Roger Dooley

062: Roger Dooley: It was rather a shocking thing for us

Intro: Welcome to the Fast Leader Podcast, where we uncover the leadership like hat that help you to experience, break out performance faster and rocket to success. And now here’s your host, customer and employee engagement expert and certified emotional intelligence practitioner, Jim Rembach.

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Jim Rembach:     Okay, Fast Leader legion, you’ll want to make sure that you go to iTunes and download and subscribe the Fast Leader show and share it because we have a great guest today. Roger Dooley spend years in direct marketing as the co-founder of a successful catalog firm and was Director of Corporate planning for a Fortune 1000 company. He has an engineering degree from Carnegie Mellon University and an MBA from the University of Tennessee. Roger is an author,   international keynote speaker and consultant. He is a recognized expert in the use of brain and behavior research to improve marketing sales and the customer experience. Roger’s work focuses on influence and persuasion with an emphasis on highly practical applications of brain and behavior research. 

He brings a well-rounded understanding of how business work. He has worked with companies ranging from Fortune 500 firms to entrepreneurial startups to enhance their digital and conventional marketing. Dooley is the author of the best-selling Brainfluence: 100 ways to Persuade and Convince Consumers with Neuromarketing which has been translated into six languages. He writes the popular blog neuromarketing as well as the brain marketing at Forbes.com. The persuasion slide is a model recently introduced by Roger that puts marketing and customer experience in an easy-to-understand framework. This model allows businesses to focus on the four key elements needed to persuade customers to act and aids in identifying friction points in the customer experience that prevent sales and reduced customer satisfaction. Roger Dooley are you ready to help us get over the hump?

Roger Dooley:    Definitely, Jim. 

Jim Rembach:    Thanks for being here Roger. I’ve given our listeners a little bit about you but can you tell us what your current passion is so that we get to know you even better.

Roger Dooley:     Yeah. I’m still focused on the things you talked about which is really trying to use psychology and neuroscience to be more successful in business. The key concept is 95% of our decision-making processes as humans are non-conscious. Even though we think of ourselves as very rational and conscious decision-makers that means that for a marketing standpoint for example if we are focusing on features, benefits, price, or really only selling to a very small part of our customers mind and it goes beyond marketing too, I think in an organization on management context we also have to look at all those non-conscious influences out there that really affect what people do and how successful we are. 

Jim Rembach:    There’s so many key points in regards to what enables us to connect and a lot of those being things that we really don’t even know why, they’re subconscious in nature. But it’s also from when we connect with our prospects and customers through an interaction. Certain things just seem to make the connection where others don’t and a lot of times we just undermine ourselves with having no clue of it whatsoever. And one of the things dealing with a lot of organizations that I deal with, everybody’s trying to increase their levels of multitasking, right? You need to do multitasking. 

Roger Dooley:    Everybody is busier there’s always pressure to get more done in less time and  do more things at once, that is exactly right. 

Jim Rembach:    So, when you talk about that 95%, do you think that number because of this multitasking pressure, lack of sleep, poor diet all of that is impacting that even more?

Roger Dooley:    Well, yeah, it would be great if we could take that 95% sort of partition it into a little segments they could each be problems, that’s not really how it works. The non-conscious part of our brains does indeed sometimes work on problem solving and that’s why when you’ve told to sleep on a problem there’s actually some merit in science behind that. Even though we’re not consciously thinking about a problem we may be sort of working out it in background. But multitasking in general has been shown to be very ineffective and it ends up ensuring that none of the tasks really get done very well. And perhaps I don’t really know the underlying neuroscience there but I think if you are presenting the brain with too many things it simply cannot effectively manage them both, and to use a computer term a foreground and background at the same time.

Jim Rembach:    Definitely. A couple of studies that I read talked about the switching cost associated with multitasking is because we have to regroup for a moment.

Roger Dooley:    Oh, definitely. The cost of the interruption and time has been pegged at like 20 minutes, obviously it depends on what you’re doing.  If you’re performing simple manual task then there’s probably not that much cost involved from somebody asking a question or interrupting you but if you are a coder who’s in the middle of debugging a program and somebody comes along and says, “Hey, what do you think about that game yesterday? You will definitely take many minutes to sort of reconstruct what you had in your mind before you got that interruption.

Jim Rembach:    That’s a great point. And there’s so many things that were associated to brainfluence and power and problem-solving. And one of the things that we like to focus on the show are quotes because they can do so many different things for us that is both conscious and subconscious level. Is there a quote or two that stands out for you that impacts you that you could share with us?

