Officer.
Welcome.
Dr. Chris Phelps: Thank you. Sorry about that. I know it’s a mouthful.
Mike Zlotnik: Well, it’s a wonderful introduction and, and I’ve been a big fan of Dr. Robert Cialdini for years. His books are absolutely best in the field of ethical influence.
There’s nobody else who is better. And I think Warren Buffett. He’s a big fan and so let’s talk about that. Let’s dive directly into the conversation, but before we do that, the standard question is for you to tell us a little bit about you, your family, where do you live? Just a couple of words about you and then go into the Sheldon Institute and all the great topics.
Dr. Chris Phelps: Yeah, definitely. I’m in Charlotte, North Carolina. My wife, Amber and I have been married for just had our 26th wedding anniversary.
Mike Zlotnik: Congratulations.
Dr. Chris Phelps: I believe has been that long. Our kids, Riley and Liam, both teenagers, 14 and about to be 18.
Mike Zlotnik: Well, that’s wonderful. I’m catching up with 25 years married to 26 year year ahead. So I certainly respect that and appreciate that.
Dr. Chris Phelps: As you can tell, Mike, I obviously got married when I was 12, so.
Mike Zlotnik: Oh, yes, I’m sure you were. So I guess the legal age, whatever the legal age was, but let’s, let’s dive into who is Dr. Robert Cialdini.
Dr. Chris Phelps: So, you know, Robert Cialdini is the foremost expert in the science of influence and ethical persuasion.
People call him the godfather of influence. That’s what Warren Buffett calls him. You know, Dr told me a story one time how Buffett’s co founder and Berkshire Hathaway, Charlie Munger many, many moons ago had sent Dr as a gift to him 1 share of Berkshire Hathaway. Right? Just out of the blue.
And basically it said something to the tune of because your book and your research had helped me so much in my career. You’ve already given me the gift here. Please take this as a thank you. So imagine getting 1 share Berkshire Hathaway gifted to you because of something you’d done, so to speak, without even realizing it.
And of course that one share is worth, you know, 660 times today. What it, what it was back then. So not a bad gift that’s kept on given, so to speak. But in essence, what Dr. Chowdhury did was Figure out these seven principles of persuasion that all of us, and what I mean, all of us, I mean, globally, right?
It doesn’t matter what your religion is, who your parents were, what culture you’re from, what continent you grew up on. It’s the, these principles that even allow societies to form and function. He figured out what these seven things were and understands that these are what we’re using to make like 97 percent of our decisions.
You know, not the facts of the matter and not the emotion behind the decision, but when these principles are present, they act like automatic levers to set the stage for. Yes.
Mike Zlotnik: So let’s dive into the 7 principles. What are the 7 principles of Dr. Robert?
Dr. Chris Phelps: Yeah, so the 1st 1 is kind of biblical, right? It’s as old as time. It’s called reciprocity, right? You may have heard of the golden rule do unto others. As not as they’ve already done unto you, right? That’s not what the rule says. Do unto others as you would like them to do unto you. So what reciprocity really means is that when you are the first to give something of value significance to another party, well, society has kind of taught us that there is now an obligation created inside of you that you need to give back and typically give back in kind to satisfy that obligation.
So if somebody gives you a gift on your birthday, you’re more than likely now going to give them a gift on their birthday. So to speak, somebody has done you a favor, you’re going to feel this pull and this need to do them a favor, so to speak. So if we give, if it has meaning significance, we tend to give back.
And you know, this is true if you think about the English language, there’s no positive word in our language to describe someone who just takes, takes, takes and never gives back. Right? So that’s kind of this external influence on you to, and to satisfy this obligation. The next principle is called the principle of liking.
Many of you have heard of a guy named Dale Carnegie and probably read Carnegie’s book. Well, in essence, Carnegie’s book was really, you know. Maximizing and leveraging Chaldini’s liking principle to the nth level. So this liking principle at its core basically means that we like to do business with people we like, you know, if we like them, we’re going to be more likely to say yes to a request made by that person.
