How to Be more Persuasive Using Neuroscience, Chat With Jack Vincent

Yasi: Welcome to the Fast Track podcast, Jack.

Jack Vincent: Well, thank you for having me Yasi. I’m delighted to be on your show.

Yasi: Yeah. And you have a very interesting life experience, that you now live in three different locations, two countries, and start from the beginning. So where are you come from originally?

Jack Vincent: Well, I come from a cool region of the world, the Woodstock region of New York state. You’re probably too young to recognize it. In 1969, there was a huge concert there with Jimmy Hendrix and Janis Joplin and the Who and all the great bands of that time. And it’s about two hours north of New York. Along the Hudson River is where I grew up, in a town called Catskill. It was just a normal life. You know, for me, it was just a normal life. And now I look back and say, we were so lucky in the way we grew up. It was just easy. Everything was easy.

Yasi: And now you live in both Switzerland and Spain. And in the bio, I mentioned that back then you bought one-way tickets, you know, from New York to Barcelona, how did that happen?

Jack Vincent: Oh, what an adventure! Way back in the late seventies, I was a student at Syracuse University and my best friend talked me into doing a semester in London. And I did a semester in London, and I travelled around the continent. I fell in love with Barcelona, and I fell in love with Barcelona. And so, I graduated from university as a magazine editor and writer and wanting to write the great American novel and all of that.

I became in love with the whole Hemingway, Fitzgerald, all those people, you know, the expatriates living abroad in Europe and stuff. And a year out of university, I worked a year at a local newspaper. I thought, you know, I’m going to buy a one-way ticket to Barcelona and go live the ex-pat, you know, poet-writer life in Europe, in the middle of the old town of Barcelona. And it was great, but the jobs weren’t for the picking, you know, so licking our envelope, you know, this was a long time ago, Yasi. And when I was trying to sell articles to editors in New York, I was, you know, licking envelopes and putting airmail stamps and sending off my article ideas to editors and, you know, it was a long, slow process.

And the next thing I knew, I was working in marketing communications and then marketing and sales and on and off, you know, that was close to 40 years ago. And you know, 30 of those years I’ve been here in Europe.

Yasi: Wow, and back then, so you, you quit your job, or you just graduated from your university, then you flew to Barcelona?

Jack Vincent: No, I graduated from university. I had a girlfriend in Barcelona, graduated, you know, that I met and, you know, while I was living in London and all of that and, you know, we were in touch and one visiting the other every six or eight months. So, I graduated university in journalism and magazine, and I was working on a newspaper, and I also became the editor of the weekend magazine, you know, so the Friday copy comes, and you have a magazine inside. I was the editor of that. So, I did that for a year. So, a year out of university was when I said, you know, working in my hometown a year out of university, I said, you know, Barcelona is waiting for me, Europe is waiting for me. So, I just bought a one-way ticket and kind of moved and moved in with a woman.

Yasi: Yeah. And how long have you lived in Barcelona then?

Jack Vincent: For over the next 16 years, I lived in Barcelona for 11 of them. So that was a little bit back and forth. So, I went like this, you know, want to be a Hemingway writer. And then a years later, I moved back, and my career was starting too, and then years later I moved back again, five years before the Olympics.

And I was working in a big sales and marketing job for a US multinational, but I was soon recruited by a headhunter who is recruiting for the agency that sold the worldwide sponsorships to the Olympic games. We’re getting the 1992 Olympics; we’re going to be in Barcelona. And so, three years before that, I was working on the worldwide sponsorship, sales, and marketing of the Olympic games.

I break into sports marketing and I’m at the top of the game working on the Olympics and the global marketing program. It was extraordinary. And then I stayed with them, you know, then they moved me to Atlanta, long story, but I was in the States again for like seven years before I moved to Switzerland because by that time I had married someone from Switzerland and had a family with her and a great job coming up in Europe.

I was back, yeah, I was working. I moved to London and the family moved to Switzerland. And I was working on the ATP men’s tennis tour at that point, and it was so much fun. We didn’t travel every week, but we were wherever the big tournaments were.

We were usually there because that’s where business was done. So, you know, the tennis business, sponsorships, TV rights, the administrators of the sports, you know, so we would watch a little tennis, have a nice lunch and go into meetings wherever the men were playing. It was extraordinary. It was so much fun.

Yasi: And at that time, how did you learn Spanish then?

Jack Vincent: I learned Spanish in the beginning when I was in university in London, traveling around Europe, and met a woman from Barcelona. She and I were visiting each other for like three years. In the summer of 1980, I think it was when I bought that one-way ticket and landed there.

