The Business of Life with Dr King
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The Business of Life with Dr King
Stop Talking About Yourself: Dr. Thomas Trautmann Reveals Why Your Clients' Brains Don't Care About Your Products
Dr. Thomas Trautmann shatters conventional wisdom about decision-making in this revolutionary conversation about brain science and business growth. Drawing on cutting-edge neuroscience research, Dr. Trautmann reveals why 97% of our decisions come from the primal brain rather than rational thinking – and how understanding this changes everything about effective persuasion.
The core revelation? Your clients' brains don't care about your products, services, or company story. The primal brain makes decisions in just 11 seconds, with only a 7-second window for capturing attention. This explains why feature-based selling consistently fails while emotional connection thrives.
Dr. Trautmann introduces the concept of "subconscious frustrations" – deeply human concerns operating below our awareness that truly drive our choices. Through compelling examples, he demonstrates how shifting from product-focused pitches to addressing these hidden motivations creates profound business results. One manufacturing client saw booth visits increase by 70% and retention jump by 60% after implementing this approach.
What makes this methodology so powerful is its ethical foundation. Rather than manipulating clients, it focuses on genuinely understanding their needs and making them feel valued. The four-parameter persuasion formula – identifying subconscious frustrations, clarifying your identity, explaining your purpose, and building your tribe – creates a framework anyone can implement.
Perhaps most valuable is Dr. Trautmann's practical guidance on implementation. From adopting "you language" that shifts focus entirely to the client, to using strategic storytelling as a persuasion tool, he offers concrete steps for transforming your communication approach and building a loyal tribe of clients with 70% conversion rates.
Connect with Dr. Trautmann at happy-brains.com or make-me-great.com to discover how understanding the brain's decision process can elevate your business while creating genuinely positive experiences for your clients. Would you like to transform how you connect with potential clients by speaking directly to their primal decision-making processes?
Music, lyrics, guitar and singing by Dr Ariel Rosita King
Teach me to live one day at a time
with courage love and a sense of pride.
Giving me the ability to love and accept myself
so I can go and give it to someone else.
Teach me to live one day at a time.....
The Business of Life
Dr Ariella (Ariel) Rosita King
Original Song, "Teach Me to Live one Day At A Time"
written, guitar and vocals by Dr. Ariel Rosita King
Dr King Solutions (USA Office)
1629 K St, NW #300,
Washington, DC 20006, USA,
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Hi and welcome to the Business of Life. Today we have a very special guest, dr Thomas Trautmann. Welcome, sir.
Dr.Thomas Trautmann :Thank you, so happy to be here.
Dr Ariel King:Thank you. Can you please tell us a little bit about yourself?
Dr.Thomas Trautmann :Thank you. Can you please tell us a little bit about yourself? I'm a big, bold German guy living in France who was born in Switzerland. Brain and how the brain makes decisions and how that knowledge can be transferred to people so that they get from other people the decisions they want, while they make them make the decisions they need, which allows you to elevate your clients and by doing that, you elevate your business.
Dr Ariel King:I love that. Can you tell us more about that, about working with the brain and how to elevate clients? It's quite interesting.
Dr.Thomas Trautmann :Yeah, well, many people, especially business owners, their business is about themselves. You know, you create a business because of you or you run a business because of you, so you like to talk about your products, about your, your business, about your services or whatever you want. The only problem is that the brain in front of you, your clients brain, that couldn't care less about you. Now, if you want to be successful, if you want to make a big shift, you have to make me, the client, great, make me great. You know so, and you have to do that by learning the language of the brain of the decision maker. And voila, that's how we start the adventure.
Dr Ariel King:I love that. How do you learn the language of the decision maker? And you're not talking about the literal language, the language that they speak every day, but the language that they use for making decisions. How do you do that?
Dr.Thomas Trautmann :You learn which part of the brain makes the decisions, and I would say 97% of people are still convinced, because us humans are super rational and dominating species on Earth. You know that we are rational animals. In fact, it's wrong, wrong. It has been scientifically demonstrated that in fact, human beings make decisions with a part of the brain called the primal brain, and only afterwards do we rationalize. You know it's like you. You buy a new smart watch. You don't need it, but you buy it. And then you are in your car or in public transportation you say, no, that was a good idea. No, I had to buy that one. Now I can read my heart rate, which you don't care about, but now you can read your heart rate. So you go through that whole rationalization process. But the decision has been made. So people need to learn that you need to talk to the primal brain, and what triggers the primal brain is called a subconscious frustration now, that's interesting, please say that word again and tell us exactly what does that mean?
