Ethical Persuasion for Predictable Sales Growth with Patrick Van Der Burght

Tim Melanson: [00:00:00] Hello and welcome to today’s episode of the Work at Home Rockstar podcast. I’m excited for today’s episode. We are talking to the owner of Ethical Persuasion and Training and Consulting, and he’s a certified coach and licensed trainer with the Cialdini Institute. I’m really excited, ’cause what he does is he helps professionals to be more ethically persuasive with their communication using the science of persuasion and human decision-making as taught by his business partner, Dr. Robert Cialdini. Man, I’m so excited for this episode. It’s gonna be so cool. We’re talking to Patrick Van Der Burght. Hey, Patrick, you ready to rock?

Patrick van der Burght: I’m, uh, I’m ready to rock, and thank you for, uh, putting me in front of your audience. I remember when I was discovering this material, I was, you know… I wanted to be more successful with my business, and I didn’t wanna lie or cheat either. And, um, yeah, I discovered this and I was, "Oh, my goodness, is this how it works? Is it this simple?" And I remember the excitement, and I see that same excitement when I do a keynote or teach a [00:01:00] workshop. Uh, I see that same look in my audience. And so today I’m imagining that your audience will have a similar sort of experience, and, uh, yeah, so I, uh, I’m grateful for you putting me in front of them

Tim Melanson: Oh, no problem. A- and I totally agree. Like, when I first got into sales myself years ago, you know, there’s so much, uh, misconception actually in, in the first place about what people think sales is. People do think that sales is swindling people for some reason, right? And, uh, and, and it’s, it’s really awkward getting into trying to sell yourself. I, I know even as a musician, like, isn’t it weird that you, like, you, you know, you, you’re doing well, you think you’re a pretty good musician, but it’s really difficult to tell people that, right? It’s like, it’s, it’s like it’s so much easier to have a manager or to sell your buddy who’s a really good musician than it is for you to sell yourself. So, uh, I’m very interested in hearing about more what you have to say, so this could be really cool. So we always start off on a good note, so tell me a story of success in your business that we can be inspired by.[00:02:00]

Patrick van der Burght: Um, maybe it’s interesting to cover how I actually got started with this, with this whole thing. I was a, a sales rep selling scuba diving equipment. I was on the road. I had my business, you know, from home, but I, I was on the road most of the time. And, um, I was looking out… I’m based in, in Australia, in Melbourne, and so I was looking after the states of Victoria, South Australia, and Tasmania, and that… I mean, Australia is big. That’s, you know, three of our states, and that’s a, a decent stretch of land, and so lots of time in the car and lots of time listening, listening to cassette tapes for those who can still remember what those are. And, um, I was putting a lot of effort and time genuinely trying to look after my retailers and, and helping them as best I could, and I was hoping to grow how much product they’d buy from me versus my competitors, and I wasn’t really I wasn’t… I was a bit frustrated with the progress I was making. I think I was putting a lot of time in, and I was not really getting the returns. And, um, [00:03:00] my boss had hired a business coach to help him grow his business, which is, of course, always a good idea to get some outside perspective and input from a business coach or trainer. And, um, this trainer realized that scuba diving retailers are, uh, um, very enthusiastic, lovely people, but not necessarily great at running a business. So he started training us sales reps to be sort of business coaches so we could sit down with our retailers and help them grow their business. And the idea was if we can help them double their business, we would double with them. And, um, at the same time, I was confronted with a, a, a challenge. Um, and I, I should say that the business coach was local to Melbourne, and, uh, I don’t know if you’ve ever met a Dutch person, ’cause that’s my, uh, my heritage. That’s where the last name comes from. If you ever meet a Dutch person on holiday, and you said, "Ah, if you’re ever coming to our side of the world and you need a place to stay, give us a call," don’t do that with Dutch people. [00:04:00] They turn up, right? Free nights accommodation, they turn up. And, um, he was, uh, he was based in Melbourne, and he said, "Oh, if you ever wanna discuss these, uh, strategies, right, come by our office in Vermont." And so I turned up, right? And he started lending me educational cassette tape series, right? And they used to be expensive. Now you can buy them so cheaply. Um, but I can remember paying, like, $1,200 for a set of Brian Tracy CDs. And, um, part of that was Dr. Cialdini’s work that he, uh, he borrowed me. And, um, the challenge was, that I bumped into, that I’d taken on a, an additional brand, and it was a, a type of dry diving suit. And, uh, they’re supposed to seal on your neck and your wrist, keeps you dry, and it was an Australian-made suit, very qualitative, best suit of that type I’d ever used myself. Wonderful product, but what I didn’t know is that the year before, they had, uh, um, a change in material, and stuff delaminated, and all suits sold that year had leaked.[00:05:00]

Tim Melanson: Well

Patrick van der Burght: all had to be replaced. And so I’m coming into my retailers’ stores, and they knew me quite well by then, and I said, "Oh, you know, I’ve picked up representation of Hot and Dry." It’s still around now. And, um, they laughed at me and said, "Oh, you’re a nice fellow, Patrick, but we’re not touching that again after last year d- last year’s debacle." I said, "Well, what do you mean?" Right? And now I’m finding out that, you know, um, this, this problem. So I was bas- s- s- you know, literally being laughed at, and they didn’t wanna touch it. And I thought, "How am I gonna turn this around?" So I dived onto Dr. Cialdini’s principles, used what science I could at that time- to turn that situation around, and long story short, within 18 months we were market leader. So ever since, I’ve been, um, converted in the fact that you don’t have to lie or cheat, you just have to r- bring the right pieces of information that make it easier for someone to make a decision. You bring that to the surface, and the impact can be dramatic. And that’s why I’m also so excited to share that here [00:06:00] today because, you know, especially if you’re starting out with a home business, you don’t get an avalanche of opportunities coming your way already. You gotta work really hard to start getting some opportunities, and you cannot waste the chances that people will say yes to you, right? If you, if you ask something one way, you have a, you get a small amount of yeses. But when you ask for something a different way, you get a lot more yeses. Well, you cannot afford to to not ask it in a way that you get a lot more chance of getting those yeses. And so hopefully we’ll, uh, we’ll share some strategies today people can use immediately.

