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According to restaurateur Grant Achatz, restaurants often use tablecloths to hide crappy tables. 

Problem is, these tablecloths end up costing about $70,000 per annum to launder. 

It’s not only restaurants that fall into this kind of trap.

A lot of businesses pour money into dressings like social media and marketing, without first considering whether they (or their agency) actually know how best to influence their market.

Sure, you can keep paying for laundry, but why...

“Introverts don’t feel they know enough about a subject until they know almost everything.”

This hit me between the eyes. 

Marti Olsen Laney, author of The Introvert Advantage, goes on to explain that introverts:

• Can imagine the vastness of any subject;
• Have experienced brain-lock, so over prepare to avoid going blank, and
• Don’t talk about what they are thinking, so don’t receive feedback and perspective on how much they already know. 

If you...

It always surprises me that our eyes are half way down our face. I tend to draw them a little higher, and it turns out I’m not alone. 

It’s called “eye placement bias”, our tendency to place the eyes higher than the halfway point. While more pronounced in younger children, the effect seems to stay with us as adults.

This despite us seeing faces all around us, everyday.

There are various theories as to why, one being the value we place on eyes

We...

You cannot NOT influence. 

I talk a lot about influencing skills and how to get customers and colleagues to take action, but here’s the funny thing.

You cannot NOT influence. You're already doing it.

In every interaction – every email, text, phone call, meeting or presentation, you are stimulating a reaction.

You are influencing your audience in some way.

So the question isn’t whether you are influencing, it’s whether you are influencing the desired...

I was nervous, of course. 

Approaching the Vice Chairman of Ogilvy, one of the world's most successful advertising agencies, for a blurb for my new book was a little daunting.

But Rory Sutherland is an exceedingly generous and supportive person who told me he'd be delighted.

'Bri Williams is the Linnaeus of human behaviour', he wrote. 'The best taxonomy of the different approaches to understanding human behaviour I have ever seen'.

Wow! 

But...please excuse my...

Are you part of a distributed team? Perhaps you manage one?

It's new language, isn't it, distributed team? It means that colleagues who work together, don't physically work together. They're scattered around the state, the country, the world.

It's not quite the same as "remote work", where you and your colleagues might work remotely from your office some or all the time, but there is still a central office.

For distributed teams, there is no central office so everyone works remotely.

How to...

I am thrilled to announce there's a new BONUS module hidden like an Easter Egg in the Influencing Action online course.

Module 6 "Influencing Individuals".

I added this special module because one of the trickiest parts of being human is influencing other humans.

Particularly those who see the world differently to you.

So here's a sneak peek.

If you'd like to find out more about how to influence action, this is here I keep the good stuff: ...

I’ve been going deep on language lately 

Knowing what to say and how to say it.

Partly because I’ve created a “scripting tool” for my Just Do This members, where I’ve written sample scripts for everything from getting past the gatekeeper and dealing with time wasters, to fielding complaints and chasing late payers. 

Partly because I’ve been creating my “Dealing with D!ckheads” webinar (recording exclusively available to...

I currently have 11,212 unread emails in my inbox. They are unread because I have looked at the subject line or sender and decided not to bother opening them.

Some people aim for "inbox zero" - and if that's you I understand my confession may have rocked your world - but I'm totally okay with how I keep on top of what's important.

Or more particularly, what I think is important, because whomever crafted their message to me certainly thought it should be important.

Which brings us to the...