Her English was no better than my Spanish. And when I landed there, she said, hey, look, you know, you’re living in Spain, you and I are going to talk Spanish. And so, she and I talked Spanish and, you know, I was just submerged in the Spanish. I would wake up in the morning and, you know, whatever I do, it was Spanish or Catalan for Barcelona.

So, I learned Spanish quickly. And I also learned Catalan well at that time. I mean, it was just all day long Spanish, you know, there was no choice. Where now I live in Switzerland and say, oh my Deutsch nicht so good, and they say, oh, English? You know, 35 years ago or more 40 years ago, living in Spain, I would say no hablo bien español, and they would say Usted hablas muy bien. You know, they didn’t speak English and my Spanish was survivable. So, when you know, you’re surviving and you know, it just gets better every day. We’re in Switzerland. They don’t give me the chance to speak German because it’s so bad. Nobody wants to deal with it. And they know English.

Yasi: Yeah. I totally understand. I think even if you’re in a situation that you are forced to learn and speak the local language, you learn faster, right? And in Switzerland, some people or the majority of people can speak English and it’s just easy.

Jack Vincent: I think that’s my biggest problem with learning German.

I have five reasons why I learn German more slowly than Spanish, but Swiss German is no day at the beach. German is more difficult than Spanish. Then you throw Swiss German on. So that’s two reasons right there, but you know, I’m older. That’s another one. And you know, the other one is when you start struggling with German, they just go into English, you know?

And then a year later they’ll say, well, you know, why aren’t you speaking German? And it’s like, what are we speaking right now? English. You’re part of the problem

Yasi: So, you were like a full fletch in your marketing career, but in the bio, I mentioned that now you are a coach. So how did it happen from a career in marketing, and now you are independent as a coach?

Jack Vincent: Yeah. I guess I’m an accidental coach. The sports marketing industry crashed in 2001. There was the internet bust and you know, the money really comes from corporations, even television rights, that’s TV stations buying the right to be the broadcaster of an event. That comes from advertisers because without advertisers, so, you know, they buy these rights, the broadcasters, knowing that they’re going to sell the advertising. At the same time so that’s one stream of income for organizers and the ones who hold the intellectual property. The TV rights, the other main one. Well then you have tickets and all of that, and then you have corporate sponsorships.

And, you know, usually, the corporate sponsors are the advertisers too. And everything just crashed in 2001, the first thing to lose budget is sponsorships, and with that, TV rights. So the whole industry just crashed and I had been working 16 years in it about and I decided it was time to go. Well, you know, at first, I was consulting and then one of my consulting jobs kind of turned into training.

And then they recommended me to another client. And I thought you know what, this is fun. I was enjoying it. I’m not a young man now. This was 20 years ago, I was in the middle of my career, and I had a lot of things that I could share with people, you know, the Olympic games and things like that.

And I was also learning again. I had stopped learning in sports. Here I was, you know, having sold the worldwide sponsorships to the Olympic games, had worked on world cup football, had worked on other events, ATP men’s tennis tour, but I wasn’t kind of not learning after 16 years. I really wasn’t learning.

Okay, the internet was growing, so I was learning a little bit there. And since I’ve been a coach and you know, a sales trainer, I’ve found that I learn a lot. As I’m coaching my clients, I learn as well. And it also gives me the bandwidth and the creativity to write books and things like that. So, you know, I’ve written three books.

My big one is A Sale Is a Love Affair, and that would not have happened if I was living the corporate life.

Yasi: Right. And tell us a little bit more about this A Sale Is a Love Affair.

Jack Vincent: Well, you know, it’s weird, a Sale Is a Love Affair because it is what I’ve noticed is that the trust of finding clients, selling, then negotiating with them and having a happy journey with them is like finding love, falling in love, and having a happy relationship.

I was separated, I was coaching, I was on a three-day workshop out in the Swiss Alps with the client you know, and their sales team is from around the world and their sales, you know, it was like 15 people, when they sold something, it was 20 million. So, they had 15 salespeople around the world, but they were all in Switzerland and we were on a mountain top, you know, a small place doing a workshop with flip charts going and stuff.

And at one point, you know, I was saying, you know, when the customer does this, what should you do? And they’re answering and I’m writing on the flip chart and, you know, and at one point I was, well, you know, you need to ask the question, “what’s wrong, baby?” It’s kind of like a relationship, it’s love, “you’re not talking to me, honey, tell me, baby, what’s wrong? I got to know.” And everybody laughed. And then what happened was that it became their joke too. It became our joke. And in standup comedy, there’s a tool called the callback: if you get a laugh about something early in the show, keep calling back to it and people will just laugh.