Dr.Thomas Trautmann :a subconscious frustration is something or more than one. We have many, in fact, and that's what each of those things, those subconscious frustrations, drive our decision process. So if you want to make the difference is, in fact, rationally speaking I'm going to tell you that if you're, let's say, you are a CIO and you want a new CRM. If you're, let's say, you are a CIO and you want a new CRM, so if I sell it rationally to you, I'm going to say, oh, dr King, you know, the CRM I'm selling you is about handling 10,000 contacts and you can email 5,000 per day and you can have 50 people of your team working on it and blah, blah, blah and up there the brain goes stop. I don't want to talk with you.
Dr.Thomas Trautmann :But if you say, dear Dr King, this evening you will be home at five instead of seven, and that will be like that every day of the week and your weekends will be spent with your wife and your kids. You will no more divorce. That's how you will be helped by my crm. So I triggered something in your brain that's purely human and there are subconscious frustrations. Whatever the decision is about is about the human being in which the brain is located. But once you know the sequential frustrations, it is just about speaking that language.
Dr Ariel King:I really love that, so it is a whole language. Instead of looking at how can I make my business better by emailing and having this list, what you did is you actually appealed to my life, my life as a human being yes, rather than my business and what I can sell or what I can do with it. And what was interesting to me, that, even though it wasn't a real offer, I perked up once you told me about the second possibility. That was fabulous.
Dr.Thomas Trautmann :Can you tell us more about?
Dr Ariel King:that.
Dr.Thomas Trautmann :Yeah, it's really about you, know, know, you have to connect at the human level. It's it's it's where the whole trick is, because if not, you are going to burn your resources. I mean, at one stage you know, it's what I call the one shot deals. At one stage, the brain in front of you just to get rid of you. We say, okay, I'm buying from you, but I will only buy if you give me a rebate, if you will give me free samples, if you will give me twice more.
Dr.Thomas Trautmann :You know, I think every of the of the listeners knows that it happens to everyone because inside of the brain, the decision costs energy. It has a cost. Let's call it a pain inside. That's a that part of the brain, and the brain wants to get someone measured it. I don't know how they did it, but they measured it. The brain needs to feel on the spot a 2.3 times gain. That is higher than the pain it feels. So if you are selling me your CRM for $1,000 per month, I need to get the feeling that I gained $2,300 minimum per month. Being at home earlier, spending time with my kids avoiding a divorce is worth, of course. Kids, avoiding a divorce is worth, of course, way, way more. So that's how you get there. You know it's if you, as I say, selling rationally equals losing resources period and you do what you want. But I like to keep my resources. I'm a cheap guy.
Dr Ariel King:Yeah, it does make a difference, doesn't it? Is it possible to give a story or two about how you've worked with clients using this technique of focusing on the brain, which is so interesting?
Dr.Thomas Trautmann :Yeah, I have one. I like that example because it's really in the hardcore industry. You know People get it when it's in services and so on. But this is hardcore manufacturing. You know plastic molds and stuff like that.
Dr.Thomas Trautmann :And one part of the important elements of persuasion, of the ethical persuasion formula which I teach people, is the tribe. We humans live in tribes, so the first thing I do when I work with a client is I check if they still have a tribe. You know People clients, in fact, if you want so they moved away from nurturing their tribe, making their clients and their employees happy, to just transactional selling, you know. So they lost that. They lost. They were the leader in the market. They lost that position too.
Dr.Thomas Trautmann :So we worked hard and luckily, the CEO and the CMO were open-minded guys and were ready to implement ethical persuasion up to the most efficient level. So it's a 180-degree shift. You can no more talk about yourself. You should stop doing boring presentations and all that crap. You know, and in fact we created a catchphrase. In fact that was in fact. It all starts with you. Because their business. They became the world leader because of their clients. They became the world leader because of their employees and their clients were helping their own clients to do many things. So we pushed the concept so far that on the trade show their booth was purely white and there were mirrors, there were normal products and above the mirror was saying it all starts with you. I mean, you get there as a client, you say shit, it's me, so it makes me feel good, why is it me Tell me more?
Dr.Thomas Trautmann :And it raised, I think the visits on that page was up by 70%, retention up by 60%. So you reach fantastic levels. I just had a coaching this morning with another client. He says Thomas, it's working. You know, I normally talk about our products and services and I listen to them. You know I let them talk. And they told me we want to work with you because you care. And it was hard. I mean, I'm coaching these guys for six weeks now, for six sessions, you know. So it took that long to get to make the switch from stop talking about your bloody products, services, your company yourself. Listen, you know, talk about them.
