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- [00:00]
A
Hey, real quick, before we dive in,
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B
if you've got a brand or marketing tool that marketers need to know about, sponsor the show here at Perpetual Traffic. Perpetual Traffic puts you in front of thousands of seasoned marketers, CMOs, and agency owners. So head on over to perpetualtraffic.com to apply to be a sponsor of this show.
- [00:19]
C
When you are having a discussion, you're having multiple different kinds of conversations. Most of them fall into one of three buckets. Practical, solving problems, Ranking plans. Emotional. In which case, I don't want you to solve my emotions. I want you to empathize. One of the things that we know from studies of psychology, people who are really good communicators, they ask, you're listening to Perpetual Traffic.
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A
Hey, quick heads up.
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B
If you're marketing to marketers, this is
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A
where you want to be.
- [00:47]
B
Sponsor Perpetual Traffic and get seen and heard by thousands of seasoned marketers, CMOs, and agency owners. We get hundreds of thousands of downloads every single month, all to marketers. So go to perpetual traffic.com to apply for a spot on the show in Q1 or Q2 of 2026. Maybe explain sort of the concept behind
- [01:08]
A
super communicators and sort of how you got to this point.
- [01:11]
C
So you're exactly right. I mean, I. Obviously, the folks who are listening to this are probably super communicators. They're professional communicators, right? You people who communicate for a living, even if you're just an executive in a company that has nothing to do with marketing, it has nothing to do with. With the Internet, you're still really a communication professional because you're communicating your direct reports. You're trying to help people share a vision. And what's interesting is we are living right now through the golden age of understanding communication like never before. Because of advances in neural imaging and data collection, we can see what's happening inside people's brains and inside their bodies as they're having a conversation. And that's been sort of transformative because one of the big insights is that until now, we kind of assumed that people knew what they were talking about when they were having a conversation. Right? We're having a conversation about marketing or we're having a conversation about where to go on vacation, vacation next week, or the budget for next quarter. But actually, what researchers have found is that when you are having a discussion, you're having multiple different kinds of conversations. And some of the conversations that most of them fall into one of three buckets, most of them are either practical. We're talking about Solving problems, ranking plans, or they're emotional, in which case I don't want you to solve my emotions. I want you to empathize. Or they're social, which is about how we relate.
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A
Why is Joran laughing? I'm like, every conversation is emotional. This month. It's November. We've had quite a few of those.
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C
Yeah, yeah, it's November. It's November. And then you come out of Thanksgiving and you're. You're like, what the. Like, I just get to hold my breath for a little couple of weeks before I have to have another round of really, really awkward conversations. But so understanding what kind of conversation is occurring and matching the other person or inviting them to match you, that's really powerful.
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A
And then the third type is the social. Social.
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C
Social side. Yeah, yeah. Which is about, like, how we relate to each other, how we rel society, the identities that are important to us. A lot of the conversations with our family where we say, like, you're not giving me the respect I deserve because you're trying to be the parent, even though I'm. I'm your kid who's, you know, in my 40s or crazy uncle Gary, when crazy Uncle Gary is like, everyone thinks I'm crazy, but I think lizard people run the government. Like, those are oftentimes identity conversations, social conversations. And. And once we understand that, it's a. They're a lot easier to have coming off Thanksgiving.
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A
And you did have that conversation with Uncle Gary or Uncle Bob, in my case. True story. One of the best passages from the book, we'll just sort of pull this one out, is the. Where wherever you stand on this, in your ideology, your political beliefs, doesn't matter. The point is this, is that the example that you use in this book, which is counterintuitive. It's almost like. And I think you even mentioned this is like Jedi mind tricks, but actually not manipulative in this way, is that, like, there's a great deal of people right now which are highly relevant in the fact that they're suspect of vaccines. And I actually just read in Massachusetts, of all places, like the bluest of
- [04:04]
B
blue states, maybe the exception of California,
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C
where you live, is that 10% of people are.
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A
Are reluctant or have questions or are not going to give their kids vaccines. So it's a divisive issue. And you actually talk about this, like, how. I believe it was a pediatrician, maybe an internist.
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C
Yeah.
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A
How they talk about this. Maybe you could just sort of talk about that.
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C
I've transform.
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A
I was like, I had to listen to it two or three times because in preparation for Thanksgiving this week.
