Patrick van der Burght still remembers the two cassette tapes that changed his career: two lectures by Dr. Robert Cialdini, lent to him by a business coach back when he was a scuba-diving equipment sales rep driving the highways of southern Australia. “It blew me away,” he says. Two decades later, he’s a founding member of the Cialdini Institute, and in this conversation he breaks down the seven science-backed principles that decide whether people say yes to you — and why most businesses are using them by accident, badly, or not at all.

Patrick has been teaching the science of ethical persuasion since 2000, first inside his own sales career and then across entire organisations. He's a founding member of the Cialdini Institute, ranked 4th among Cialdini Certified Trainers worldwide, and has worked with businesses from Westpac to Fortune 500 companies on turning the psychology of decision-making into practical, honest strategy.

We Also Talked About

• Why 90–95% of our decisions are made by the fast, intuitive part of the brain — and what that means for how you pitch anything.
• Why a "free" ebook that asks for your email first isn't actually a gift, and how that mistake quietly kills reciprocity.
• The real reason a perfect 5.0 star average can hurt you more than it helps.
• Why wearing a business suit made 350% more strangers follow a man breaking the law at a crosswalk, and what that says about trust.
• The difference between liking and unity, and why finding what you have in common with someone cut deadlocked negotiations from 30% down to 6%.
• How to tell a genuine authority from a fabricated one, and what to do when someone uses fake authority or fake testimonials on you.
• Why countdown timers and "only 2 left" messages usually backfire, and what real scarcity looks like instead.

If any of this has you rethinking how you ask for a yes, there's more where that came from every week. Want this kind of practical, expert help every week — before your competitors do? Get tips and strategies for growing your business delivered straight to your inbox: https://onlinebusinessliftoff.com/newsletter

Resources Mentioned

• Patrick's website: https://ethicalpersuasion.com.au/
• Free downloadable guide to the Seven Principles of Ethical Persuasion (no email required): download here
• The 7-Day Influence Challenge: https://ethicalpersuasion.com.au/free-influence-persuasion/
• 35 days of free access to the Continuity Program: https://ethicalpersuasion.com.au/continuity-program/
• Patrick's podcast, Ethical Persuasion Unlocked: https://ethicalpersuasion.com.au/podcast/
• The Cialdini Certified Practitioner Course (Dr. Cialdini's 8-week flagship training): https://ethicalpersuasion.com.au/cialdini-certified-practitioner/
• Patrick's book, How to Hear YES More Often: Harnessing the Power of Influence and Ethical Persuasion in Business: https://geni.us/hear-yes-more-often (affiliate link)
• Dr. Robert Cialdini's book, Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion: https://geni.us/influence-by-cialdini (affiliate link)
• Dr. Robert Cialdini's book, Pre-Suasion: https://geni.us/Presuasion (affiliate link)
• The Cialdini Institute: https://cialdini.com/
• Patrick on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/patrick-van-der-burght/

My newsletter is for people who want to build a real income from home — practical, doable ideas each week for creating a better life for you and your family, without the overwhelm: https://onlinebusinessliftoff.com/newsletter

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Aurora Winter turned one hour of talking into a career pivot. After stepping away from a decade spent as the founder of the Grief Coach Academy — an MBA freshly finished, no team, some debt — she tidied up a single interview transcript into a short, unpolished book and mailed it to her old email list for the cost of shipping. As she puts it: "That book generated $250,000 of new business in 90 days." Not from book sales. From what the book made possible next.

Aurora is a successful serial entrepreneur, former TV writer-producer, and media strategist. She's the founder of Same Page Publishing and the author of ten books, including Turn Words Into Wealth: Seven Ways to Make Seven Figures as a Thought Leader, and she's helped clients ranging from health-spa owners to dentists turn their expertise into books, referrals, and paid speaking.

