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Transcription N Our guest this episode is Sandeep Dayal. Sandeep grew up in India and moved to America at the age of 27 to secure his MBA. He stayed in the U.S. to work. He has held positions with a number of major firms where he worked with large clients throughout the world. My conversation with Sandeep covered what I feel are quite interesting topics around marketing and sales. Because of his knowledge Sandeep and I spend considerable time discussing brands, branding and the many ways the science of brands has evolved. Sandeep gives many relevant examples and ideas we all can use. As he will discuss, his ideas are also contained in his book, “Branding Between the Ears” which many describe as an iconic study of branding. I think you will find Sandeep’s insights quite relevant and useful whether you are in marketing or not. About the Guest: Sandeep Dayal is the managing director of the consulting firm Cerenti. He advises senior executives at Fortune 500 companies in industries spanning pharmaceuticals, financial services and consumer products. Global market leaders like Pfizer, Abbvie, HSBC, Santander, Kraft and ConAgra, have been some of his clients. He worked previously for McKinsey and Booz Allen & Hamilton. Sandeep has led a 100+ engagements at over 50 clients around the world in major countries in the US, EU, Latin America and Asia. He is regarded as one of the leading minds in marketing and brand strategy and has co-authored articles in Marketing Management, McKinsey Quarterly and Strategy+Business. As early as in 2001, he correctly predicted that “consumer collaboration” would become a key factor in winning people’s trust online. Many strategies he proposed including viral advocacy and instant decisioning are mainstream today in designing brand experiences. His latest book “Branding Between the Ears” has been described by some as the definitive advance in the understanding of what makes some brands truly iconic. It draws on his years of experience in working with some of the most successful consumer brands and his company’s proprietary knowledge capital. Sandeep’s current research focuses on Cognitive Branding and Selling, which translates the latest advances in behavioral economics and social psychology into completely new ways for developing modern power brands and driving up salesforce performance. Ways to connect with Sandeep: Sandeep Dayal website: http://sandeepdayal.com Cerenti Company: http://cerenti.com LinkedIn profile: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sandeep-dayal-8361b61/ Blog signup: https://www.cerenti.com/blog About the Host: Michael Hingson is a New York Times best-selling author, international lecturer, and Chief Vision Officer for accessiBe. Michael, blind since birth, survived the 9/11 attacks with the help of his guide dog Roselle. This story is the subject of his best-selling book, Thunder Dog. Michael gives over 100 presentations around the world each year speaking to influential groups such as Exxon Mobile, AT&T, Federal Express, Scripps College, Rutgers University, Children’s Hospital, and the American Red Cross just to name a few. He is Ambassador for the National Braille Literacy Campaign for the National Federation of the Blind and also serves as Ambassador for the American Humane Association’s 2012 Hero Dog Awards. https://michaelhingson.com https://www.facebook.com/michael.hingson.author.speaker/ https://twitter.com/mhingson https://www.youtube.com/user/mhingson https://www.linkedin.com/in/michaelhingson/ accessiBe Links https://accessibe.com/ https://www.youtube.com/c/accessiBe https://www.linkedin.com/company/accessibe/mycompany/ https://www.facebook.com/accessibe/ Thanks for listening! Thanks so much for listening to our podcast! If you enjoyed this episode and think that others could benefit from listening, please share it using the social media buttons on this page. Do you have some feedback or questions about this episode? Leave a comment in the section below! Subscribe to the podcast If you would like to get automatic updates of new podcast episodes, you can subscribe to the podcast on Apple Podcasts or Stitcher. You can subscribe in your favorite podcast app. You can also support our podcast through our tip jar https://tips.pinecast.com/jar/unstoppable-mindset . Leave us an Apple Podcasts review Ratings and reviews from our listeners are extremely valuable to us and greatly appreciated. They help our podcast rank higher on Apple Podcasts, which exposes our show to more awesome listeners like you. If you have a minute, please leave an honest review on Apple Podcasts. Transcription Notes:
Michael Hingson ** 00:00 Access Cast and accessiBe Initiative presents Unstoppable Mindset. The podcast where inclusion, diversity and the unexpected meet. Hi, I'm Michael Hingson, Chief Vision Officer for accessiBe and the author of the number one New York Times bestselling book, Thunder dog, the story of a blind man, his guide dog and the triumph of trust. Thanks for joining me on my podcast as we explore our own blinding fears of inclusion unacceptance and our resistance to change. We will discover the idea that no matter the situation, or the people we encounter, our own fears, and prejudices often are our strongest barriers to moving forward. The unstoppable mindset podcast is sponsored by accessiBe, that's a c c e s s i capital B e. Visit www.accessibe.com to learn how you can make your website accessible for persons with disabilities. And to help make the internet fully inclusive by the year 2025. Glad you dropped by we're happy to meet you and to have you here with us. Michael Hingson ** 01:21 Thank you once again for being here with us on unstoppable mindset. Really appreciate you listening and watching wherever you happen to be. I am your host, Mike Hingson, and our guest today is Sandeep Dayal, who has an interesting story to tell, at least. I think it's interesting. He's going to talk to us a lot about branding and marketing and such things, having been in sales most all of my adult life, all of that gets fascinating to me, but I think that he'll have a lot of interesting topics and issues to provide us all with that will keep you interested as well. And if you're not wake up. You should be anyway. Sandeep, welcome to unstoppable mindset. We're really glad you're here. I'm Sandeep Dayal ** 02:06 so delighted to be here. Michael, thank you for inviting me to be on your show. Michael Hingson ** 02:11 Well, thank you for for being here, and we'll have some fun. Tell me a little bit about maybe the early Sandeep growing up and all that to give people a little background. Sandeep Dayal ** 02:20 Oh, wow, that was a long time back. You sure want to? You sure you want to go into, Michael Hingson ** 02:24 oh, sure, a long time ago in a galaxy, far, far away. There Sandeep Dayal ** 02:29 you go. There was a little Sandeep, yeah. No. I mean, I grew up in, I grew up in India, and, you know, if, if this were still five years back, I would have said half my life was in India, and half my life in the United States, because I came to I came to the US at age 27 but until then, I grew up there in in a city called Jaipur, which is in the middle of a tar desert there. So there you go, you and I have something in common there. And then, I mean, I went through my engineering education, so I was I run. I sort of learned all my my background, you could say, is more analytic and scientific and so on, from a training perspective at that time, which sort of shaped my view of the world at that, that point of time, in terms of, you know, being more objective about things, thinking about things more logically, and so forth. And then at some point, you know, I set up my own little business there, which sort of brought me into areas that were beyond engineering, if you will. You know, like the kinds of things you were talking about, Michael, like sales, you know, how do you how do you form relationships with people? How do you work with people? How do you run an organization, and so on. And that got me much more interested in the the management side of things, versus just the engineering side