****Please forgive any and all transcription errors as this was transcribed by Otter.ai.****

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Kenneth Kinney 0:16

Hello and welcome back to A Shark's Perspective.

Kenneth Kinney 0:19

I had the pleasure of speaking at a new conference for their inaugural event, lead generation world. They also asked me to podcast live from the halls. So I'll be releasing for shows that were recorded there. It's always interesting to me as a speaker in Keynote, to see who conferences pick as their opening keynote, especially for a brand new event, since that can really set the tone. And they did extremely well with their choice.

Kenneth Kinney 0:41

Jeff Kreisler is a best selling author, the editor in chief of people science.com, a site devoted to leading the conversation about applied behavioral insights. And he's a former stand up comedian and performer and on this episode, we'll discuss behavioral science stand up comedy, The Did you ever notice observations of Seinfeld decision traps human nature, Princeton law school, the pain of paying Jim Cramer in the street, and a lot, lot more.

Kenneth Kinney 1:06

So let's tune in to part one of lead generation world's opening keynote speaker with your favorite keynote shark on this episode of A Shark's Perspective.

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Kenneth Kinney 1:20

So Jeff, thank you so much for joining us on A Shark's Perspective, live at lead generation world. Tell us about your background and your career today.

Jeff Kreisler 1:28

Thanks for having me on Kenneth, the shark actually placed bets for the Super Bowl with you. So my background is pretty typical. After studying politics in Russian studies at Princeton, I went to law school and then became a stand up comedian natural, how else would you change the world? There are steps in the middle there, including being a youngest child and a lot of motional baggage, but through stand up, I focused on sort of politics. And then I got an opportunity to write about business and it ultimately became about why people are often led astray and don't do things in their best interest. Now, that sounds hilarious. Yeah, that's the that's a 30,000 foot view of exactly. And I got an opportunity to read a humor column for Jim Cramer thestreet.com. Yeah. And it was about business and finance. A friend of mine was at the site. So do you want to write a column on weekly business? I said, No, he said, it pays. I said, Yes. So simple. Through that I got an opportunity to read my first book, which was sort of a publishing company gave me sort of carte blanche is that he said, blank, blank carpet anyway, they said, What do you want to write on, I would have called Get Rich cheating, which is a satire and it was about steroids. And Enron and our president was in there, and basically how people sort of flaunt the rules scam get their way to the top, and also why people make poor decisions with their money and are fooled by these things. Through that I then met this guy, Dan Ariely, who's author of a book called predictably irrational. He's a professor at Duke. He's one of the leading thinkers in the field of behavioral economics, he invited me to talk about cheating at his class in Duke, I talked about it in character, and I basically told Duke graduate students that they should cheat because cost benefit analysis, no one gets caught benefit is millions. And anyway, I'm making a long story short, but through that I was introduced to Dan's work, and the field of behavioral science. And it was a lightbulb moment for me, because I had sort of had in all of the things I've learned, and all the work I've done, had this sense of, basically money messes with our heads, it makes us do stupid, irrational things. And then I discovered there was a field of science dedicated to researching that, Dan, and I worked on a few projects. And then in 2017, the end of 2017, we put out a book called dollars and cents, which is all about financial decision making behavioral science, the emotions, why we make the dumb, rational decisions we do, and how to do better. It was fascinating. He sort of kind of gave myself a crash PhD in the field, or maybe a master's. And through that, then I'm getting online PhD. Yeah, exactly. Well, some of it was in person. But uh, it was definitely not structured like normal, but I started the field. And as the publication was approaching, I wanted to figure out how I can continue sort of evangelicalism for this field as a tool for helping people not the silver bullet, but one tool in the toolkit for solving people's personal, professional, organizational, even societal ills. And I got an opportunity to run people science.com, which is my main thing right now. It's a website dedicated to the future of Applied Behavioral Science, how this field can impact Financial Decision Making Healthcare, design, loyalty, motivation, ethics, and it's been a real joy. And so I do that now. And I'm also gonna speak to organizations and conferences about this field that's growing and booming and depending on your perspective is either emerging or has emerged.

Kenneth Kinney 4:55

Well, I had the pleasure of hearing you speak and drop a few good jokes in there this morning talk. Let's dive in a little bit. Further on your background in comedy, sure, you know what made you do it for a while and stay in it. And then what made you get out of it.