Okay, so, you know, like maybe in New York, they’d say, ah, the drivers from New Jersey and you get a laugh and then throughout the show, you can just keep referring to New Jersey and you’re going to get laughed. And so, what happened was I noticed that, you know, even like an extroverted woman salesperson, at one point, you know, we’re talking how do you close the deal?

And, you know, and again, I’m writing their answers and putting my insights into it. And this one woman said, guys, “you’re so slow. I just look at my clients and I say, we’ve had dinner, we’ve had drinks, are you coming back to the hotel with me?” And everybody laughed. Yeah. When I saw that this joke was their joke, and it was corporate.

I said, man, this book has got to be written. And I was newly single, and I was just seeing the parallels between being in the dating world and being in the sales world. A Sale Is a Love Affair, and it’s like 45 chapters, which after the intro and before the outro, it’s like, you know, 40 stories that make a link between the selling and falling in love, you know, the different steps of the deal from getting attention and starting a conversation to focusing that conversation, to asking questions and listening, to closing the deal.

Yeah, closing the deal and it could be a quickie or it could be a long-term relationship. And I go into the subtleties of that. Some clients don’t want you forever. Other clients, do you need to negotiate differently?

Yasi: Wow! And where can people find this book?

Jack Vincent: A Sale Is a Love Affair by Jack Vincent.

It’s called A Sale Is a Love Affair, seduce, engage, and win customers’ hearts. It’s on Amazon.

Yasi: Okay. We will put that in show notes. Very interesting. And so, let’s talk about sales a little bit more. What are the common mistakes you’ve seen people made?

Jack Vincent: I’m doing one of them now, but you’re interviewing me and I’m not selling to you.

I’m your guest. If I were selling to you right now, one thing I would be doing wrong is talking too much and talking about me, okay? But I’m your guest on your show, so why we have to face that reality? For example, I now have a new thing because I’m back into writing and writing fiction too. I see the links between fiction writing and business storytelling.

And it’s not about you when people say, oh, Storytelling and sales, you know, tell your story. I’m like, no, no, no, don’t tell your story. So, if you have to talk and it’s early, you may want to tell the story of a customer who is like the customer sitting, the prospect sitting in front of you. You know, tell their story.

Why they were hurting, why it hurts, what was going on in their lives when they found you, what happened when they found you and how you made their lives better. And at that point in the story, people will like, if you’re at a conference giving a talk like that, people at that point, they’ll say to themselves, who are you? Wow, you really help people. But if you start saying, I help people and me, me, me, me, me, people lose interest. But if you tell a story with a plot and a resolution, people want to know, wow, who is this guy, who is this company? So that’s one thing. If you tell a story, don’t tell your story, tell the story of another customer, and make it dramatic.

They had consequences if they got it wrong. And you can do that in 45 seconds, or you can do it in a 10-minute talk. But you can do that in 30 seconds, “oh, I had a customer just like you, Bing, Bing, Bing, Bing. And then we did this and then they get interested.” But the minute they start getting interested in you, then you need to ask questions about them.

So, answer their questions quickly and then follow up with a question. And when they answer, don’t say, I have a solution. Go deeper, go deeper, go deeper. And the more they talk and answer good questions, not just any question. Okay. I have a series of questions. So, and the deeper you go and not just deeper, but where you go with your questions, they start trusting you.

We trust people who listen to us more than we trust people who tell us how good they are. So, if I am asking somebody, you know, where does it hurt and how did it get started and who else is this impacting, and the more they talk, the more they’re trusting me. So that’s one thing. And then don’t think your solution is so goddamn brilliant that the client can’t make it better.

In fact, it’s your job to kind of lead the way in building a solution. But let them give good, hard feedback on it at every step. And when they say, that won’t work here, it’ll kind of work, but not really. At that point, don’t say, I know, I know I was just putting in. No, don’t get defensive, be strong, be secure, their strengths and vulnerability.

And when they go, it kind of works, but not really. And let me tell you why look at them with love and say, yeah, how can we make it better for your specific organization? Then when they start co-owning the solution, they’re more likely going to buy it. And when the boss says, I’m not so sure about this, they will defend it.

But if it’s your brilliant solution and they like it and they say goodbye, and a day later, they’re talking to the boss and the boss says, I’m not so sure. They’ll say, yeah, I’ll tell him to go away. But if they co-own the solution, you’ve listened, you’ve asked them to join you, you’re an expert, okay?