of things. And I came to the United States in 87 to to Yale University to do my MBA. And, you know, after I finished my MBA, I started working in the US, and I've lived in the US since then. And I got more and more interested in other things, as you might imagine, particularly on consumer connections, the consumer side of things, consumer psychology and what have you. So it's been a, it's been a, you know, multiple year transition. I've worked in a number of consulting companies. I worked at McKinsey, I've worked at booze, and then I started my own company, so renty. So renty Marketing Group, which is much more focused on working with consumers, understanding their psychology, understanding their mindset and so on, and then putting that to use and good marketing and then good branding. So it's been, it's been. It's been a long and, you know, steady journey, if you will. It Michael Hingson ** 04:57 certainly has been. But you you sound like. Survived it, and you're doing well and and now you're basically getting up near 60. So there you go. There Sandeep Dayal ** 05:07 you go, yeah. So there, there I am now in at a at a stage in my life where, actually, where I enjoy more of the kinds of discussions that you and I are having right now. Because, you know, my earlier phase of life, I would say, was all about doing stuff, you know, getting it done, making money, doing it, you know, whatever, whichever way, making a career out of it, and what have you. Now, I'm at a point of life where I'm able to sort of sit back and reflect a little and say, hey, you know, what was that all about? You know, what did I really learn? And is there something there that I learned which is worth sharing with others? So that's why I really love being on shows like yours, and particularly yours, around mindsets and being unstoppable and so on, and sort of having a chance to, you know, really see what all those things can possibly mean. Michael Hingson ** 06:01 Yeah. And on top everything else, you're an author, you've written some books. I love the title of of the one that least I know about branding between the years, and we'll have to get to that. That's kind of cute, but it makes a lot of sense. Also, I think people really don't understand the whole idea of marketing as much as they should. And frankly, I don't think that people really understand sales like they should. And there are differences between the two, but there are also a lot of similarities, and they do, they do dovetail to Sandeep Dayal ** 06:35 Yes, and Michael Hingson ** 06:37 so I think it's, it is something that a lot of people don't understand nearly as well as they should, and they're not necessarily making the process work Sandeep Dayal ** 06:48 like that. And I would say, Michael, that, you know, sales and marketing, they go hand in hand. I wrote the book branding between the years around branding specifically, but it actually there's a whole I could have written also a book which would have been called branding between the years, but it would have been all about sales and but, you know, I this sales is such a big topic and such so interesting and so rich that you don't want to sort of squeeze it into a book which is about branding. You know what I'm saying? So, like, in fact, I mentioned that very specifically in my book, that, look, we could do a whole discussion and a whole book about just the psychology of sales, the behavioral science behind sales, and that's very important, but that's a whole separate book. So I hadn't covered it. There it well, Michael Hingson ** 07:41 it is. And people really get it wrong. They think of sales as, oh, the guy who's trying to make me buy a car and things like that, and, and in one sense, at a at a very low level, I suppose you could say that sales, but that's not really what sales is all about. I got into sales originally, because I was working for a company, and the company was, well, it was Kurzweil Computer Products, Ray Kurzweil, the inventor and futurist and so on. And at the time, they was developing the reading machine for the blind. And I had been asked to join the company in 1978 and then, like May or June of 1979 I was called in, and I was doing Human Factors studies for them, but I was called in and told I was being laid off because I wasn't a revenue generator for the company, which I wasn't. Then the company had too many non revenue producing people, and I needed to go off and find another job unless I would be willing to go into sales. They gave me that option, which was a was a great compliment, and I said, I don't know anything about sales. And the guy who actually made this offer was the Vice President of Marketing for and sales for Kurzweil, which was a gentleman named Andrew Parsons, by the way, who used to work at McKinsey. Ah, Sandeep Dayal ** 09:06 I see, I see, wow. Anyway, so yes, Michael Hingson ** 09:11 so he said, We can teach you sales. We'll send you to a tale Carnegie sales course and so on. And I was very fortunate, because the group and the teachers really talked about the true nature of what sales was all about and what it wasn't about, and that sales is really a good salesperson as a teacher, as a guide, as a counselor. And in reality, I can't sell anyone anything. The customers really gotta want to buy it if I do it right, and and that's that's what it's about. And then that came into play for me years later, when, again, I was looking for another job, and I was debating at the time of looking for the job, and we found a company, my wife and I that we thought would be. A good company to go work for, but I debated about whether I say I'm blind in the cover letter, because that's always an issue. If you're blind and you say it, they usually won't pay any attention to you. And if you don't blind and and if you're blind and you don't say you're blind, then you'll go in for an interview and they'll just the defenses will go up immediately. Yeah. And what I did is I wrote a cover letter. And part of the cover letter said, Do you want to hire somebody who comes into the company and sells for eight or 10 hours a day because it was a sales job, and then goes home? Or do you want to hire somebody who truly understands sales for the science and art that it is and sells 24 hours a day as a way of life, which is what a blind person has to do just to be able to convince people to let them do stuff. And it was the that sentence was what got me the interview and got me the job. Wonderful, Sandeep Dayal ** 10:50 wonderful, you know, you just, you know, you've just inspired me to actually talk about some, you know, some things in sales. And I do make a connection around this topic in my book in the following way. So, you know, branding, you can think of it in two parts. You know, there's one part of branding which is around strategy, which is around, you know, what is your brand going to be positioned? You know, how is your brand going to be positioned? What is it going to be its DNA? What is the brand going to be about? So that's those are decisions and choices you make around what your brand is going to be, which are more stray. But then once you made those choices, your brand actually goes to market, right? And it goes to market often through what sometimes companies will call brand ambassadors. But these are all the people that are in stores. You know? These are, these are the sales side of the people, right? The people that are actually, this is where the rubber meets the road. And so the brand actually goes to market through its ambassadors, who are really the salespeople, the retail people, and what have you. And they have to their work is just so incredibly important. It's just as important as the design of the brand. And I'll give you a couple of examples, because, you know, this is a topic that's close to my heart. So for example, you think of a company like Bulgaria, right, which sells this awfully expensive jewelry, right, hundreds of 1000s of dollars and what have you. And you have to, even if you selling to rich people, they still, you know, think about these things, because these things are pretty expensive. So one of the things what they've done is that