But in the influence where we talk about this is not only do we like those to do business with those we like, but what does that really mean? How do you build rapport with somebody? Well, it’s about finding the things in common with him. We like those who are like us have commonalities similarities to us.
We like those who like us and tell us that they like us. So if somebody is the 1st to show me that they like me or tell me that they like me, I’m more likely to like them back as a result and reciprocate. So, liking and reciprocity kind of go hand in hand. Sometimes we’ve got this principle called unity.
Right. So unity is not about you versus me, right? We’re individual people. It’s about we, we is this unit. So it’s a, it could be a family unit. It could be a religion unit. It could be a culture unit. It could be a geographic unit, but ultimately with unity they’re not opposite of us. They are us. It’s kind of the mindset there.
Okay. And of course, we want to say yes to those that are unified or on our team and on our side who we’re in partnerships with. The next principles called used to be called consensus, but now we call it social proof. And it’s probably the most powerful of the principles when it comes to online advertising today Amazon, the, you know, the big juggernaut that it is started out as a social proof company, you know, they didn’t start selling stuff from day one.
They were the 1st place that if you were interested in a product, you’d go to Amazon. It was a review site. Right and you would look to see, well, what’s everybody saying about this thing and it was the 1st place you could really go. The masses could go to say, hey, if I’m looking to buy a vacuum cleaner.
Hey, wait a minute. All right, here’s 1 and we got 5000 people that said something nice and positive about this type of vacuum cleaner from this company. But here’s another 1 and nobody said anything nice about it. Okay. Well, I don’t know the thing about vacuum cleaners, but which 1 might I buy now? Right?
And so once they got people coming and the social proof of what everybody else was doing and saying about these products that they could trust. And then, of course, Amazon was smart. They monetize that instead of just recommending stuff. Why don’t we sell it? As well, but this principle of social proof means that oftentimes we look to the evidence, what others are doing, what they’re saying, et cetera, to show us what we should be doing.
So this is the proof of the crowd. So to speak if the crowd’s moving a certain direction, it’s going to influence and pull us to want to do the same and follow suit. The authority principle is another powerful one. So what the authority principle means is that Ultimately, we still need credible, trustworthy authorities to tell us what we should do because truthfully, we don’t have time to be an expert and everything.
I mean, it’s not that we couldn’t, but because we don’t have the time and resources to be an expert and everything, we need these authorities to tell us what we should do. And we’ve learned through time that if it is a credible authority, we can trust. Their recommendation and their advice. Okay. So we look to credible authorities to tell us what we should do.
The next principle is called consistency and to me is probably 1 of the most powerful, but consistency basically means think of this as the commitment principle. So, if somebody makes a commitment. And they take a stand on an issue, put money into the game, time, effort, whatever. But if they really commit, then there’s a lot of external and internal influence on them to follow through with the commitment that they’ve made and do what they said they were going to do.
People want to be consistent in their thoughts, actions, and beliefs, and be perceived by others as being consistent in their thoughts, actions, and beliefs. So in essence, if you get people to commit, they tend to do. That’s simple as that. If they’re not doing, then this is my aha moment. Guess what? You probably didn’t get a commitment item, right?
Get a better commitment and watch what people do. And our last principle, of course, is one most people are familiar with because it’s probably the one that’s been abused the most unethically against us by others. It’s called the principle of scarcity. And scarcity at its core is built around loss.
Okay. And this truth of the matter of that, we care more about what we stand to lose in a situation than what we stand to gain from a situation. But true ethical scarcity is all about resources. Okay? So, if resources of an item are dwindling or about to run out, then what that does is it motivates you to want that thing more and do more to get it.
Even if you didn’t want it to start with and here’s where it comes back. Kind of like social proof is like, it has an evolutionary pull, right? If the school of fish are moving a certain direction, you don’t want to be the fish swimming along. Right? They may know something you don’t. So it’s an evolutionarily mechanism to protect you.
