Episode 22

How To Use The Liking Principle to Grow Your Business

In this sales and marketing podcast, hosts Dennis Collins and Leah Bumphrey discuss the psychology behind the principle of liking and how it can be used to influence customers. They explore research on the halo effect, similarity bias, physical attractiveness bias, and the power of compliments, explaining how these psychological principles can be ethically leveraged in business to build rapport, trust, and relationships with potential customers. Practical tips are provided for implementing liking strategies into marketing campaigns.

Transcript
Dennis:

Hello, everybody.

Dennis:

It's Dennis.

Dennis:

Hi, I'm Leah.

Dennis:

And Leah and Dennis are here again with another episode of Connect & Convert.

Dennis:

Insider tips for small business owners to help grow your sales faster than ever.

Dennis:

Leah, today we have a really interesting topic.

Dennis:

As you know, I'm kind of a devotee of Robert Cialdini,

Dennis:

the godfather of influence.

Dennis:

Today we're going to look at the liking principle.

Dennis:

How do you use the liking principle to grow your business?

Dennis:

Okay, so it's a deep dive into liking.

Dennis:

How does it impact sales and marketing?

Dennis:

Today we want to share with our listeners.

Dennis:

Not only the theory and science, but maybe most important, some practical

Dennis:

applications of how and where the liking principle can be used.

Dennis:

So, Cialdini is not a name that's unfamiliar to most of us.

Dennis:

You know, I, I first encountered him back in the late 80s, uh, probably

Dennis:

early 90s when he wrote his first book.

Dennis:

I got a chance to study with him personally in the early 2000s.

Dennis:

And I'm honored to be a founding member of what is called the Cialdini

Dennis:

Institute, which is a group of us who are, um, certified Cialdini coaches

Dennis:

and practitioners of influence.

Dennis:

Uh, his seven principles are used every day in sales and marketing because they

Dennis:

appeal directly to the system one brain, the system one brain, our fast brain, our

Dennis:

automatic brain, our intuitive brain using heuristics shortcuts to get to decisions.

Leah:

What I love when you're talking about him, Dennis.

Leah:

You have such an obvious respect and love, but also a knowledge of how to take

Leah:

that information and share it with, uh, people that are familiar with the name.

Leah:

Cause if you're involved in sales or training in any way, Caldini, that's a

Leah:

name that as that has come up and you, and no doubt, most of our listeners have

Leah:

read, but your depth of understanding, I, I, I love hearing you, um, pick

Leah:

out the little important parts and how it applies to real life sales.

Dennis:

Yeah, it's a passion as you can tell.

Dennis:

I love it.

Leah:

Speaking of passion, that always reminds me of Wizard Academy.

Leah:

You and I are both passionate.

Leah:

You have been involved for years and years, as have I.

Leah:

Uh, you a little bit more directly, but, uh, they are a sponsor of our

Leah:

podcast and all things training, all things, uh, that are important

Leah:

when it comes to dissecting the why.

Leah:

And when you, especially with this topic, because speaking of the brain, wow,

Leah:

that is a lot of information that has been provided by the academy in terms

Leah:

of what Why we do what we do and how advertising works and how persuasion works

Dennis:

for sure, uh, one of the Courses that I highly recommend is

Dennis:

a course called da Vinci and the 40 answers Mark Fox who is a real?

Dennis:

Rocket scientist or in his former life.

Dennis:

He teaches that course He's written the book as well, but you gotta

Dennis:

go to the course on campus at what is it Wizard Academy in Austin?

Dennis:

It is mind blowing and transformational.

Dennis:

Da Vinci and the 40 Answers.

Dennis:

The other one you gotta take in is The Magical Worlds.

Dennis:

That is the big daddy of all of the Wizard Academy courses.

Dennis:

That was the one that kind of, uh, spurred Roy, Williams three books.

Dennis:

That he wrote his trilogy, his bestselling trilogy, and it is still taught to

Dennis:

this very day by the Chancellor of the Wizard Academy, Dan, uh, Daniel

Dennis:

Whittington, and it is a must take course.

Dennis:

So talking about the brain, talking about the brain, Leah, those are

Dennis:

two That will get inside the beam.

