How to Connect with Your Ideal Customers with Neuroscience Marketing Expert Roger Dooley

Audio Transcription

On today’s show, Roger Dooley, the neuroscience and marketing expert, shares with us how Uber, Amazon, and Google have grown as a result of obsessing about reducing the amount of friction that consumers must experience to do business with them. No, no, no, no, no. Neuroscience and marketing expert, Roger Dooley and at Carnegie Mellon graduate, Roger Dooley shares with us the power of Neuroscience Marketing One oh one the importance of reducing friction with your ideal and likely buyers. Oh, no, no, no. And why you and I must both obsess about making it easy for customers to do business with you. And Ladies and gentlemen, without further ado, the neuroscience marketing expert of choice, Roger Doolan teaches us about the power of frictionless business process

you’re interviewing an expert in the field of neuro science marketing. Roger Dooley. Mr Roger Dooley, welcome onto the thrive time show. How are you sir? Well, I’m doing great. Clay, thanks for having me on. Hey, ah, I, I would, could you introduce to listeners to what neuro science means? We have a lot of entrepreneurs who are listening who they, they, we know what the word marketing is, but I love to be clear on the definition of things. Could you break down your in, you know, when do you,

when talk about neuro marketing, clay a, there are varying definitions out there very broadly. Uh, it is use of the tools of neuroscience to do better marketing. I define an even more broadly than that and say it’s using our understanding of how our brains work to market better. Uh, and some of the, there’s some real specific neuromarketing techniques like, uh, uh, measuring brain waves using EEG while people are watching advertisements or consuming content. Uh, there are things that aren’t quite in neuroscience, but tools like eye tracking and implicit testing and, uh, facial coding, reading people’s facial expressions, all those fall under the sort of broad category of neuro marketing. Uh, and I like to even include using brain and behavior research, uh, to, uh, make marketing better because those kinds of techniques can be applied by anybody just by big brands that can afford fancy studies using neuroscience equipment. Uh, but just about any size business, a even small entrepreneurs can take the findings of behavioral science and psychology to market better.

You, you said the word, I think you said, uh, e g a what is EEG stand for?

Hey, that’s electroencephalogram and it is a medical tool that’s been repurposed by marketers as many of these tools have been. Uh, there’s another tool I did mentions FMR rye that actually is a brain, sort of almost like a realtime brain scan that looks at brain activity. Uh, and they can see which areas of the brain are lighting up. So, you know, you can be, uh, watching an advertisement. They can see which parts of your brain are lighting up and trying to determine what kind of emotion you’re experiencing or whether you’re engaged, not engaged. A EEG is, uh, a much less expensive than fmri machines or huge machines that are noisy. And you sort of go in this little narrow confined tube, uh, because it, uh, that’s the way it works. Uh, uh, you need that equipment, but EEG is a lot simpler. Uh, they are little sort of caps that have electrodes, uh, can be a lot of electrodes or even just a few electrodes, uh, and uh, those attached to your scalp. And again, they measure brainwaves, but from the outside they aren’t actually doing sort of a three d image. Uh, uh, they’re measuring the activity outside, but that can still yield some pretty useful results.

You are just impotently fascinating to me. So I’m sorry if I go off the rails too much here before we get into your book, but I just want to, I know the listeners out there wanting to know these things and I’m going to get a lot of, uh, you know, emails if I don’t ask you some of these questions. So let’s say I have a, a smart phone with me. Okay. And I want a date with my wife and it’s a great day to a great restaurant. It’s a, you know, and let’s just say I’m behaving badly. I’ve got my phone out faced up and I get a complaint from a customer, you know that comes in short put complaint comes in the email or something or a Facebook know. I think you’re already in trouble, clay. Okay, so let’s just say, cause I think a lot of our listeners though they can relate to this cause they’re self employed.

I have a rule now I’ve learned it took me awhile, put the phone in the car, leave the phone there. But what kind of readings would somebody see on an EEG machine or what’s going on? I got neuro science level to somebody who’s receiving a complaint while on a date with their wife while treating people who are texting underneath the table about something bad while being in a meeting that’s very good. People that are Facebooking while at church physically but mentally not at church to. Can you talk to us about what would show up on an EEG or a DOL that

that that’s a good question. Claim one that I can’t directly answer it. Typically egs would not be used in a, uh, all sort of a real setting like that because, uh, they require wearing this special cap with these electrodes. And, uh, so it’s, it’s relatively difficult to do it in a setting that feels natural, although if somebody wears it for a, say while they’re watching TV in a controlled a site or something, uh, they can kind of forget about it so that, that works. But, uh, it might not be quite as effective in a restaurant as far as you know, what it would show. Uh, typically, uh, and there are different companies that have different interpretations of EEG in different ways they use it. But I would say that, uh, one typical approach would be to, uh, measure, uh, the level of engagement and the wellbeing, uh, level of emotion and also attention.

