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Ethical Persuasion and Ethic Marketing – a conversation with Thomas Trautmann
11 Plays9 days ago
Exploring the role of ethics in marketing.
Dr. Thomas Trautmannis the founder of Happy Brains a neuro marketing consultancy. He is also the author of several books on ethical marketing, ethical persuasion and human relationships
In this episode of the Abeceder podcast The Independent Minds Thomas describes to host Michael Millward how he used ethical marketing techniques to grow his motor cycle tour business by 400%.
Their conversation covers
- A definition of neuro-marketing and ethical persuasion.
- How human beings make decisions
- Why human connection is important in decision making
- The role of ration and emotional brains in decision making
- How removing pain for a customer will result in a sale
- Genuine empathy and maintaining relationships
- The role of AI in customer service
Discover more about Dr Thomas Trautmann and Michael at Abeceder.co.uk
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Transcript
Introduction to The Independent Minds Podcast
00:00:05
Speaker
Made on Zencaster. Hello and welcome to The Independent Minds, a series of conversations between Abysida and people who think outside the box about how work works, with the aim of creating better workplace experiences for everyone.
Neuromarketing & Ethical Persuasion Intro with Dr. Thomas Troutman
00:00:23
Speaker
I am your host, Michael Millward, Managing Director of Abysida. Today I'm going to be finding out about neuro marketing and ethical persuasion from Dr. Thomas Troutman from a company called Happy Brains.
Zencastr Promotion and Podcast Philosophy
00:00:41
Speaker
As the jingle at the start of this podcast says, the independent minds is made on Zencastr, the all-in-one podcasting platform that really does make every stage of the podcast production process so easy.
00:00:56
Speaker
If you would like to try podcasting using Zencaster, all the details are in the description.
Dr. Trautmann's Background and Ethical Persuasion Model
00:01:02
Speaker
Now that I have told you how wonderful Zencaster is for making podcasts, we should make one that will be well worth listening to, liking, downloading and subscribing to.
00:01:13
Speaker
As with every episode of The Independent Minds, we won't be telling you what to think, but we are hoping to make you think. to- Today, my guest independent mind is Thomas Trautmann.
00:01:25
Speaker
Thomas is a certified neuromarketing instructor. He now leverages the latest brain and decision-making science to improve his clients' marketing, sales and business strategies.
00:01:39
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He's developed a model called ethical persuasion. During his studies, Thomas noticed the differences between male and female brains and started to investigate why.
00:01:52
Speaker
This knowledge inspired him to create the neuro-couple system and write his first book, Is There a Brain in Your Couple?
Michael's Personal Travel Preferences and Promotion
00:02:00
Speaker
to help couples understand each other's hardwiring.
00:02:04
Speaker
And he also has another book called Make Me Great, which looks at how we can be more successful by helping other people to be more successful, a process about elevating others in order for us to be successful as well.
00:02:19
Speaker
Thomas is based in Fréjoux in France, the south of France. I have never been to that part of France, but if I do go, i will make my travel arrangements with the Ultimate Travel Club because that is where I can access trade prices on flights, hotels, trains, holidays, and all sorts of other travel-related purchases.
Dr. Trautmann's Career Shift to Neuromarketing
00:02:42
Speaker
You can also access those same trade prices on travel by joining the Ultimate Travel Club. There is a link and a discount code in the description. Now that I've paid some bills, it is time to make an episode of The Independent Minds.
00:02:58
Speaker
Hello, Thomas. Hello. Thanks for having me, Michael. It's a great pleasure. To start off with, please give me a little bit of a potted history of of Thomas and how you ended up doing what you're doing now.
00:03:08
Speaker
Yeah, well, I'm originally coming from the computer world. I started as a computer engineer, became a scientist during my PhD working on artificial neural networks, which are now the little things that drive GPT stuff, so artificial intelligence.
00:03:25
Speaker
But I always wanted to one day found my own company. So i was lucky enough to switch to marketing, to sales, and finally found my very first company with my wife.
00:03:37
Speaker
which was all about motorcycle tours. And interestingly, we like like many people, at one stage, I was sitting at my desk looking at my bank account, and I could see that things were not looking as brilliant as you dream when you start a company. yes I knew that I either had to find a solution or to find a job.
00:03:57
Speaker
And yeah, that was that was painful to think about. And things happen when they have to happen, right?
Introduction to Neuromarketing as Emotional Content Creation
00:04:04
Speaker
Yes. I saw a documentary on neuromarketing. It was the very beginning of neuromarketing.