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C
Yeah, no, it's, it's really interesting. And so, yeah, there was a bunch of experiments that was done at the beginning of COVID to try and figure out because there's a lot of people who are vaccine skeptical. That doesn't mean that they're like anti vaxxers, but it means that they, they have questions and they're concerned and they might choose not to get their kids vaccinated for all kinds of things or get vaccinated themselves. And what's interesting is that when doctors, at the beginning of the pandemic, when the vaccine first came out and even before then, when doctors had conversations with these patients who were vaccine skeptical, they figured it was a practical conversation. They figured this patient just needs to hear the evidence. Right. If I tell them the science, if I give them the papers. And that almost never worked like it. You could never persuade someone the vaccines are safe by giving them data. And what was happening there was that the physicians thought they were in a practical conversation. But for the patients, this was really emotional. Right. They're talking about, I'm worried I'm going to put a poison in my kids. I'm worried that I can't trust the government. And like I look at the government and they lie about all these things, I think. And so why aren't they lying about this? You're just some, like you went to some fancy school and you have an MD and I didn't go to college and I think you're looking down on me. And so I'm, I'm going to be distrustful of you. Those are all emotional conversations. And so what the physicians realized was we can't have a practical conversation until we match each other on this emotional level. And so oftentimes what doctors will do is they'll say, tell me how you feel about vaccines. And they just give the person all the space in the world to bring up all their concerns.
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A
And they don't say, no, that's wrong,
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C
or let me show you the study. They say, I understand exactly what, why you feel that way. Like I, I would feel exactly the same way. And I've, and I'm worried about my kids the same way that you're worried about your kids. And you're right. Like the government does let us put crap in our bodies, right? There's not enough like organic rules, whatever it is. So we're going to get aligned on this emotional level. You're going to, you're going to See, that I've heard you and that, that I'm someone who can empathize with you.
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A
And then I'm going to say something
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C
like, can I tell you why I decided to give my kids the vaccine?
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A
Right.
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C
Which is a way of asking, can we move from an emotional to a practical conversation? Can I tell you. Yeah, personalized. Personalized, yeah, personalized. But. But instead of having to think about this on a purely emotional level, do I have your permission to move us into sort of the practical questions? And what they found is that works perfectly. That doesn't mean every single person gets a vaccine, but it means at least they're listening to what you have to say, they're absorbing what the arguments you're trying to make. And most, most of the time they agree to get the shot if that's the thing that you're advocating for. And so a big part of this is recognizing when you're talking about crazy Uncle Gary or when you're talking about politics. The goal is not to convince the other person that you are right and they are wrong. The goal is not to convince them that you are smart and that they should respect you or even like you. The goal is simply to understand how they see the world, to show them that you understand how they see the world, and then to speak in such a way that they can understand how you see the world.
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A
And if you do that, even if
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C
you walk away deciding you're going to vote for different people, you don't agree on who should be president, you are going to feel connected to each other, you're going to feel a little bit closer to each other. And oftentimes that's all that we need to coexist peacefully.
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A
The interesting part to that, and I was sort of expecting when I reread it, re listened to it, I forget which I did at this point is there was no like closing question, like, so what do you say?
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C
Right?
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A
There was not rat.
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C
No, no. There was, there was not a call to action. Right. There's not the closer question, which, and I think this is different because like in advertising, we're very explicit that we're trying to convince someone of something.
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B
Hey, real quick, if you're looking to get your brand in front of growth minded marketers, CMOs, directors of marketing and agency owners, we're opening up our sponsorship spots for Q1 and Q2. Get in front of a quarter of a million markers every single month at Perpetual Traffic. All you have to do is head on over to perpetual traffic.com for the details or Check out the link in the show Notes to apply.
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C
Right. We're not necessarily in advertising. We're not looking to have a conversation. We're a dialogue. We're looking to kind of have a little bit of a monologue.
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A
Right.
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C
You might. My ad pops up. But most of the conversations that happen in real life are conversations where they are dialogues. It. If there's not a back and forth, then, then it's really not a conversation. And one of the hallmarks of a good conversation is oftentimes it doesn't end because you've gotten to the end of the conversation. It ends because you've run out of time. And so. So you don't have to have the final question or the killer closer because oftentimes you feel so close that it's easy for people to just kind of continue it, pick it up again.