It might be combined with eye tracking so that for instance, if you are watching a TV commercial or a television show like game of Thrones, uh, they could be looking at what you are gazing at determining what part of the screen you are looking at, uh, as well as have an idea of your level of emotional arousal and, uh, you know, perhaps an id even of the specific emotion. Although when you start getting down to specific emotions, it’s a little bit harder to interpret. Wow. Okay. Okay. So now when did you figure out that you wanted to do that you wanted to be an expert in neuroscience marketing and when did you get interested in the field of neuroscience? Well, it was actually quite accidental. I was, uh, it really goes back maybe to my very deep roots. So way back in my college days, I was interested in psychology and minored in psychology even though I was an engineer.

And, uh, I also was interested in advertising for some reason when I was in the library, supposed to be studying organic chemistry instead, I would be reading advertising age. But that was a long time ago, and I really set that stuff aside for a long time. Uh, but about 15 years or so ago now, uh, I saw two fields coming together, uh, advertising or marketing and neuro science. And I certainly wasn’t the first person to see that, but, uh, there were already even then a few early neuro marketing service providers. Uh, uh, but I decided to start a blog and a website. I registered a domain neuroscience marketing.com, which, uh, was still available at the time because not many people were thinking about that. And, uh, I got traction. Uh, people started reading and replying and I, but I found myself steered away a little bit from the sort of pure tools of neuroscience, things like that, FM Ri or Eg mainly because those at the time were only available to big brands, uh, and instead focusing more on some of the tools of psychology and social science and behavioral science, uh, things like Cialdini’s six principles, which, uh, more recently grew to seven principles, uh, the work of Dan Erie, Ellie, and, uh, uh, other, uh, behavioral economists.

And, uh, uh, behavioral scientists and the weird world that we live in. If your name was Kanye West, I wouldn’t have to interrogate you so much about your, uh, resume and your background. But I know a lot of our listeners want to know because I want to get into this book and make sure that you have that, that, that, that platform where people know that you really know what you’re talking about. Can you share with the listeners, um, where you went to college and kind of what your entrepreneurial journey has been before writing, writing this new book? Sure. Um, I’ll briefly cause, uh, be being an old guy. I’ve got a longer resume than some, but, uh, uh, not necessarily better. The, um, I did my undergrad work at Carnegie Mellon. I majored in chemical engineering. A few years later I picked up my MBA at the University of Tennessee and I really visualize myself as a sort of a corporate career guy who started off doing engineering but pretty quickly moved into management.

Uh, and when I was about 30, I really kind of hit what I felt was a key point in my corporate career. I was in charge of strategic planning for Fortune 1000 company, which for me was really great. I loved my job. I thought it was wonderful to be so involved in a somewhat of steering of the corporation, although I wasn’t really the ultimate decision maker, but being right there part of the process, and I chose that moment to bail out and become an entrepreneur. I had cofounded a direct marketing business. It was aimed at the early owners of home computers. Now they were just coming online and, uh, the big box stores were selling the computers, but did not either. And they didn’t understand the product for one, and they didn’t have the wealth of accessories and software that were really available out there.

So the only way to get those was through, at the time, what was called mail order. This was pre e-commerce a and m side to that for quite a long time. And over the years, that morphed into some different businesses with a much more digital emphasis. Uh, had an it outsourcing business for awhile. Uh, that took me into digital marketing and SEO. Uh, and back in 2001, uh, I co founded another business called college confidential, which, uh, was designed to help people with the really confusing college admissions process. Uh, in the u s it is really confusing. In Australia. There are, I think about what, 39, uh, universities in the u s there are three to 4,000 institutions of higher education with great differences between them and they’re scattered over, uh, all 50 states. Uh, so it’s just an almost impenetrable, impenetrable process. So, um, uh, this was to be an information site where people could come for informed content that was written from a neutral perspective, not trying to sell anything, just to be informative, but also I built, started building a community there and that ended up becoming the tail that wagged the dog.

It grew to be, uh, a huge, uh, site. Uh, um, it years ago it had a 40 million page views a month in page views a month. That’s huge. Huge rollout it a, yeah, it was a, it really succeeded beyond our dreams. We ended up selling the business to part of the Daily Mail group, uh, because, um, it was actually a really good fit. Um, they had, we, we were having difficulty monetizing, which is something that probably many entrepreneurs experience. You’ve got a great idea, but, uh, uh, and it’s working except, uh, hard to make money at out. We felt thought that as soon as we had built this platform, uh, colleges would be falling all over themselves to advertise, which it turned out they weren’t, they were very traditional and, uh, they needed a much more intense sales approach. The company that we ended up working with had a dedicated sales force, like 25 people, uh, who were very embedded in these universities. Uh, and on the other hand, they were a print business and they did not get digital all that well. Um, where we brought the digital expertise. So as acquisitions go, it was a pretty, a benign one. Uh, the site continued to grow for years and, uh, it was, um, you know, all together not that bad of an experience and really helped up both organizations a lot. So, and GAF after that, uh, uh, eventually, uh, after the sale, I gradually decreased my involvement in the business and began, uh, writing, uh, about neuroscience and marketing.