they've actually thought through that whole process of from the time that the person is walking into their store to every single moment that they are in the store, to how the purchase happens, and what the post purchase follow up is they've talked through all those things, and I'll give you a very small example about the kinds of things which are more behavioral science oriented, which is, which is where we're going in this discussion. So one of the things they do is that when the salesperson is going to notice that, Hey, you, you know, you're a woman and you like a particular necklace, what they do is they have you, you know, you're sitting in a private room. You're looking at this necklace. There's the salesperson with you, and the person will say to you that look or the brand ambassador, let's call them that. The brand ambassador is going to say, hey, why don't you try it on and what have you? And the woman can then go ahead, the customer can then go ahead and try the necklace on and look at it. And then the salesperson does something where that's very interesting. They say, hey, you know what? I need to just step out and take care of something. Would it be okay if I just do that for five minutes while you're, you know, sitting here? So then they walk out of the room. And now you can imagine, here's the customer, the woman, she's sitting there with the necklace she's wearing, and there's no one to bother her or try to push her into the scale or try to She's just sitting there by herself, and every minute and every second that she's there with that necklace, it's feeling to her more and more like her own. And you know, in psychology, there has been a lot of research that has been done, which basically says that once people feel like something is theirs, they are less likely to part with it. They're less likely to give it up, you know. So it could be anything. It could be, you know, let's say it could be a pen that you own and but once you own it, you start valuing it more than if you didn't own it and it was just sitting on the shelf, and there's been just a lot of research to show that that is the case. So in this instance, what happens is, it's not the single thing that drives the person to the sale, but it is one one step, one small thing that they do which pushes the person or coaxes the person to take one step more, you know, feel like that thing is their own. So that is, you know, that is, that's what selling is about. It's not about, you know, just pushing used cars and so on. So really understanding the mindset and working with people, helping them get comfortable with the idea of owning your product is a critical thing that you do. In another example that I'll give you, this is from. Another very famous behavioral psychologist, Paco Underhill. He wrote a book about why people buy. This was several years it was one of the books that inspired me to get into this whole area. And he used to observe how people shop in stores, and he would make little changes in the stores to help people be more likely to buy. And one of the things he observed was that when you kept items, like, if you had women sweaters, and you put them on a table right in the middle of the aisle, right so you're walking through the aisle in a store, and sometimes you'll see there's a table right there in the middle of the aisle. So you run into the table, and there are whole sweaters piled up there, and you can then, you know, start looking at them. But he found that on one hand, you could say, Hey, I'm putting it right in the middle of the traffic where you're going to be walking, so you'll have no choice but to stop and look at it. But what he found was that women would stop, they would look at those sweaters, but then they would quickly walk away. And the reason that it was happening was that if they stopped in the middle of the aisle, that people would brush by them, and they would it would make them just feel uncomfortable. You know, when somebody just comes in, someone that you don't know, just walking by that brushes by you, it makes you feel uncomfortable. So they would stop there, but they wouldn't stop there long enough to look and make up their minds. So he just had them move those tables to a more comfortable space where someone could not only stop but look at those things at their leisure. And they found that the sales went up. So it's these, it's these little things that you know, that people don't think these are all parts of being a good brand ambassador, and it's all parts of designing the sales experience or the marketing experience for the person in such a way that they're going to be more inclined to prefer your product. So it's just, I wasn't really going to talk about these things, but you brought it up, and it just brought back these things. Michael Hingson ** 16:58 Another thing that comes to mind just talking about that same thing, which is sort of unrelated, in a way, to exactly what you're talking about is, is this, my wife was in a wheelchair her whole life, and would go to many stores, and when there were blocks in the middle of aisles like tables with sweaters and so on, she couldn't get by. And places like Macy's, for years, just had very narrow aisles, yeah, because they wanted to stuff as much in which they felt was a good thing to do, except then people in wheelchairs couldn't get through. Well, Macy's eventually had to deal with that, because they were sued and they lost, but, but the reality is, I'm sure that that changed to a degree, in some ways, how people viewed exactly where they should put products and so on. And it's a little bit of a different dimension than, than, than what, what you're talking about, but still, nevertheless, yeah, it is also part of what we need to do to recognize that we've got to be inclusive in what we do for everyone. Sandeep Dayal ** 18:10 Absolutely. I mean, I mean, it's, this is, you know, we're you and I are just talking about some examples here, but this is actually a whole area of science and design, right, which is, when you when you're a company, how exactly yours, your products are displayed in a store, you know, what height they're at, how they're displayed, what kind of a message that communicates to people is, is such an extremely Is it such an important thing that we, in our company, in serenity, we can be doing entire studies, which are, you know, like, three month long studies where we're just designing that whole aspect of how the product is presented in a store for the consumer, for all of them to feel comfortable, for all of them to feel like this is something that they would like to own. And that whole process, like I described about, you know, every moment that you spend getting to that store, being in that store, and then after leaving that store, you know what is every single moment? What's your playbook for that moment is a key piece of what marketing, sales, behavioral science is all about, right? Michael Hingson ** 19:16 Well, the the idea of sales and marketing and branding and so on is always going to be a moving target. It's a market of or a process of evolution, because as we learn more, as we develop more understanding of psychology and so on, we're going to change it. But I know you talk about the fact that there is the old branding techniques, and there's a lot of new branding. How is branding kind of evolved over time? Sandeep Dayal ** 19:47 Yeah, now interesting that you bring out. So let's talk about, you know, the whole brand strategy piece, which is, you know, how do you design, how do you design brands, and so on. And I think I in some ways, brand. Marketing is not rocket science, and in other ways it is. So the part that is been relatively straightforward about branding historically has been that, look, if you have a product and you're an entrepreneur, you have a product and you're going to mark put it to market, you just, you know, you start thinking about, okay, how is my product different from everybody else's products. And then once you make a list of all those things that are different, then you say, oh, okay, now which of these things are kind of important for people? And maybe I pick three