Tim Melanson: Yeah, it’s true. And when you tell the truth, you tend to get referrals, and that’s really the lifeblood of most of these small businesses, right, is through referrals. Yeah

Patrick van der Burght: do a great job for people and build strong relationships

Tim Melanson: Okay. So now over the time, uh, of your business, I mean, it’s been a long time, th- there- not everything goes as planned, and I like to talk about these bad notes and these things that, uh, mistakes, I guess, or whatever you wanna call them, [00:07:00] because it is what holds people back from getting started in the first place. And I’m wondering, can you share with me something that didn’t go as planned, then how you recovered from that?

Patrick van der Burght: Um, well, that example I just gave I think is a good, uh, is a good situation where things didn’t work out so

Tim Melanson: That’s true

Patrick van der Burght: So it’s important when things don’t go so well, especially when we make mistakes, that we own up to it. Um, there’s some research on that, that if we ignore our problems and try to plow through it, we’re actually, we come out stronger by admitting that something went wrong, and we then raise how we’re going to address that. Uh, that can increase our credibility and believability and which helps us go forward. The fact that we recognize something didn’t go right on our end, but we’ve identified what the problem is and we’re gonna deal with that from, you know, in this way going forward, um, that’s a strong approach to making mistakes and dealing with those

Tim Melanson: And so why do you think people don’t f- fess up to those mistakes?[00:08:00]

Patrick van der Burght: Probably a bit, bit embarrassed or, "Oh, it wasn’t our fault." As in if we, if we blame external forces, um, then our audience feels, okay, well, there’s things in your business that you seem to have no control over

Tim Melanson: too, ’cause, uh, that is probably what they’re thinking, even though you might think that, "Well, it’s not my fault," you know? Uh, at least if you own up to your mistake, then you can say, "I, I know I did wrong, and I’ll do better next time," and that feels more in control, right?

Patrick van der Burght: Yeah, absolutely

Tim Melanson: Yeah, right on. Cool. So let’s talk a little bit about the band. Now, uh, when it comes to, uh, delegating, subcontracting, is that something that you do in your business?

Patrick van der Burght: Uh, yes. I, um, I mean, not so much in the beginning, but certainly now try and delegate as much as I can. So I make good use of, uh, virtual assistants, even though I hate that word and I’d never call them that. And they’re just other people. Um, so yeah, there’s websites you- where you [00:09:00] can go to where you can, um, you know, either ask somebody to find you, uh, a virtual assistant, somebody who works from home. Um, you can get those, of course, in any country, and there’s countries in the world that speak very good English, but their wages are cheaper. So, you know, it’s, uh, depending on where you go, you can, you know, get a personal assistant. You… I’ve got, I think, about five VAs now. Um, I’ve got a personal assistant. I’ve got a lady that, uh, edits my podcast recordings, works, you know, basically the manager of the podcast. She edits the videos, publishes, takes care of all of that. I’ve got, um, some VAs that, um, do my social media marketing, so they make posts, and of course, they need to learn about the business like any employee, so they take time to sort of get used to your business. Um, and then I’ve got, uh, web developers that look after the websites. Um, so yeah, a nice way to

Tim Melanson: Wow

Patrick van der Burght: delegate and get some manpower or lady power on the, on board to, um, you [00:10:00] know, to help you. And it’s, uh, especially as, as a, a smaller operator, hirer, hiring an employee is, is frightening. I mean, wages are expensive and depending on which country you live in, for example, Australia, if you hire someone and is really not turning out well, as in, you know, they’re either, the, you know, your personalities clash or they’re just not good at their job, you can’t just say, "Oh, sorry, you’re fired now." You, this is, you can’t do that in this country. You’re sort of stuck with them. So, um, a virtual assistant is a nice easy way to sort of ease into that, grow the business, produce more income, and then get, for example, somebody in your office.

Tim Melanson: Right. So what you mean by that is that they’re subcontractors rather than employees.

Patrick van der Burght: Yeah. Yeah

Tim Melanson: Yeah, and I, I agree. I… And, and plus, I mean, I think the other benefit to that is that they’re running their own business, and you know how they say that y- no one will ever work as hard for your business as you do? Well, if you hire other people that are running their own business, well then [00:11:00] g- it’s kind of a hack, isn’t it? Now they’re trying to do the best in their business, which is also helping your business instead of hiring an employee, which comes with a whole lot of other, you know, challenges, I guess, on their own, right?

Patrick van der Burght: And it’s, uh, I mean, yeah, um, you can go and find somebody yourself and then the whole hiring process is, is on your plate, and it can be challenging to find the right person. I mean, people can promise they can do lots of things, and then when they work for you they might not actually be able to do that. But there is also agencies you can use that you might pay a little bit more per hour for that person, but they’ve checked these people, or they might work on the equipment of the middle person. So there’s different levels to, uh, you know, um, sort of use that. But yeah, there’s a number of countries in the world like the Philippines, South America, Kenya, um, you know, where you can get people who speak great English, are well-educated, um, and, uh, you know, very keen to do a great job

Tim Melanson: Nice. What was the first [00:12:00] one that you hired? What, what, what was their role?

Patrick van der Burght: Uh, basically a, a PA. Uh, Nancy, uh, has been with me for years now. And, um, basically, yeah, whatever I could hand over, um, you know, I, I, I passed on to her, what didn’t need my time specifically. So, uh, looking at the, all the email accounts, things coming in, answering everything she could answer. If she ran short on knowledge, she would ask me to, you know, to chime in. Um, admin, um, things, making invoices, that sort of stuff. Everything but handling the bank account, let’s say. Um, you know, she could do reconcile bank accounts, all that sort of stuff

Tim Melanson: Hmm, cool. Now does she, uh, act as you or does she act as herself and p- like, in, uh, like, and then sends things to you?

Patrick van der Burght: Yeah, no, X as in herself, right? I, I teach ethical persuasion, right? So we can’t pretend to be someone else. And, um, actually that’s an interesting [00:13:00] side note. Of course, now we also have AI,

Tim Melanson: Yep

Patrick van der Burght: We can get AI chatbots for our website and all that sort of stuff, and it’s crucially important that you don’t try and make AI pretend that it’s a real person, because people have a, a big need for human connection, and we are already separated from each other because of technology. But now when we’re confronted by someone pretending to be a real person, but they’re not, um, when we figure out that we’ve been duped, that has a backlash. I mean, goodness, you know, over here, uh, in Australia, there’s a famous, uh, instance where… And this was just using ChatGPT. There was a real estate agent who’d asked ChatGPT to write an, a, a, you know, a text for on the website to sell a property, or it was a, a rental listing, can’t remember. But when she copy-pasted the, the, the pro- she copied the prompt with it.

