Overcoming Obstacles To Get The Decision

Speaker A: Foreign.

Speaker B: Mhm.

Speaker A: Hello, thanks for joining us on this week's episode of Wise Content. Hello, thanks for joining us on this week's episode of Wise Content Creates Wealth. You have heard that content is king. Well, wise content rules the world. This podcast is about understanding how, uh, you can make and utilize wise content to improve your company's bottom line. I AM Joseph Franklin McElroy and I am a marketing technology expert who has built multimillion dollar companies and, and I'm also an award winning content producer. My company is Galileo Tech Media, leader in providing wise content and smart SEO. Our Wise content is all types of content that incorporates semantic science, behavioral science, AI and data to make content that converts better and gets better rankings in the search engines. On our agenda today is obstacles to making decisions, uh, and how to overcome them. And uh, Today's guest is Dr. Dave Popple who is an expert at obstacles. Dr. Popple is a corporate psychologist and president of the Psynet Group. He is an expert commentator on workplace psychology and a consulting producer for business based reality TV shows. He's also a personal friend, as you can see. First I'm going to talk about some obstacles I have in deciding on ideas for content. Now at this point I'm writing blog posts and have two different podcasts going a week and I need help all the time for uh, creating ideas. So uh, when I was starting to do writing and doing blog posts, uh, I found out that uh, I am not particularly well managed and it's why I have a CEO for my company because they can make sure the wheels turn on the tracks on time. But um, uh, I uh, found that putting deadlines in place for me, like having two podcasts a week, helped me uh, in the process of creating podcasts or gave me a deadline and my guests helped dictate the nature of the content. Another thing I do is I use online tools and my tool tip of this week is statista.com, okay, that's s T A T I S T A and it's a leading provider of market and consumer data. But you can get actually a free account with them. Uh, and there's also accounts a little bit more accessibility, uh, that are very reasonably priced. And statistic.com consolidates statistical data on over 80,000 topics for more than 22,000 uh, resources and it makes it available in multiple languages. I use this by putting search terms into a search box on their site and this will pull the titles of many receipt research reports and charts. For example, I went and played today I entered in content marketing uh, uh, 2021. And I got many results, including, uh, results saying most valuable content marketing types for moving prospects through the sales Funnel according to B2B marketers in the United States in 2019. That is relevant to what my business is. And it's also close enough in time that it makes sense to talk about it. And it was a survey among B2B marketing professionals in the United States, uh, which found that according to 55% of the respondents, what you might expect, they talked about articles and blog posts. But the second most important piece of type of content, which was 43%, said that reviews and customer testimonials help move their prospects through the B2B sales funnel. So for me, that is great information to support a blog post on social proofing or to go out and get a guest for a blog post about social proofing. Um, uh, I tried another random, uh, search to get interesting information. So I entered in funny content and it came out something actually very relevant to my life, uh, now. And that was the title that came up first was actually most popular YouTube videos based upon total global views as of February 2021. And that is like completely in my life right now. And it revealed that I'm not alone in my torture. I have two year old twins and I'm intimately familiar with the number one video, the baby shark dance. Um, so that brings me to my guest, the honorary uncle to my children who will soon learn the joy of YouTube children's videos. How you doing, Dave?

Speaker B: I'm doing really well, Joseph. Thanks for having me on.

Speaker A: All right. Yes, I know we're gonna talk about five obstacles you need to overcome to get someone to make a decision. But first of all, tell me, why should I trust you and, and telling me how to overcome obstacles in my content?

Speaker B: Well, primarily it's because I'm a gray haired white man and I have a puppy. Everything you need to know, uh, about it.

Speaker A: I trust the puppy. Okay, we can go forward. I trust the puppy.

Speaker B: Honestly. Yeah. So, no, the real reason why, Joseph, is that while you were thinking about SEO and marketing and all the great things that you do in your life, you know, I thought about how people think. And on top of that, I've interviewed about one, uh, thousand executives for jobs here, there, and I know how they think. And so using that combination of the academia and my experience with those thousand assessments, I think I have a pretty good handle on how to overcome some of their obstacles to decision making.

Speaker A: Great. And you've also, I think, been involved in producing a lot of content in your career, Like a television show, that sort of thing, Right?