or four things, and then I can talk about that. And the problem is that while all of that makes a lot of sense, what doesn't make sense is that that's not how the human brain works. So what happens when you make a list of things that are different about your product? It's kind of like, you know, it's kind of like the occasion where my wife gives me a list of things that I need to go and buy from the grocery store, and she might tell me only five things that I have to buy. And I go to the grocery store, you know, I'm, I can't remember what those five things are, and I go, and I come back with three things that were on the list, two that are missing, and maybe another three things that were not on the list at all to begin with, right? So that's, and that's a very natural thing that happens, which is that human beings, our brains are not really designed around remembering lists. So when the marketer goes and said, My brand is about these three things, you know that it's this is, this is something that's going to make your life easy, or, then this thing is very tasty. Well, you know, easy, tasty, like, you know, how am I going to remember all those things. So now, for example, in behavioral science, there's a whole theory around story lining, which is that people are going to remember your brands better if you can put a storyline around it. And the reason is that, like you know, while we are, if I give you a list of 10 things to remember, you're not going to remember. It becomes 10 words to remember. Can become very hard, but at the same time, I can send you to watch. You know, you might go to, you know, somebody might tell you a story about a play that they saw right, which could be a whole 30 minute story, and you might then just be able to remember that story in all its detail, because it's a story, right? Or somebody comes like you now you're telling me about your life and how you went through, you know, you went through the transition from your job to sales, and how you were with Ray Kurzweil. And so I've already remembered more than five things, right, because you, because you told me the thing in such a compelling way, and such a story, you know, in such a story form. And so what we are discovering scientifically is that when you tell people things in terms of stories, when you show them things in terms of patterns, when you when you do rhymes, for example. So there are certain types of things that the brain remembers better than if you just give it lists. So this whole old idea that used to exist that I'm just trying to make my brand about the two or three things that I'm different about just doesn't work, because people, when you tell them that those two or three things, they just don't remember it. And if they don't remember it, are they going to buy your product? So now we are starting to take this new understanding of behavioral science and the psychology that we have from various studies that are being done about the human brain. Right? There's a lot of study that's being done about the human brain, from neuroscientists, from linguists, from cognitive psychologists and so on, and all of them, if you take their knowledge and bring it together, it's giving us an understanding of how the brain actually works. And now you can use that understanding of how the brain works to start thinking better about how you do, how you do the designing around your brands, the strategy around your brand better. Michael Hingson ** 24:08 And that's in large part what the whole concept of cognitive branding is all about. That's Sandeep Dayal ** 24:15 what, exactly what cognitive branding is all about. The you know, the name of the book branding between the years is really the illusion to the to the fact that, you know what's between the years. Between the years is our brain, right? Michael Hingson ** 24:28 For some people, that's what's between the years. And there are others, I'm not so sure Sandeep Dayal ** 24:34 if there's anything there. Whatever is there that's that really is, is is our perception of the world, right? You know, our perception of what reality is, what the world is, who we are, everything that we think about, what the brands are, it's all. It's not, it's not the billboard out there. It's not what the store it's not that little song jingle, and you know, all of these things. Is, but it's when all of those different things, the touch and feel, the sound and sight, and I mean, all of these things actually are processed in your brain. And so your vision of what this thing is, what this brand is, what it's all about, is really determined. It's arbitrated between your ears. And that's why, you know, the book is called right between Michael Hingson ** 25:23 wait you you talked before about the woman trying on the necklace, and then the branding Ambassador leaving, and about ownership and so on. It really ultimately comes down to getting people to relate to whatever it is that you're you're trying to get them to relate to and getting them to to feel some ownership, but more important just feeling ways to relate. I sold a number of products that were very similar to products that other companies would produce. I sold big tape backup storage systems that people would use to back up data on Wall Street and other places. And although we were the developers of some of the technology, other companies would would buy our technology, and they would put it in their own products. And the reality is, ultimately, speaking, there were not huge differences directly physically. There were differences in shapes and so on, but they weren't really different. And so the issue is, why would one buy my product as opposed to someone else's? And that's where it gets back to, what is it that we're really talking about, what is it that we're really doing. Why would you buy my product as opposed to somebody else? That has a lot to do with, not just and not at all necessarily, with here are the differences. But rather, you have to find other things that people are going to react to, that they'll perceive your your product as being the one that they ought to have, and it's my job to help them see that in an intelligent way, while at the same time not alienating other people and making me look like just the used car sales guy. Sandeep Dayal ** 27:15 Yes, yes. And I think that my whole book is really about that very question, which is, which is that, why would somebody buy your brand, right? And and it comes from that study of really understanding how people have bought brands and how in my companies work. So my company does a lot of work around designing brands and helping companies launch their products. And some of those brands have gone on to become some of the largest brands in the world. But really it is, it is, in fact, around that whole question around the why and what, what has changed is. And of course, you know, sometimes, like I said, you can give people a set of reasons, and they will, for those reasons, buy your product. But what we're finding through science is that, what we're finding through science is that it's not, it's not the case that people always make decisions so rationally, you know, it's not the case that people always sit down and do like, a pros and cons of things you know, like, Okay, this is product A, Product B. Let me do a pros and cons. Let me do a spreadsheet on this and so on. People do a lot of things very instinctively, for example. And in fact, there is research that has been done which is, which has shown that 95% of all the choices that people make Okay, in your life, you know in your every day there are 1000s of choices you're making all the time, and there's research that shows that 95% of those choices are done instinctively and not deliberately, right? And this science is called system one and system two by a very famous psychologist who gave those terms to these forms of thinking, the instinctive and the rational thinking. The psychologist name is Daniel Kahneman, and he is at Princeton University. But it's something that you can actually this is something that you can intuitively relate to, which is that you know, for example, when you're driving a