00:04:11
Speaker
And I said, oh, that sounds interesting. So ah at that stage, we changed a bit how we communicated on our website and on our brochures. It was originally we're doing like everyone. we were rationally speaking about our motorcycle tours, distances that you are going to ride, your hotels you are going to visit, and stuff like that.
00:04:33
Speaker
after that that documentary on your marketing and on reading a bit more about it we wrote stuff in a more emotional way we wrote stories you know and what it didn't happen overnight but the business grew by 400 percent so something something interesting was happening there and uh well after some other ventures and so on i i i became a certified neuromarketing instructor from the first neuromarketing agency and did a lot of of workshops of business development for them, especially in Europe, in in German, French and English speaking countries.
00:05:13
Speaker
But each time I was giving neuro marketing workshop, I felt that something was missing.
Development of Ethical Persuasion in Marketing
00:05:21
Speaker
you know your marketing is is fantastic don't get me wrong it's really working it gives you two digit growth easily when you implement all the techniques of course but people attending those workshops were learning a lot to improve their company but weren't learning something for themselves one evening talking with my wife the word humanity came out you know your marketing is missing humanity
00:05:47
Speaker
That's why i created the ethical persuasion. i founded ethical persuasion and the ethical persuader system, where in fact you learn first things for yourself that you can implement for yourself in your private life, in your professional life, and then you can use them inside your company, for your company, for your marketing, for your sales, for your strategy.
00:06:09
Speaker
So that's
Emotional Decision-Making in Marketing
00:06:10
Speaker
little bit the story. The neuromarketing, is where we almost, instead of writing about the facts, instead of writing rationally, we would write a website page which dealt with what it feels like to use the product or to go on a motorcycle tour. It's about the emotion of it. So you're appealing to the emotional side of the brain when you're doing neuromarketing.
00:06:36
Speaker
You are in fact appealing to the decision maker in the brain. You know, 97% of people still think that we, because we are the dominant species on Earth, because we have that huge rational brain, that we make all our decisions thanks to the rational part of the brain.
00:06:55
Speaker
when in fact it and it has been scientifically demonstrated right there is even a guy who got a nobel prize in 2011 uh daniel kahneman for his work demonstrating that in fact the human brain makes primal decisions we use the primal brain to make our decisions and only after that do we rationalize those decisions and that primal brain ah makes decisions based on something called subconscious frustrations that are very human that they are not they are these are not related to any business stuff right because the primal brain is a survival tool it's it's only concerned about one and only one being on earth itself so every decision is made for me myself
00:07:44
Speaker
That's why the next book comes out it's called Make Me Great because that's what people want.
Ethical vs. Unethical Persuasion Examples
00:07:50
Speaker
Your clients, your partners want you to make them great, which means focus on me, pay attention to me, make sure that you help my brain make the right decision by removing that subconscious frustration.
00:08:04
Speaker
You need emotions for that. You need contrast you need many things to trigger that that subconscious frustration decision. And that's what it's all about. Yes, I can understand that. I think the brain makes emotional decisions and then we rationalize them to justify them almost to ourselves as well as other people. We're making this decision and then we rationalize it. Yes, we have the biggest neocortex rational brain on the surface of Earth.
00:08:33
Speaker
Yes. Neuromarketing, understanding neuromarketing and applying it is a great way to boost any business. Then you you are dealing, yeah you're focusing your marketing activities on that almost emotional part of the brain.
00:08:50
Speaker
But then you've expanded it and developed and this ethical persuasion model, which is slightly different. So ethical persuasion. i'm not going to ask you to explain to me what ethical persuasion is, but what would an unethical persuasion look like or feel like? For example, lied to you. i tell you that you go on my website, you want to buy a product, and I tell you that there are only two left.
00:09:18
Speaker
Well, in fact, I have a whole storage room full of those, right? Or I will tell you that my promotion ends in 57 seconds. When you come back, it's still in
Benefits of Ethical Persuasion
00:09:31
Speaker
57 seconds. And two days later, it's still in 57 seconds, you know?
00:09:35
Speaker
Those are based on some influence rules that a guy called Robert Cialdini developed. The two are called urgency and scarcity. And a lot of people abused them, know?
00:09:46
Speaker
Everyone knows that... ah Well, now they corrected it, but some airplane company used that technique to tell you that the the ticket is only 29 euros and in one hour it will be 50 euros. So you take your ticket and three days later it's still at 29 and sometimes even at 17 euros. Yes. So because people abuse that, they manipulated our brains to make a decision. It's not ethical.
