Jonah Berger | The Art of Persuasion

In today’s episode, we cover what it means to change someone’s mind with Jonah Berger. Jonah is a marketing professor at the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania and internationally bestselling author of Contagious, Invisible Influence, and The Catalyst: How to Change Anyone’s Mind.

The art of persuading others goes back as far as humans have had ideas we wanted to convey to others, but what does it mean to change someone’s mind, how do we persuade people to change, and how can your understanding of persuasion save you from getting sold on bad ideas?

What to Listen For

• Why are we as humans so resistant to changing our minds?
• What are the 5 roadblocks to change and how can we remove them so we and those around us can grow?
• What strategies can we use to get people to buy into an idea rather than trying to push the idea onto them?
• How can you ask the right questions to allow people to make better decisions?
• What can we do to create a catalyst for other people to change?
• Why is DropBox a great example of removing roadblocks that enable more people to try your product?
• Why is it important for people to feel they have a sense of agency when you’re trying to persuade them to make a change or purchase?
• Has it become harder to persuade people of good ideas in the age of information?
• How should you deal with awkward pauses in conversation?
• How important is body language when persuading someone and how do you take that into consideration when you’re on a phone call or Zoom meeting?

Persuading others is not so much about changing people’s minds as it is conveying information and allowing people to process it to arrive at the same conclusion you have. We as humans do not like feeling as if our behavior or choices are dictated to us by someone else, so if you want to convince someone that something is a good idea, you can’t just tell them it’s a good idea and they should believe it - you have to be able to show them the same information you have and let them make up their mind about it.

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Resources from this Episode

Catalyst: How to Change Anyone’s Mind by Jonah Berger

Jonah Berger’s website

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