Dennis:

That's for sure.

Leah:

And you know what?

Leah:

Sometimes you see those, you know, you see the diagram of the brain come up.

Leah:

You know, you're reading it in a book or when you're taking magical worlds and you

Leah:

go, Oh, this looks like something I was supposed to memorize back in biology 10.

Leah:

But, but the reality is there's reasons behind why advertising works, why people

Leah:

need to, um, uh, have an understanding of this gets delved into with those courses.

Leah:

Wizardacademy.

Leah:

org.

Leah:

Check it out.

Leah:

Absolutely.

Dennis:

Check it out.

Dennis:

You'll be glad you did.

Dennis:

Okay, let's jump into a case study.

Dennis:

Okay, I like case studies.

Dennis:

I like to talk about the science behind what we're going to talk about because

Dennis:

it's not just you and me talking, Leah.

Dennis:

Although, you're pretty smart, but, you know.

Dennis:

But we have science to back up what we're talking about.

Dennis:

How about a story about KPMG, a financial services company, okay?

Dennis:

A few years ago, they decided To examine the relationships between

Dennis:

their account managers, basically sales guys and their clients.

Dennis:

So they develop some kind of complex algorithm, right?

Dennis:

And they categorize the relationships in three ways.

Dennis:

Weak, average, strong.

Dennis:

Okay, what do they want to find out?

Dennis:

Well, if the strength of the relationship had any impact on the

Dennis:

acceptance of proposals, basically.

Dennis:

On closing sales.

Dennis:

Well, guess what?

Dennis:

What do you think they found, Leah?

Dennis:

You can probably guess.

Dennis:

What did they find?

Leah:

It has to have a positive, um, reflection.

Leah:

It just has to.

Leah:

I'm sure the science will back this up because when you think of even the word

Leah:

relationship, friendship, um, these are in depth connections that people make.

Leah:

Um, it's, it's I'm actually pretty impressed that they even did this

Leah:

because years and years ago, there was there, there was a fear that if you

Leah:

were too close to a customer, that that meant you weren't representing what

Leah:

you're supposed to be selling properly.

Leah:

And it's a great idea.

Leah:

It is.

Leah:

It's not something that I remember.

Leah:

Well, yeah, it's like, Oh, you don't want to be too close.

Leah:

You're working, you know, 49 percent for the customer 51 percent for us.

Leah:

The reality is, it should always be win win.

Leah:

And when do we want people to win?

Leah:

It's when we have relationships with them.

Leah:

It's our spouses, our family, our friends.

Leah:

our customers, the ones that we're the closest to.

Leah:

So my guess, my money is on this having a positive connection.

Dennis:

Okay.

Dennis:

A good choice.

Dennis:

And the, the survey says weak relationships, only 30 percent

Dennis:

acceptance, average relationships that bumped up 15 percentage points to 45.

Dennis:

But fasten your seatbelt, Leah.

Dennis:

70 percent conversions on strong relationships.

Dennis:

So you are absolutely right.

Dennis:

I think intuitively, we kind of all know this, but you know what?

Dennis:

It's nice to have science prove this.

Dennis:

You don't need the, here's the key finding of this research project.

Dennis:

You don't need to spend months and years developing a relationship.

Dennis:

It's nice if you do, if you can, but guess what?

Dennis:

Due to System 1 Automatic Intuitive Thinking, you can develop the

Dennis:

strong perception of a relationship within about 10 to 15 minutes.

Dennis:

System 1 brain acts fast, and System 1 brain reacts to liking.

Dennis:

We are more likely to be influenced by people that we like, maybe kind of

Dennis:

intuitive, but scientifically proven.

Leah:

Okay.

Leah:

But this is quite interesting because it doesn't mean that you have to

Leah:

be going for lunch or going for a beer with your clients all the time

Leah:

in order to have this connection.

Leah:

It doesn't mean you even have to be in the same, you know, I'm a mom of three boys.

Leah:

Does that mean that I can't have a strong relationship with, uh, I can think of

Leah:

a client of mine who's a farmer, right.

Leah:

And has, has a, has a huge family.