Speaker B: True.

Speaker A: Yeah. Um, what was that television show again?

Speaker B: Oh, does someone have to go? Honestly, it was a great idea, but a perfect example of bad timing when, uh, people were still. Not. When people were still having a hard time finding jobs. We made a show about m firing people. So, um, we may not have had the best timing, but it sure was a lot of fun to do.

Speaker A: Well, that's good. Well, when we were talking about, um, I had one of your, uh, team members here last week, and in the process, because I got interested in the trust factor. But in the process, you introduced a concept called RISPA that I thought would be very interesting, uh, to talk to in the context of content. Can you go into what, uh, does RISPA mean?

Speaker B: Yeah. So for us, we created RISPA because we're not very good at creating acronyms, but it does roll out the tongue, um, and it shows. It helps us remember that before somebody's going to make a decision to either use our services or buy our products, they have to jump through these five hoops internally or mentally. Uh, would you like me to share with you what they are?

Speaker A: Yeah, sure. Go for it.

Speaker B: The first one is rejection. And when somebody sees your marketing message or they, um, engage you in the sales, they know that you want something from them. They know that you want them to do something or take some action. And by our human nature, we don't want to be told what to do. We don't want to be influenced. And so our initial reaction is to reject the messenger. So R stands for rejection. Once I've accepted the messenger and there's some trust that comes into play there, um, then I'm indifferent to the message. This is an emotional piece because it doesn't mean that I don't believe you yet or those kind of things, but I don't really care about the message until you can identify why that might be interesting to me. So then I've accepted you as a messenger. Second, um, I'm interested in what you have to say. My third, um, thing is I'm skeptical. Can you really deliver for me what you promised? Right. So RIS skeptics.

Speaker A: Third.

Speaker B: And then some strange things that are very unique to human beings happen. Even if I accept the messenger, want the product or service, and I believe, uh, you can deliver, for some reason, I still procrastinate. That has a little bit to do with my attention, because I can only pay attention to one thing at a time. And if you move something else or Something else comes into my attention span. I tend to forget about the decision I made a little bit ago. And finally the A is anxiety. So there's something about signing on the dotted line or making that choice that makes us all just a little bit anxious.

Speaker A: Mhm.

Speaker B: So wrist bump, rejection, indifference, skepticism, procrastination and anxiety. And, and once I get through those hoops, the sale's made.

Speaker A: So how does um, something like this get developed? How do you discover this? How was it discovered? Do you know?

Speaker B: So it initially started with just some basic logic. Right. If you think about it as I say it, most of your listeners are going, ah, uh, that makes sense. And if they think about the last time they were on a used car lot, they think, wow, that sales woman or salesman went through all those five things with me. So that, that's where initially came to my mind. Um, and then we start to look at the research. There's some really great people, um, out there from, you know, Cialdini, who, um, Cialdini. I'm not exactly sure how you pronounce his name. Um, with his book on influence and some other pieces of research, it's easy to see how those five hoops are. The, are the five that are out there.

Speaker A: Cool. And have you used this in any kind of, what kind of context do you use this, uh, for your business or your practice?

Speaker B: Yep. So we use it in almost every situation where we want some, we have some call to action. So it's how we structure our emails, it's how we structure our blogs, it's how we um, structure uh, and focus on our sales calls. Even when we do our 15 minute introductions, um, across the board, anytime I want somebody to do something, I'm using this structure.

Speaker A: Mhm. Cool. And do you train your writers and your people to use it, the structure?

Speaker B: Yeah. Uh, as a matter of fact, when people start to do their um, to write content for us, originally we use these five things as headings, each section. Now of course they don't show up as headings on our, on our content, but we use it as the outline.

Speaker A: Cool. I mean, because, you know, a business, you know, I've had experience scaling, you know, doing content development. So uh, it's, I think it's great to know that it can be trained to people. Um, so when, when we get back we're going to dig a little deeper into each one of these, uh, these areas to understand how we can apply that to content.

Speaker B: Yeah, I think you're going to find some really interesting uh, ideas coming up.