So for the listeners out there that I get excited, we get into your book and it’s where I want to spend most of our time cause your new book, uh, friction is, is awesome. Um, can you, uh, share with what degrees do you have from Carnegie Mellon or did, did you, did you get a degree from Kearney mill? Carnegie Mellon’s yes.

Yes, a bachelor’s degree in chemical engineering of all things, which I guarantee I have not used a chemical engineering knowledge directly for years. But engineering is always a good thing to have it, it kind of teaches you to treat the world as it is as opposed to the way you want it to be.

Okay. Now thrive nation. Here we go. I want you to strap on a helmet and get ready because we have a guy with a bachelor’s degree in chemical engineering who went to school at Carnegie Mellon, Carnegie Mellon, and he’s going to get here and on this microphone he’s going to share with you some, some knowledge bombs and some truth from his new book, friction. Roger, what first inspired you to write this book?

Well, now you know, I’m going to detour clay for one second and tell you something amusing about my time at Carnegie Mellon. Uh, at the time, they were one of the few schools that actually had a really strong computer science department. Uh, they were just like one of the three schools in the country that maybe had a, a significant one. And I was very interested in that and I was going to transfer into that area. Uh, and my academic advisor told me that computers were a fad and that there will always be a need for chemical engineers. So, I mean, I ended up in the digital world by our secure, circuitous manner, but it just shows, uh, uh, how weird things turned out at times. Uh, you know, who knows, I had, I switched to, uh, what my career would have looked like. Uh, but anyway, I’m sorry, the question was, um,

The book. Well, your new book, uh, friction it. Um, it’s, it’s powerful. And I just wanted to ask you what inspired you to write this book?

Uh, you know, uh, I was focused for quite awhile on a web conversion and using some of these, uh, psychology based techniques to convert better. In other words, uh, to turn more of your website visitors into customers or leads if a, that was your objective. And a, there’s a, there’s certainly a lot of territory there. And I came across the work of BJ Fogg at Stanford who created his Fogg behavior model. This is, you need three things to either create or change your behavior. You need motivation. The person has to want to do it or want the result of doing it. Motivation. Got It. Yup. Okay. Uh, and uh, there has to be a trigger or a prompt, typically something to sort of get the ball rolling. Uh, it could be anything from a phone call to a popup ad to a, uh, visible call to action on a website.

Got It. Uh, and then, uh, they have to have what he calls ability and that translates into lack of difficulty. In other words, they have to be able to do it and hopefully it’s not going to be too hard because the easier it is, the more likely it is that that behavior will occur. And I translated that a few years later into my own model called the persuasion slide, uh, that tried to involve both conscious and unconscious, uh, factors in each part of it, which I’m not going to go to the details here. We don’t have time for that. But one of the elements is friction. And in the physical world, that’s when the kid gets stuck part way down the slide because it’s not slippery enough. Uh, in, in our, uh, metaphorical or marketing world, uh, it is, uh, when things are too difficult, uh, either because they’re actually difficult or because they seem difficult to the customer.

Uh, and I found that that was the most interesting element of the slide because it was often the easiest and cheapest thing to fix. You know, you can always increase people’s motivation if you give them free stuff, right? Or if you, um, uh, give them discounts. Uh, but those things cost real money, uh, where if you can simply make things easier, it may cost you a little bit up front to fix your bad processes. Uh, but, uh, once you fix that, it’ll just keep working for you forever. Uh, you know, look, I’ll look at one click ordering for Amazon. Uh, that’s been working for him for, uh, boy 20 years now.

Yeah. I want to tee this up here for you here, Roger. Maybe, maybe this will make you, you’ll think less of me as a result of this, but it’s just you and me talking with half a million people listening. Um, for some reason you, the other night my wife and I wanted to watch a movie on like Netflix. Now we’re very intentional. We have five kids. So it’s like, hey, you know, we can watch this documentary or this particular show. We want to make sure we put good information into our kids’ craniums and that thing it took about, I don’t know, it was like it was the internet speed. We have an internet problem. My house flooded recently so we’re working off a wifi hotspot right now and that pin wheel had spun a few times or the Internet was, we were waiting on the Internet to load.