So is scarcity. So if the oxygen in the room, you’re sitting in right now and listening to this was about to run out and disappear. I think most of you would prefer to know that before it happens, not after it happens. Because if you know the air is running out, what’s it going to motivate you to do?
Let’s get the heck out of here and go find some air. Okay. So that’s what scarcity is really pulling from. So our lizard brain just hasn’t been able to discern true life or death resources like food and water and shelter and whatnot, disappearing to the food in line at Starbucks not being available. And suddenly it makes me want it more.
The pull is the same. Which is kind of interesting. So, you know, you combine these seven principles and you can see just in the just a few examples I’ve given you how much we as society lean on these to help make our decisions.
Mike Zlotnik: Well, all of them are brilliant and the combination of them is incredibly powerful. Some of the stuff that you mentioned, of course, we, most of us use every day subconsciously. And these are biblical concepts given thou shall receive. So it’s the reciprocity. Some of the stuff is so basic. So I appreciate the the great overview of these, of these principles. So how do you help folks?
Maybe through Sheldini Method Certified Trainer or Sheldini, Sheldini Institute to implement these principles in their everyday lives and businesses, because these are very powerful, as we were discussing we use many of these principles every day. It’s almost to the degree that it’s subconscious.
But in my head, I’ve always said, no, like, and trust, right? Before you can do any business with anyone, you have to establish no, like, and trust that’s a liking, right? It’s one of those things. It’s if you can establish the like, it’s the chances of doing business are, are minimal. And of course, many other principles make sense too.
But how do you work with folks to help them implement in their organizations? Maybe it’s, it’s part of the marketing, ethical marketing. Maybe that’s what the biggest implementation of these principles are. Just curious. And this goes back to what the Certified Trainer Program does, plus. How does the institute help folks?
Dr. Chris Phelps: Yeah, yeah, that’s a great question. Mike. So, in essence, the way I look at it is our mission is to provide this information to the masses. Right? I asked Dr. Chowdhury need, like, what When I was doing my own training with him, like, why did he write that initial book? Like, what was the motivation because he could have kept that information scarce.
He could have kept it to himself and sold it to every major organization out there and not educated the public, right? Because of all the businesses knew what to use to influence the population. That could be a big win for them, but it might be at expense of the population. So he, his goal in writing the book and publishing it was really to educate the masses on these things.
And so when you’re educated on them, and let’s say you see the pull of a crowd going a certain direction, now that you know that, so to speak, usually now it’s going to rise out of the subconscious into the conscious thought and go, all right, I see what they’re doing, but does that make sense for me?
Right, so you can educate us to resist these things if it doesn’t make sense, because sometimes they, they aren’t used in our favor. So there’s not in our best interest. So, traditionally, you, in the past, you had to come to a child, any method certified trainer, like myself to get this training and we would come to your business or whatever that is.
And we do a workshop training. So 1 day, 2 days, those kind of things. Teach you the principles, give you some ideas on application, and then it was really left up to you to figure it out. That’s, that’s how I learned them initially, and kind of when I had a couple of dental practices, and I sold my two best offices, took over my two worst ones.
Once I learned from Cialdini, I went back to my practices and kind of used them as my laboratory to experiment and try to implement as many of the behavioral science research as I learned as possible into them to solve my pain points and challenges. What we’ve kind of done with the institute is now we’re trying to make it available and more accessible to be able to get this information.
So now you can instead of having to come to a person like myself, because there was only 12 of us in the world now you can go log in anywhere in the world online and at an easy, self paced rate, you can learn from over 10 hours of content from Dr. Cialdini directly, which is kind of cool. And really take kind of where the book is just the start of the story.
And get the whole picture. But on top of that, what we’ve done is because knowing the principles are one thing, but understanding how to apply them to your pain points and your challenges is a totally different skillset that not everybody’s good at. So we’ve created a series of mastermind workshops to put people in with certified trainers as their guides to help them learn the application piece.