Speaker A: All right. Sounds good. Hello, It's Joseph Franklin McElroy back with, uh, the Wise Content Creation wealth podcast and my guest, uh, Dr. Dave Poppel. So Dave, in what ways can we overcome rejection if we're not there in person?

Speaker B: You know what's really interesting about this is you have just a fraction of time in order to jump through this hoop. And there are some things, I made a little joke with the puppy earlier, but that made me somewhat likable because the puppy is a likable puppy and that maybe overcame some rejection associated with the gray hair. So that's one opportunity to do it. But initially that very first line has to focus the attention of the listener or the reader. So for example, um, we have a tool that does assessment in a new way. We can get attention just by raising the question, um, are you the type of person that's um, open minded about new technologies? So even though in reality probably less than half the population is, about 90 to 95% of the people are going to say that they are when asked a question. Then they're going to say, well yeah, I am interested in new technologies. And that then gets us to the chance to jump through the next hoop.

Speaker A: Cool. So, um, likability when you're writing, I mean, um, I guess you could try and figure it out. But what clinically or behaviorally makes a message likable that people would interpret as likable?

Speaker B: I think there's a good example maybe that's easier to show, um, if you've been watching Geico commercials, um, Geico has everything from a caveman to some lizard to uh, Rod Sterling type character. And all of their messages are just, we can save you 15% or more on car insurance. And for the rest of it's 30 minutes. Because they're using some form of humor to make them more interesting and more likable when all they really want to communicate to you is you can save 15% or more on car insurance. And the fact that I remember that they'll save me that amount of money on my car insurance even though I don't use Geico, shows just how effective that really is. Because they are so likable. Because what's not likable about a big eyed lizard or a, um, blast from my past through Rod Sterling.

Speaker A: Mhm. Well, what do you do in um, say if you're writing some sort of paragraph for your blog post, what do you do instantly, uh, to make it likable? What process do you go through?

Speaker B: So what we do is we do something or try to Say something that's going to be somewhat m. Controversial. And this is something I learned from Michael Shine, who's a really fantastic writer. Just throw him a bone. He just wrote a book called the Hype Handbook. It's well worth people's time. But, um, in that, he suggests that you have to throw something out there that's just a little bit countercultural or a little bit counterintuitive. Uh, that is something that creates some interest and likability or almost immediately. So we'll say something like, your old ways of doing assessment no longer work. Um, Marshall Goldsmith, who's another consultant, says, what got you here won't get you there. These are all little things that go, ah, that's right. And immediately I want to hear a little bit more.

Speaker A: So it's sort of taking, um, a bold stand and making people have to confront it in one way or another. But because you're at least asking it, that makes you likable.

Speaker B: That makes you likable because it made me think.

Speaker A: So that makes me ask, um, can you also use unlikability to get people to not reject you?

Speaker B: It's really interesting because there's a great saying, right? There's no such thing as bad press. There's only press. And as long as somebody's on somebody's radar all the time, you're at least focusing their attention.

Speaker A: Right?

Speaker B: And, um, for example, our, um, ex President somehow keeps showing up on the news, on CNN in ways that we never said. And in my opinion, maybe not the most likable guy, but he will not let us forget it. That's maybe an example of how unlikability still focuses my attention on that message.

Speaker A: Well, don't like most, um, recruits in the army. They go through with a drill sergeant. They don't really like them, but they end up to love and trust them. Right?

Speaker B: Yeah. Well, that is another thing because, um, some people would consider that the Stockholm syndrome. But what's really happening in that process is that they created some structure and some security, and that's what makes those people likeable.

Speaker A: M. Well, that's cool. So, um, that'd be. You know, I was looking at, you know, I look at AI programs, right? And there's some that are trying to be, um, trying to analyze content and give you what the nature, what that. What it is. And what I saw actually today was, as they say, well, this content is full of joy. Now how would they actually know that? I mean, I think joy would be something that's likable. Right. What would you conceptually Think is a way they would know that.

Speaker B: So AI doesn't come out of the atmosphere. Right. There's somebody somewhere that thinks that these words or this combination of words bring some amount of joy. And once those are, then once the machine is then taught that, then the machine starts to associate related content to that phrase. And eventually it starts to make, um, overarching decisions whether or not it's joyful or not.