Leah:

But they're all grown up.

Leah:

So, you know, the, the how of it, that's, that's what comes to play.

Leah:

That's what makes the difference.

Dennis:

And it's not as difficult as some would, would lead you to believe it is.

Dennis:

And we always get into this in another episode.

Dennis:

We'll talk about that, that how, how we can develop that liking very quickly.

Dennis:

We have some other tips here in this one.

Dennis:

So stay tuned, but that's a great subject that it doesn't have to be a

Dennis:

lifelong best buddy relationship to work.

Dennis:

Okay.

Dennis:

I want to jump to something, uh, now called the halo effect.

Dennis:

Now as I look at you on this podcast, I can see your, your face and I can

Dennis:

see your head and I see that light surrounding the top of your head.

Dennis:

Absolutely.

Dennis:

Yeah, we know that you have that halo effect.

Dennis:

Well, uh, guess what?

Dennis:

That tendency, it's a bias, it's a cognitive bias.

Dennis:

It allows one specific good trait of a person or of a company or of a product

Dennis:

or a service to positively influence our judgment about all other traits.

Dennis:

Isn't that amazing?

Dennis:

The halo effect.

Dennis:

If you consider a person, for instance, to be a warm and friendly

Dennis:

person, you will also attribute other.

Dennis:

Attributes to that person without any knowledge of their veracity.

Dennis:

Now again, it's a cognitive bias.

Dennis:

It's sometimes called a blind spot, but it's part of System 1 thinking.

Dennis:

Have you ever found yourself, uh, in a situation like that?

Dennis:

Where one positive thing has given you a positive brush on the entire situation?

Leah:

Oh, absolutely.

Leah:

I mean, we can take it into our real, real life, everyday life.

Leah:

If someone you respect tells you this is a movie you're going to love.

Leah:

Yes.

Leah:

Guess what?

Leah:

I just need that one thing.

Leah:

I go in and I'm predisposed to enjoy this movie.

Leah:

Same thing with reading a book.

Leah:

And entertainment, that's where our emotion is.

Leah:

And really, we're talking about emotion in sales.

Leah:

So anytime somebody influences us with something positive, you just

Leah:

have that natural bias towards, Hmm.

Leah:

Now the same thing with calling on a new client, for example, and you hear

Leah:

in the sales pit where you're working that, Oh, that guy is not very nice.

Leah:

You know, he's not apt to buy, whatever the specific situation was.

Leah:

You go into that meeting a little bit nervous, just, you know, and you've

Leah:

just heard one little negative thing.

Leah:

It affects you negatively.

Dennis:

Well, you just hit on the reverse of the halo effect, which

Dennis:

is the horns or the devil effect.

Dennis:

That one bad thing that is portrayed about.

Dennis:

a product, a person, uh, you know, a situation that can color

Dennis:

the whole thing in a negative.

Dennis:

So this is a very powerful heuristic.

Dennis:

This is a shortcut that the human brain takes and it works.

Dennis:

Let me talk about some research.

Dennis:

Again, I like to present the science.

Dennis:

This was done in classrooms in the 60s, late 1960s.

Dennis:

Rosenthal and Jacobson.

Dennis:

They were the authors of this and They provided some teachers, some

Dennis:

elementary school teachers, with some information about a, uh,

Dennis:

some children's academic record.

Dennis:

And then they Along with that information, they attached a photo, a random photo,

Dennis:

not necessarily of that person, a random photo that was judged either attractive

Dennis:

or unattractive by, by independent judges.

Dennis:

Guess what?

Dennis:

The expectations of the child's future academic performance were

Dennis:

significantly affected by the attractiveness of the photo.

Dennis:

Can you believe it?

Leah:

I can believe it, but it just isn't that tragic that that

Leah:

one thing could, it really is.

Leah:

And if you're not aware of it as a teacher, as a professional, man, think

Leah:

of the opportunities that you're losing.

Leah:

It reminds me, and this, this is a story that takes me back a little bit, but I,

Leah:

uh, had been in sales for about a decade.

Leah:

I was off on mat leave and of course I had someone I loved and

Leah:

trusted in our sales program that was looking after my customers.