But they know their organization, or they know their life. When they join you in building the solution and take an active role in it, they’re more committed to it.

Yasi: Right. So, you mentioned like tell the story, tell other people’s story, listen more, ask them questions, provide them a solution that they co-own it, like lead them to come up with a solution, so the customer feels like it’s part of their idea, so they are more likely to go on this journey together with you.

Jack Vincent: That is a very, very good summary.

Yasi: I’m listening. I’m listening.

Jack Vincent: Very good job.

Yasi: So, my next question actually is the same, like the mistakes people made and how to sell effectively. And next I want to touch on the be persuasive because you mentioned to me that you want to talk about it.

You also have a book coming up, so how can people be more persuasive? Because there are. people naturally, you know, a little bit more quiet living, more introvert and how to be influential, convince other people.

Jack Vincent: Well, that’s what I’m doing in Madrid this week. I have my first draft done and, believe it or not, I’m in the middle of a busy city, but I can find my loneliness here.

I can find my solitude here, I should say. And so, I’m working on my going from first to the second draft. But that’s really when everything takes shape. And so, I’m right in the heart of it now, how can we be more persuasive. Introverts, by the way, have advantages over extroverts. Nobody is perfect and nothing works always or okay, but that’s all part of the yin yang. Introverts listen better. And by listening, you become more persuasive. I’ll say it again, we trust people who listen to us more than we trust people who tell us how good they are now. Back to persuasion, you have a point you want to make, then, you know, I hear people say all the time, be authoritative.

Yeah, that helps. You know, use logic and emotion and credibility. And it’s all about what you’re saying and how you’re saying it and what you’re saying and build it. And I’m like, you’re forgetting the one most glaringly up. You know, vein as you’re being so authoritative as you’re being so logos, ethos, and pathos, as you’re saying this, as you’re building your argument.

What about involving them? What about listening to them? And if you’re going to stand in front of me for five minutes and make a really good case and you get done and I go, okay, I knew that already, or yeah, you’ve raised some good points, but you haven’t addressed my problem. We need to listen more so that my next book is the persuasion paradox, you know, neuroscience, about neuroscience and psychology and you know, our reptilian brain and the way we are in the way we’ve been for hundreds of thousands of years, tens of thousands of years. And it’s a question of push and pulls. So, pulling is asking the questions, but you need to start. If I walk into a meeting and look at everybody and they go, well, come on Jack, and I’m going, no, I want to listen, people will think I’m stupid or weird.

So, I need to lead. I need to take the lead. So, triggering their interests with something that is going to pull them into the conference, it’s going to hit them in the heart, as it hits them in the head. I don’t sit in front of a CEO of a mid-sized corporation. I usually don’t sit in front of CEOs of major corporations unless, you know, we get to, but when I’m working with big corporations, I’m dealing with country managers or regional managers.

And in mid-size organizations, I might be dealing with the CEO and marketing director or something like that. I’m not going to walk in there and say something that, you know, let’s sit on the yoga mat and contemplate this because I’m trying to touch your emotions. No, I have to touch their emotions, but I want to do it in an ambiance and in a scope that is their business.

So, it needs to sound professional. It needs to be professional to their business, but I’m also punching them in the chest. So, I might say, you know, we dealt with a company, I dealt with a company very similar to yours a year or so ago, and they were sliding in market share that the competition was all over them, and they had some great products and solutions, but the sales team was not executing well, and it was getting worse. Believe it or not, I have touched emotions there too. So, if the CEO or the senior person in the room leans forward and says, “how did you do that?’ I’ve triggered them there. All of a sudden, their curiosity is such that they are totally into the conversation. I need to find something. And research helps, you need to show up and know what they need because you do your research.

They’re not going to have on their website what their big problems are, but, you know, so you do that through conversation. But to know maybe in a phone call before I need to say something that triggers them into wanting to have a robust dialogue with me, once I get there, then I use my pull. So, I need to push that, I need to trigger that. And that is the amygdala part of the brain getting triggered and sending signals to the prefrontal cortex saying, this is important, now please pay attention. But that’s the reptilian brain emotionally saying this is important, pay attention. We are, you know, walking through the woods and a large animal comes out and looks at us and roars.

We are triggered into dealing with this. We’re not going to take out our mobile phone and text a friend about dinner on Saturday night, where our attention is totally in. Now, our rational brain is saying deal with it. You know, the emotional brain is telling the rational brain to deal with it. And it’s the same thing in a conversation.