Speaker A: So you think it's just based upon individual words, not the way word, the way the words are put together?

Speaker B: No, I do think the way, uh, the words are put together, the use of, um, exclamation marks combined with certain types of words, um, how long sentences are versus how short sentences are. All these are things that AI picks up. Um, in particular, joyful responses are short responses. Um, and AI knows that because somebody taught at that.

Speaker A: Cool. So you know, you were talking about interests. Um, and this is, you know, this is interesting to me. If everybody's interests are differing when we, when somebody comes to a piece of content, how can we overcome, uh, this hurdle of difference with a marketing message?

Speaker B: All right, so I'm gonna, I'm gonna tell you a little bit of a secret here. And that is everybody's really not that different. Mhm. That I think is really important to know because there are consultants and others who are making a living off of telling people that if you're in private equity, your business is so unique, it's got to have this type of message. Or if you're selling McDonald's, it's so unique. Um, but that's not really the case. Um, so there's two ways I want to go with this. One is that, um, our interests vary based on the situation. And that's where a guy named P.T. barnum who used to run the circus and had this great line called There's a sucker born Every minute he knew that he could say something and even though they may be completely opposite, people would still endorse it. It's called the Barnum effect. And so in marketing, um, you may say something to somebody like, um, hey, do you consider yourself to be a flexible person? And as the listener, I'm going to think about that time m when I change my mind or I made a different decision, I'm going to say, yeah, I'm flexible. And then they're going to, I'm going to endorse that idea. That Same uh, Advertiser 2 hours later May say, are you a person that sticks to their guns? And I'm going to say, yeah, I'M a person that sticks to my guns. It's exactly the opposite behavior. But, uh, because they said it to me and I think about it, I'm going, yeah, that's me. In both situations, that's called the Barnum effect. And that's how a marketer captures my interest because they're tapping in, um, to some memory that I have when I behaved or acted that way. And that's how they tap into my interests.

Speaker A: Oh, interesting. I guess that's. You ever seen all, uh, those scoring, the horoscopes? And it goes through. And every time they have one, you look at it and say, well, that could be me. Are they using that as they're making the positive statements? And you can think of the time that that applied to you.

Speaker B: I'll give you a great example. Um, there's a show coming on hbo. It premiered last night, HBO Max, um, that talks about personality assessments and, and what they're really focusing on is a particular test called the Myers Briggs. And I think that you might have been at the house the other night when we were reading, um, off the descriptions of the Myers Briggs. There's 16 different types and every single description I'm going, yeah, that could be me. Yeah, that could be me. So even personality tests like the Myers Briggs use this Barnum effect to get you to think that they had some deep look into your soul when really you're just recognizing the parts of you that, that were true at any given time within that description.

Speaker A: So you could, you could, uh, in a sense that you could start a, uh, couldn't you start a, um, message, an article or a video or something like that, Ah, make some sort of statement, say you're a person that's flexible. I know that. Right. And they would go, yeah. And they would think then this is for them.

Speaker B: Correct. Exactly. That's exactly how it's, how it's done.

Speaker A: Oh, that's a, that's a clever, that's a clever way, uh, to have in your pocket way to start something, uh, and then a little later change it around and do something else so it works for the other person. Right.

Speaker B: You could. And, you know, maybe this is. I need to at least make this, um, a note. Part of the issue here is that when you take these tools and place them into the hands of people that lack ethics, these can be really dangerous. And so, um, that's why I become a little bit nervous about sharing some of the ideas. Because if somebody that wanted to influence for bad, um, this could definitely happen. I think we've seen that in some situations in our politics. Um, but if you take the approach that when I sell or market, if I do that ethically, I'm just solving a problem, um, then these things can be really valuable.

Speaker A: Well, wouldn't you say, though, um, that that information is going to get out anyway? Wouldn't it be better to educate people about what's being used to manipulate them so that they can then understand it when they see it?

Speaker B: Yeah, that's what Robert Cialdini's original idea was when he wrote the book Influence. And I had a conversation with him and what he told me was that, um, I wrote this book because I wanted to protect people against undue influence. However, nobody from a consumer protection agency ever wrote to him and asked him about it. Instead, it was sales organizations and marketing organizations and even some political organizations. Those are the ones that start to ring his phone. Um, so, yes, we should all be educated about how we're nudged in directions. Um, but it seems like consumer protection agencies just aren't that interested in.