00:10:13
Speaker
Ethical will really be, I mean, the definition is very easy. It's getting from people the decision you want while they make the decision they need. that That's what ethical persuasion is about.
00:10:24
Speaker
Right. So unethical is where we say something that we want the customer to hear that will prompt an action from them, but that only works if it's ethical. So if it's honest, it fulfills the values of the organization. it only works if it's ethical because people will eventually see through the dishonesty of the people who've put out a false message or they may buy from you it may work you know your manipulation may work but it will work once or twice but not more and then your reputation is going to go down the pipe
00:11:01
Speaker
ah While what you want is, in fact, to have recurring business with your clients, because it's it's way easier to sell to someone who knows you. In fact, you have 5% of chances to sell to someone who doesn't like you or who doesn't know you, and 70% chances to sell to someone who likes you and who may want recurring business.
00:11:23
Speaker
And that's what ethical persuasion is all about, is to get you to that 70% chances
Understanding Customer Frustrations for Ethical Influence
00:11:29
Speaker
level. Yes, this may be a little bit radical, but if you are exercising the ethical persuasion techniques, I get the feeling that a customer is more likely to buy, but not just more likely to buy, is more likely to buy more, more frequently, more regularly at a higher price than if they are feeling forced to buy because you're unethical. So the
00:11:58
Speaker
Ethical persuasion is more likely to deliver more productive relationships, more profitable relationships with clients as well. Yes, absolutely. yeah Whilst it may take a little bit longer to build the ethics, the trust, which then enable you to be doing the persuasion, the rewards, the results,
00:12:18
Speaker
should actually be higher because you have put that groundwork in to build absolutely the ethics and demonstrate the ethics before you start the promotion the persuasion. Yeah, absolutely.
00:12:31
Speaker
Right. Because I think there I'm i'm so maybe jumping the gun on making a conclusion there that the ethical persuasion starts with you demonstrating your ethics before you start the persuasion.
00:12:45
Speaker
um No, in fact, but you... You can do everything in in just a few words.
High-Tech Industry Ethical Persuasion Examples
00:12:52
Speaker
if you know that famous subconscious frustration okay so let me give you an example if i'm sending if i'm selling some so piece of software to a chief information officer the traditional rational way would be to say okay dear sir this software will allow you to handle 10 000 clients store so much data print so many reports and all those nice features you know yes that's rational
00:13:19
Speaker
So ah that person will then ask for free demo, a rebate, and so on and so forth. When in fact, the ethical way to do that would be to understand what the subconscious frustration is.
00:13:31
Speaker
For example, that person, because of all the software problems she has, doesn't get home early enough, has to come back to the office on weekends. In fact, what I will say is that here is how you are going to be home every evening at 5 p.m.
00:13:46
Speaker
And here's how you're going to spend more time with your children, where how your partner is going to be more happy. That person will say, shit, how does he know that? you know That's because I understand so subconscious frustrations.
00:13:58
Speaker
And it's all about that person. I'm making that person great. I'm elevating that person. And by that, it will elevate my success because she will say, yeah, I want to work with you.
00:14:09
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And then she will ask, of course, for rational data, because you need to rationalize
Role of AI vs. Human Connection in Customer Interaction
00:14:14
Speaker
your decision. yes But just by proving that you understand the circumstances of frustration, you are ethical. You reminded me there of when I worked in the high-tech industry as an HR manager for he ourselves a sales and marketing team of a high-tech business. One of the recruitment consultants that we worked with They told me that one of the things that they would do was find out when the candidate that they wanted to headhunt was going to be at work after normal sort of home time.
00:14:44
Speaker
And then they would phone their partner at home. and say, you know, can I speak to the person that I want to have as ah as a candidate? And they would say, oh, they're not back from work yet. Oh, that's interesting because I represent such and such a company and they have policies and procedures in place to make sure that people leave work on time. So if you worked there, they would be at home by now.
00:15:10
Speaker
It's picking up on exactly what you talked about, the frustration of the partner, the family who haven't got the breadwinner at home yet. You're then presenting an option to them, which removes that frustration because that person changes jobs and goes and works for an organization that encourages people to leave work at at the correct time.
00:15:32
Speaker
There would be, I suppose, some people would say, yeah is that ethical persuasion in that particular case that I've outlined? Or is it a little bit underhand? But what you're doing is identifying a pain point and then providing the information which resolves the pain point for that person. You're making it easier for them to live the life that they want to lead by taking a ah choice that you are presenting to them. Yeah. You mentioned pain points.