Which is important. And then, of course, we have an area where you can work with a trainer like ourself, so we can customize your application for your specific need as well. So the goal of the institute is really to, number one, be able to teach people how to recognize when a principal is present in a situation, Because the cool thing is, and this is why it’s ethical, we’re not making this stuff up.
These principles are naturally present in our interaction with others. But for the majority of us out there, we just haven’t been trained to recognize that they’re there. And if they are there, which ones are present? Because they’re not always all present. It may just be one. It may be a two, what have you.
So to help people recognize when these things are present, and then help them kind of proactively come up with a plan on, you know, what are you going to do to use these things in an ethical way? Because again, just because I know influence and persuasion, and I’m confident that I could take most people and walk them down a path I want them to walk down with the end result being to say yes to whatever I’m going to ask them.
Doesn’t mean I should do that, right? Even though I know how to do it doesn’t mean I should. So coming at it from an ethical standpoint, so you can feel confident in tapping into these levers when they’re present in these situations for the betterment of you and the other person is just a win win for both sides. And it gives you a lot of confidence to keep doing that over and over again.
Mike Zlotnik: Well, that’s, that’s, that’s really powerful. Number 1. Number 2 Ethical approach is, is something that critically important in our lives and, and the fact that you are spreading it to masses to educate ma majority of people or ma or many, many people to understand and recognize these principles and be able to respond to the other side folks who may be using these principles.
I have to say that I turn on the audible version of the Influence book on, on my daily walks, and I, I come back to it again and again and, all the examples, it’s almost down to a subconscious. Some of this stuff is really basic and some of this stuff is a learned trait. And I have to listen to it again and again and think about it because practical applications is an acquired skill.
It’s, some folks are natural at this and some folks are not. So, again, the mission itself makes total sense. Online training course that you mentioned is great. And then some of the workshops, I’m, I’m certainly intrigued. We’re going to talk to our team to see if we can get a little better at that stuff.
And ethical business is important as business is not always ethical. And that’s, that’s, that’s a key element. So how do you so besides doing these workshops and getting folks to get involved with the with a training course what else you do to to help folks be successful at this?
Because it comes, it comes to mind at least I’ll tell you what my thought process. We work with a lot of great folks and Now, at times reciprocity comes in, what gift to give? Very simple, what do you, what do you do for them, for them to feel real basic reciprocity? Do you buy something expensive or it’s a, even small things can make a difference.
And, and how do you connect with folks? The unity. How do you, how do you feel part of the same same thing? And sometimes people look like they go to the same college or university or are in the same trade, et cetera, et cetera. There are certain basic elements, but how do you connect with somebody?
How do you establish unity with, you don’t have a lot of commonalities, at least not on the surface. So these type of questions do come to mind and you may have a great product or a service, but until you establish these things, it’s difficult to, to do business. So from that perspective, these things are very simple, but they require a little more thought process.
Not only that, they require customization to whatever organization mission is or product or a service. So just curious any more comments on this?
Dr. Chris Phelps: Yeah. So, you know, it goes back to level 1, of course, is that, you know, providing education and training for people to digest on their own merits, their own time, what we call it to do it yourself learning, if you will the next kind of level up that we offer is that you know, For lack of a better term, it’s a train the trainer program.
So we’re, we’re training others inside companies, what we call in company trainers and independent trainers to go out and teach this stuff and create a business model around it on its own. And that’s another way we’re going to be using to, to spread the, the child, any influence to, to more people. And, but ultimately we realize, and kind of what we’ve done as a group for, you know, The last 30 years, Dr.
Chowdhury has been at it is business coaching and consulting directly, like project focused. So we call this the, we do it for you project where they, they hire somebody like us to come in. They have their influence challenges and we create the plan and, and help them put it into action. And some of the, a lot of the stories we teach in our trainings have come out for this.
Like when you look at, we’ve worked with over 3600 companies just in the United States alone. Big name groups that everybody’s familiar with the product services, the advertisements you’ve seen, everything in between at some point or another has had an influence touch behind the scenes. When you look at world leaders, I mean, world leaders from across the world have come to Chaldini for advice and counsel on what to do.