It was just spinning and it seemed like hours, but I think it was maybe two seconds, but it seemed like weeks. But it might’ve been a max of three seconds. I mean decades. I feel like I needed to go shave again. I feel like I’d been waiting decades, but my wife pointed out was maybe four seconds or so. How long can consumers wait for a site to load or for something to work before they go, ah, I’m going to bed cause I was about ready to go. Ah, let’s just go to bed. I mean, how long can people at the average person wait on technology before they get, they get done with it? They’re there, they’re tired of it. They say, I’ve got to move on. It’s too tough.

Well, you know, clay, that’s a moving target because a things keep getting faster and better. And I think one thing that many businesses don’t realize is that customers are not comparing your business to your direct competitors. Like if you think, well, okay, uh, you know, my load speed or my website isn’t the best, but boy, it’s way better than the people that I compete with. That doesn’t really matter because they are comparing you to a, the low times at Google and an Amazon. Ah, they’re comparing your in-person experience to the experience that Uber offers. Uh, and the fact that you suck a little bit less than your competitors doesn’t really, uh, cut it. You know, they, uh, they have an absolute standard. I think one, one a great example. I can look up anything that I’ve ordered from Amazon. I think like for the last 15 years, uh, with just a few clicks, uh, no other business that I deal with will do that for me with such ease. But I expect it now, you know, a few years ago I didn’t expect it. Uh, uh, I just figured, well, okay, you know, they can only keep so many orders online and then they go into a, I don’t know, some warehouse someplace or whatever. Uh, but uh, you know, hey, if Amazon does it, why can’t you, you know, it’s not like hard drives are that expensive these days.

Okay. That right there, someone’s going to have to Marion it out. Someone’s gonna have to marinate on that for a few hours. You said simply because you know, you suck a little bit less than your competitors. It doesn’t matter because people are comparing you to Amazon to Google’s too. So I’d like for you to, let’s open up your book. We’re going to open up your book friction for a second. We’re going to open up the book and when I open up the book friction, the untapped force that can be your most powerful advantage. Give me a few of the knowledge bombs or maybe a few of the ample examples that you provided in your book about how Amazon, Google and Uber have improved their customer experience to reduce the amount of friction and thus make it easier to do business with them.

Right. Well, clay, I already mentioned one click ordering and uh, you know, it doesn’t seem like that remarkable of a thing. I remember well, uh, well, but, uh, when it came out, uh, actually Jeff Bezos was talking about frictionless shopping way back in 1997 where most people were still trying to figure out what e commerce was right. And Ah, they patented one click ordering in 98. And at the time I remember hearing about that saying how they can’t patent that. No, you can’t patent something. Just like, you know, click a button and place an order. Well, in fact, it turned out that you could patent it and they defended it in court at great cost. And eventually I’ll forced a, their competitors like Barnes and noble to add a click because Barnes and noble was doing it. They had the one click ordering and they ended up having to add a second click.

Now you say, well, what’s the big deal? You know, one, one extra click in a process. Uh, but you know, Amazon does not think that way. Uh, and in fact, someone else who didn’t think that way at the time was Steve jobs because they were just starting up their music store then to go with their iPad. And they said, okay, we need this feature. We want it to be as frictionless as possible for our customers to order. So they didn’t mess around. They didn’t try and fight the patent like Barnes and noble did. They just went to basis and licensed it. Uh, and they incorporated it. And of course, uh, we all know what happened. They became by far the dominant music store. So, you know, just, um, you know, we don’t think about those little tiny steps that, oh, a click here, click there.

Oh, we got to scroll down a little bit. And that’s not a problem. It’s easy. Uh, but all that stuff makes a difference. Another thing that Amazon has done, uh, about a dozen years or so ago, they saw that customers were struggling with these retail packages. You know, these plastic clamshells that are heat sealed and they’re very nice for retail. They’re hard to steal from the store a, they show off the product nicely because you can see through them. But once you get them home and try and get into them, uh, you know, you need, uh, implements, you can go into them with your bare hands, uh, you risk stabbing yourself with sharp plastic edges and it’s a real struggle. Uh, and they said, okay, uh, what we can fix this. And they came up with frustration free packaging. And these are simple cardboard boxes. Uh, customers can get into them easily.

Uh, they do not require power tools. Uh, the risk of injury is low and they’re better for the environment. And here’s the amazing thing. Like, uh, not only did people like the packages better, uh, Amazon found that there was a 73% reduction in negative feedback about the products that were packaged that way. So the ease of dealing with the packaging ended up, uh, making the product itself seem better. So, I mean, it, it, to me it’s a, I’ll, people don’t even recognize, uh, that when they make customers work harder, uh, that affects the whole experience.