Jeff Kreisler 5:09

Putting aside the psychological motivators, what was fascinating to me about comedy was, it was something where you could talk about any topic, and the only rules had to be funny, where you could make topics and conversations that might seem difficult or uncomfortable, easy, by being funny, whether it was politics, or money, or even religion, whether it's in a comedy club, or just around the dinner table, using humor as a way to connect, and there's a whole little field of research on that. And I just found that so fascinating that, you know, like, The Daily Show is a classic example, people say, that's where people got their news, but that you could, through being funny, bring people into a conversation that they might not otherwise join. And you could convey information they might not otherwise be ready to listen to. Oh, excuse me. And, you know, as I as I reflect back on then the pivot to behavioral science, you know, a comedian that Jerry Seinfeld, Larry David type says, Hey, you ever notice people do this stupid thing? And a behavioral scientist says, Yeah, and this is why Yeah, so it's a very yin yang relationship. And I found in the field, comedians, and behavioral scientists are both sort of that fly on the wall, observing human nature and sort of chuckling about the absurdity of it. The behavioral scientist is just a lot more focused on taking the data, the comedian just wants to joke in the free drink.

Kenneth Kinney 6:30

So as marketers and business leaders, how do we use human nature, because that's something you really spent a lot of good time on this morning, to benefit us with lead generation sales, and all those good things?

Jeff Kreisler 6:43

It's a great question. And my philosophy is that we can't change human nature. But if we understand human nature, we understand what drives people to make the decision they do to purchase this item, or click on that website or, or become loyal to this product. If you understand why they do that the behavioral science, the underdrive, underlying emotional drivers, psychological drivers, then we can create systems and environments and products and services and ways of communicating and marketing and, and interacting with folks, that helps them get to better outcomes. Essentially, I like to say that, if we understand human nature, why people are doing what they do, then we can go to where they are, instead of fighting so hard to bring them to us. I think in so many fields, whether it's marketing or financial decision making or healthcare decision making, we bang our heads against the wall and say, Why aren't people taking their medication? Why aren't people saving for retirement? Why aren't people clicking on this link? And we try to say, look at you like that you should do this, this is the thing, look, come on, it's obvious. And we try to convince them of our perspective. Whereas we understand their perspective, what's really driving them, whether it's a fear, or whether it's, you know, it's an easy decision or an uncertainty, then we can create a whole system for them, that's going to fit them much better, we're going to become more advisors and salespeople become close to them build relationships and trust. And I think that like, it's a great for the future of sort of any business. We have all the data, right, we know where people are looking on the screen, what they're clicking, we know their numbers. But then what does that translate to into real behavior? And that's where I think the science can help us make a future that's more designed for better outcomes.

Kenneth Kinney 8:22

Are you running into a lot of conversations today? I mean, because you when you think of the person that followed you, after your speech was talking about AI? So so much of it's that intersection? I think behavioral science is setting it up to what we can we know what we can do to help trigger people. But a lot of times it comes down to the conversation is AI so much better than what we do as reading people? What are your thoughts on that?

Jeff Kreisler 8:48

But in AI is interesting in relationship with behavioral science? And I don't think there's needs to be a conflict between the two I think he you know, you approach AI, some might say it's a computer versus it's a human in behavioral science. But the AI is based upon human behavior. Fascinating talk about like, we've had to do with kids and how they drew and like, the development of AI is based upon what behavior has been, you know, sort of observed. And there's a lot of talk about bias in AI comes out absolutely this because the programming is by human is based on human behavior. So I think that there's room for them to coexist, and I think, really, the future is for them to coexist, so long as the people designing the AI or the data going into it, or what they're drawing on, has at least a moment where they recognize that human element, that uncertainty, that psychological drivers, and the fact that sort of what the mass of people deciding today may change as they interact on the road that we humans are sort of fickle. But AI is is incredibly powerful. You know if you can capture what 60% Of the people are going to do that's a lot better than just guesswork. Yeah, there's, I think a symbiotic is maybe not too strong over already, but there's a relationship between the two fields, I think that should blossom.

Kenneth Kinney 10:03

So talk a little bit about the decision traps and the pain of paying relativity. I enjoyed that this morning. Sure.