Dr Ariel King:I love that. You know, when you're telling me about this, I keep going back to a video, sometimes on LinkedIn, of Apple, and he said you know, it's a very noisy place out there. They don't care about what we do and they don't care how we do it. And he basically said that the only thing that they really care about is like what do we? Do we care about genius and innovation? Do we? We care about genius and innovation? And it was a huge shift from product to humans, to person, I guess, to humanity, to something, as you said, that has to do with the brain. And I'm wondering sometimes if, when you're talking about the brain, we're also talking about the, the emotions and the heart, because the brain is the one that actually settles that. So are we also talking about the?
Dr Ariel King:chemicals that go in the brain that create the emotions that allow.
Dr.Thomas Trautmann :Oh yeah, I mean it has been demonstrated in 1995 by a guy called Antonio Damasio Very good book, by the way. Descartes' Error is the title of the book and he demonstrated that in fact you cannot make a decision without emotions. In fact, it's more complex than that. It's because many people in marketing think, oh, if I make them smile, they will buy.
Dr.Thomas Trautmann :No, you have to create what's called an emotional variation. You have to take them from stage one to stage two. You know, you pull them down and you pull them up, and that emotional variation, that's what's going to trigger the decision. So the best way to pull them subconsciously down is to show them their subconscious pain. It hurts the brain and then the brain wants a solution. So then you show them how life is going to be so fantastic, thanks to you, by the way. So why should I decide to be with you? You know to work with you, because you just solved my problem. You didn't solve anything, but you created the emotional variation that made the decision. It happens on the spot. The brain makes a decision in 11 seconds and the primal brain lives in a seven seconds window. What happened before? No idea. What's coming in the future? No clue. I like to give an example.
Dr Ariel King:No, idea, no clue. Exactly so between no idea and no clue is the middle.
Dr.Thomas Trautmann :And in the middle you have to make a decision. That's the point of possible change. Yeah, I love it. And, by the way, the brain hates change, just to make it even more shitty. So it's sorry for my French.
Dr Ariel King:So no, it's actually complex.
Dr.Thomas Trautmann :It's not a problem, yeah, but, for example, what I tell my clients is try, test whatever you say, say it to a two-year-old child in seven seconds. And you make that no one, because all USPs, all selling propositions, blah, blah, blah, long blah, blah, blah with complex words and so on, but the fact is that you are talking to a two-year-old guy out there and who will listen to you for seven, sometimes even less and one, something positive to come out of that seven seconds yeah, that too and if it doesn't, then you move on yeah or just go away.
Dr.Thomas Trautmann :You know, stop with that, you know. But if you do it right, they will be hooked and they will listen. And that's where you start to create again your tribe. And when you nurture your tribe you create what's the graal, the holy grail of the, of sales people or even business owners. It's recurring business, because when you have people in the tribe, you have 70 percent chances to sell to them. You know, when you have only 5 to tribe, you have 70% chances to sell to them. You know, when you have only 5 to 20, to someone who never heard of you but I'm lazy, that's so interesting. So I prefer people who. I prefer 70%, I go for 70%.
Dr Ariel King:Yeah, 70% makes a big difference, but that 70% can't be there unless you speak their language.
Dr.Thomas Trautmann :Absolutely.
Dr Ariel King:That's amazing. Please tell me, have you ever had clients with no tribes and, if so, how did you help them to find their their way to find who their tribe are, because I'm sure that it's not as easy as it sounds to. If you don't know the tribe to figure out who is your tribe.
Dr.Thomas Trautmann :And once you do that.
Dr Ariel King:How do you serve them?
Dr.Thomas Trautmann :Yeah, first of all, you have to know who should belong to your tribe, which means that, because when you want to get a decision from a primal brain, you have to know in which body that is that primal brain located. Who is that person? So you know, in marketing they often say you should find the avatar or the persona. So it's nice, you know, he plays golf, he is married, he loves, she loves dressing, she loves la la la. So all that Very nice. But now you need to go deeper. You need to extract those subconscious frustrations. And what is interesting, it's because they are subconscious, they cannot tell you what they are and they won't tell you. So that's where people like me come and help you. You know, to work with your company to find those things. And then you, once you know who they are, you know where they are very often right, you know they gather in churches, they gather on facebook, on linkedin, wherever, and then you can start talking to them and you provide them information that's interesting for them. You have to provide them whatever advice, suggestions, solutions you have to give, you have to give so that they decide to follow you right that's the big word that we use now in social networks. They become your followers, they are part of your tribe and once you they decide to buy from you products, services, whatever. They're even more hooked and they may even, because of that decision they made, try to convince themselves that it's the right decision by convincing other people. And so your tribe is going to grow.