00:16:00
Speaker
Usually when people... speak about pain points, not as as you did, but most people in marketing and sales, when they talk about pain points, they focalize on some business-related pain points.
00:16:13
Speaker
no I want to have a higher salary. I want to grow my business. I want more success. Those are all rational concepts that people can easily talk about. Well, in fact, we target the subconscious frustration, which is underneath the pain point.
00:16:31
Speaker
you know The pain point can be linked to needs, desires, and wants, while the subconscious frustration is way deeper than that. Yeah. Again, you've reminded me there of one of things in in that same role, being ah HR manager for a sales and marketing team in a high-tech organization. It was quite a big team.
00:16:52
Speaker
And talking to the senior managers, the vice presidents of sales and marketing, and talking about the type of people that they wanted to employ, one of the things they didn't want was people who were interested in me high salaries, or rather I should say high salaries without something to spend that high salary on.
00:17:12
Speaker
okay If you think, okay, well, I want to earn more money, the question has to be, well, why? Well, if I earned more money, i could do more of the hobby that I'm really passionate about. I could go traveling to the places that are important to me. I could build an extra bedroom onto my house so that my children have their own bedrooms, all these sorts of things.
00:17:33
Speaker
When you say, i want more money, that's a rational thing. But the the thing that is behind it is the why. And the ethical persuasion has to identify the why and then help to facilitate the fulfillment of the why rather than simply just the presentation of more money yeah exactly yeah i'm learning aren't i here know i am learning but one of the things that i'm also very aware of as we're in the 21st century and is that thing that you were involved in when you were in computers
00:18:09
Speaker
Artificial intelligence is doing an awful lot of customer interactions nowadays. Whether that's selling or customer service or marketing, it's artificial intelligence. You will find yourself either talking to a computer or receiving text messages from a computer.
00:18:26
Speaker
How does ethical persuasion work? fit with an organization that is using AI to interact with its customers? AI can help filter out people who won't be your clients or stuff like that.
00:18:42
Speaker
But at the decision stage, it has to be human driven. You know, decisions are ah based on human interaction, mostly, or some human did something.
00:18:54
Speaker
or I trust you as a human group of human beings also artificial intelligence you can see it there is no emotion in artificial intelligence you can simulate a few things you can emulate some a few things but it's not at the level of a human being will be and you can easily play with ai when you know how it's working now you know you know it's AI at the end so yeah on the other hand it's it's a great tool it saves you a lot of time when you know how to to to get information out of ai so you yeah it's like everything like that example you know if i give you a hammer you can build something with that hammer you can make you may even be able to beat your house but you can also use it to kill someone yes or if i take my my laptop here i can talk with you around the world you know i can uh work on it i can ah
00:19:49
Speaker
teach people, coach people, but I can also close it and throw it in the face of my dog. Yeah, it's always the same thing. it's it It's based on how you use it and what you want to do out of it.
00:20:00
Speaker
I like the idea of ai being used to qualify or help customers qualify whether what we have to on offer for them to buy is actually the right sort of thing for them.
00:20:14
Speaker
But I totally agree with you that once you start getting into the point where you're making decisions about what you will buy and how much of it you that you will buy, the relationship that you have with the organization is much better when it's a person to person because people still buy people, don't they? Absolutely.
00:20:34
Speaker
i mean You can see it in organizations. I mean had once a client. He explained me that when the salespeople get a client, they they manage the client, they do the contract and so on. And when the business with that client is growing,
00:20:49
Speaker
The client gets handed over to an account manager and sometimes the the connection just disappears. It's the same company, it's the same product, it's the same pricing, but it's the human link that is different.
00:21:04
Speaker
yes Not saying that that account manager is is bad. If he's a account manager, he's a good person, but there is not that human connection. ah again yeah so it's purely human people need to understand that that it's all about being human and connected at the human level and that changes so many things yes as a customer i have experienced that i have been through the getting on very well with the salesperson really looking forward to working with them helping them helping me develop the products that they're selling to me, making sure that everything is exactly as we need it to be. And then the contract is signed and all of a sudden I can't get through to them anymore because they want me to deal with an account manager who
00:21:49
Speaker
I've never met and part of their role is not necessarily to come and visit me, but I have to deal with them over the phone or by email. And it does, ah does damage the sort of the relationship and makes you less interested in buying from an organization. think what we're talking about now though, is all of those things that ah the problems that organizations can create for themselves, not problems that the customer has created,
00:22:18
Speaker
But the way in which the organization operates creates problems for the customer. Who's who's to blame other than the organization, the one that's trying to do the selling, the one that's trying to build a relationship and and make
Formula for Ethical Persuasion
00:22:31
Speaker
orders? So I'm curious, really, as to how an organization would go about identifying people what its own unique personal approach to ethical persuasion should be.