Speaker A: Okay, cool. Well, when I get, we get back, we're gonna, I'm gonna ask you about something you mentioned when we were talking, and that's what is the nudging theory and how that affects interest. And we have to get through a lot of information here. So, uh, we'll, we'll try to do it in the next segment for the most part. All right, talk to you soon. Hi, this is Joseph Franklin McElroy back with the Wise Content Creates wealth podcast and my guest, Dr. Dave Popple. So, Dave, I, when we're, uh, we're talking about, uh, getting somebody's interests, we're also, we're talking about, uh, overcoming their indifference, correct?

Speaker B: Yes, that's absolutely how it works.

Speaker A: Okay, cool. I'm trying to keep us matched to the, uh, acronym. Um, so you had mentioned something about nudging theory. When you mentioned it, I sort of shook my head, uh, in our conversation, like, I knew it because I always like to pretend like I'm smart, but I don't know what it is. And how does that affect our interests?

Speaker B: There's a fantastic book written about Nudge, and it's used in a lot of different ways. Um, the first time I ever remember seeing it was walking through the grocery store and noticing that all the high margin items are right at my eye length, right where I go. And then the low margin items tend to be on the floor or on the shelves where I can't see. So that was the first experience I ever had with nudge. Um, and then I would go to some of these chain restaurants and all of the high margin menu items show up at the beginning and all the low margin item stuff is at the back. And so these are some really small examples of, um, nudge. And what they are, um, are unconscious activities that cause us to focus our attention on something that we may or may not have, um, focused on before.

Speaker A: How would that affect interest, uh, in content?

Speaker B: Well, um, it has to do. And sometimes where you place some of the focal items, um, within the messaging, it could be as simple as putting things in the center upper right corner, so not in the far upper right, but just a little bit to the right. Um, that is one of the areas we tend to look at first. And I'm not sure why that is neurologically, but it happens. But, but there are a lot of ways that this is used and we're just not even aware of it. Um, I have an example and I'm a little bit, um, reticent to share with you, but I'm assuming now that it's been a long enough time where I can confess this. So this is one of those never, uh, before confessed on a radio show. Da da da da da. Um, you mentioned earlier that we had there, that I had a TV show. And part of that TV show was one in which, um, you could pick, or the team picked three people that might be fired from that company. And our very, very first show, um, it was set up in such a way where there were two people that very likely should have been fired, and they got the first and second most votes among all the participants in the show. But then there was a tie for the third and the fourth. And in that situation, the tie was between the mother of the owner and then another person who was exactly like the first two. Well, this is reality tv and we want the show to be interesting. And it's a lot more interesting when the employees have the potential of firing the mother than just firing another guy on the show. So all I did was we redid the ballots, we took the worst guy, put him on the top of the ballot. Right? We took the mother, put her second. We took the second worst guy, put him third, and then dropped the other guy down towards the bottom of the ballot that caused seven people to change their vote, uh, with no other intervention. So that's an example of just how powerful it is based on where you place things and put things, that you're able to nudge people into thinking something where they thought it was their idea and it wasn't they were nudged into it.

Speaker A: So in content, if you put the conclusions that you want them to reach closer to the top of, say, a series of possible things or whatever that would be, when you say, what are the 10 most important things to do to market, and you put SEO number one, they're more likely to think that SEO is one of the top ones.

Speaker B: Exactly. That's a great example of it.

Speaker A: Yeah. All right, great. Um, so you've got their interest now. How do you overcome, um, their, uh, skepticism? How do you show proof that you can meet those interests?

Speaker B: This is where there are two distinct ways that people consume this information. Um, one has to do with numbers, and people have an assumption that if you're throwing out some numbers, that it must be right. And part of that is because it takes a lot of energy for us to think these things through on our own. And if we spend time putting that much thinking time into every single decision we made, we'd be constantly exhausted, and we'd make very few decisions. So when somebody comes along and they say, 87% of people did this and 52 did this, and you can make 850,000 more, a million dollars a year. Anytime they start to throw around numbers, there's a subset of the population that automatically sees that as proof, even if they don't check the, uh, data.