car, there are a lot of choices that you're making, and those are very complex life and death choices, right? Because if you make a make a mistake in terms of how you drive the car, but you make choices around how fast you're going to go, how much you're going to press the accelerator, whether you're going to take a left, are you going to veer to the right? You know, all of those choices you're making, and you're just doing that instinctively, almost, not almost without thinking many times people are singing or thinking about something else as they're driving and so on. And all of this is happening instinctively. And the reality is that even when it comes down to branding, there are many, many things that people do. Um. Instinctively and make those choices instinctively. So understanding what that is and how that happens is is a key as is a key part of key part of how you can make brand choices. So I'll give you an example. So what happens is, as we go through our lives, we have many, many different experiences based on those experiences, we have certain learnings, and with those learnings, and those are learnings that I I would call like, that's the wisdom that we acquire over life as a result of the experiences that we have in our life, right? And those are our personal wisdoms, you know? Those are things that you know we have. We have decided this is what, this is how things work. So for example, there's one common wisdom which is seen across many, many people, across countries and so on, where people say, hey, the simpler answer is the better answer, right? And there's a, there's an effect around it's called the Occam's razor, which is, you know, which basically says that, given a problem, and if there are two possible answers to the to the problem, then the simpler answer is the better answer, right? And lot of times this comes from the vis. This kind of wisdom comes from the aspect that you know, Don't over complicate life. Don't overthink things. You know, you did things, such things, sometimes you can decide quickly. So what marketers have done, for example, there is, there's a company called HEB, which is a grocery store in the south where they make prepared meals. And so they did a whole campaign where they essentially say, where they essentially say that, you know, life is complicated. So they had actually an ad where you see this person who is, you know, driving back from work, and there's, he looks up his GPS system, and the GPS says your expected arrival time is Thursday, which was like two days away, which obviously they were exaggerating it. But the idea was to say that, look, life is so complex all the time. You're dealing with traffic and so on, meal time shouldn't be. And then, you know, and then they make a plug for their prepared meals, which is, you know, life is difficult, but meal time shouldn't be and then you have their prepared meals. Now mind you, what they're talking about making life simpler here is not, they're not necessarily saying that, you know, take my prepared meal and put it for two seconds in the, you know, microwave and it's ready to eat. It's not that ease that they're talking about. What they're talking about is the ease of choice, because choice, when we start thinking about choice, it can be very stressful when we have to make sure. So they're saying, take that decision, make that decision. Making around, you know, you already had a tough day. Make the decisions around your meal time, at least easy, you know, which is by, you know, because otherwise, if you were going to make your own meal, you'd be thinking about, Hey, should I eat healthy? Should I eat carbs? Should I do this? Should I, you know, greens? Should I do? You know, there's like a million choices to be made if you're going to make your own meal, but with this, all those choices become very simplified, because you can, you have your pick of all kinds of prepared meals that they sell in their stores. So lowering that burden of choice is what the Occam's Razor is about. And here it's a marketer that is very cleverly doing that. Now mind you, are there prepared me, let's go back to the point you made. Are there prepared meals that much better than, let's say the prepared meals you might get at a Dominic's or a jewel Osco or, say, or an Albertsons. Maybe not, right? But nonetheless, this campaign really taps into the idea that meal time shouldn't have to be so complicated. So go for it, and then you think of that, and you automatically do it, because choice can be instinctive. This is just one example, but there are many, many different things like this that help you, give you a sense of how people make choices. And in my book, I talk about seven different ways that brands, that you can make new brands, these types of brands, which sort of tap into your experiential wisdom. I call them brands with wisdom. That's one way to make great brands. But then you know, of course, there are many other ways that you can do it. Michael Hingson ** 34:28 Do you think that in Hey, say it this way, but I will a perfect world. It would be better if we made choices instinctively or really analyzed. Or do you think the animal analyzation just introduces too much stress? Sandeep Dayal ** 34:46 Well, it's it's stress, it's a lot of work. Also, you know, if you're going to analyze everything, you know it's just not possible to analyze everything, which is, the whole idea about learnings, right? Was Once you learn something, you want to be able to use. At learning as broadly as possible, right? And which is why there's all kinds of, you know, there's, there's, there's all kinds of advice from all kinds of sources, from religious sources, from your from your mother, from your from your wife, from your, you know, you from your friends, you get from experts, you get all kinds of advice because you want to be able to have certain principles so that you can live life without having to spend a whole day doing spreadsheets around what's a good choice and what's a bad choice. Having said that, there are certain times when you do have to think when the learnings that are available to you are outside of the experience that you had previously in life. In those instances, you do have to think so it's a this is this is this is a this is a good balance that we have to arrive. And you know, one of the examples that I mentioned in my book is, let's say you're going out and taking a mortgage on your for your home, right? Wow, that's a complicated discussion. Wow. That's a decision where, if you make a mistake, that could be very costly, you could find that Sunday you can't afford your mortgage, you know. So it can be pretty complicated. And so that, in fact, would be a good time to bring out a spreadsheet and, you know, sit down, and maybe sit with a pencil and pencil and a pencil and a piece of paper and write down what the positives and negatives, and you know, different mortgage products might be and what have you, and and also maybe read the fine print. And what happens, though, is that most of the time, we will make a mixed decision, where we will do some instinctive work and some and some appeal, you know, real analysis. So what you might do is you might say, Okay, I gotta get a mortgage. Hmm, you know, which of my friends have you know got a mortgage recently? And maybe I go and talk to them about how their experience has been. Maybe I go, maybe I go talk to Michael, because financially, he's such a smart guy, you know, I'm gonna idea if he's, if he's going for a mortgage with with Bank of America, that must be a good place to go. So I'll most likely go with Bank of America, because Michael went. So this is, that is part of what the now, that is part, part of what is drawing into an expert bias, or a part of what is drawing into a herd effect, right, where people go in a certain direction because they say, hey, everybody else is doing it right? Or person that is an expert is doing it, which is why you see so many ads and in television where there's some ex so called expert who's telling you to do X, Y and Z, and then you say, you stop to think for yourself, and you do it. Now, there are risks with it and but