00:22:47
Speaker
how do you How do you get actually, managing director says, this is a great idea, this will help us with marketing, help us with sales, let's do it. But how do you define for your organization what ethical persuasion is going to look like and what it's going to mean and within your organization? Yeah.
00:23:07
Speaker
Yeah, it's ah it's ah in fact a simple process that's summarized by what I call the ethical persuasion formula, where in fact you get maximum ethical persuasion if you maximize the four the four parameters.
00:23:22
Speaker
So the first one, we talked about it, is knowing what the subconscious frustrations of your clients are. And as those subconscious frustrations are inside the brain, that brain is inside the head and belongs to a person.
00:23:36
Speaker
You have to have a perfect understanding of who your optimal client is. And very often that's not very clear. So that's the first step. The second step is for the people inside the company to understand who they are.
00:23:50
Speaker
You have to understand who you are if you want to connect with another human being. And that's not that easy. Because if I ask you who you are, you are going to tell me I'm Michael. Yeah, okay, nice. But there are plenty of guys who are called Michael, you know.
00:24:02
Speaker
You're going to give me your first name and your second name. And your family name. Nice. But that has been given to you by your family. It doesn't define who you are. So that's the second parameter.
00:24:13
Speaker
The third one, and that's what connects with the company, is why are you doing what you are doing? Why you as a human being are doing what you are doing? And that you you gave a good example with that salary thing, okay?
00:24:25
Speaker
Why do you want more money? Because I want freedom. Or because I'm absolutely crazy about travels and so on, you know, because I need to meet new people. That's my why. And then you need to find the why of the company.
00:24:38
Speaker
And if the why of the employee and the why of the company match, then you have a winning couple. And if not, then you may have a problem. Maybe that person should not work for you. Or maybe that person is not going he's going to perform, but is going to be very unhappy and leave after a while.
00:24:58
Speaker
And the fourth parameter is called the tribe. Because we human beings are tribal species. We cannot live alone. We belong to many tribes, each each and every one of us.
00:25:08
Speaker
Our family is a tribe. Our organization is a tribe. Church is a tribe. Sports club is a tribe. And I can go on and on and on. And you're either ah a leader or a follower. But when you do ethical persuasion, you have to be the leader of the tribe, of the people who want to follow you because you understand their subconscious frustrations.
00:25:30
Speaker
And so inside your company, you are going to need to nurture this tribe because if they want to be part of your tribe, they want you to give them something, give them information, like give them help, give them something, you know, and then they are going to be happy to buy more from you.
Conclusion and Further Resources
00:25:46
Speaker
That's the whole idea. Get them inside of your tribe and your chances of selling will go up to 70%. Yeah. Yeah. yeah It is, you know, Thomas, it is absolutely fascinating.
00:25:59
Speaker
the common sense in all of this is so obvious really but it is fascinating this whole the work that you've put into this is really bearing results and you i know that in the short period of this episode we've only really scratched the surface of it but we will put some links in the description, which will take people to more information about all of this. But I just have to say a grip you know a big thank you for you being available today to introduce me to the idea of ethical persuasion. It's been very interesting and very useful. Thank you very much. Well, thank you for for having me on the podcast, Michael. appreciate it Thank you.
00:26:43
Speaker
I am Michael Millward, the Managing Director of Abysida, and I have been having a conversation with the independent mind, Dr. Thomas Troutman from Happy Brains.
00:26:54
Speaker
You can find out more information about both of us at abysida.co.uk. The Zencastr system has, as always, been very efficient for us today, but if you are listening to the independent minds on your smartphone, and have experienced any technical issues, you may like to know that 3.0 has the UK's fastest 5G network with unlimited data.
00:27:15
Speaker
So listening on 3.0 means you can wave goodbye to buffering. There is a link in the description that will take you to more information about business and personal telecom solutions from 3.0 and the special offers available when you quote my referral code.
00:27:30
Speaker
The description is well worth reading. I'm sure that you will have enjoyed this episode of The Independent Minds as much as Thomas and I have enjoyed making it.
00:27:40
Speaker
Please give it a like and download it so that you can listen anytime, anywhere. To make sure you don't miss out on future episodes, please subscribe. Remember, the aim of all the podcasts produced by Abbasida is not to tell you what to think, but we do hope to have made you think.
00:27:58
Speaker
Until the next episode of The Independent Minds, thank you for listening and goodbye.