Speaker A: I see.

Speaker B: Then there's another set that wants to hear a story. And so if you can just tell them a story about somebody who won or felt better or was more successful, and even if you don't use numbers, if they can put themselves mentally into that story, then that's enough proof for them. So two things. One is numbers. The second is getting people to put themselves into the story.

Speaker A: So in that, um, first story I mentioned about social proof being the reviews and customer testimonials being the second most, uh, uh, useful content for moving people through the B2B funnel. Uh, which do you think that. Where. Which of those triggers do you think it triggers? The stats or the story?

Speaker B: You know, to me, that's the stat. Sounds like a number to me. Right.

Speaker A: Well, testimonials would be somebody. There'd be, like, several people going, oh, the testimonials would be somebody saying, oh, I worked this company and it was great. That sort of thing.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: A number of reviews.

Speaker B: Anytime you can integrate the two, that goes a long way.

Speaker A: So you think that would be highly effective in terms of overcoming skepticism?

Speaker B: Yeah. And there's a great word that we use a lot, and that's. We say imagine. Imagine in Two years, your business grew by twice as much. All of a sudden, I'm two years ahead. I'm thinking about my business being more successful, and I'm much more interested and are much more believing that I can get there because I can now picture it in my head.

Speaker A: So, you know, I think you, you've successfully done it, but you held up a little puppy dog at the beginning. Uh, you know, and we're cute and cuddly, but then you've established that you really know what you're talking about. Is there a trade off between likability and credibility?

Speaker B: I think you definitely have to balance the two because, uh, there was a potential that this could have been, um, a very dense academic type thing. Especially when you introduced me as Dr. Poppel. People immediately believe that they're not really going to understand what I'm talking about anyways. Hopefully once they got a taste of my personality and they realized that it wasn't going to be their assumption, uh, that that likability led us into that, uh, into a more relevant, uh, dialogue.

Speaker A: All right. And you know what? I apologize to the people that only listening. Uh, on the audio, I forgot to mention that he was holding up a puppy, but at the beginning, that's what he was doing. Um, so, Dave, we all procrastinate, so how can we get people to act and not just listen?

Speaker B: Yep.

Speaker A: So, Joe, this is the crux of it.

Speaker B: Now, let's talk about these last two together, right? Because we talk about procrastination and anxiety, because the solution to them both is the exact opposite. M. So for procrastination, there has to be some sense of urgency, which means that if I don't act now, I'm going to lose an opportunity. It's one of those things why, if you get the phone call from the telemarketer, this opportunity expires at midnight. Or a car dealer says, I can only hold this car. Or there were three other people looking at the same car today. What they're trying to do is to create some sense of urgency in me, which is some anxiety. Now I've got some anxiety, and I want to act, but my anxiety level is still high. So I need to do something as the marketer or the salesperson and to bring that anxiety down into a zone where it's enough that I remember to act, but not so much that I panic and freeze.

Speaker A: Uh-huh.

Speaker B: That's how the two work together. And so the urgency is what I. The way that I create that is the idea that there's going to be a loss opportunity. If I don't act, the anxiety is really simple. All you have to do is quickly summarize what you did to overcome rejection, indifference and skepticism. So I might say something like, joseph, you and I have known each other for a long time and I know you really like IPA beers, and I have found an IPA beer that you're really going to love. As a matter of fact, the last 10 people I gave it to, nine of them said it was the best they'd ever had. Mhm. So what I did there very quickly is I just summarize those three things and now when I make the ask, Joseph, would you like to buy a six pack of this IPA beer for me? Uh, it's not such a terrible decision, even if I'm asking twice the price.

Speaker A: I see. Cool. So that's uh, yeah, now you set my mind racing. I'm trying to figure out how to now start applying it, uh, in what I do.

Speaker B: Well, uh, I know you're coming over tonight and I do have some IPAs in the refrigerator for you.