Leah:

When I came back off of mat leave, I'm all excited to be back to work and one

Leah:

of my customers didn't want me back and I'm thinking, what, what happened?

Leah:

They were picking this other gal that was very successful in sales and, and, and

Leah:

I trusted and she, she had done nothing.

Leah:

They didn't want me back because they were comparing the types of shoes I wore.

Leah:

with the types of shoes she wore.

Leah:

And I was told that, right?

Leah:

It was that simple.

Leah:

You know what?

Leah:

They just, they're looking and you just don't seem that successful.

Leah:

Well, I was more than happy never to step foot in that business again

Leah:

because I guess my shoes weren't as fancy, but they made a judgment.

Leah:

Now, in this case, they were well taken care of, well, by the well

Leah:

shod woman that I still work with.

Leah:

But isn't it, isn't that amazing to you?

Dennis:

Amazing, but not surprising.

Dennis:

Exactly.

Dennis:

Because again, heuristics, Leah, do amazing things inside our brain.

Dennis:

They can work for us and against us.

Dennis:

Okay.

Dennis:

But here's the key for sales practitioners and marketing practitioners.

Dennis:

We need awareness of this heuristic, we need to know how it works for

Dennis:

us and how it works against us.

Dennis:

Okay.

Dennis:

And I could go into, if we had more time, maybe another podcast.

Dennis:

Okay.

Dennis:

But if we,

Leah:

I hope producer Boomer is keeping track of this, I'll.

Dennis:

Oh, he's right.

Dennis:

We'll have to come back to him.

Dennis:

I'm sure.

Dennis:

Excellent.

Dennis:

But, uh, the The research, the science on this is even more amazing about

Dennis:

dating and about who we're attracted to.

Dennis:

Uh, in college, for instance, they did a study in 2017 about college students, you

Dennis:

know, who were virtually attending class.

Dennis:

They weren't on camera.

Dennis:

They were just virtually attending the class who were judged to be fairly

Dennis:

attractive by independent judges.

Dennis:

And those who were in class In a real live face to face class, okay?

Dennis:

And the professor could see them and they were judged to be attractive.

Dennis:

Guess who got the lower grades?

Dennis:

The people in the virtual class that couldn't be seen.

Dennis:

So the appearance, the attractive appearance of college students

Dennis:

helped improve their grades.

Dennis:

I mean, it's not necessarily right, but it's real.

Leah:

And as you said, knowledge is power.

Leah:

And for knowing this At least then we, you have somewhere to go with

Leah:

it, you have somewhere to, uh, to, to direct your client's attention

Leah:

and to find that one thing that will make a positive difference.

Dennis:

Exactly.

Dennis:

And that's the lesson.

Dennis:

I did have a lesson myself when I was running radio stations down in Miami.

Dennis:

Uh, there was my main station.

Dennis:

My big daddy station was a station called Light FM.

Dennis:

It was a soft rock station.

Dennis:

And, uh, we had to deal with this.

Dennis:

We had all these attributes that the station was known for.

Dennis:

I mean, there were 20 of them.

Dennis:

All these things the station was known for, but you know what we had to do to

Dennis:

get to number one, which thank God we did.

Dennis:

We had to pick one thing.

Dennis:

That people liked and promote that a place for busy females to relax for busy

Dennis:

working women, particularly to relax.

Dennis:

When we finally got that attribute, which we already were given and promoted that we

Dennis:

got credit for all the other attributes.

Dennis:

It's incredible.

Dennis:

And it made us a lot of money, a lot of ratings and a lot of money.

Leah:

But you were consistent, you were focused and you had picked that one thing.

Leah:

So when people thought of you, that was immediately where it went.

Leah:

It's like the, the, the, the customer, they didn't want me looking

Leah:

after him because of my shoes.

Leah:

They obviously had a thing for shoes because that was the one

Leah:

thing that they couldn't get beyond.

Leah:

Even though in other ways I was very helpful to their business.

Dennis:

That well, like you said, it's, it's amazing, but not surprising.

Dennis:

So yeah.

Dennis:

Hey.

Dennis:

Let's close out with three aspects of liking for our listeners today.