Tim Melanson: Oh gosh

Patrick van der Burght: That’s right. So it said, you know, "You know, the, we [00:14:00] have a three-bedroom apartment, you know, write me a pr- you know, write me a, a, a section for on the website, piece of text." And so that came with it, and so she got found out that, oh my goodness, she used AI to

Tim Melanson: Yeah

Patrick van der Burght: write this text, and she got in the news and, and, you know, it was like a big thing, poor girl. Um, but yeah, now with AI bots, it’s very tempting to, to make them pretend, "Hi, my name is John. How can I help you?" Um, I think we should be upfront and tell people, you know, "I’m John, our AI bot. How can I help you?" And it’s interesting with AI, though. In the very beginning, I thought there would be a more, a bigger backlash in terms of making people interact with AI. But actually turns out people also open up more to AI. When you’re talking to a real person, they’re asking what your income level is. You, you know, you get a little bit of pride going in. You might quote a little higher. Um, when you know you’re talking to a machine and you get quick answers, there, there’s, there’s something, you know, efficient in there as well, and a little bit more, [00:15:00] uh, less pride, let’s say. Um, so people, you know, don’t seem to be actually, actually minding dealing with AI as long as we know that we’re not being duped and we know we’re talking to AI.

Tim Melanson: Agree. Yeah. And, uh, I mean, I, I think that there’s a part of it that we don’t wanna waste people’s time as well, right? And so when you’re dealing with an, with an AI bot, like I, I know that there are certain things that you’re just like, "I wanna talk to an agent. I wanna talk to an actual person," right? Right away. But there are also other things that you’re just like, "I just wanna run something by. I just wanna see if I can get that answer quickly." And you know, when you’re talking to a real person, you feel like, you feel like you’re, you’re wasting their time, but you can just waste that AI bot’s time all you want asking them a bunch of questions, and it’ll keep on answering these things. Um, so I, I think that might be part of it, too. I know for me, even, like, running through ideas and, and, and trying to strategize on my business, when I was talking to somebody about that, like a, a person about that, I felt like I was, like, wasting their [00:16:00] time, right? But now I can do all that same stuff with, uh, with an AI bot, and I mean, it’s not really giving me I mean, it is doing research sometimes and finding out some things that I probably wouldn’t have known on my own, but I’m just talking things through. And, and sometimes talking things through is all you need to do, right?

Patrick van der Burght: Yeah, exactly. And yeah, like you said, it’s easier to, you know… It’s a little bit like a search engine, you know? I mean, I can plow myself through your website for the next 15 minutes looking for the answer, or I can ask the AI bot and get a quick summary of what it is I’m a- after, ’cause it sort of understands what I’m after and knows exactly where to get that information.

Tim Melanson: Yeah. But I do know that I, I, I hope that we kinda come up with some, I don’t even know what it would be, legislation or even some sort of, like, guidelines on… ‘Cause AI right now is totally Wild West, and I totally agree with you. I think there should be some rules around how it’s, um, how it’s [00:17:00] used and how it’s also, uh, portrayed. Because like you say, there, I, I think right now it’s fairly easy to see that you’re talking to an AI. I mean, it, you know, if you train it properly, maybe there is some things that you can hide, but give this another year or two, right? Uh, like, look at how far it’s come, and at some point it’s gonna be very difficult to know whether you’re talking to a person or not, and I th- I, I agree with you that I think that that should be disclosed upfront, right?

Patrick van der Burght: Yeah, absolutely. And of course they can use AI with, you know, with voice, um, you know, with voice as well you can get AI to ring out and make calls on your behalf and follow up leads and that sort of stuff. And, um, yeah, when you do figure out it is AI, you really feel duped. You don’t have a good feeling about that business either. Where if we’re just open and honest about it, um, you know, you might actually get easier interaction from people

Tim Melanson: Oh, a- absolutely, because, uh, like you, what you just said [00:18:00] earlier, people actually don’t really have a big problem with dealing with AI when they know it’s AI. So why not just own it and be like, "Hey, I’m, I’m the AI bot that, you know, can I get some information from you?" Like, it’s just like an assistant really. The assistant that, you know, sometimes they can answer the question directly for you, but oftentimes they’re just there to gather some information to send to you so that you can call this, you know, client or this prospect back and, and know what you’re talking about, right? So why not use the AI bot for that and be upfront with it? Makes sense to me. So let’s talk a little bit about… Actually, let’s get right into p- to persuasion because we’re talking about getting fans and having them trust you and buy from you. What, what would be the, something that maybe a, a mistake that most entrepreneurs make when they’re, when they’re going out there and trying to gain some sales and gain some trust from people?

Patrick van der Burght: The biggest problem that I see [00:19:00] every single day is that professionals… Let me, let me rephrase it. When, when we are an architect and we’re gonna build a skyscraper, we tend to use the available science to do a good job. If we didn’t use the science that’s available to design a skyscraper, the end result wouldn’t be s- yeah, wouldn’t be so wonderful, right? That building might not last that long, or it might not even end up being completed. Um, in business, we’re in the business of convincing other people that what we have to offer is going to enrich their lives, and those people need to make a decision about that. Now, there’s a science about how decisions are made, and too many people in business have no idea how this works. So they’re a bit like an architect trying to build a skyscraper without knowing the science. And I [00:20:00] see this… I mean, we all s- see the world through the lens of our own expertise, right? If you’re a chef, you’re having dinner in a restaurant, you go, "I mean, I can’t cook to save myself," but, um, you might sit in the restaurant and you might go, "Oh my goodness, if they just used a little bit of, uh, coriander in here, it’d be perfect," right? You can’t help but see the, the, the world through your expertise. And so I can’t help seeing the world through the lens of ethical persuasion. I can’t sit in a restaurant, look at the menu and go, "Oh my goodness, how much money are they losing because this menu is in the wrong order?" Or I can see advertising and I can see products that are presented in the wrong order. I can hear people, um, say something that very effectively and subconsciously achieves the absolute opposite of what they’re trying to do because they’re highlighting the wrong things. Um, so people in business tend to not know how decision-making work, and therefore [00:21:00] you have a certain potential of people that will say yes to your request. And most people in business, or many people in business, dramatically underperform their potential, and so they’re leaving business and success on the table, and that’s what I highlighted before, especially when you’re starting off. You can’t afford that. You, you, you wanna maximize your chances. And it’s not like this is a very difficult science to grasp or even learn. I mean, we do, uh, formal training courses, which is about an investment of just 20 hours over eight weeks, um, to really make an impact in learning this. So it’s not a university course that’s gonna take you years, um, but most people in business are at it every single day without using the science.