Dr.Thomas Trautmann :And people are very often scared, you know, because that becomes then the famous list. When you have the email list, you know we all want an email list and very often people are scared to lose people from that list. No, you should get rid of as many people as possible off your list, because those who will stay are the ones who are really part of your tribe, who want more from you, who will read whatever you write. Or may not read it, sorry, but keep you, you know. You know we all have those email lists that are sending us emails. We keep the emails, or we don't read it, we just delete it. But we stay subscribed to that list Because one day maybe there will be something of interest. And then 90% we just unsubscribe.
Dr.Thomas Trautmann :It's hard because losing tribe members is hard, but it's good. It's money. You save resources Again.
Dr Ariel King:Because then you know who is really in your tribe and who you can actually serve an answer to.
Dr.Thomas Trautmann :Exactly.
Dr Ariel King:How you can….
Dr Ariel King:Exactly um, may I ask, when you start with a company or a, a client, um, what is the process that you go through? I'm sure there is a some type of process in order to get them from point a, which is I really don't know what I'm doing, who I serve, I just know that I want to serve somebody, or they start it with. You know, look at my sales, this is what I to sell To the point where the client that you talked about, that have this booth with just mirrors, and what is that process like, and is it a very long process?
Dr.Thomas Trautmann :It's. The duration depends on how motivated you are and how scared you are, because it's it can be scary. I mean, if you tell to someone you are no more going to talk about your company, you cannot talk about your services, products, you cannot even talk about yourself. Then they say tell us, what am I going to talk about? Talk about the people in front of you. Talk about them, listen to them, learn something that I call the you language, where you can only say you, instead of I'm sending you this email to present you are receiving this email so that you can learn something about da-da-da. It sounds simple, but I can tell you people don't do it. And I'm telling you about writing an email.
Dr.Thomas Trautmann :You have time when you write because you need your rational brain to write, which is a very slow brain, but when you speak, they become complex. But to come back to the process, the first thing I do I show them that their own brain makes decisions in a primal way. So there are some experiments that we do. I don't hurt anyone, I don't open the brain bucket. So there are some experiments that we do. I don't hurt anyone, I don't open the brain bucket, but in a few minutes they see that their brains are just like any other brain, and then we can start. And then we talk about the subconscious frustration. That's the basis of everything. And then we go through the persuasion formula, which has four parameters the subconscious frustration who you are, why you are doing what you are doing and the tribe. Once you have those four parameters, you have maximum ethical persuasion.
Dr Ariel King:I really like the fact that you said it depends on how scared you are. So, in general, our rational brain, or the brain that doesn't like change. Remember you said that the brain doesn't like change that what we're talking about, the brain says well, you know I, yes, I hired you and yes, I want you to help, but I didn't ask you to change. Yeah, don't change what I'm doing, just, just just make sure that what I'm doing is what is needed to give me success. Yeah, so then you have this, uh, I guess this juxtaposition, this difficulty with change.
Dr.Thomas Trautmann :Yeah, well, it's now. A lot of my clients ask me now to follow up with coaching. We do what I call implementation coaching, where some say, oh shit, monday morning it's grumpy Thomas again, because they know that I will shake the tree, but they have to be accountable.
Dr.Thomas Trautmann :You know they pay to get that knowledge, but you have to use it. It's not a flower pot that you put on the window and expect it to grow. If you don't use these tools, don't expect anything to change. And, yes, you have to make a decision to change and, yes, it's difficult to change and you have to see the results. So we start with simple tools that everyone can use, like the U language, for example, and then we move to the more senior tools, like you know, have stories.
Dr.Thomas Trautmann :You should use stories because the brain loves stories, but not any story. A story is a strategy. You don't tell a story to a client for the fun, or you do it when you add, when you have done with business, you have a drink or something like that. But in the selling process, stories are mandatory, but stories are a strategical tool, a mandatory strategical tool. A story has a start. A story has an end, has a middle and should drive them to make a decision or to do something afterwards. So you have to learn all that. I mean you don't have sense people who are used to tell stories, or when they tell stories. Oh yeah, let me tell you about that client who did this and you should practice. Practice, I mean, it's so powerful, you know, this ethical persuasion is so powerful, but if you don't practice you're going to look like a clown and that's what the brain is. Scared of. Everything new scares the brain anyway. But it's a good sign. It means that if it's scary, you should do it because you're going to learn something.