I want to tell myself real quick, if you’re out there and you’re married to somebody like me who, uh, just destroys cereal boxes, I don’t really don’t eat a lot of cereal, but any kind of box that requires any type of tactile skill, I ended up just bludging the thing with a sharp object to get into it. Uh, you know, and, and there’s certain brands that they have figured it out to make it really easy. But I’m, I’m not a very intuitive guy, Roger, you know, it’s like, it’s hard for me to figure stuff out. And I remember the first time I had to book, I had to use an Uber. I was in Denver and I remember it like it was yesterday. I was in Denver, Colorado to meet with my, a good friend and business partner with Oxi fresh and I’m there in Denver and he says, clay, why don’t you just Uber?

And I go, Huh, what’s Uber? This was like, I don’t know what, seven, eight years ago. He says, why don’t you just Uber and I’m going, how do you Uber? He goes, well, can you download the app and then you book it and I remember just, Oh no, it’s going to be like, it’s going to take forever. It’s going to be like going onto the IRS website. It’s going to, you know, Roger dooley, you know, you know the drill. I’m thinking this is going to be some new technology. I don’t have time to learn a new technology. All I want to do is get home from the four seasons restaurant with my beautiful wife. And then I went on to Uber and it was like, click, tear, Bada Bing, Bada boom, boom. And I booked my Uber. That was awesome. It was so much easier than waving at a taxi. It was so much easier than calling the hotel to get a Ho to get a taxi. Can you talk to us about Uber and how they’ve been able to use frictionless or marketing or systems or processes that they reduced the amount of friction to dramatically grow that brand?

Yeah, I think there’s two pieces that you highlighted there. Clay. First of all is the onboarding process was simpler than you expected. And another company that, uh, uh, was worth a whole lot of money. Uh, whatsapp, uh, was grew in part because their onboarding process was so simple, didn’t have to set up your username, didn’t have to choose a password. Uh, I saw an a user experience guy tear down their onboarding process and, uh, you could be, um, uh, up and running in less than two minutes and inviting your friends who of course could then be onboard easily themselves. And that’s one reason why in, even though there were tons of messaging apps available, uh, whatsapp grew like crazy, uh, and ended up being worth a, I don’t know, 25 billion or whatever Facebook paid for it. So, uh, that’s part of the process. But I think the bigger thing is, uh, with Uber that, uh, people did not realize how much friction there was in the taxi process.

And that’s something that I guess I hope that I can accomplish with my book is letting people see friction where it exists, even where they haven’t been aware of it. Uh, you know, because he just sort of accepted, like unless you had a really bad tax experience, like had a stand on the rain for 20 minutes trying to find one. Uh, you didn’t think too much about it, you know, you got in, it was okay, you paid it off. And uh, it wasn’t until Uber came along, uh, and uh, showed you how, wow, it can be so much easier to get a ride to see where they’re at. You know, if they’re not there at exactly when you expected them. Oh, you can see they’re just down the block as opposed to wondering, Hey, do they lose me? Do they, you know, get my call?

What’s, where’s my cab? Uh, and then, you know, you can see the route. You can see when you’re going to arrive, you know that the driver isn’t going to take you the long way, uh, to rack up some extra money. Uh, and then getting out even is so simple. You know, uh, I often, especially when I’m traveling, I try and pay by credit card if I’d take out conventional taxi. And that is a high friction experience. You know, typically, uh, in fact, in other countries in the United States, I often find first the driver says, uh, no machines networking. Uh, and then you say, well, uh, because they don’t want to pay the, uh, the, the fee I guess. And I said, well, okay, I got no cash, so, uh, what are we going to do? And then he reaches under the front seat, pulls the machine out, fires it up, tries to get an internet connection on it.

And you know, it’s, it’s like a three minute process. Uh, and then you got to figure out, uh, uh, how to tip on it. And just, I mean, it’s so stressful when, you know, with Uber it’s like, here you are, goodbye. And it’s, it’s that simple. And now I, you know, before I never really thought too much about the taxi process, but of course now if I have to ride in a conventional taxi, it’s like, wow, this really sucks compared to Uber. Uh, you know, and, uh, it’s, um, once, once you see it, you really can’t stop seeing it.

Now, did you go to Manhattan very much there, Roger Dooley? Oh, not too often, but I’d go there occasionally. One thing that I, I have discovered about t, uh, Manhattan is that everybody in Manhattan is taking a car that they don’t own. Cause it’s like impossible to find a parking space every, you know. And it was like, I’m sure there’s a lot of people who have experienced the idea of like, hey, waiving down a taxi cab and paying them in this process. Um, you know, it, we’ve all thought I had the thought there’s gotta be a better way. Perhaps the vehicles could smell better. It would be awesome if we could rate the driver who just drove as though he was trying to engage in some kind of Jim or jewelry heist. You know, you’re in the car feeling that this guy’s trying to race against the government and the police, those drivers.