Tim Melanson: Do you know what I find interesting is when I, when I was initially learning about persuasion and about, um, sales, uh, you know, I, I bought, I bought some books, and there were some people around me that weren’t in business, they were employees, and they sort of saw [00:22:00] that as being unethical. Isn’t that kind of odd? They, they would look at me and they’d say, "Oh, you’re learning all this stuff. That means that somehow you’re, you’re trying to…" I, I, I don’t, I don’t know, game the system? I- isn’t it weird how people will look at learning about ethical persuasion as being unethical in the first place?

Patrick van der Burght: Yeah, and, and thank you for bringing that up. I mean, the reason we tend to, I mean, me and my colleagues, why we tend to wedge that word ethical in front of it, in, in front of persuasion, is because when people hear the word persuasion, they often hear manipulation, and that’s absolutely not the same thing. Manipulation is about giving someone no choice Where persuasion involves the, the use of words and images to, um, increase the chances that someone will say yes to us, but that decision comes from within them. And a, a good comparison, one of my colleagues talks about when [00:23:00] the, um, when the, the boss is away, you know, the saying is that when the boss is away, the mice will play. Um, but if you persuade someone, if they make a decision that comes from within them based on their own values, when you, um, when you persuade someone to do a particular task… And, and we’re talking about sales, but persuasion is not actually per se about sales. It’s about behavior. Now, I can stimulate buying behavior, which of course for sales is, uh, you know, imperative. But, you know, you might have, um, VAs that you want to follow a certain procedure that you’ve set out. That is a behavior, right? If you have employees and you want to, them to follow the safety procedures, that’s a behavior. If you want customer service, um, to get better results with clients or the client is happier about the experience they’re having, that’s behavior. So this all fall- falls [00:24:00] under the topic of persuasion. Um, but yeah, so what we want to do is use this ethically. And what, what’s very nice is that research also shows that what we teach can be used in an unethical way, but whilst it might produce short-term results, it is long-term disaster. Because people who, you know, didn’t get out of the arrangement what they thought they were gonna get out of the arrangement, they never come back. You get found out in the, the cycle of business.

Tim Melanson: Mm-hmm.

Patrick van der Burght: And so it’s long-term disaster, where research does show that when we use persuasion science ethically, we get short-term results and long-term success. It actually builds strong, loyal relationships. So yeah, with that whole word sales, um, yeah, I would just substitute it for helping people, right? I mean, even if you’re, you know, if you’re in a, in a [00:25:00] band, let’s say, and you’re trying to, you know, get a gig somewhere, y- you’re trying to give somebody opportunity to have, you know, great music that night. You’re just helping people and that, you know… I, I think that’s a great different angle to where to come from, and yeah, often people think of sales as a dirty word. But if you just see it from genuinely wanting to help someone have a great service, have a great experience, um, and that gives it a different light to it

Tim Melanson: Yeah. Yeah, and, and I mean, I, I think that the, I think that the catch-22, I guess, is that as an ethical person or a person who’s trying to be as upfront as they can, you know, not learning about persuasion because you think it’s gonna make you unethical to, to learn about it is very counterproductive. Because in the end, all you wanna do is you wanna help people, and if you are literally doing the opposite of the science that’s gonna help someone because you think that doing the science of helping them [00:26:00] is gonna hurt them, then y- you’re, y- you’re never gonna get forward. And, and I mean, I think, I think it’s just one of those mental blocks, and I, I I mean, maybe it’s movies. I mean, movies show us these unethical people, super rich and doing all these, uh, you know, unethical things. But in practice, like what you said, I, I, I don’t normally see that. I see people who are very successful as being very ethical and actually helping people, and I see people who have been swindling people have to keep on moving, right? And going to another area and trying to figure out something different because eventually they get found out. And, and like you say, I mean, they, they, the, the, the business cycle weeds them out eventually, and I think that we just get s- maybe fooled by our culture of … I mean, that makes a good story with somebody who’s, who’s unethical being at the top. But that doesn’t tend to really happen. It, it, it doesn’t work that way, right?

Patrick van der Burght: Yeah, and, [00:27:00] and, and I mean, something we should, I mean, uh, also bring up, a, a lot of sales training is not necessarily ethical. Um, as in I, I talk to a lot of people… I mean, sales is, is where I help most people, you know, with that topic, even though persuasion is much broader than that. But I talk to lots of people that say, "Oh, yeah, I’ve, I’ve done a few of our sales training courses in my, in my boss’s company, and you know what? I don’t use any of that be- because I don’t like treating people like that." Right? A lot of sales training does have a, you know, sort of underhanded, you know, tri- you know, trick people into compliance. I mean, if we, if we go back a few years, you know, you heard a lot of, you know, and you s- I mean, I’ve been to business conference, and they’re still teaching it to people, mirroring and matching, right? I mean, if you, if, if somebody puts a hand in their pocket, if you put a hand in your pocket, people start getting that feeling. Because this, this is something that happens [00:28:00] naturally, right? We start mirroring each other when we like each other. And so if we start man- you know, manipulating that, we’re purposely doing that. Okay, they’ve got their foot out. I’m, I’m gonna put my foot out. Okay, they’ve got one hand in their pocket. I’m gonna put the same hand in my pocket, so I’m, I’m mirroring. When I do that on purpose, I’m not being genuine, right? So therefore not ethical. But just imagine for a moment that the person you’re doing that to knows exactly what you’re doing You would be done, right? You lose that appointment and they’ll never touch you again. Given the opportunity, they’ll probably warn people about you. And now in the, you know, in the world of social media, it is so easy to get caught out and to have a big… For that to blow out, right? I can give you an example. The research was done in supermarkets with bright colored labels, right? Because normally when there’s a sale on or something, we put a bright colored label on with, you know, what [00:29:00] the special is. And so what they started doing in supermarket, they took a random amount of products and they just put bright colored labels on it with the price. No special, just a bright colored label with the price. And then the next day they would take all the labels off and they’d give, let’s say 100 different products, bright colored labels with the price. What’s the effect of that? It doubled sales because it’s a shortcut for the brain. We have learned that a bright colored label normally means this is a good deal. This is lower price than it normally is. And so just by whacking on colored labels, they’re increasing their sales. Now, there’s lots of… You can look this up on, on social media. There’s lots of videos of people really angry and, and justifiably so, recording like, "Look, there’s a sales sticker on here and you lift it, there’s the same price underneath it," right? "What are they trying to do here?" And there’s even, even politicians commenting on these videos that retailers shouldn’t do that. Now, that has a massive impact on people’s credibility, [00:30:00] and there’s no need to do that. If we just know the science, we can use it in an ethical way to actually build strong relationships and coach more people to agree with something when it’s in their favor to do so

Tim Melanson: I love that. I love that. So working from home, uh, you know, getting your jam room set up and your home office set up can be a bit of a challenge, especially, uh, with all the distractions around, and I’m wondering, how do you have yours set up?