nonetheless, when you're designing brands, we do have to balance, because that can be, in fact, a legitimate strategy where we have certain experts or certain very respected people that are going to make make a recommendation or a suggestion of a product, and then people are going to do it well, if you do it responsibly, that that is a very viable brand strategy that certain brands will take Sure. Michael Hingson ** 38:11 And if you're going to go into an analysis mode, you need to understand what that means and how to analyze. And you know, for for example, you talked about the expert and, well, I'm going to do it, because he's he's doing it, and there are risks in doing that, and one should really take the time, although I think a lot of people don't, to analyze and look at real facts. Okay, so he had a great success. What about my other friends over here who bought a house in the last couple of years? Yes, and really taking the time to explore it and do it right. If you're going to analyze, really analyze, and don't just look at one person or take one view, it's like you go to a doctor and you get a diagnosis, and then you decide, I really need a second or a third opinion. Do that right? Because it'll make all the difference in the world. Yes. Sandeep Dayal ** 39:07 Yes, it does. And as you can see, you know, some of these things also come into play, not just in marketing, but you know, right now, we're in the middle of campaigns, campaigns, and there's a lot of very strategic marketing that's done by, you know, in politics, and that's a whole, you can write a whole book about Sure, which is, you know, which is the different strategies that politicians may use to get people to decide. Because, remember, it's, there's only so many voters that are going to actually sit and do a in depth analysis of different policies that have been put in place by different politicians. What was the economic impact of it? You know, whether it's immigration policy, whether it's economic or whatever, you know, whatever I mean, to really do the. The analytics around, did that policy actually work out, and who did it benefit? And so on. Is a lot of work and and most people are not really going to do that, Michael Hingson ** 40:10 so they should, but they won't. You're absolutely right. Yes, yes. Sandeep Dayal ** 40:13 I mean, and I think they should do it, I would say at least they should do a mix of the two, right? They should. They have to understand, like, Hey, what's going on? What am I? How do I make some good decision around certain things? But often they may, they may pick on one or two things which align with, really, their system of beliefs, right? Which is why it's important for politicians. Find it very important to figure out what your beliefs are and try to align with them, because they know, if they can do that, then they will go with then you will go with that, because it's already in your belief system and so become very important in marketing, in politics, in our relationships with people, in sales, you know, these are Very important things that influence our lives. In very important ways, sure, Michael Hingson ** 41:04 and I think that when take taking the politicians, as you said, they you want, you want to see that they've aligned with your beliefs. But I think the other aspect of that, which goes back to analysis, is, are they really aligning with your beliefs, or are they just saying it? And the problem is that we are seeing so much today where there are a lot of things being said and most people are just going strictly on emotion, and they're not analyzing, and that's doing a disservice to everyone. And it would really be great if people would do more real analysis of all of the politicians on both sides and look at what's really happened. I was just reading an article this morning about the economy, and the reality is that it said that the in fact, the most of the naysayers about the economy today come from one party and not the other, and that that's happened more often than not over the last many years. In terms of economy, the people who are going by the party, and that's real lovely. But is that reality? And the problem is, we don't take the time to really look at it, Sandeep Dayal ** 42:12 yes, and, you know, and that is, it's just, and that's the reality of it. Michael, which is that people's lives are very complicated. There are a lot of things that they're doing, you know. And they have to go to work, they have to cook meals for their kids, they have to have more, you know. There's just so many things happen, yeah. So realistically speaking, people only give a fraction of their mind, of their brain capacity, to many of these decisions, and which is why, as brand marketers, we have to be very cognizant of the fact that people are going to make these decisions based on their own learnings, their own experiences. And therefore, you know, how do we make sure that we can get some preference from them by understanding what their experiences and what their belief systems are. Now, mind you, you have to do this with a sense of responsibility, because, you know, with with all of this learning about how people make their decisions, comes the opportunity to manipulate people you don't want, you know, for brands, you don't want your work to be around doing that. You want to be doing things in in a responsible way. Because, you know, because that is the right thing to do Michael Hingson ** 43:32 right, and it's important to to do that, and to really take the time to do it right. And it is just kind of one of the issues that we face that a lot of people aren't going to take the time to really analyze or take the time to understand, I'm just too busy to do that. Yeah, yeah. And people take advantage of that and do spin things and try to just manipulate. And unfortunately, there's way too much that going on in so many things that we observe and see today, because they're taking advantage of the fact that people are so busy. Yes, Sandeep Dayal ** 44:09 yes. And that's why, you know, when I in my book, I have a whole chapter, by the way, and in the book on ethics, you know, so it's, it's called branding with ethics, and it's, it is exactly about that point, which is with this knowledge and with this learning. Because, you know, when you read my book, you're, you know, we've talked about maybe two or three things out of the book in terms of how you can influence people, but in the book, there are 30 different things that you can learn. So because it's an it's an entire playbook for how you do this, well, right? But with that, but with that, comes that responsibility for every marketer to understand what is the right way to do that. Because, yeah, you might, you might get some bump in sales. You might, you know, make a nice little bonus one here. But ultimately, these things can. And, yeah, not the right things to do, you know, so you have to. So, in fact, in the book, and let me see if I can remember my own book, there are, you know, few things that I talk about. I talk about three principles that every, every branding campaign must pass through. So one is this whole idea of that we understand as the canonical principle, which is, you know, do unto others as you would they do want to use. So don't do a campaign which you wouldn't want someone doing to you or to your kids or something like that. Right? So that's one thing that that is, that is, that's a no no. Second thing that is a no no is that don't do anything, which is this actually comes from a philosopher by the name of Immanuel Kant, a very famous German philosopher, Immanuel Kant, who came out with something called a categorical imperative. And really what he talks about is that don't do anything, which if everyone started doing that, would be a social, you know, that would be a social detriment, right? That the detriment of the society don't do something that, which, if everybody else also did, would really lead to a deterioration of society. And so that's another principle that that is very important. And then the last one is, you know, the sun, the sunshine principle, which is, don't do anything, which, if people