For their different situation. So a lot of times people will bring us in project focus to help them so we can do it for them. Like figure out the application, figure out the influence system and they can put it into practice. And for instance, one of my companies I worked with was a group that deals with stem cells and they had a group of, you know, stem cell centers across the United States.
And so I came in and trained their executive team and created a whole series of not only persuasion stuff you do before the person gets to you that influences them but also persuasion stuff when they were in front of their customers. And, you know, the results can be significant, the small little things we implement, but in that company’s case, increase revenue 50 percent across the board and without any change in overhead.
So sometimes all it takes is a little nudge or a little project focus help, and you can see some serious results.
Mike Zlotnik: That’s very powerful. What is persuasion? I’ve listened to the book too, but I love the audience to hear in your words. What is persuasion? And what does that book cover?
Dr. Chris Phelps: Yeah, that’s a great question. So what’s interesting was I had a hard time understanding persuasion at 1st initially, but the more I got into it, the more training I got on it, I started to see exactly what it is. And there’s even a debate that could be made that it’s. Even more powerful than the persuasion principles. And here’s why, because when you’re talking to somebody in that moment, and they’re with you, that’s when you can leverage persuasion and these principles are present when they’re in front of you, but there’s things you can do to back it up to persuade them to and persuasion is all about influencing that person into a mindset, a mindset that is going to be favorable or going to be more make them more likely to say yes to whatever you’re going to ask them to do.
When they are in front of you. So kind of pre suasion primes the pump. It sets the stage before they ever get to you. So they’re already coming in wanting to say yes. And then you use your persuasion principles to back that up. And it’s just none of these are guarantees, but it’s just more weight in your favor to set the stage for that.
Yes. To whatever you’re going to ask them. So persuasion is about mindsets and the mindset you’re in can completely shape the decision you’re about to make. Okay, so the example I usually give in my dental world is that if I had a patient coming into my practice for the 1st time and she just got a, she just had a knockdown drag out fight with her husband, I mean, tears divorce on the horizon.
Not sure what’s going to happen to the kids. Like, it was an ugly, ugly fight. She hangs up, puts that aside, gets herself together because she’s here for an appointment. She comes in, she has a okay experience at the practice, right? And I come in talking about her dental needs. Where’s her mind at right now? Is it on her mouth or her oral health at all? Or is it still in that car in that fight?
Mike Zlotnik: Yeah, of course.
Dr. Chris Phelps: Yeah. So whether you realize it or not, when people come into a situation with you, The first time they come to your website, the first time they see your advertisement, when they talk to you on the phone, when they walk through the door of your business, when they’re in my world and they’re in my chair meeting me for the first time, whatever that is, when they’re coming into the situation with you, they’re all coming in with a mindset already established, whether you realize it or not.
And if you don’t do anything to refocus that mindset on what is important, which is what you’re about to talk about with them, then their mindset typically is. competing with what you want to talk about or it’s distracting them from what you want to talk about. Either way, the door to yes is shut. Okay, and unless it’s a top of mind pain situation or pain point for them, it’s going to be hard to persuade them and open that door back up.
So, that’s why I mean, it’s even almost even more powerful, because if you don’t have in the right mindset, you’ve already lost the battle.
Mike Zlotnik: Yeah,
Dr. Chris Phelps: you got nowhere to go.
Mike Zlotnik: How did you solve the problem in the dental office in that situation when they are thinking about something else and that emotion is negative and very disruptive.
Dr. Chris Phelps: Very disruptive. So, you know, one of the things, there’s a couple tips you can do to help reshape people’s mindsets. Number one is you have to ask what we call commitment questions. You have to ask questions before they get in front of you that gets them rethinking about something else. So, like, one of my favorite questions I’ll ask my patients in a new patient questionnaire before they get to me is, Hey, when it comes to your oral health, what do you prefer?