Patrick van der Burght: Um, in terms of, uh, uh, the office, I mean, I work mostly, uh, mostly from my desk. But as a lot of people, I think, who work from home is you do, um, meetings with people. I mean, you either go out of your office and you meet people or you, you know, you make phone calls or send messages. And, um, maybe this is an interesting thing to, uh, to raise. The- we have different channels of communication that we can use, right? We could meet someone face-to-face. We can send an email. We can make a phone call to someone. We can now do video calls as well. We can [00:31:00] send an SMS or, let’s say, a WhatsApp message. So we have different ways of communicating, and all these different channels have a different level of persuasiveness. Uh, now Tim, what… Out, out of those options, face-to-face, video call, um, um, email, SMS, what do you think is the channel that has the biggest chance of getting someone to say yes to you?

Tim Melanson: Oh, I think face-to-face

Patrick van der Burght: Absolutely. Face-to-face. Glad to hear it. Great. So if… But for face-to-face, we have to leave the office, right? For the other options, we don’t have to leave the office. So if we consider the other option, which do you think is then the most persuasive

Tim Melanson: Well, I, I think it’s Zoom. I think it’s o- it’s video calls.

Patrick van der Burght: Video call. Absolutely. That’s the second one. What comes after that?

Tim Melanson: Uh, probably like a phone call

Patrick van der Burght: Phone call, exactly. So with video call and phone call, we still have tonality, right? Which we know is so important. What is that old thing? Was it [00:32:00] 86% of a message is the tonality, right? So we still have tonality, but with the video call, we also get body language, right? So video call is, is richer, let’s say. All right, so video call, let’s say more persuasive. After that, phone call, and then we have left, let’s say, um, SMSes, WhatsApp, let’s put them in the same sort of basket, and we have email. Out of those two, which one, uh, do you think is the most persuasive?

Tim Melanson: Uh, the SMS, the, the text messages

Patrick van der Burght: That’s right. People are still in a habit of dealing with their SMSs and WhatsApp messages as they come in. We’re still clearing those little red dots. But email,

Tim Melanson: Is the last for sure.

Patrick van der Burght: we’re over it, right? We get so many messages, um, it, it’s hard to get through. Now, what do we use in business all the time?

Tim Melanson: Email, yeah.

Patrick van der Burght: Email, right? We’re using the least persuasive channel of communication the most. Not saying it’s a bad channel, but when you’re trying to [00:33:00] get compliance from someone, it’s the worst thing you can do. Depending on which research you look at, if you compare email with video call, some research says that it is 200% more persuasive. Other research says it is 1400% more persuasive. Chances are that you’ll get a yes. So any tip for people driving their business from home, stop… Well, not stop emailing, but realize that it’s the least persuasive thing. If you are communicating or you want to communicate a proposal to someone Do that via video call. Run them through it during the video call, and afterwards you email it to them, or you email it to them at the same time so they can open it and you can guide them through it. But if you send the proposal via email, you’re using the least persuasive channel at the most important time. Um, so choose a channel that’s more persuasive and you’ll already get more yeses. And we, [00:34:00] we haven’t even gotten into the principles of persuasion yet. Other thing from home that I, uh… I always, always cringe when I see it, is that if we are doing video calls, we, we have a, a background behind us. And, um, a lot of people, they use a blurred background, and then our audience can’t help but think, "What are you hiding?"

Tim Melanson: Mm-hmm.

Patrick van der Burght: Right? What’s so terrible that I shouldn’t be looking at for you want… to want to use a blurred background? Or they use a virtual background. I mean, um, I don’t know what that bridge is that Zoom puts in. I think that’s, uh, San Francisco or something, the sunset red bridge, right? You see that in so many meetings, right? Everybody’s using the same bridge. But again, what are you hiding? If you’re gonna have a meeting with someone and they don’t know you, when people are uncertain about you, they look for outward clues to make a split second… and it really is a split-second [00:35:00] decision about how much stock they can put into you, how much credibility you have, how professional you are. And when you turn up with a blurred background or even a virtual background, that’s not doing you any favor. So if you run a business from home and you’re gonna do video calls, pay some attention. Invest some money in what is behind you. Um, I mean, I, I do a lot of teaching online, so as you, you know, those who are viewing this, um, I’ve got a television behind me which has a special lens on it, and I’ve got, you know, video lights here, I’ve got a camera there inside a teleprompter. right? That lens in the TV doesn’t reflect the light. I can put different things on there. I can put a picture of me talking, you know, at a keynote or something, which highlights the principle of, uh, social proof and authority, which subtly helps people, you know, to get them persuaded to pay attention to me. Um, I can put that behind me. [00:36:00] But having, having a decent background, a real background, um, that says a lot more, or can say a lot more about your professionalism and credibility than a blurred background. So please pay attention to what’s behind you.

Tim Melanson: Okay. Well, so, uh, that’s awesome because the, the screen that you had behind you is one of the reasons why people will use virtual backgrounds, ’cause then they can prot- project anything that they want behind them, right? Uh, so that’s a really, really cool hack. Now, for, for me, I, I, like, I do use a virtual background. And the reason why I use the virtual background is because as a, a work-at-home person, I tend to move around sometimes, and I want consistency and branding behind me at all times. And this allows me to be anywhere in the house and still have the same background behind me. So what would you say about that?

Patrick van der Burght: Um, uh, you, you do what you can when you can. But I think if you have… I mean, you can have a professionally designed [00:37:00] virtual background that actually has some information on it that would be persuading people in an ethical yet effective way about, for example, your expertise. Um, but yeah, just, I mean, yeah, again, it’s if people don’t notice, they don’t notice. But, you know, when you raise your hand and we see that little webbing between the fingers, right, then we know, oh my goodness, what’s really behind you? Are you sitting in a kitchen? Are you sitting in a shed? Um, it, it’s about that split second decision, and if you had something behind it. If you’re doing an important business call, if you’re trying to land a deal, um, I think you should probably do that from your primary location and, and have the best chance of portraying a good, um, subconscious message from what’s behind you. You know, if, if you’re, if you’re out and about and you can’t do it, you can’t do it. But, you know, in, in most cases I think we should try.