discovered that you had done it, that you would feel embarrassed about it, right? So you know things that you're willing to talk about, the do, things that if they appeared in the front pages of the New York Times, that this is what you did, that you wouldn't be embarrassed by it. You wouldn't, you would still be proud of what you had done so with those three things, I find that most market you know, most marketing dilemmas, most branding dilemmas, can, in fact, be be addressed. Yeah, Michael Hingson ** 46:53 and that makes perfect sense by any standard a question that I'm been thinking about. You dealt with a lot of pharma companies and so on, and I would suspect that in dealing with a lot of pharmaceutical organizations and so on, you've interviewed a lot of people, probably a lot of people with disabilities and so on. How do you think that the work that you are doing and have done has really benefited or affected them? Sandeep Dayal ** 47:20 Yes, I think that is, I think actually one of the things that I do a lot of work in the pharmaceutical sector, actually, and in the healthcare sector generally. But in the pharmaceutical sector, for one, and I actually love working in that space. It is, you know, as a marketer, it's, it's where you you really feel like you're actually making a big impact, to be honest. Because you know when, when the some pharmaceutical companies these days have come up with some fantastic drugs, which I've personally seen have made a phenomenal difference in in people's lives. You know, you can imagine, as a marketer, if you will, I have a choice of working for consumer product companies and tell them how to sell a box of cereals in a better way, or I can work with a pharmaceutical company and help them, you know, with get a get a drug to market, which is really going to have a transforming effect on a person's life, and so in my calculus, in my equation, that has weighed heavily, which is that when you work with these companies, with the healthcare companies, you're so close to truly appreciating people's people's lives and how those things can and can be, can be altered. So lot of times in the work that I've done, it's been, it's been very much about understanding how, how people that have certain disabilities or certain diseases in certain cases, how their lives are really being impacted, how that disease is robbing something away from them, but understanding it through their lens and seeing how you can actually come in with a conversation oftentimes, you know you Those are things that don't have anything to do with the drug that you're going to be marketing, but nonetheless, having that total understanding is essential to actually connecting with that person to begin with. You know, because remember that branding and marketing is a lot about communications, unless you can understand how you're going to relate to that person and how you are going to communicate with that person, you're actually not going to make process. You're not going to make progress, and you're not going to be able to get them in a place which is a better place for them. And so in that sense, it's very important. I'll give you an example. There was one time I was working with, with a company called AbbVie, which has one of the most successful drugs called humera, which is for people with rheumatoid arthritis, right? And in rheumatoid arthritis is it's kind of like a lifelong disease. And before this drug came out, people used to go through a lifetime of suffering, you know, in terms of joint pain, in terms of stiffness in their joints and so on. And it was just just a very, you know, difficult situation. There were no good no good solutions out there. However, when the when the drug came out, we were finding that even people that could benefit from this drug, you know, that they were not actually taking it, because they said, Hey, this is a newfangled drug. It's a biologic, gee, I've been taking, you know, pain pills, and it's kind of fine. I've spent the last 20 years in pain, and I've kind of managed IT and, and I'll be fine. I don't need to take some, you know, this new fangled, maybe experimental drug. It wasn't experimental, but nonetheless, nonetheless, that's how people can think about it. I don't want to experiment on right and, and it was kind of like, you know, we really had to understand that, that mindset, because we, you know, one time I talked to, I was doing a focus group, and I was talking to this woman. Her name was Lisa, and she was, you know, talking about her things. And I was telling her, Hey, Lisa. And this was when I was a young marketer, less, much less experienced and much less wiser than I am now. I was telling Lisa, hey, look, you know, this is a fantastic day. I don't understand why you're not taking it, because it's a fantastic drug. Your pain will go away, your stiffness will go away, and you're going to feel a lot better. You'll be able to go, go get a job. You'll you know this is, this is just going to change your life. You know what's, what's going on here? And she sort of stopped me, and she said, looked at me, and she said, Look, Sandeep, if you don't understand what I'm going through and what my life is all about. How are you going to help me? And that was kind of such a, you know, it was a moment that sort of stopped me, because at that moment, sort of it was kind of very perplexing to me. Because remember market, as a marketer, you came from that mindset that if I tell you what my product, how my product is different, and what it does, then you should obviously want it right? That was the mindset. That was the list branding mindset. But here, what I was being told by this person was that look, unless you unders, unless I have that connection with you, unless I understand, unless I feel, unless I can trust that you are a person that can relate to what I'm going through, and you understand my life, I'm not going to trust anything. Right? Which is fair, which is fair, so, which is but as a young marketer at that time, I didn't understand, sure, and I was, hey, well, you know, why does she care whether I understand her life or not? You know, I've got a drug that's going to change your life, you know, so, but that is that sort of got me on this journey of understanding, what is this consumer psychology? What is this? What is the what are these things that are going to help people change their behaviors? And then you get into all these things about wisdom, around beliefs, around values, around empathy, which are all the different ways in which you can design brands, which are going to be way more effective, which I then talk about in my book, and with all these different experiences that I have, and I, of course, I give lots of examples and stories because, remember, we said stories are important, so you need to be able to tell stories so that people can can can remember what you're saying better, but, yeah, that's so it's a book about brands, but it's a book about stories. Really, one Michael Hingson ** 53:48 of the things that I find being blind, so if you will, that I find as a person with a disability is that we tend not to be included in the conversation. Yeah, people make so many assumptions about disabilities, and they start with the basic premise, well, disability means lack of ability. Well, it doesn't, but we, we don't get included in a lot of the conversations. And so the result is we have things like people who are diabetic and who let's let's use people who are blind and diabetic or have diabetes. The problem is that the way to deal with measuring insulin and really dealing with measuring blood glucose have been very primitive, and while there is newer technology that allows for more constant monitoring, just recently, the first version that has the potential to be accessible for people who happen to be blind has come on the market and has been approved, and that actually is using an app with a with. The constant monitor that transmits to the app, but, but the reality is, there's so many issues and so many types of things where we get left out because the pharmaceutical industry doesn't include it, or consider it a high enough