Jeff Kreisler 10:09

But there's a ton of decision making traps that too I often think are most common are something one called the pain of pain, which is this concept that when we pay for something, it stimulates the same region of our brain as physical pain. And what that should do is that should make us when we feel this pain, pay attention and think, oh, is this the right decision. But what tends to happen as technology and things evolve is we numb that pain of pain. Or like we if you look at a spectrum, it goes there's cash and writing checks and debit cards and credit cards on up to EZ Pass and automatic bill pay and Apple Pay and, and these things that you know, Apple Watch and blinking and you spend money. And so when that pain of paying is numbed, when that friction is reduced, we pay less attention to our decision, and the decision becomes less thoughtful. This can be good or bad. You know, I often approach things saying it's bad because we shouldn't overspend. But those things can be used for good. You know, if you if people are reluctant to get insurance, which will benefit them long term, reducing the pain of paying can help them focus less on the payment and more on what they want to achieve as their goals as a simple example. The other one that you mentioned is relativity, which is just you know, when we, when we don't know what is the right choice, one thing we often do is we compare two options, even if they don't really compare, you know, the example I often rely on is a sale price, right? $100 sweater that's been marked down to $60 You're gonna buy because you compare a $60 sweater $200 sweater that doesn't really exist below this is the right choice. It feels good, right emotionally, instead of having to figure out Oh, should I pay $60 for a sweater? Who like one Oh, 60 is less than 100. So yeah, a dopamine rush. And that relativity that comparing things happens all the time new products and services, think about cell phone plans, right? When you buy a cell phone, there's all the features of the phone, and there's all the plans. And it's a massive thing that's hard to compare. So we ended up sort of coming back and comparing a price, right as an easy substitute for what we really want. And this happens all the time. Because, again, we're these emotional creatures that in the absence of supreme knowledge of what the right choice is, and what the future holds. We'll go for that emotional Pat in the back that says you did the right thing, which is the easy choice.

Kenneth Kinney 12:22

And it will I'm going to fudge the numbers as you say, because I can't remember the exact example. But the one that I really enjoyed as well was we were talking about people not arguing over these $100,000 deals or something like $600,000, yet we'll, you know, spend a ridiculous amount of time arguing over two cents on something I forget exactly what the example was, but kind of explaining that what you meant by that. And that set up?

Jeff Kreisler 12:45

Well, oftentimes, relativity in this particular sense comes into play in terms of percentages, like, we will think that, you know, you know, we're buying a house, right for $600,000, with some work on it. And someone says, Hey, you want this $5,000 built in whatever. And for many reasons, we're sort of overwhelmed that part of it in this case is $5,000 off of 600,000 Seems like a tiny percent, right, it's less than 1%. Then we go to the supermarket. And in order to gain a sense of control over our lives, we see you know, organic tomatoes are 15 cents more per pound. And that feels like a bigger deal. Because in our mind, we're like, Well, if we did that 10,000 times it would add up to now I still wouldn't add up to the 5000. What just happens is we we often focus on the small decisions as opposed to large ones. And when people ask me for advice regarding personal financial decision making, I often suggest that they flipped that on the head. It's those big purchases, the houses, the college, the cars, ones that feel so overwhelming, and at some point, you just want to get it over with that you actually need to just keep on fighting and going through that discomfort. And look because those are the big amount. Think about the absolute dollars leaving your account. That's the ones you should stress about the little ones, the $5 latte, the Suze Orman, Fibro latte, the organic tomatoes, like don't stress those, think about it now and then. But that shouldn't be a daily stress and just like prioritize while they're

Kenneth Kinney 14:12

doing all that math for the organic tomatoes on the $1,000 iPhone calculator app that they wasted their money on. So we'll go into fairness and effort and how we should exhibit that I was sort of really thinking about that about how people pay based on when they think a company or person is expended a lot of effort on it. But yeah, how was marketers? Do you think we should apply that? So that we can show customers it's worth the value? We're spinning on it? But

Jeff Kreisler 14:42

yeah, well, people often judge the value of a product or service are really just a decision based upon what effort they see go into it. Again, in the absence of being super computers and know what something's worth. It's, you know, what does it look like? The classic example is a locksmith right off the top of your head can you really As soon as tell me what they should pay a locksmith, probably not less, they will have been locked out a lot. But a locksmith that that takes an hour to open your door and breaks, locks and swears and sweats. People will pay that person more than one that opens the door in two minutes. Because they see that effort when really you're paying for incompetence. But you see the effort. And study after study show when we see an effort, we will underestimate wait times will overestimate value. And marketers, there's a fine line to walk. Because you don't want to fake a display of effort that's gone into creating a product or creating an interface. People punish something they think of as unfair. But you do want to demonstrate the value of what you're offering. Otherwise, like people will discount it. And they won't be as invested in the process that you're selling the marketing process or ultimately the decision. An example I often use as I speak to a lot of Wealth Advisors is, you know, the wealth advisor, right, the charges there, whatever management fee there one or 2%. Like, if people stop and think about it, like That's absurd. All you're doing is you know, I don't see any effort, you have to really explain to them what their value is, you know, I spent a little time as a lawyer, I went to law school pass the bar and didn't really practice but the legal field has a real problem, they sort of charge hourly. That's been their short circuit around like trying to show the value of essentially their their knowledge, right? They went to school, they've got years of practice. But people don't see that value. People actually hate lawyers. So they charge an hourly fee, which in many ways is counterproductive, right? I'd rather have a lawyer that knows how to get me out of a parking ticket or do a corporate deal, like by their years of experience in 10 minutes than one that takes four hours. But the perverse incentives are there. I know I've wandered far off of the marketing question. But the point being when people enter a transaction, whether it's a marketing transaction from an ad or a survey, or they're at the cash register, thinking about paying the the effort that they believe has gone into creating that service, or that process will influence how much they they think it's worth.