Tim Melanson: Jeez. Uh, you know what? Maybe what I’ll do is I’ll, I’ll work on my [00:38:00] background behind me, and then take a picture of that, and if I’m not there then I can just put d- the virtual background of what my actual background is in normal days.

Patrick van der Burght: Maybe, maybe that’s a nice in between

Tim Melanson: Awesome. Cool. So now let’s get to your guest solo. So what’s exciting in your business right now?

Patrick van der Burght: Um, what’s exciting, I do w- a fair bit of networking, um, which, uh, which is also a great way for people working from home to, uh, you know, to have a, a team of people, as in the people in your networking organization who are looking for business opportunities, uh, with you. Um, what’s exciting with me in terms of, uh, of offerings, um, we have, um, an eight-week course that we teach people, which I’m most excited to, uh, to teach. Um, we have, you know, online workshops people can join, but there’s a, a problem with, with learning in a, in a short time. Research shows that we lose about 90% of new information within a week

Tim Melanson: Wow

Patrick van der Burght: follow-up. And so [00:39:00] attending a keynote or attending a workshop, whilst it’s, it can excite us, it can introduce us to a new topic, if nothing comes after it, we lose about 90% of it. So it’s a very ineffec- inefficient way of actually learning something that we’ll end up using. There’s… Knowledge is not power. Application skills, that’s power. And so when it comes to learning, we, we have to take, um, steps to what we call break the forgetting curve. We, we want to increase retention, and so a, a training program that lasts a bit longer than a day or two or three days, um, we s- spread that over a number of weeks, then it gets really exciting with people’s retention rates, building application skills, and building up their confidence, and that’s where I get most excited because I want my students to, of course, use this stuff, not just get excited about it and not use it. Um, yeah, so that’s, that’s exciting. Um,

Tim Melanson: Now this, [00:40:00] this training’s been around for a long time, hasn’t it?

Patrick van der Burght: Yeah, it’s sort of shape. I mean, Dr. Cialdini, uh, you know, he’s, um, past 80 now. Uh, he published that book Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion back in 1984. And, um, I know we had a little chat, uh, before we started. Um, you could ask the question, is this still relevant? You know, as in this is, this is stuff from 1984. Um, and yeah, it has been republished in, in 2015, and we got a, a seventh principle, which was unity. Um, but it’s actually more topical now than it’s ever been. Um, we live, and I’ll quote Dr. Cialdini, "We live in the most information-overloaded, stimulus-saturated environment that has ever existed in the planet." And people are getting more information thrown at them than ever before. We are asked to make more decisions on a daily basi- ba- basis than ever before. [00:41:00] And so how our brain works in terms of decision-making has not changed, but our environment has, making it so that we lean even more so on the intuitive part of our brain, which relies a lot on shortcuts, and the seven principles of persuasion are shortcuts for the brain to an easier decision. And so we rely more heavily on that. Uh, Professor Daniel Kahneman pointed out in 19- I’m sorry, 2002 that 90% of our decisions are made by the intuitive part of the brain, not the logical, rational part of the brain. Um, and that percentage is now said to be at 95% and, and increasing still, and it all has to do with our atten- or not all, but a lot of that has to do with our attention span. We used to have an attention span of 20 minutes in the ’80s. Do you remember what the attention span of the famous goldfish is supposed to be, Tim?

Tim Melanson: Wasn’t it like seven seconds or something?

Patrick van der Burght: Very close. [00:42:00] Nine seconds for the

Tim Melanson: seconds, yeah

Patrick van der Burght: Our attention span is seven seconds.

Tim Melanson: Okay.

Patrick van der Burght: We’ve been beaten by the goldfish, and because of that, we rely more on sh- on shortcut information, which is what the principles of persuasion are

Tim Melanson: Mm-hmm. Well, yeah, that’s a…

Patrick van der Burght: through those quickly?

Tim Melanson: Yeah, absolutely. Let’s do it

Patrick van der Burght: Okay. So there, there’s seven principles of persuasion, and they’re universal. What we mean by that is that they work in all languages, all cultures, and all countries, which is exceedingly powerful because, well, our cultures are intermixed in our own country, but it’s also very easy to now do business with people in other countries. So this is something that works everywhere. Um, so the seven principles, let me run through them. And for those, uh, watching this, they’re also, uh, behind me. So we’ve got the principle of reciprocity. We have a tendency to want to give back to people the same type of behavior that’s first given to us.

Tim Melanson: Mm-hmm.[00:43:00]

Patrick van der Burght: And in the context of compliance, we tend to agree with more or comply more with people who we feel we owe something to. And, um, in business, we’ve taken that as in, okay, we’re gonna give people stuff, right? And if we look at, for example, sales figures from companies like Costco, it’s, it’s very clear the more you give away, the more comes back. People buy more. And it doesn’t matter if you give cheese away, lipstick, or pizza, right? It, it, it, it works. It comes back. And I always find it fascinating when you go in the supermarket and you get presented with a tray of cheese to try. Most people who take that cheese think that that does not change their behavior, and the research is very clear. You give things away, people buy more. And what I think is fascinating beyond end is that even if you hate the cheese, it doesn’t matter. You buy more of something else because it’s not about the cheese, it’s about the behavior. You were [00:44:00] kind to me, now I need to be kind to you, right? So in reciprocity, basically we wanna genuinely ask ourselves the question, how can I help this person genuinely, right? And that activ- There’s a lot more to this than I can cover in half an hour or 20, 40 minutes. Uh, but in essence, a good thing to keep in our mind is, how can we help this person genuinely? Not because I’m trying to set it up so you will reciprocate to me later. How can I help you? Uh, that’s a good tactic to start using some of reciprocity. Then there’s the principle of liking. We like people that are like us- We like people that like us,

Tim Melanson: Mm-hmm.

Patrick van der Burght: and we like people that like us and say so, right? So that’s three, three elements there. We like people that are like us, means similarities, right? Research has shown, [00:45:00] um, this was a study, um, Northwestern versus Stanford, where they had email negotiations they were doing. We just covered how difficult email negotiations or email communication is, but they found in this setting 30% of negotiations ended up in deadlock, which represented an enormous cost. By asking the negotiators to initiate the meeting first by sharing some personal information about themselves, as in, "Oh, this is what I like to do on the weekend. I like having a Korean barbecue, and, um, I like scuba diving, snorkeling, walking on the beach. I’ve got a motorcycle," and blah, blah, blah, right? Share something about themselves. Reciprocity kicks in, right? So the other person gives back the same type of behavior we first gave to them, so they start sharing their personal insights and what they like. Deadlock negotiations dropped to 6%.