Roger Dooley:    Yeah. I think the title of Steven Pressfield’s book do the work is probably one of my favorite ones. I think all too often we spend a lot of time planning or worrying about what other people are going to do, or think and so on or all of the things that we really need to do before we can take on a task and often it’s just a case of digging in and doing the work and not worrying about all these other extraneous factors are waiting until all the stars are aligned perfectly to begin it’s just a case of digging in and getting that work done and as you proceed you will find answers to many of these problems. And obviously that’s not a solution for every leadership problem or every management problem but oftentimes it’s just a case of doing it and getting your hands dirty sometimes but also you understand the problems a lot better when you’re in the middle of them than when you’re sitting there externally thinking about them.

Jim Rembach:    There’s something about just doing the work that’s so important, thanks for sharing that. Oftentimes we forget, we stop and think forever and never get to the point of doing anything. Now I know when you start talking about the experiences that you’ve had and the clients that you’ve worked with and all of that there’s probably been a hump or two where it helped give some influence to the course of action that you are going to take in the future, is a story that you can share with us that really helped and give you some greater insight?

Roger Dooley:    Well, I think one of the biggest humps I encountered—in the direct marketing business that have, I’m no longer involved in that business I have that business for quite a while, it was my first entrepreneurial venture. And it was kind of a risky thing for me because I bailed out of what was a pretty good corporate job and particularly for my age at the time I was a really moving along nicely and so I took what seemed to be a great situation for a big stable company and attract that to become an entrepreneur, it seemed a bit odd to many people and it was a little scary to me, but we went through a number of reversals within six months after quitting my job and starting this fledgling company. We were serving customers who had Texas Instruments computers they declared they were getting out completely from the home computer business, which was a rather shocking thing for us, because we base our business on the fact that they were going to be successful in the market, they ran into some issues and chose to exit the market. 

Jim Rembach:     We then had an experience a few years later some of that with Commodore and throughout these things what kept us going was the fact that we had sort of multiple paths of attack even as we were working on TI and that was our primary commitment, we were developing the next thing we’re developing a marketing program for owners and of Commodore computers, who at that time was actually a bigger in the market than TI, and then a while we had most of our revenue coming from that channel we began working on IBM compatible products because that was clearly a path that was going to grow and grow. And so having these multiple things going at once was in one sense a distraction but at the same time was essential for the survival of the business which I was involved with for about a dozen years or and then one of the other owners took it over, so it was really what preserved us and kept us going.

Jim Rembach:    Thanks for sharing that. Listening to your story and also what we had chat about earlier kind of makes one think that, “Maybe multitasking is good right.”

Roger Dooley:    Right. Well, it’s not exactly multitasking. It is in an overall business sense but hopefully you’re not trying to work on them both at the same time with them both in front of you on your desk and sort of going back and forth that’s where you get messed up. You can certainly work on multiple things but you have to focus on each one individually and not try and do them all at once because then none of them will get done very well. 

Jim Rembach:    Yeah, and I think that’s a key differentiator, and thanks for sharing that. So, it’s more than just semantics as far as just saying multitasking cause we all have multiple projects. So, even there you were saying how—if you were only focusing in on TI that would’ve been the end of the business but being able to look at different things allowed it to persevere.

Roger Dooley:    Right. And yes, I did really was very important even though at the time it might have seemed like a distraction from what was producing most of the revenue in the business.

Jim Rembach:    So, when you start thinking about all of the things that you have going on right now, and there’s quite a bit, from being an author and a consultants, when you start looking at all of the things that you have on your plate, what are some your goals? Well, I have some authorship goals and those are the underlying things and I think that is one of the challenges that facing too because unless you have a contract there is not a deadline where you have to deliver a book by, and there’s a lot of things that in the short run seem important, in other words I have my own podcast, the Brainfluence podcast and there’s one of those episodes every week so that’s one of the short-term priorities that simply has to get done on time. 

Roger Dooley:     There are there are blog posts that I have to write, I have a large following in social media that I need to stay engaged with. I put out a newsletter that brings together some of my blog content and other stuff that I have going on for my audience and readers and listeners, so you got all these things that have deadlines and cut-offs where you’ve got to get this out by a certain time or certain day and as a result the longer term but more strategic projects ends up getting neglected and that goes back to Stephen Covey with his rocks in your schedule item that I’m sure you’ve probably seen that analogy where he takes a jar full of gravel and gives you a rock and says, okay, fit this in there, this is your important task, and of course you can’t, Jim, and into the gravel and gravel’s not moving. But then what he does is empty the gravel, put the big rocks in first and pours the gravel and then it flows around the rock. The lesson there is establish your priorities for those things that are important but not urgent and then let the other sort of urgent but unimportant tasks sub flow around them. 

Jim Rembach:  I think that’s a great visualization that you just provided, which in it itself is also another tool associated with influencing. Now, what happens when you get too many boulders? 