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A
Yeah. What I find really interesting about this is that we've had another, like, I think of super communicators as a way of like, connecting. And I think there's persuasion, there's a part.
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B
There's a persuasive part of this to a certain degree.
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A
We had another guest on here, Oren Claf is also. Has written multiple books on this and his last book was very similar to how you're positioning this right now. And I think this is super important if you're a manager, salesperson, marketer. I can also relate this to how marketing is actually done right now with this creative diversification thing that we've been talking about here for the Meta Andromeda update. Is that you make the subject, the prospect feel like it's their idea.
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C
Yeah, absolutely. Yeah.
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A
And that, that is what Oren Klaff says.
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B
And flip the script.
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A
He's like, you don't sell them. You make them feel like they sold themselves.
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C
That's exactly right.
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B
It's exactly the same principle here.
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C
We're in a exactly the same. And. And so let's talk about how to do that. Right. Because one of the things that we know from studies of psychology is that people who are really good communicators, consistent super communicators, they ask more questions than the average person. They ask like 10 to 20 times as many questions as the average person. And what's interesting is that some of those questions are just invitations to kind of participate. Right? Like, oh, what do you think about that? Or yeah, did you see that movie? But some of the questions are what are known within psychology as deep questions. And a deep question is something that asks me about my values or My beliefs or my experiences. And that can sound kind of intimidating, but it's as simple as if you meet someone who's a doctor, instead of saying, oh, what hospital do you work at? You can ask them, oh, what made you decide to go to medical school? Break that second question. That's a super easy question to work to ask, but it's a deep question because it invites the other person to tell you about their experiences, to tell you about their values, what they enjoy about their work, why they want to be a healer. And then you're having a real conversation. And once you're having that real conversation, that's when people are engaged and they start to sell themselves, right? Then you can ask the deep question, like, tell me what's bugging you about your marketing right now. Like, what's the thing that's driving you crazy? And now they're starting to describe their problem to you, and you say, like, well, have you thought about. Have you thought about this solution that we're experts in? Now they're convincing themselves that this is the right answer, and that's so much more effective. And so we like to work with, and we like to buy from, and we like to sell to people who we like. And the way that we like people is through conversation, real conversation.
- [11:51]
A
And this. This is the thing that I wish I had at this park that weekend. Was that because in the passage in the book, you say, Sal, shallow questions can become deep very quickly. Just like what you said, you know, start off with, hey, where'd you go to medical school? Like, I know a lot of doctors. And then it's like, sort of ends up there. Oh, I went to Harvard. I'm like, oh, great.
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B
Well, I worked in and around the Harvard area for years.
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C
And.
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A
And then it's like, then where do you go?
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C
Yeah, exactly. Whereas if you ask a why question? Oh, Harvard. How'd you like it?
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A
How'd you like, are you still close
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C
to people at Harvard? Like, is it still a big part of your life? Like, those are real questions, and they're just as easy to ask, but they bring you to a real place, cocktail party.
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A
Questions, like, are even more. Like, this is like, you know, you meet somebody, and I told you this before we hit record here today is like, you know, where do you live? Can. Then all of a sudden, you can ask a deeper question, which would be, what? Then all of a sudden, you're deep. Like a great fall.
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C
Yeah. Like, what do you like about the heights? Like, why. Why'd you decide to move to the Heights, right? Oh, it's because you move there because, like, the community is so great. That's, that's funny. I live in the Valley for the same reason. Like, like what? You know, do you, do you belong to a synagogue?
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A
Do you belong to church?
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C
Like, there's all these questions that like, give us an insight, a window into who this person really is. And the truth of the matter is, and we all know this, we love being asked real questions. Right? Everybody loves being asked real questions. Nobody wants to have a boring conversation like, oh, your kids go to this school, my kids go to that school. They want to be asked, like, you know, when your kids are like, they're applying for college right now, is it driving you crazy? Because it's driving me crazy. Right. Like that's a real conversation.
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A
Nobody really wants small talk. Like, nobody wants surfacy conversations.
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B
Although I do know a couple of
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A
people who like surface conversations. But.