Kenneth Kinney 17:04

Fair. So what do you think marketers and brands and leat business leaders need to learn and concentrate on the most as they start thinking about learning behavioral science? What what's a good place that you think that people should start to learn, start implementing a lot of this?

Jeff Kreisler 17:23

Sure, I think that it's important, at the beginning to have a baseline to say the data, the surveys are fantastic foundation, but that's not necessarily going to reveal what people's behavior will actually be. When we look at the field of incentives and motivation, a great example is if you ask people that accompany Would you like a $10,000 bonus or a trip for for to Hawaii, for your family? That may be let's say cost $7,000 people almost always say I want $10,000. But the their behavior, how much they work hard to achieve that goal indicates that they actually value that trip a lot more. There's a lot of reasons why I won't get too in the weeds. But like, the point being their their survey answers don't match their behavior. So the bottom line for for people, marketers and designers have programs and is to when you get your survey data, you get your any kind of data, stop and at least take a moment and say okay, this is great. But like, what does this really mean in terms of future behavior? What is what they say they want to do? Are they showing that behavior? And if there's a disconnect, then you start digging into the reasons why the psychology, there's a ton of principles in behavioral science that apply, we mentioned a few pain of pain, relativity, etc. really drilling down as specific as you can to like the problem you want to solve. Right? Like 40 year old males, don't buy life insurance, after 10 o'clock, whatever you whatever it is to drill down as specific as you can. And you can look and say, Okay, what's the behavior that I want? What are the barriers to that behavior? And how can I like, reduce those behave those barriers, the more specific you get, the better, you know, I should just sort of back up and say, you know, as this field is emerging, there's some concern that, that people will approach it like it's an off the shelf solutions off the rack, it's not really know it's all context driven. You've got to test and pilot and experiment. But if you start to understand your customers or your leads, whatever the term you use, the more you understand who they are and where the problems is in their interaction with you. Then you can start to say, okay, here are some potential solutions. And you could hire a behavioral scientist or experiment and test and lead.

Kenneth Kinney 19:38

Yeah, I couldn't agree more because I thought that was a very powerful point, in particular, because so many conferences, they want somebody to come up and give, you know, tips and tricks and hacks and the idea that you can take behavioral science and think it's a cookie cutter approach, cannot succeed should not succeed, because it's got to be individualized to that person's business, and how they work. Customers are actually reacting as opposed to something to get three more likes on Facebook. So yeah, well, Jeff, it's a special time of the show where I start to ask my closing questions. So my first one is, you're on A Shark's Perspective. My nickname shark, what is your favorite kind of shark and why?

Jeff Kreisler 20:18

I think my favorite kind of shark is probably a hammerhead shark. Probably a common answer, but I just feel like he's got a backup plan. may have been a shark doesn't work. He could be a carpenter.

Kenneth Kinney 20:30

That's one of the best answers though. So, Jeff, are you ready for the five most interesting and important questions you're gonna be asked today? I am. Alright. Number one. Well take up anyway. Number one, use this several times in your, your session this morning. Chicken or fish? Fish. All right, number two. Midtown Manhattan or Downtown?

Jeff Kreisler 20:53

Downtown? Well, downtown Manhattan 10 to 15 years ago now. Maybe?

Kenneth Kinney 21:00

Traffic hasn't been good in Midtown for just it will never be good in Midtown. True. Number three, Jerry Seinfeld or Larry David?

Jeff Kreisler 21:09

Oh, my God. They're the same. Basically. I think Larry David,

Kenneth Kinney 21:15

why so? I stand ups that

Jeff Kreisler 21:20

that don't make it still got paid? Yeah. No, he didn't find him. That's the thing. We can

Kenneth Kinney 21:29

impersonation and Jerry.