Dennis:

Let me give you all three things you can think about when trying to

Dennis:

use this in sales and marketing.

Dennis:

Number one, physical attractiveness.

Dennis:

We've already talked about that.

Dennis:

That works.

Dennis:

But let's talk about your website, your social media, your collateral material.

Dennis:

Put a face on it.

Dennis:

Put a face on it.

Dennis:

How about celebrity endorsers?

Dennis:

Why do celebrity endorsers work?

Dennis:

Because we like them.

Dennis:

We want to be like them.

Dennis:

Michael Jordan, Tiger Woods, Serena Williams, to mention a few.

Dennis:

Uh, let me give you a Michael Jordan example.

Dennis:

Why do people love Michael Jordan?

Dennis:

He did a TV spot for Nike, his sponsor Nike, called Failure.

Dennis:

And here was the, here was the script of the TV spot.

Dennis:

I missed more than 9, 000 shots, I lost over 300 games, and 28 times,

Dennis:

my teammates trusted me to make the game winning shot, and I failed.

Dennis:

But, because of these failures, I have succeeded.

Dennis:

Wow, that's why people like Michael Jordan.

Dennis:

Does that do you in Canada?

Dennis:

I don't know.

Dennis:

You guys don't worship sports people like we do here in the States.

Leah:

We are a lot closer to, uh, to our American cousins than you would think.

Leah:

Absolutely.

Leah:

And Michael Jordan.

Leah:

I may not be a basketball fan, but, uh, Everybody knows who he is.

Dennis:

Well, that's one of the ways he endeared himself.

Dennis:

The other thing, we like people like us.

Dennis:

So have you ever walked into an Apple store, Leah?

Dennis:

I'm sure you've walked into an Apple store.

Dennis:

How are they dressed, generally?

Leah:

Nice, casual, comfortable.

Leah:

No, not at all.

Leah:

They've got the jeans.

Leah:

They've got a very sharp looking t shirt on and they're ready for action.

Leah:

A lot of times, very cool glasses.

Dennis:

They are and they're, they're welcoming, aren't they?

Dennis:

They're not intimidating.

Dennis:

That's part of the similarity.

Dennis:

They're people just like us, okay?

Dennis:

Even small similarities like The phrase that I've tried to use, I want to

Dennis:

be more interested than interesting.

Dennis:

Okay.

Dennis:

Interested first, then interesting.

Dennis:

Explore, explore people's interests, their backgrounds, their sporting likes and

Dennis:

dislikes, their travel, their experiences.

Dennis:

You will find, I guarantee you, uh, as we've trained salespeople,

Dennis:

I have found that when we go this direction in the opening of a

Dennis:

sale, we can always find something.

Dennis:

That is similar, that we have a similarity that we wouldn't know of.

Dennis:

I'll give you another quick example, hurricane names.

Dennis:

You guys don't have to worry about hurricanes in Canada, but,

Dennis:

but here in Florida we get these crazy things called hurricanes.

Dennis:

And every year they put out a list, A to Z, okay?

Dennis:

Well, guess what?

Dennis:

Some scientists didn't have enough to do, so they decided to do a study.

Dennis:

The first letter in the name of the hurricane resonates with people

Dennis:

who share the same first letter.

Dennis:

For instance, Sandy, the Hurricane Sandy, people with the first letter S

Dennis:

in their name were 260 times more likely to donate to help the victims of Sandy.

Dennis:

And Sandy was a nasty hurricane.

Dennis:

Okay.

Dennis:

That's not interesting.

Dennis:

I'm sorry?

Leah:

That's interesting because they connect with the name or with the letter.

Dennis:

That's a tiny similarity.

Dennis:

The same what's true of Katrina, Hurricane Katrina.

Dennis:

People whose names began with K donated more than other people.

Dennis:

It doesn't matter.

Dennis:

It's small.

Dennis:

You, you may have experienced this.

Leah:

Well, when I think of hurricane names, what I remember is when they made

Leah:

the switch from it always being a feminine name, always being a woman's name.

Leah:

And now they go back and forth.

Leah:

And that was stark because I remember as a, as a little girl going, you know,

Leah:

having that discussion with my dad and it was, you know, the fiery ness of women.