Oh, and it just smells. There’s certain smells that have been discovered inside these vehicles. And I’m sure many, many people have thought about, oh, there’s gotta be a better way. But, but you know, the folks at Uber actually obsessed about it and sat down and did it. They, they’re, they’re entrepreneurs. The folks at Google sat down and thought about it. Larry and Sergei thought about it, Travis at Uber thought about it. Um, talk to me about, for the listeners out there who are going, okay, I believe in, I believe in this dream. I’m going to buy this book right now. Friction, the untapped force that can be your most powerful advantage. On a practical level, how can most small business owners, uh, act on what you’re teaching today? What are, what are a few things that we can action steps that all of our small business owners who are listening right now could immediately begin to apply within their own businesses?

Well, I think that once you start seeing the varied examples, and if you’ve glanced at the book or you know, that there are quite a few different kinds of examples in the book, you start seeing friction in your own processes. You can start seeing things that maybe your customers don’t complain about even, but that you see could be done, uh, quicker with less effort. And that’s how you win a, you know, if everybody’s complaining about your process, you’re probably already dead. Uh, you know, it’s, it’s past the point of no return. But, uh, you know, if people are tolerating it, uh, but you can see ways to improve it. That’s how you gain share against your competition. And I end up, I’ll, you know, at the beginning of the book, I start with a short fable about a friction goggles and I suggest that at the end of the book, uh, people will each have their own metaphorical pair of friction goggles.

There are no real goggles involved. Uh, but what I mean by that is, uh, that they will start seeing friction where they didn’t see it before. Uh, in the same way that I was describing. We see friction in taxis now that we didn’t really see before Uber. Uh, and you know, there’s a reason for that. There’s actually some neuroscience. Let’s circle around back to neuroscience. Clay. Uh, the brain has, what is the reticular activating system, the Ras, and it’s job is to filter out everything that isn’t important. So if you are crossing the street in Times Square, uh, it will filter out everything except the crosswalk sign, oncoming cars and the people right around you because you don’t need all those 10,000 other distractions trying to confuse you. Uh, and you know, having a stop in the middle of the street wondering what you’re doing, uh, now, uh, net’s usually a very useful thing, but, uh, it does filter out stuff that, uh, you can see in.

So like, if you’re always actually have a certain experience, uh, you just don’t see the friction in that experience because it’s normal. And, you know, I can give you an example of how perhaps you, and maybe our listeners have experienced their ras in action. If you’ve ever bought a new car, and like the week after you buy it, suddenly you start seeing all these other cars that look like yours. Wow. Same model, same color. Holy Cow. Holy Cow. I never noticed that before. Uh, where were they? You know, those cars were always there. It’s just that now your particular car has assumed a much greater importance to your Ras because it’s yours and it starts seeing other ones like at elsewhere and letting them through to your brain where before just screen them out with all the others. Uh, and so, uh, once you start seeing examples of friction by reading about them in the book and also by experiencing them, as you look at Your Business or your own interactions with other businesses, uh, you will see more and more friction because your brain will say, okay, this is important.

Uh, you know, this is unnecessary effort. Uh, uh, I should pay attention to that. Uh, and it may be kind of frustrating. Uh, you know, it’s sort of like developing your palate for wine. It’s good news and bad, bad news of each cheap wine that used to white light before. Yeah. It doesn’t taste quite as good now, but at the same time you can appreciate a a and understand wine a lot better. Uh, so, you know, you may be frustrated as you see more friction, but at the same time, uh, it gives you a chance to do something about it.

No, I, I want to ask you what’s wrong with my re re particular activating system. This is a new word for our listeners and I just want to make sure I’m kind of, you know, stepping into the water with this word here. Glad I hit it. Throw some neuroscience edge of their claim. Well, my, my uh, wife and I, I took my wife on a trip down to Cancun, if you can picture all inclusive resort. We’re down there and heavy guavas. They’re like the size of a dog. Oh yeah. I’ve seen those young Cozumel, Cancun. You either. They’re huge. And so we’re walking down the path, you know, when every two wrists and everybody’s like, wow, it looks like there’s any Guan and we should probably get it out of the way. But I, because of my reticular activating system or my opic focus, whatever that is, it took my superpower that allows me to sit down and write a book.