Do you prefer to be reactive, meaning you’re okay letting things go, even though it may cost you more time, money, and pain down the road because you waited? Or do you prefer to be proactive, someone who wants to avoid things costing them more time, money, and pain because they waited? And the truth of the matter is because I asked it that question before they got to me, whatever way they answer, that’s who they are now in this moment, we’ve closed the door on the past of them walking in, and this is now who they are.
And I refocused them. And the truth is, I don’t really care which way they answer. I’ve got a strategy for both. So it kind of limits, I don’t need a strategy based on if they’re male or female, or this culture, or speak this language, or from this continent, or not. It’s, how’d you answer that question? Do you prefer to be proactive or reactive?
Now I got a strategy. So you can ask them questions and create mindsets by the questions you ask. Believe it or not, the context of your environment, the sights, the sounds, the smells, can completely shape their mindset. Okay, so if they walk in a door, and I’ve got a patient that say is in their 65 or older.
Okay. Well, traditionally, and they come into a dental office, and they, they smell what we call the dental smell, quote, unquote, which is a very unique smell. And if you’ve ever experienced it, you know, exactly what I’m talking about. But this was more popular of what dental offices smelled 80s. Okay. Well, as these older generations, when they were kids.
And their parents who did not have anesthesia growing up had an option of providing anesthesia for them, but they had to pay for anesthesia. It was extra back then their mind. They were like, well, I didn’t have it. So they don’t need it. And these kids got drilled on without numbness. It created these horrible experiences, right?
Well, here we flash forward 60, you know, 55, 60 years later, and they walk into my office for the 1st time. Is that what I want them smelling? Where’s that going to take them right back to, right? Versus that they walk in and they smell fresh baked chocolate chip cookies. Huh. That might create a different mindset because I don’t know if you might, but in my home, when I grew up, cookies came out of a bag for the most part, but on very special occasions, if mom was in a good mood or grandma was there.
Cookies came out of the oven, and that was a good day, right? So when I smell fresh baked chocolate chip cookies, that’s what it takes me back to, is family, home. So what better mindset to have a new client or customer coming into my business with than already feeling that way, increased weight that way.
And if we back that up, right, they’re already coming in with a mindset, it makes both of our jobs a lot easier. Us and the patients, or our clients.
Mike Zlotnik: Yeah, that’s very powerful, and I love the questions because most of the times people expect to be sold something or instead you’re just asking them questions to that feel like you’re trying to help them and I don’t know what principle he kicks in but Asking for help or, or, or extending help, it’s one of the most, most natural things to do when it feels like somebody’s trying to help you.
The reciprocity immediately kicks in. Hey, they’re trying to understand what am I, what I prefer. They’re trying to help me before, before I go in the chair.
Dr. Chris Phelps: Oh, yeah, we’ve literally gotten so many five star reviews from patients and it kind of what goes along like this is like, wow, they really know when they’re like, they really care about what I want and what I value.
Right. And nobody else asked them these questions because in their mind, nobody else cares. What people are tired of, as you can imagine, is they’re tired of being told. Nobody likes to be told anything, because when you’re, we’ve learned that as toddlers, when our parents kept telling us, no, right, or do this, do that.
So we realized we don’t like that feeling because it takes away your control when you’re told. And what’s interesting about influence and persuasion, why this works so well, this is why it’s different than coercion, intimidation hierarchical authority, meaning your boss telling you to do something or somebody in charge of you or over you telling you to do stuff.
That’s all united in that you don’t have a choice. Okay, at least it’s not a good 1. I mean, you can do it or die, I guess, or get fired, but it’s not a real viable choice in your mind versus to truly influence and persuade by definition. It’s all about presenting choices to the person and they’re in control of it.
Every step of the way. Now, of course, we’re guiding the choices. Right and guiding them down the path, but they’re still in charge of it every step of the way.
Mike Zlotnik: Yeah, it’s very powerful. I have to say that I’m certainly a big opponent of the choices, even educating your kids and giving kids the choice to make and let them make the right choice themselves.