You got to break through the filters with something that is going to make their jaw drop and want to go deeper into that conversation. You need to push them there. Once they’re in, step back and pull and navigate the conversation through to understanding them, showing them that you’re trustworthy, building the solution together.

When you build the solution together, the next layer out of the brain is the hypothalamus, and that starts to create oxytocin and dopamine. When we collaborate, we build that collaborative vibe. There are chemicals going on in the brain that’s saying, I love this, I’m falling in love, oxytocin, and dopamine, I trust you, we are a team. And when you can do that when you can make that happen biochemically. Yes. Biochemically, you are building more commitment. You are encouraging them to commit more to you.

Yasi: Very crucial. I think. As you said, there is neuroscience, there’s a reason behind it. And once you get your customers committed to the journey with you, you’re more likely to retain the customers.

And then the project is more likely to be successful and everybody wins. Absolutely. And in this new book, is it about how to use neuroscience to be more persuasive or is there any other content that you are going to reveal to the readers?

Jack Vincent: So, neuroscience has a center to it. You don’t have to work in a lab.

No, it’s about conversational tools. But these conversational tools trigger things in the brain and in the psychology that make you more persuasive. So, authority is important. You can be introverted and still be in authority. So, people want to know that you have the competence, but they also want to know that you have the deference. They might not consciously know this, but when you are differential, and you listen, and you engage with them. The love really, the dopamine, then the oxytocin, the trusting, this just builds and there are tactical ways. Yes, tactical sounds like a bad word. It’s not manipulative, but you want to sell, right? And you want them to trust you and say, I want to work with this person for a long time. You can have all the technical skills, but if you’re not building the love in a neuroscience psychological way, I mean, so even a sale is a love affair. That was before I knew about the neuroscience stuff. A lot of the same stuff is going to be in there. But I think this way is going to be another way of impacting because it’s saying what’s going on in the body and the nervous system and the brain.

And I believe that knowing this people will come away with a few more tools on how to act.

Yasi: Yeah. And you mentioned that you have written other two books. Would you mind tell the audience, what are the names of these books? Where can they find them and as well as where can they find you on the internet?

Jack Vincent: Oh, well, everything is available on Amazon. My first book was called Sales Pitches That Snap Crackling Pop and that was about four years before A Sale, that was 2011, A Sale Is a Love Affair was 2015. And then around 2017 or 2018, I write poetry and I write love poetry. And so, I was out, you know, networking in Zurich or Zug or Madrid or wherever you know, and I’d be saying, yeah, I write poetry, love poetry. And somebody would say I do too. And I’m like, no kidding, wow, gee, you know, and I’m thinking about doing a book, but it would be a thin book because I don’t have that many poems and they go, well, if you ever, you know, maybe you should do an anthology.

And I’m like, well, that’s an idea. And then a week later I have a glass of wine in my hand or talking to you, you know, and I’m going, I write poetry too. I write love poetry and my boyfriend loves poetry. Really? Hey, if you ever want his address, you know, it was like, okay. And then, you know, I have another one of those conversations and you know, the following morning, I wake up to an email saying, yeah, I want to be in your anthology.

I’m like, I’m not doing an anthology. Well, I thought, Hey, maybe I should. So, it ended up, it’s called Poems For Lovers, Poems With Friends. It’s got 16 other poets in it, about half of the poems are mine. I curated it. I have the right to put in what I want, and I did all the damn work. And I knew the process for self-publishing a book, so I gathered 16 other poets. You know, some of them gave me one poem, some of them, I put a limited three each, so I have twenty-five poems in there. And I have about 35 poems from others. So, Poems For Lovers, Poems With Friends was 2017 or 2018. And said, now I’m working on the persuasion paradox. I’m also working on fiction. I’m at the point in my life now where I do work less when it comes to client-facing stuff, I’ve just kind of gone back to my creative groove.

But you know, I’m still helping companies. Yeah.

Yasi: Okay. And if someone wants to have individual coaching with you, can they also get in touch with you besides that?

Jack Vincent: Absolutely. jack@jackvincent.com, and my website is jackvincent.com. I’m all over the place on LinkedIn and Facebook. I’m easily find-able and on Instagram I’m storywarriorjackvincent.

Yasi: Okay. Thank you so much, Jack, for being here. Thank you so much for all the great content and for sharing your knowledge with our audience.

Jack Vincent: It’s been a pleasure being here, Yasi. Thank you for that.