Jeff Kreisler 21:31

Yes, definitely better. Bernie Sanders. There's something I think powerful about being behind the scenes. I mean, Seinfeld was one of us very small handful of people that have who he is, is who he has to be in public. Yeah. Larry David, maybe not anymore, because we're after Corinthians. But in general, like he could come out with some totally different thing he wanted to work on and it can fly. Seinfeld couldn't come out with like, a piano concerto. Right. Although Steve Martin did it. Right. See? Well, that's true. Anyway. But he played the banjo before so I would take either one of their careers. And only Jerry's hair.

Kenneth Kinney 22:04

Yeah. Number four, or what's left of either of it. So number four, because you brought this one up this morning, Picasso. Or so good. New York question. A character artist. Care? Sorry, what do you mean money was the same? If the money was the same if the price of the artwork was the same? And you could have it done for you? Who would you want drawn your picture Picasso, or a character?

Jeff Kreisler 22:32

emulate those guys in Times Square that draw like a big head and then a little body? I mean, it's got to be Picasso. But you know, in this case, I feel like you're you're challenging but what if I found a character artist and said, be better than Picasso? See,

Kenneth Kinney 22:45

I would take the character artist because if I had Picasso drawn my pictures, I'd have like, three eyeballs in oblong head. And the number five most important question you will be asked today is biscuits or cornbread, cornbread. Good man. All right. So, Jeff, where do you want people to find out more about you get a copy of the book and so on and so forth?

Jeff Kreisler 23:05

Well, first people science.com And second, Jeff Chrysler, that's k r e i s le AR, that's my website. And my Twitter handle is Jeff Kreisler BS for behavioral science and the other meaning, and just track me down. All that info books, etc. can be found there. And I'm open for questions and whatever people want.

Kenneth Kinney 23:26

Well, thanks for the great keynote this morning. And thanks for being on A Shark's Perspective.

Jeff Kreisler 23:30

Thanks. I wish I knew I wish sharks made a sound so I could sign off like this is the elephant's perspective. It'd be easy.

Kenneth Kinney 23:35

You hear the sound and the other thing screams in its way. Yes. Exactly. Overhead exact building

Jeff Kreisler 23:41

a little underground house.

Kenneth Kinney 23:42

Exactly.

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Kenneth Kinney 23:49

So that was my conversation with Jeff Kreisler, a best selling author, the editor in chief of people science.com, a site devoted to leading the conversation about applied behavioral insights, and he's a former stand up comedian and performer. Let's take a look at three key takeaways from my conversation with him.

Kenneth Kinney 24:05

First, as I said, always think it's interesting to see what kind of opening keynotes conferences bring in to speak they often really set the tone, no other conference organizer, I know that he's someone with a background in the Legion space, as well as a fan of behavioral science. Why that's pleasing for me to know is because as someone focused on helping businesses grow, I'm glad to see that a conference devoted to helping businesses bring in more leads also sets the tone with understanding the why behind why we buy. It's a topic I often speak on as well. It's, I'm a big fan of behavioral science.

Kenneth Kinney 24:35

Second, enjoy. Now Jeff points out that we should think about why we focus on small decisions as opposed to the larger ones. We discount 1000s of dollars extra that we spend on home purchases, cars hundreds extra on an iPhone, for example. However, we'll spend a lot more time nitpicking and focusing on the little extra bit spent on one type of tomato per his example, or a gallon of milk than the bigger purchases. He His point is that you should run through that uncomfortable thought process, like you do with the tomatoes, and do that with bigger purchases as well. But don't stress so much on the smaller items. I agree. And it's another reason why I avoid the grocery store as much as I can.

Kenneth Kinney 25:14

Third, we can't change human nature. But the better you understand the underlying why you can create conditions that help people get to better outcomes. You likely spend so much time in business trying to convince people of what you think. But wouldn't they react better if you truly understood how they think and what will make them come to you? As I mentioned during the show, a lot of conferences, want tips and tricks and hacks and all these kinds of things is part of the presentations. And behavioral science does have plenty of actionable takeaways that you can learn in sessions. However, understand that especially to be with behavioral science. This shouldn't be looked at as a cookie cutter approach. Because even though human nature is fairly consistent, a lot of behaviors people exhibit differ depending on the environment, ie your website, the ads they see etc. Just dive deeper. What behavioral science does so well is that it helps you better understand the why. So make sure you devote as much time to understanding that as possible.

Kenneth Kinney 26:10

Got a question? Send me an email to Kenneth at a shark's perspective.com.

Kenneth Kinney 26:14

Thank you again for the privilege of your time.

Kenneth Kinney 26:16

And here's a behavioral science tip for you don't FOMO over missing out on the next podcast. Just join us on the next episode of A Shark's Perspective.

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