I can write a book, you know, a and four consecutive days and not really be interrupted. Just Poo Booboo, not distracted. I’m not curious at all who’s calling me or emailing me, just totally up, just myopically focused. That is my, my super power is also my super weak weakness. And I seriously, it’s scary. It’s scary. Sometimes I stepped on any Guana about the size of a dog and my wife watched it happen and she was like, Oh, you know, why wouldn’t you do that? How did you not see it? And then all the tourists are [inaudible]. And then after dealing with that situation, my wife joked with me about it and then I hop in the pool splish splash, I’m swimming in the pool, having a good time. And then there’s any Guana that gets into the pool and it’s just like, it’s the woman who stepped out.

He waiting for the chance to take you under [inaudible] Guan Hopson and dude, dude, dude, dude, dude, dude, dude. And I’m just swimming around. Everyone else gets out of the pool. I’m oblivious to it. Another example is when my wife talks to me while I’m driving, I immediately go into the shoulder and almost killed her family every time. So I just want to know what’s wrong with my reticular activating system. I don’t know. Maybe it’s filtering a little bit too much there. And uh, you know, if you’re gonna step on a large lizard, uh, it’s probably probably let that information through. You know, can I fix that? I’m serious. That’s like my secret power. I don’t know. Maybe maybe watch a, some nature videos about Iguanas that never work. Okay. Okay, so step up, you know, I guarantee you, if you step on wanting, he turns around and bites you, that will tell your brain, okay, this is really important to pay attention to.

And you’ll never step on a second one. Oh my gosh, I am just, I gotta I gotta work on that. I got, Hey, pain is a motivator there. I gotta have Andrew just go out and get an eagle. Wanna set it out there when I walk in here and he just needs a slap me with a big stick or something and then I’ll learn the system. Now couple of final questions I have here for you. Um, people are out there. They’re thinking about buying friction. They’re gonna and I, I know I bought a copy of it, but somebody is thinking about buying a copy of the book right now and they’re going, well, I’m looking on Amazon right now and it’s one click, but it’s 1753 a on prime, I think. Hardcovers 24 75 and they’re going, I don’t want to spend money on a book that could change my life when I could just buy regrettable purchases at a local convenient store and lottery tickets and cheap wine.

Why would I possibly invest in my future when I could buy these things? I don’t need a, can you give us the 24, 75, uh, $24 and 75 cents a pitch as to why everybody needs to pick up a copy of this book. Because I perused the book, I’ve gone through the book and I’m saying, you should buy this book, but maybe somebody else has some objections. I encourage our listeners, why should we all check out your book know I think a rather than just justifying my book, I think that, um, it might’ve been Seth Goden that says, you know, a book is the best investment that you can make because, you know, for, uh, you know, 15, 20, 25 bucks, uh, you can benefit from this person’s, uh, years and years of experience and detailed research. You know, if you wanted to hire that person of four day to advise you, that would cost you thousands and thousands of dollars. Yup. Uh, but, uh, you know, for this minimal, some, you know, you can get something that they worked on, uh, for years. I mean, I would say the typical business book a, you know, the author spent probably at least a couple of years writing it and it is a based on

all, even more years of experience in research. So, uh, you know, you, uh, it’s really, uh, a very small expense and Oh, you can, it’s a lot cheaper than other types of learning. And in one, one other thing I would point out too is that, uh, these days it is audible or audio books are becoming an increasingly popular format and they’re actually catching up to ebooks as a format because people can consume them. Uh, uh, anytime, you know, when they’re driving, when they’re in the gym, when they’re going for a walk, uh, and, uh, they’re, it’s, it’s only one credit. So, you know, it’s, uh, it’s pretty a democratic system. Uh, it’s, it’s great. But, you know, as far as friction goes, I think that, uh, what I would hope that people can get out of it and justify that, uh, uh, purchase price, first of all, uh, seeing friction in their own customer experiences and others where, where can, uh, their business.

Do a little bit better job of serving the customer, eliminate those, uh, minor points of friction. You know, just that extra scroll, that extra click, uh, that extra the field in the form, you know, that isn’t absolutely necessary, but someone said, oh, we got to ask them that. Uh, stuff like that. Uh, but once they start seeing it there, they’ll also start seeing those friction points in their own company, uh, procedures that aren’t that efficient. Meetings that are, aren’t really accomplishing anything, uh, that have people in them that don’t really need to be there. Uh, there is a study that was published in the Harvard Business Review, uh, that estimated that every year US businesses waste $3 trillion in what they call organizational drag. And drag is another word. Uh, being an engineer for friction. Uh, the, Oh, what they meant by that was our businesses are wasting, they’re wasting the time of their people with, uh, rules that, uh, cause extra effort, but don’t really produce the benefit for the company.