Speaker A: So, you know, you're really taking how you do a rational approach to what is essentially a subconscious activity. Buying decisions are a subconscious activity. Um, so if we give them, um, if we give them rational reasons to buy, should we actually trust their decision? Especially if you're in a buying process that it's not instantaneous transaction, but you're committed a lot of resources, um, to them, uh, in the buying process with them, should you just trust that they've really made that decision if they did it on rational reasons that you gave them?

Speaker B: No. And I'll tell you why. Most buying decisions, I don't say all, but most buying decisions, are made based on irrationality and then justified with their reasoning abilities instead of it being the other way around. So when you are giving things like numbers and stories and showing proof, all you're really doing is giving their brain the ammunition they need to justify the decision they already made out of an irrational process.

Speaker A: All right, cool. All right, so we'll come back. It's gonna be the final segment. Uh, we'll just finish up, uh, you know, so you can summarize some things that might be worthwhile for our readers know and tell us a little bit about what you do and uh, and then, uh, and go from there.

Speaker B: Sound. Foreign.

Speaker A: Hello, It's Joseph Franklin McElroy back with the Wise Content Creates wealth podcast and my guest, Dr. Dave Popple. So Dave, you've just given us a mind, blown us with a lot of Information about, um, this Rispa, um, concept, um, and, you know, now I'm trying, you know, he started mentioning things all of a sudden. My mind goes off at the start, start having to use this and how to put it into some sort of process of content production. How would you approach telling a company to, um, employ some of these techniques and with their writers to get them to think about it and put it into content?

Speaker B: So I think there's a couple ways I mentioned earlier in the podcast that you can use them as headings. And then once you've written your, um, content, you then erase the headaches. So that, I think is probably the easiest way to do it. Um, for companies that are a little more creative, there's a game that you can play in which a person, um, can continue to talk through their message and another person listening to the message, either with a red or green flag or whatever they want to do to signal. Once they feel like they've jumped through the hurdle, they signal, okay, and then that triggers the person to practice by getting into the next hurdle. And then once they've jumped over that hurdle, boom, again. And they just go through it. So what that does is it allows us to have, um, another person giving us some feedback as to how we're doing and jumping through the hurdle. But it also helps us do these things in order. Because. Because one of the mistakes that I see over and over and over again is people jump right into proof because that's what they're good at. They forget to connect to me and overcome rejection. They forget to talk about my interests. Instead, they just want to talk to me about all their data that suggests they can do it, and by then I don't care. So those two tools, I think, are really quite effective.

Speaker A: So interesting you think about that. I think that is true. Um, do they also just stick to proof? Do they try to overcome anxiety? Uh, is that another thing that they don't do?

Speaker B: Especially people that, um, like, in our field, we only have, um, doctorally trained psychologists. That means that we spend a lot of time in the rational and tend to ignore the irrational because the academic part, not because of the psychology part. Um, and so they do forget that there's an emotional component to this buying. And they do stick with the proof. And they get confused when they've given you, like, 15 different case studies, why are you still not pulling the trigger?

Speaker A: So, uh, aside from your, um, PhD thesis, what is the piece of content you think has had the biggest impact upon your life, your professional career?

Speaker B: Well, that's a good question. Um, so for me, it's mostly books, and this is an old one, um, but it's called the Failure of Nerve. And the reason why the Failure of Nerve had such an impact on me is that it over came my initial rejection because it was connected to the theorists that I most was interested in. So that initially I wanted to listen. It overcame my indifference because I wanted to be a better leader. And so the book immediately spoke to my ability to be a better leader. And it was very counterintuitive. And then it overcame my skepticism because the theoretical background to this is so solid that, um, it made a lot of sense. And the person who originally wrote it was doing consulting for five or six different major governments, including Russia and the United States, which I thought was unique. Uh, so that book had a big impact on me. That's how it jumped through the RISPA formula to get me to be interested.

Speaker A: Cool. So let's, uh, do some self promoting now. All right. So you have three different businesses, right? Uh, essentially. So you want to talk about Signet Group first?