We Also Talked About

• Why a short, interview-based book beats a business card — and how Aurora tested the idea before believing $250,000 of it was real.
• The "lighthouse" mindset for putting yourself out there without needing everyone to respond to your message.
• Why bricks-and-mortar businesses like dental practices and health spas can use a book for referrals, licensing, and paid speaking, even in a single zip code.
• Writing content twice: once for people, in story form, and once in neutral Q&A language built for how AI tools like ChatGPT source and quote information.
• Being upfront about AI-generated video and avatars, and why hiding it is where trust actually breaks.
• How independently published books now outsell the traditional "Big Five" publishers, and what that shift means for anyone considering writing one.

Want this kind of practical, expert help every week — before your competitors do? Get tips and strategies for growing your business delivered straight to your inbox: https://onlinebusinessliftoff.com/newsletter

Resources Mentioned

• Turn Words Into Wealth: Seven Ways to Make Seven Figures as a Thought Leader (free hardcover + audiobook + ebook, just cover shipping) — https://turnwordsintowealth.com/
• Marketing Fast Track (Aurora's free lead-magnet book, and the story of how it generated $250,000 in 90 days) — https://marketingfasttrack.com/
• Same Page Publishing (Aurora's site — client stories and ways to work with her) — https://samepagepublishing.com/
• Strategic Basics (Aurora's YouTube channel) — https://www.youtube.com/@StrategicBasics
• Ana Zest Series — Aurora's AI-animated videos for her YA fantasy trilogy, Magic, Mystery & the Multiverse

My newsletter is for people who want to build a real income from home — practical, doable ideas each week for creating a better life for you and your family, without the overwhelm: https://onlinebusinessliftoff.com/newsletter

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

"In the Gold Rush, the only people that made money, real money, like substantial generational wealth, were the ones who sold you the pans and the picks." That's Stephan Bajaio's answer to every business owner currently panicking about how to rank inside AI. He's spent 25 years in search, been told SEO was dead roughly once a year, and has a very different idea about where your attention belongs — starting with something you already own and have never written down.

Stephan co-founded Conductor, built it into one of the world's largest enterprise SEO platforms serving Fortune 500 clients, grew a 65-person global SEO team from scratch, and lived through the company's sale to WeWork and the founder-led buyback that got it out again. He's now co-founder and CEO of VibeLogic, and a self-confessed SEO nerd with a healthy suspicion of anyone selling certainty. He also has some usefully contrarian views on how a business should actually be run.

We Also Talked About

• Why Stephan walked away from venture money and bootstrapped from zero, after watching what VC pressure did to founders he admired
• The two well-known founders he thinks got it right, and the single decision they both made
• What "take your org chart, flip it upside down" looks like on an ordinary Monday morning
• Why your weaknesses deserve more attention than your strengths, and the role-playing-game rule that explains it
• How ADD, slow reading and hypersensitive hearing became a competitive advantage, marshmallows included
• Why trying to rank in LLMs is a fool's errand, and what's genuinely in your control instead
• The wisdom sitting unrecorded in your head, your chat logs and your sales calls, and why AI can't reach it
• The four Ps: a website audit you can run in the next ten minutes
• What "the great recording" will mean for the next generation, and why it changes what's valuable now

Stephan gives away a lot in this one, and the last ten minutes alone will change how you look at your own website. Want this kind of practical, expert help every week — before your competitors do? Get tips and strategies for growing your business delivered straight to your inbox: https://onlinebusinessliftoff.com/newsletter

Resources Mentioned

• VibeLogic — https://www.vibelogic.com/
• VibeLogic Resources, the free tools and data Stephan points listeners to — https://www.vibelogic.com/resources
• Stephan on LinkedIn, his "drug of choice for socials" — https://www.linkedin.com/in/stephanbajaio/
• Lost and Founder by Rand Fishkin (affiliate link)
• Moz, the company Rand Fishkin built — https://moz.com/
• Seer Interactive, Wil Reynolds' agency — https://www.seerinteractive.com/
• Conductor, the SEO platform Stephan co-founded — https://www.conductor.com/
• The 4-Hour Workweek by Tim Ferriss (affiliate link)

My newsletter is for people who want to build a real income from home — practical, doable ideas each week for creating a better life for you and your family, without the overwhelm: https://onlinebusinessliftoff.com/newsletter

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.