Leah:

That's why they picked that.

Leah:

But the reality is, They had to switch it because that did influence

Leah:

how people were looking at storms.

Leah:

I was looking at looking at their connection with it.

Leah:

And so now we go back and forth.

Leah:

Although Hurricane George doesn't scare me as much as, uh,

Leah:

uh, you know, Hurricane Sandy.

Dennis:

Yeah, well, unfortunately, I remember Hurricane Andrew.

Dennis:

I was living in South Florida and that was not fun.

Dennis:

That was not fun.

Dennis:

Andrew being A, the first storm of the year.

Dennis:

And it was the most devastating storm we've ever experienced, but

Dennis:

that that's for another episode.

Leah:

Okay, we don't name our blizzards up here for a whole bunch of reasons,

Leah:

but we just stay away from that.

Dennis:

I'm not sure why they named hurricane.

Dennis:

Maybe they should just call them one, two, three or ABC, but no,

Dennis:

they have to have these names.

Dennis:

I think it's a good story.

Dennis:

It helps get donations.

Dennis:

So last but not least, we all love.

Dennis:

Sincere compliments.

Dennis:

Okay.

Dennis:

Can you tell the difference, Leah, between a sincere and an insincere?

Dennis:

Is it insincere or insincere?

Dennis:

I don't know.

Dennis:

You know what I mean.

Leah:

No, absolutely.

Leah:

I think everybody can.

Leah:

I think you can tell by the context.

Leah:

You can tell by, you know, what the person says and what they're basing it

Leah:

on and whether they actually are talking to you and you see them having this

Leah:

conversation and saying, you know, Dennis, I love the way you teach this as opposed

Leah:

to Yeah, yeah, that is really good.

Leah:

And the way they go,

Dennis:

that's true.

Dennis:

If there's very little context, it's probably just fluff.

Dennis:

Yeah, that's right.

Dennis:

Yeah.

Dennis:

Well, again, We are drawn to people who compliment us.

Dennis:

So in using the principle of liking in ethically, okay,

Dennis:

ethically in your work in sales and marketing, use sincere compliments.

Dennis:

Uh, we also, we like people who like us.

Dennis:

We like people who like us.

Dennis:

So give congratulations, give good reviews, give acknowledgments.

Dennis:

Those are all forms of compliments.

Leah:

And compliments connect us and that comes back to our original

Leah:

discussion on relationships, right?

Leah:

This is how you form a relationship.

Leah:

It's, it's real.

Leah:

And, and I mean, it is going somewhere, right?

Leah:

But it has to be based on something solid.

Leah:

If it doesn't, then it's just, as you said, it's just fluff.

Leah:

It's really nothing.

Leah:

And, uh, they're, they're waiting for you to go.

Leah:

You're just another, another rep trying to get their money.

Dennis:

Another rep trying to get their money.

Dennis:

Yeah.

Dennis:

Well, we have covered this topic.

Dennis:

I think we, we, it could be, we could do more on this, but I

Dennis:

think we did a good job today.

Dennis:

I think we at least approach the subject.

Dennis:

And I hope our listeners realize how important the principle of liking is when

Dennis:

crafting sales and marketing messages.

Dennis:

Those are just some of the ways you can use it.

Dennis:

There are many more we'll probably talk about some more later, but yeah.

Dennis:

Enough for today.

Dennis:

What do you think, Leah?

Leah:

Well, I just hope they really like this.

Dennis:

I hope so, too.

Dennis:

Get in touch with us.

Dennis:

You know, Dennis Collins at WizardOfAds.

Dennis:

com.

Dennis:

Leah Bumfrey at WizardOfAds.

Dennis:

com.

Dennis:

We'd love to hear from you.

Dennis:

Absolutely.

Dennis:

That's enough for, that's all for today.

Dennis:

Connect & Convert.

Dennis:

We'll be back soon.

Dennis:

Stay tuned.

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Insider Strategies for Small Business Sales Success

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Dennis Collins

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Paul Boomer

I help businesses grow up after they've grown their revenue. Think about that for a moment. You'll understand what I mean.