I mentioned meetings, uh, dealing with email. That is an absolutely necessary. Uh, people spend a couple of hours a day, uh, on email you show, you know, and that is not usually very productive time spent occasionally, uh, sure. You, uh, can, you know, part of it might be very important, but a lot of it is just dealing with stuff that you’ve got to clear your inbox, uh, uh, that it probably shouldn’t have been in there in the first place. Uh, you know, and there’s, uh, so much, uh, uh, friction. Like people are understand that, wow, we’ve got to make it as easy as possible for the customers to order. But, uh, the flip side of that is, uh, you need to make it as easy as possible for your own people to do the job, uh, their job because, uh, you know, they will, first of all, people understand when they are wasting their time, you know, if they’re being forced to do something because this is the procedure. This is the process. Uh, they know that, oh, gee, you know, this, this is not productive, but I got to do it. Uh, and that is not motivating a gallop. Uh, a Gallup poll show that 85% of the people they surveyed were not engaged with their job or their employment situation. Yeah, it’s a bit there. They’ve kind of mentally checked out somewhat. Uh, ah.

Could you repeat that real quick though? The exit? Yeah. Right. There is a hard stat that somebody out there needs to embrace because what you just said, I mean, I know that you’re a calm guy, but that’s an intense statistic. Can you repeat that statistic one more time?

Yeah. But the Gallup survey show that, uh, 85% of the people they surveyed were not engaged with their employer. So, uh, you know, and one reason for that is because, uh, you know, their time isn’t respected. Uh, their effort isn’t respected. You know, there’s a sort of, a, many companies have this sort of command and control situation where they have procedures that are based on lack of trust, you know, well, okay, this is how the expense reporting system works and this is, these are the forms you have to fill out. This is the documentation you have to provide. Uh, you know, and is that as streamlined as it could be? No, but uh, you know, there’s this, uh, either lack of trust in some cases, uh, that requires extra work or it’s just a poorly designed process that nobody really took a look at. They just figured, hey, people want their money, know they’re going to fill up the darn forms. So, uh, you know, one way of combating that lack of engagement is to show that you as a company or you as a boss are actively trying to make your employees job easier. And that’s something that, you know, really changes people’s perception when it’s not about, gee, how can I get these people to work harder and get their job done faster instead itself? How can I make their job easier? That’s a whole different mindset, but it has a whole lot of benefits.

You know, what I’m going to do right now is I’m not going to say that if you don’t buy a copy of Roger’s book, I’m not going to say that you are a communist if you don’t buy a copy of Roger’s book. But I am, I am saying that the communist national anthem, which I typically don’t play a lot on the show, just happens to be playing in the background right there. And I don’t know how that was queued up. I’m not really sure why Andrew Wood would cue up a song like this at this time. I don’t know. But, um, I’d just say that some would say not me. No, no, no, no, I’m not, I’m not wanting to use a puff this to push book sales. I’m just saying is that Andrew is a man of purpose, a man whose Mike is muted and a man who has no ability to defend himself. But I know that he is only playing the communist national anthem right now through just near [inaudible] [inaudible] there. He just, but if you don’t, you gotta go, you gotta go by the book. And it’s not, because we’re not saying you’re a communist if you don’t buy a copy of Roger’s book. But barrage Roger Dooley, if I do want to buy a copy of your book, make it frictionless for me. Where can I buy the book? Oh,

you can buy it. Most places where books are sold. Amazon of course, is probably the lowest frictions, especially since I write about how low friction they are in the book. But if you like, uh, in-person, uh, you can check out Barnes and noble and other bookstores as well.

Roger, it has been an absolute delight having you on this show. Uh, hopefully, uh, this was not the worst podcast. I always want to be the second worst or the third of the worst, but never the worst podcast you’ve ever been on. But I, I really appreciate you, my friend.

You are, you are a wealth of knowledge. Well, clay a, this is far from the worst. It’s been a blast. And I have to tell you though, it’s the first one where I’ve heard, uh, Soviet martial music playing if, assuming that’s what that was, that sounded like good. Yeah. That, that is a first. And you know, I think that part of their problem was excess bureaucracy and red tape and uh, no doubt was one of the reasons that they changed systems

and their tape was actually red too in the literal, not only the, figured it out right there. That’s a very impressive, impressive, impressive. Roger is just dropping knowledge bombs left and right. Roger, thank you for being on the show man.

Well thank you Claire. It’s really, really been a lot of fun. All right,

take care man. Now lets any further ed do, it’s time to end this show with a boom. But if you’re out there today and your, your website is running slow, you’re creating friction for your customers, just email us to info at thrive time, show.com email us to info at thrive time, show.com email us right now. That’s you.do you she talking to me? No, I’m talking to you. You which one of us? The first two of us in the car. Stop it. Just email us to info at thrive time. show.com today, and we will tell you how to make your web site faster and how to make your website rank higher in the Google search engine results. And so now, with any further Ed, do we have a neuroscience marketing boom? Here we go. Three, two, one.