Tim Melanson: Wow

Patrick van der Burght: By just figuring out, by sharing some personal [00:46:00] information, and it wasn’t about how much was shared, it was about how many similarities were uncovered,

Tim Melanson: Hmm.

Patrick van der Burght: right? So we’ve gotta find out, be genuinely interested in someone, right? Have a conversation, personal first, and then go into business. Um, much more to liking, but let me move on. So unity was the last principle that was introduced by Dr. Cialdini. Unity is often confused with liking, but liking is more about similarities, where unity is about a feeling of what we call we-ness. When I can describe the, a group of people that I’m part of, as in you and I are part of, as we, then there’s a shared community that g- that, that’s happening, a feeling of community. So let’s say you’re in an airport and, uh, you’re talking to a complete stranger, and they’re from the same town as you, or they grew up or they went to the same university as you. All of a sudden, y- [00:47:00] it’s like you know each other, have known each other for so long, right? And there’s all this familiarity that’s going on. That same energy you can have the next business meeting you have, but not if you don’t do any homework to see if there’s any communities that you both feel part of. Um, again, much more to unity, but it’s one element of it. Social proof. Uh, I’d like to think we’re most, uh, most of us are familiar with that. We can identify social proof as follows: People tend to follow the actions of others, especially when they are numerous, and when the others are similar to us, when we are uncertain, right? This is why testimonials and reviews are so powerful 98% of online shoppers say that detailed, detailed online reviews are an important factor when deciding what and where to buy. So we need to collect [00:48:00] testimonials. And what I do always … I mean, it’s lovely that business owners are collecting testimonials already, which is great, but social proof has so many other strategies to offer which are equally, if not more, powerful than testimonials, and most business power- most business owners have no idea about these other strategies. Yet they know that, that they wouldn’t wanna take away the testimonials that they’ve got on their websites or on their brochures or what they mention to people. Um, but the, the thing with testimonials is we want details. So I don’t think it’s unethical if you ask somebody, "Would you mind…" And the best time to ask is when they thank you, right, for a service well done, for a product they’ve enjoyed. "Oh, this was lovely. Thank you so much." "Oh, so glad to hear it. Could I ask you a favor? Would you mind, you know, leaving a little testimonial on our, on our re- re- review page, right? So that other people who are considering using our service can sort of learn from your experience. And if you’re willing to do so, would you please provide some detail [00:49:00] about your experience?" You know, when you see a restaurant review and it’s, "Food was great, loved it," it, there’s no detail, right? It f- it feels ingenuine, where if there’s more details it feels more genuine and it’s more believed

Tim Melanson: Agree

Patrick van der Burght: Um, all right, social proof. I’ll move on. So principle of authority. People have a tendency to follow the advice of other people who have genuinely more expertise or wisdom on a particular topic. This makes sense, right? We can’t know everything, and we’re generally better off if we take the advice of people that know a lot more about it. That’s why if you have a proposal going out, you can support your proposal with the opinions of experts, right? Maybe a doctor or a professor has said something, or a study has revealed something. That gives your argument more weight. But then on the other hand, you are also an [00:50:00] expert in your field, right? You have a certain amount of expertise. Now, you said something earlier that I picked up on. Um, you know, y- you were saying, like, it’s so much easier to have your manager sort of sell your services or, or s- tell people how good you are as an artist, and that’s exactly right. It feels a little awkward singing your own praises, right? If you’re going, "Wow," you know,

Tim Melanson: I’m so good.

Patrick van der Burght: are…

Tim Melanson: Yeah.

Patrick van der Burght: That’s right. My name is Patrick, and here are the 34 reasons why you should listen to me today," right? This is what I’m basically saying. And whilst when we’re, when we’re talking about it like this, we know how it is uncomfortable, but you hear people in business do this all the time. They’re all singing their own praises, and they do that because they want their audience to recognize that they have expertise and that they should listen to what you’re saying with the gravity that it deserves. But what they don’t know, it’s socially unacceptable to sing your own praises. And so in the subconscious of your audience, they’re gonna go, [00:51:00] "You’re full of yourself," right? Y- you’re gonna lose authority, and you lose liking. It’s lose-lose, right? But you can organize for someone else to introduce you. Or what you could do, and goodness, I’m giving a lot away to your, uh, to your listeners today. You could, before you have a meeting with someone, let’s say you have a meeting at 11:00 and you’re gonna do a video call or something. You could send half an hour before, you could send an email or even two hours before saying, "Hey, really looking forward to our meeting at, uh, 11:00. And, um, I’ve attached a PDF explaining something about my background so you know where this information that I’ll be sharing with you, where that’s coming from. I hope you’ll take a couple of minutes to peruse the information, and I’ll see you at 11:00." People are typically curious. They’ll go and have a look, and in that PDF you can say you have a master’s degree in this and you went to that and that university and, and do all. There it’s socially acceptable, and it is not taken as [00:52:00] boastful. And you can bring your authority up and have people process what it is you’re gonna say from the very first word with the gravity that it deserves Is that a good one?

Tim Melanson: Yeah, that’s a great one.

Patrick van der Burght: Cool. All right, two, two principles left. So we have the principle of consistency Um, consistency works because we feel an internal pressure to stay true to past actions and statements that we’ve made,

Tim Melanson: Mm-hmm.