It’s much more powerful than you Just tell them, hey, go do this or go do that because it’ll be resistance. It’s almost, it’s almost like if they, they want to do something themselves, they have a commitment. Now they a principle, if they’re committed, they’re going to do it, but they got to come to the conclusion and decision themselves, not you telling them. So,
Dr. Chris Phelps: yeah, that’s exactly right. And what’s important about what you just said, there is that, Sometimes not only what we say to people and the way we communicate it is important, but what’s actually even more important, we call this a small, big, a small thing you can do that can make a big impact. So, not only what you say to people is important, but the order, the sequence in which you say it can totally change the outcome.
It’s probably even more important. So, if I said, Hey, Mike, I got good news and bad news. What do you want to hear? Well, automatically, I probably just lost in that scenario because if I wanted one of those two things to be perceived differently by that person. Then I needed to control that choice. So if I wanted the good news to sound really good, which of those two should I’ve started with?
Well, the bad news is this, but the good news is this. Versus the opposite, well, Mike, the good news is this, but the bad news is this, so
Mike Zlotnik: it’s very powerful. I can see this. This is a some of the stuff is natural. Some of the stuff is requires let’s call it organized and, and, and, and, and a system to, to help implement.
So I appreciate a lot of great wisdom. Appreciate you. Sharing these great concepts and, and, and opportunities for folks to work with the Cialdini Institute. So how would folks reach out to you, engage you engage other folks in the Institute to help them personally or their organizations to accomplish their mission? What’s the best way to reach out?
Dr. Chris Phelps: Yeah, probably the best way is just to send me an email. That’s an easy, easy thing to do. And hopefully you can post it for people because spelling is not easy for most people, but it’s just Chris at dot com, or if you go to and fill out a form on our website you can mention my name. You heard us on this podcast and the team will make sure you get directed to me as well.
Mike Zlotnik: Yeah, Chris, I appreciate that. I’m sure we’ll spell it Chavdini is not the most intuitive spelling, but of course, show notes will cover that. Well, I appreciate your wisdom, I appreciate your sharing, and These are genuinely awesome concepts, I really don’t know how else to put it.
Like you explained, it’s the opposite of a stick, it’s a carrot. Giving people a carrot to give them the constant motivation to get better and, and, and achieve the success to the carrot other than the stick, the boss telling you something or having no choice. So influence is a very, very powerful truly for those folks who want to be great leaders, they have to learn influence because that’s what great leaders do.
They’re all about people. And having people come to the conclusions to do things that they want to do on their own choice. It’s back to the movie. The Matrix, right? Yes. Neo, right? He’s here just to find out why. But it’s almost like Field is a guiding hand and you’re just helping folks to set those things in motion for the guiding hand to ethically persuade folks.
Dr. Chris Phelps: Luckily, I feel like now I’m on the side of Morpheus where I’m trying to present people with the red pill or the blue pill choice. Right. And but I remember like for me, when I heard Cialdini speak, when there was that line from the Matrixes and Morpheus told Neo, he goes, Hey, I’m going to show you the world that’s been pulled over your eyes.
And I remember that thinking, man, that’s deep. I have no idea what it means, but wow. Right. But now, you know, I feel like I’ve woken up in the Matrix and I’m on the other side and I see influence everywhere. Everyone out there, company, organization, individuals are all trying to influence and persuade us sometimes to their benefit.
Sometimes it’s for our benefit. Ideally should be for both. But at least now, you know, I’ve seen this world pull over our eyes from an influence standpoint. I can’t unsee it. And it’s, it’s, it’s pretty cool. So I enjoy. Others, when they have that wake up realization, same kind of moment.
Mike Zlotnik: Thank you, Chris. This was awesome. Appreciate you coming and sharing, looking forward to chat with you more. I am personally, I am influenced by the by the book, by the things that you offer as part of the Cialdini Institute and we’ll be, we’ll be chatting a bit more, so appreciate you.
Dr. Chris Phelps: Thanks Big Mike.
Mike Zlotnik: Thank you.
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