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C
Well, it's interesting because there's been a bunch of studies looking at this. So there's something called the fast friends procedure. And what's interesting about the fast. It's a. It's, it's 36 questions that studies have shown. If people go back and forth, asking these 36 questions only takes about 45 minutes. They feel very, very close to each other. Like so close that they'll, even if they don't know each other's names and they were strangers before, they'll seek each other out to try and get together. Some people actually end up getting married after doing this. And there was a theory that you had to start pretty shallow and then get deep. And what they discovered was that's actually not true. That pretty much you can get deep by the second or third question. So it's weird if I come up to you and I ask for instance, like, oh, just out of curiosity, when's the last time you cried in front of another person? By the way, my name's Charles. Nice to meet you. Right, that's, that's not going to go over so well. But if I come up and ask you, like. Right, right. What do you do for a living? Oh, I'm a doctor. Oh, why did you decide to become a doctor? Oh, you know, because, like, I really wanted to be a healer. I imagine that's tough. Like, do you find yourself, like, getting teary sometimes with, with patients? Because you probably get attached to them. That's three questions in. And I'm basically asking you when's the last time you cried in front of. Yeah, but, yeah, like the other nice thing about it is that if you'll notice, each of those questions was posed as an invitation rather than a mandate. So instead of saying, tell me when you last cried, I'm saying, oh, what's this like? And you could very well say, yeah, actually, like, sometimes it's really emotionally challenging. Or you could say, you know, I'm able to, like, kind of leave my work at work and come home and like it. I find it doesn't. If they don't want to get deep with you, that's totally fine, and they'll let you know. The point is that, you know, you're a super communicator, you know this tactic, you know how to do it, and you can invite people to get deep with you, and they can choose to say yes or no.
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A
It's so good. And a couple of your examples there. If people go back and hit rewind here, they'll actually hear you asking that first question and then the deeper question then. And then relating it back to yourself
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B
quickly, but not too much, because otherwise
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A
it becomes a monologue.
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C
It feels like an interview. Right. That's the nice thing about deep questions is that when you ask someone a deep question and they answer it, it's very natural to answer your own question.
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A
Hey, quick heads up.
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B
If you're marketing to marketers, this is
- [15:46]
A
where you want to be.
- [15:48]
B
Sponsor Perpetual Traffic and get seen and heard by thousands of seasoned marketers, CMOs and agency owners. We get hundreds of thousands of downloads every single month, all to marketers. So go to perpetualtraffic.com to apply for a spot on the show in Q1 or Q2 of 2026.
- [16:07]
C
So why did you decide to become a doctor? Oh, my dad got sick when I was a kid, and I. And I wanted to be a healer. Oh, that's funny. I'm a lawyer, and it's because I saw my uncle get arrested.
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A
Right.
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C
And now I can ask another deep question. You're exactly right. We've all been at that party where someone asks us where we went on vacation, and we realize about 30 seconds into answering the question that they don't care. They just want to tell us where they went on vacation. Yes.
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A
And.
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C
And. But that's easy to avoid if we're asking genuine questions that we're really interested in. And deep questions almost always are genuinely interesting.
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A
It's a great quote I heard once. I'm going to butcher this, but it was the former Prime Minister of Britain that says, like, I went to the party and I met him as Disraeli. Benjamin Disraeli. He said the difference between him and every other prime minister I've ever met is that when I met the other prime ministers, I felt that they were the most important people in the world. World. Whereas when I met Disraeli, I felt like I was the most important person in the world.
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C
Yeah, yeah. Bill Clinton has that same capacity. Right. It's just this. This guy. And actually, and I'm going to say this as, as someone who's not necessarily a fan of this person, but actually Donald Trump does, too.
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A
Yeah.
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C
Like. Like when you're. I've. I've gone to a number of rallies. I've. I've met him and been in the room. When he meets other people, he kind of turns that laser beam on you and it feels special.
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A
Yeah, I noticed that about, like, George Bush, too, apparently.
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C
Yeah.
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A
And probably I've never met him, but, I mean, I could see what you're saying. I was like, you know, it's a reason why he's where he's at. It's not just because of the outward appearance.
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C
And there's something else going on there. So if tactic one is ask more questions and ask deep questions, then tactic two is, hey, if you like this
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B
episode, check out the full episode right
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A
here in our channel.
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B
Don't forget to hit subscribe so you don't miss the metrics that matter and grow your business.
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C
You've been listening to perpetual traffic.