Patrick van der Burght: right? We have nasty names for people who say they’ll do one thing and then do something totally different, right? Uh, uh, on a good note, we call them unreliable, but other than that, we have a lot more nasty names for people like that. And because we are quick to judge people like that, we don’t wanna be judged like that. And so when we’ve said something in the past that’s important to us, something we’d want to do, when then later a [00:53:00] decision needs to be made which is logically consistent with what we pointed out earlier, we wanna stay true to that past behavior. Um, in my podcast, I do an interview, uh, I think it’s episode eight, where I do, uh, an interview with one of my colleagues, and he also runs dental practices. And in- on his patient intake form, right, what people fill out before they fir- do the first appointment with the dentist, they’ve added a single question. A single question. And that single question has increased case acceptance, which is what a dentist call, calls it when the client says, "Yes, dentist, I’ll do what you’re recommending." Uh, that increased by 33.5% across four dental clinics. A single question, which had to do with that principle of consistency. If people are interested, they can go and listen to episode number eight of Ethical Persuasion Unlocked. So but this is how powerful this can be, [00:54:00] right? 33.5%. Wow. Um, so yeah, consistency. So we want to either figure out what is important to people and link what we’re offering to what’s important to them, or we create opportunities for someone to reveal what is important to them, as the case of this question on the intake form, and then link that to our proposals later on. Lastly, um, the principle of scarcity. We value things more that are s- that are scarce, that are rare, that are about to run out, their time is limited, or they’re, you know, dwindling in availability. Um, and this is very automatic. It’s, it’s sort of hardwired in us. It’s survi- survival, um, strategy really. If we have a certain amount of resources, getting more resources is nice, but if we lose resources, that could be detrimental, right? So we pay attention to potential loss. Yet in [00:55:00] business, we have a nasty habit of always telling people what they stand to benefit, what they stand to gain from working with us. Oh, you get there faster, you’ll save money, it’s good for the environment. That’s all things we get more of. Extra. Where if we phrase the exact same thing from a perspective of what losses are we avoiding by buying this product or using our service, we are far more persuasive. Uh, I can give you a quick example. There’s a company that did home assessments for insulation value of a home, so that at the end of the assessment, they could tell people if they were to insulate their house fully, how much money, how much difference that would make in their wallet, right? Half of the people were told, uh, of course, per house the value would be different, but let’s take a dollar example. So half of the people were told, "If you insulate your house fully, you’ll be [00:56:00] able to save a dollar a day." The other half of the people were told, "If you fail to insulate your house fully, you’ll lose a dollar a day."

Tim Melanson: Wow

Patrick van der Burght: 150% more people decided to insulate their house fully under the loss instruction instead of the gain instruction

Tim Melanson: Wow. Wow, that’s fascinating

Patrick van der Burght: I know, right? That’s why I love this so much

Tim Melanson: Yeah. Well, people,

Patrick van der Burght: So those are the, the

Tim Melanson: how people think, eh?

Patrick van der Burght: Yeah, exactly. Um, and that’s why this, this, this is interesting and fun to learn. It works in business, but it also works privately. When you’re trying to convince your teenager to clean up their room, you’re also gonna have to be persuasive. When you want the… When you’ve got that holiday destination that you really like to go on, you’re gonna have to persuade the rest of the team to agree with [00:57:00] that, right? You’re gonna have to be persuasive. So this is a… I mean, the World Economic Forum does a report called The Future of Jobs, and they do it every two years, I believe. In 2023, they ranked leadership and social influence, social influence is another word for ethical persuasion, as the fourth most urgent skill that businesses need to develop. In 2025, the last report came out, and they upped it to position number three, in a world of AI making things more uncertain, it is our interpersonal skills that are becoming more and more valuable. Um, so yeah, it’s an important soft skill that we need, and yet it’s not taught in schools, which is one of my community projects, by the way. If anybody here has kids, uh, I’m happy to donate my time to a limited extent to go to schools, even over video calls, to introduce this concept in a lot more detail than we’ve done today, um, to help introduce this to new, you know, to [00:58:00] people who are yet to go into the workforce. Because how silly is it that you’re gonna write a job application without knowing how to be persuasive? If you’re gonna get even in- invited to an interview, if you’re that lucky, you’re gonna go to that interview without knowing how to be persuasive, and goodness, you might get hired. Now you’re gonna have wage negotiations without knowing how to be persuasive? It… This is not… This is a skill that’s valuable everywhere, and it’s wonderful if halfway in your life you figure out that this exists, but you, you really should have this before you enter the workforce

Tim Melanson: Agree. Wow. All right, so remind us how we can find out more about this.

Patrick van der Burght: Thanks a lot. Um, so of course I’ve got a website. Uh, it’s ethicalpersuasion.com.au. I’m sure Tim will put links in the show notes. Uh, of course, I’m on social media as well. On the website, there’s also some freebies that people can get access to. Um, just go look in the menu for g- the complimentary and free, uh, uh, options. Uh, one thing is a downloadable e-book. You don’t even have to put your [00:59:00] name or your email address in, just right click and download. It’s yours to have, so that’ll be helpful. Um, there’s also a seven-day email challenge. Um, th- for that, of course, we do need your email address a- and, uh, a newsletter. And of course, I’ve got my podcast, Ethical Persuasion Unlocked, that you can find in all the usual places. Uh, with most podcasts I get… You often get told by the host, "Don’t listen to my first episodes. They weren’t so great. They’re better later on." Uh, my first 20 episodes are probably the most valuable ones, so I’d urge you to start at episode number one. And, uh, I, I don’t think I’m overselling it. You’ll, you’ll probably, um, be cruising through the rest of the series, uh, with, uh, eager ears

Tim Melanson: I love that so much. All right, before we go, one more question. This might be the hardest one. Let’s get into some music. So who is your favorite rock star or band?

Patrick van der Burght: Um, I, I like, uh, I, I, I like, I don’t know if that necessarily needs to be associated, but I’m a motorcycle rider. I’ve got [01:00:00] a, a big-ass Harley that me and my wife like to, uh, to, uh, spend our spare time on. So I like, you know, sort of Bon Jovi sort of, uh, music. Uh, also sort of, uh, you know, the 1945, uh, you know, sort of war music, uh, you know, The Andrews Sisters, that sort of stuff. Yeah, I like that

Tim Melanson: Wow, that’s awesome. A motorcycle rider. That’s awesome. My drummer’s a motorcycle rider.

Patrick van der Burght: Well then you and my, me and, uh, your motorcyc- your, your, your drummer have already got unity between us. You ask him, right? If he says, "I just interviewed a motorcycle rider," well, we’re already halfway to being good friends

Tim Melanson: Absolutely. Well, thank you so much, Patrick, for rocking out with me today. This has been a lot of fun and very informa- inform- informative

Patrick van der Burght: I’m, uh, I’m glad, uh, it’s been of interest and, um, yeah, I hope we’ve empowered people to do a few things better and, uh, to dig more to find out more about the subject ’cause it has a big impact on what they’re doing

Tim Melanson: Yes, [01:01:00] absolutely. Awesome. Well, thank you so much again, and thank you so much to the listeners for listening in, and we’ll see you next time on the Work At Home Rockstar podcast. As always, you can always go to workathomerockstar.com for more information