Speaker B: Sure. So Sinet Group, um, focuses on three different things. We have a, um, tool that helps us with assessment. That tool was built, um, based on the back of a thousand executive, uh, assessments that I've done. Um, every, uh, assessment in it took over 2,000 hours to volunteer time. So it's about 14,000 hours altogether, uh, put into it. And we really cared about the user experience. So it takes about 40% less time than the average assessment would take that would gain the same amount of information. So the first part of it is this assessment, gathering information. The second part that, um, we're really excited about is that we've gone into organizations and started to structure them in a way that the work is more satisfying as well as the company being more optimized. And it has to do with things like, um, creating an advice culture where only one person makes a decision, but they get advice from all the stakeholders. It, um, has to do with flattening out the hierarchy. It has to do with the natural meritocracy, meaning, um, I'm rewarded on the value I create for the company. So those structures and restructuring is really, um, powerful. Um, and then finally we do leadership development and coaching. Um, we use a neurological model called Asia, in which we create awareness, we struggle, uh, along with the person to come up with, um, the best insights, which is the eye and Asia. And then finally we hold them accountable to the action plan. So those three things, assessments of individuals, organizations and teams, um, developing the Best possible structures for optimization and finally doing that leadership development and coaching. That's what sign that group is all about.

Speaker A: So would you be able to do assessments of, say, people, uh, were trying to find writers and content producers that would find out if they'd be a good fit, they would be able to produce the right kind of content with a communicating message for that company. Would you be able to do that?

Speaker B: We could do it. And there's two things we look at. Um, one, we want to look to see if the person's capable in the role. And second, are they going to be a good fit for that company? M so, um, you wouldn't hire somebody that writes fluff pieces for, uh, an academic journal. They're going to get lapped on and pay attention. The same person. You wouldn't use an academic writer to build some excitement or interest in something. So that's where the culture fit is. So both can write, um, but the fit is really crucial. Cool.

Speaker A: Then another one of your businesses is the software. Right.

Speaker B: So the software is civil. And civil is that technology, um, that does about half the work for us when we do these, um, organizational assessments. Um, and that's where I mentioned, with the hours that it took into it, um, civil is we really believe that we're, uh, on the bleeding edge of technology right now. Um, we made it simple, but it goes deep.

Speaker A: Cool. And then you have facticity.

Speaker B: Yeah, facticity, uh, was kind of a vanity project, um, that started about five years ago when my partner Danny Gonzalez and I realized that there were a lot of unhappy 40 year olds out there. And the reason why they were so unhappy is because when they were 17, 18, 19, 20, they made a decision about their career that didn't really fit them. And so facticity, um, takes those old career assessments and tell you you're supposed to be a forest ranger or a librarian or something like that. And we took it to the next level and instead of connecting it to just a small number of jobs, we connected to over 12,000, um, job types, over 10,000 job titles.

Speaker A: Great. Well, thank you Dave for being a guest on my podcast. And I'll be seeing you this evening for great, great barbecue. Dave does really is a great cook as well, so appreciate it.

Speaker B: Thank you so much, Joseph.

Speaker A: So, um, we're on the TalkRadio NYC network. I want to recommend you watch. The other podcast network following us is, uh, uh, I think Jeremy Fox, host of the Entrepreneurial Web. I have another podcast on this network called Gateway to the Smokies. I'm involved in the hospitality industry. I have a resort motel in the mountains of North Carolina and that's on Tuesdays from uh 6 to 7. And my company is Galileo Tech Media. Uh we are the people to call when you need wise content, smart SEO and editorial link building. We give you confidence to grow your business and the freedom to scale your team. Reach us@galileo techmedia.com this UH podcast is also uh stream live in our facebook page facebook.com wisecontentcreateswealth uh and also on wisecontentcreateswealth.com you can get access to transcripts and recordings of the previous podcast. You can listen uh live on itunes and various things after the fact. Not live but you can listen after the fact on iTunes, on TokRadio NYC and other podcast networks. Next week we're going to have Jess Nowak who's a director of street Strategic accounts and global agency partnerships at the enterprise ah software solution called Brightedge which we at Galileo Tech Media use uh very well and she's going to talk about things like smart content, uh, ideation with artificial intelligence, um and uh, I think it will be a great show. Uh she's very smart and she knows a lot about uh this space. So I look forward to seeing you next week uh uh on TalkRadio NYC from 1 uh PM to 2. Thank you very much and talk to you next week. Mhm.

Speaker B: Sam.