Roger Dooley:    Well, then you got to make some hard decisions and that’s something that we all face. I know that—in my case, I am specifically trying to be a solopreneur with my business. I am not looking to build a staff, either employees or even of contractors, I’m heavily engaged with or I may hire a contractors for very specific tasks that I can’t do or don’t have time to do but this is more of a lifestyle and the style of business that I want to have choice. What that means is I can’t chase every opportunity that’s out there. 

So, for that reason I have dramatically limited my consulting engagements, because really at this point I would like to focus mostly on my writing and communicating my ideas to both my current audience as well as new audiences around the world. So, that’s my objective and at the same time it’s sometimes difficult because you’re given opportunities to either write a chapter for book, probably once a month get solicitations as, “Hey, writing a book that’s related to your topic.” Sometimes it is related other times it’s maybe not quite so related but, would you submit a chapter? Would you do this other thing for me here? And there’s often some benefit associated with that but you just have to weigh it in the big picture and say, Okay, I have to turn down even some good opportunities maybe a consulting gig that would pay well but just would not be compatible with the rest of what I have going on.

Jim Rembach:    And the Fast Leader Legion wishes you the very best. Now, before we move on, let’s get a quick word from our sponsor.

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Jim Rembach:     Alright, here we go Fast Leader listeners it’s time for the Hump Day Hoedown. Okay, Roger, the Hump Day Hoedown is the part of our show where you give us good insights fast. So, I’m going to ask you several questions and your job is to give us robust yet rapid responses that are going to help us move onward and upward faster. Roger Dooley, are you ready to hoedown?

Roger Dooley:     I am. 

Jim Rembach:     Alright. So, what do you think is holding you back from being even better leader today?

Roger Dooley:     I think being tugged in many directions and the need to absolutely focus on those things that are most important. Sort of summarizing what I just said a moment ago, to me that’s my biggest challenge because I don’t have other resources that I can delegate these things so I have to make a lot of strategic decisions myself.

Jim Rembach:     What is the best leadership advice you have ever received?

Roger Dooley:     Stay focused.

Jim Rembach:     What is one of your secrets that you believe contributes to your success?

Roger Dooley:     Good question. I think probably with something that I’m actually evaluating now and seems to be helping is meditating. I’m testing beginning the day with a brief meditation period which isn’t anything sort of ‘woo-woo’ or psycho religious or anything like that, it’s just a case of sort of emptying your mind and staying focused internally for a brief period of time which it lets you focus externally better for the rest of the day, and that seems to be working.  

Jim Rembach:     What do you feel is one of your best tools that helps you lead in business or life? 

Roger Dooley:     I think Gmail and in fact the suite of Google apps for business is something that really works well for me it integrates with a lot of stuff. So, for instance, first, scheduling this chat you just followed me link and the suite of tools is so well-integrated it just works pretty well together and saves me a lot of time. 

Jim Rembach:     What would be one book, from any genre, that you’d recommend to our listeners?

Roger Dooley:     Let’s go with Stephen Covey’s 7 Habits book, the 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. That to me is a great way of thinking about productivity and prioritizing what’s important.

Jim Rembach:     Okay Fast Leader listeners you can find links to that and other bonus information from our show by going to fastleader.net/Roger Dooley. Okay, Roger this my last hump day hoedown question: Imagine you were given the opportunity to go back to the age of 25 and you have been given the opportunity to take the knowledge and skills that you have now back with you but you can’t take everything you can only choose one, what skill or piece of knowledge would you take back with you and why?

Roger Dooley:     I guess, I would focus on what I would call my entrepreneurship skill. To me, I think that that’s something that takes a long time to evolve. When I first bailout I’d always anticipated I have a corporate career and so when I bailed out I really didn’t know what to expect as an entrepreneur, especially a startup entrepreneur, you really end up having to do absolutely everything. You don’t have an accounting staff, human resources staff, legal staff, you basically do everything yourself. If the toilet’s get plugged up, you’re the one there fixing it, so that to me—learning how to function as a productive entrepreneur and eventually build a large team, that would be a great skill to start off with because you really know what to expect and I think I hit the ground running more quickly and be successful more quickly.

Jim Rembach:     Roger, it was an honor to spend time with you today. Ca you please share with fast leader listeners how they can connect with you. 

Roger Dooley:     Sure. The jumping off point on the web is rogerdooley.com are there I’ve got links to my neuromarketing blog, my Brainfluence book, my Forbes blog and how to get in touch with me. On Twitter, my preferred social network, I am at Roger Dooley.

Jim Rembach:     Roger Dooley, thank you for sharing your knowledge and wisdom the Fast Leader Legion honors your and thanks you for helping us get over the hump. Woot, Woot. 

Thank you for joining me on the Fast Leader show today. For recaps, links from every show, special offers and access to download and subscribe, if you haven’t already, head on over the fastleader.net so we can help you move onward and upward faster.

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