priority, or it's too expensive, and again, a total lack of understanding or value of what we bring to the marketplace, and how do we deal with changing that? Sandeep Dayal ** 55:28 Yes, I mean, that is such a great example that you're bringing, you know, bringing from your from your personal life. So thank you for sharing that. But I think you know in the example that I talked about, it was the same thing that was very apparent, which is, even when people are, you know, not necessarily, they don't necessarily have a disability, you know. So they're not blind, they're not you know, but they still get left out of conversations, yeah, right, because the people that are in a position of power, or the marketers, are just not listening to everything that listening to there are not sensitive, you know, they talk about being customer centric, but they really are not, and that is because they because, you know, and it's, and I'll give you an example, you know, outside of disabilities, I'll give you an example about how people get left out of conversations in many different ways. So there was a campaign that recently for and that was done by by Samsung, you know, again, a very rich company with the best marketers in the world. No shortage of resources and so on. And they were, they were, you know, marketing, their new watch, you know, like to compete with Apple Watch. Apple Watch, right? And they came out with this campaign in which they showed this woman that's running through, you know, decides at two in the morning to run through some streets, and she's running through these very sketchy streets, and she's in the in middle, the middle of the night, and so on. And she is, you know, there is another person that is kind of just playing with her, biking around her and so on. And it was kind of a very sketchy ad, which, which, which was put out there. And what happened was, when they put this ad out there, they thought it was super cool. The ad agency thought it was super cool because they're very cool graphics. But then again, the person that you're leaving out of that conversation is really the customer and consumer, right? Yeah, and they put out this ad, and women saw this ad, and they said, You've got to be kidding. And right around the time that this ad came out in Ireland, there was a woman who had, in fact, gone out running at night, and, you know, and then and she got, she got attacked, you know, and she got attacked and raped and this and that. So there was that whole story going and meanwhile they come out with this ad, which is almost depicting this kind of a situation, this woman in this and they're thinking it's pretty cool, because of the graphics that they've done, and so you have to be very sensitive to not just what you're saying, but what the other person is actually hearing, you know? And I'm saying hearing in a, in a, in a kind of medical right, which is you have to be able to see things from the from the eyes, from the ears, you know, from the perspective of the person that is actually getting this message. Otherwise, you are doing what you just said, which is you're leaving them out of the conversation. And I think that is what you just described so eloquently in your own experience, right? Michael Hingson ** 58:47 And and it happens so often in so many different ways. We have been doing this about an hour, and I think we're going to have to stop so we don't get people too, too tired of us. But a couple of things, but a couple of things. Can we, can we continue this and do another episode in the future? Sandeep Dayal ** 59:06 Oh, of course, yeah, you know, I'd be happy to talk to you, Michael, this is, I think we should do it easy for me, it just, it just kind of flows. So if you're getting what you need out of this, then I'm happy to to do this in Oh, Michael Hingson ** 59:20 I think, we should. How can people reach out to you and so on, if they'd like to, Sandeep Dayal ** 59:26 so that there are multiple ways that they can do that they can go to my blog website, which is simply my name, sandeepdayal.sandeepdayal.com Michael Hingson ** 59:35 Can you spell that, please? That Sandeep Dayal ** 59:38 is S, A, N, D, E, P, D, A, Y A L, at, sir, at, sorry, no, I made them say Sandeepdayal.com.com that's what that is, yes, or they can go to my company website, cerenti.com, C, E R, E N T I.com Com. And in both instances, there is a place where they can send messages. And I usually look at those messages personally and respond. I always respond, Michael Hingson ** 1:00:12 well, cool. Well, I really appreciate you taking the time to come on. And I do want to do another episode, so we will schedule. We have to schedule a time and record it, because I know there are lots of other questions and things that we can delve into. So if you don't mind, I think we should do it. Sandeep Dayal ** 1:00:28 Yeah, we'll do that. Let me just mention to you that I am going to be actually out of the country in February and March, coming back in the middle of April. Okay, either we can do it then, or if you wanted to do it earlier, I mean, I can, I'll be in India, but I can still, I've done lots of webinars from there, so it's not an issue, as long as we can work with the time difference. Well, Michael Hingson ** 1:00:52 bottom line is, like we did with this one, we'll schedule it at whatever time is. Can we end for you? So I'll, I'll resend, I'll resend the link, and you just schedule it for when you want. So if you want. So if you want to do it when you get back, that's okay, whatever works for you. Sandeep Dayal ** 1:01:06 Okay, yeah, no, I'd love to do it. Michael, so thank you. Thank you again for including me on your podcast. Michael Hingson ** 1:01:12 Well, thank you, and I want to thank you all for listening. We really appreciate it. I hope that you'll give us a five star rating wherever you're listening to unstoppable mindset. We really value your ratings and we value your input. You'd like to reach out to me. You can do so by sending me an email at Michael M, I, C, H, A, E, L, H I at accessibe, A, C, C, E, S, S, I, B, E.com, Michael at Access Michael h i@accessibe.com or go to our podcast page, www, dot Michael hingson.com/podcast, and Michael Hingson and again, is M, I, C, H, A, E, L, H, I N, G, S O N.com/podcast, so please do that and send deep for you, as well as others. If you know of somebody else who we ought to have on as a guest on unstoppable mindset, really would appreciate you emailing me or letting me know we are always looking for more people to have on, although it is fun to talk to somebody more than once like we will do with Sandeep, well, thank you all for listening and again. Sandeep, I want to thank you one last time for being here as well. **Sandeep Dayal ** 1:02:14 Thank you very much for having me. I enjoyed this. 1:02:22 You have been listening to the Unstoppable Mindset podcast. Thanks for dropping by. I hope that you'll join us again next week, and in future weeks for upcoming episodes. To subscribe to our podcast and to learn about upcoming episodes, please visit www dot Michael hingson.com slash podcast. Michael Hingson is spelled m i c h a e l h i n g s o n. While you're on the site., please use the form there to recommend people who we ought to interview in upcoming editions of the show. And also, we ask you and urge you to invite your friends to join us in the future. If you know of any one or any organization needing a speaker for an event, please email me at speaker at Michael hingson.com. I appreciate it very much. To learn more about the concept of blinded by fear, please visit www dot Michael hingson.com forward slash blinded by fear and while you're there, feel free to pick up a copy of my free eBook entitled blinded by fear. The unstoppable mindset podcast is provided by access cast an initiative of accessiBe and is sponsored by accessiBe. Please visit www.accessibe.com . AccessiBe is spelled a c c e s s i b e. There you can learn all about how you can make your website inclusive for all persons with disabilities and how you can help make the internet fully inclusive by 2025. Thanks again for Listening. Please come back and visit us again next week.