Dr Ariel King:So if you're afraid, jump in quickly yeah I think it's so interesting. Can I ask, um, what are the chemicals that are released when the person is able, do you know, is able to go from the afraid brain to the brain that says, okay, I'm going to do something different, for example, instead of talking about yourself going to the you? What happens in the brain chemically, do you know?
Dr.Thomas Trautmann :Yeah, you get some rewards, some nice rewards. You get some endorphins, some dopamine, so your reward center get a high. So, in fact, as I always like to say, I'm a, I'm a drug seller and I sell free drugs so I love that yeah, when I told you that you have a subconscious trainer who a why in a tribe I have a why.
Dr.Thomas Trautmann :My why is I do what I do? Because I want the world to smile. I want our children to live in a world where they smile. Because when I smile, you know, I just have a smile here. I make it consciously, but it because it's genuine smile. My primal brain subconsciously says he's happy. I get the shoot of endorphin and I made you smile. At the same time, I saw you smile, which means that I just gave you a shoot of endorphin, even if you don't physically smile, because there is a theory of mirror neurons. That means that the neurons that are triggered in my brain get triggered in your brain even if you don't do. If I move my hand like that, like that your hand is not moving, but the neurons triggering your hand movement are currently lighting up. So if I smile, you smile, you're happy, and the more people smile, the more we smile, and that's about some chemicals in the brain.
Dr Ariel King:I really love that. I really love that. I really love that. And so also I want to say business. But when you're actually helping someone to figure out who they are and how they can give to another person by listening, as you said, by talking to them, by focusing on them and their story and their wants and their needs, then is there, is there something that happens in the brain of the person that's actually learning how to do that? I know that the person receiving it most likely gets lots of positive endorphins and other things that say, oh wow, they're listening to me, they understand me. These are people that I can relate to because they know me. How about the person that's giving? That is, is there something that?
Dr.Thomas Trautmann :they get also yes, you get, because you, you get where you want to be, you, the decision will be made. So people have also to understand that not everything happens at the click of a finger. You know, on the 21st century, you just have to click on something and it happens. You get your parcel delivered, you get this, you get that, you get your movie played, whatever. But for everything else we are still human beings, we don't work on the click of a finger. So, yeah, I also do real estate on the side and I see a lot of people that want to join the teams and so on, who think that they can sell a house in the kick of a finger, and they are. Now I'm, and now I'm a real estate agent.
Dr.Thomas Trautmann :Okay, you sold one, you sold your parents' house. Amazing. Now go get some other listings, you know, because this is going to last a few months, and then try to sell those listings and it's going to take another few months. It's a long and exhausting process. Everything is a long and exhausting process, I'm sorry to say so. It's like love. I mean you don't keep your marriage active just at the click of a finger. It's a long process, you know.
Dr Ariel King:So, working progress right the work in progress.
Dr.Thomas Trautmann :Always, always, always.
Dr Ariel King:So you never really get there. There's never really a okay, I've done it, I'm there, it's the end. Instead it's, I guess, I won't say recrafting, but over and over again you go back to that, as you said. Even with your clients you come back and say, well, let's see how we can maybe make these skills better or remember these skills or once again adopt these skills.
Dr.Thomas Trautmann :I have a client. I worked with them five years ago, I gave them a workshop and during five years I follow, followed up, I send information, I send emails. I sometimes I drop the call. So on, five years later, he comes back and says thomas, let's do another one. He didn't tell me. One week after he tells me five years later thomas, let's do something. When we have clients coming back two years later, I still want to do something with you. Are you still available? So that's when the recurring thing happened.
Dr Ariel King:It's and it's. It's this kind of relationship, this tribe, that doesn't have to be there all the time, but, as you said, it's still there, the inbox. So then, when they're ready, if they're ready and how they're ready, you're there to help them, to serve the people that they serve.
Dr.Thomas Trautmann :Yeah, because during all that time you've been there, that's what we expect subconsciously from a tribe leader. You have to keep in mind that our primal brain has stopped, our whole brain has stopped evolving 50,000, 100,000 years ago. So we are still running processes from the cave age and that's why in the decision process up to now there are more than 180 cognitive biases that have been identified and you have to keep in mind that the primal brain I like that, I call it the cells proposal of the primal brain is it's better to be alive and stupid than dead and smart.
Dr Ariel King:I like that Alive and stupid than dead and smart.
Dr.Thomas Trautmann :Absolutely, absolutely. Every decision we make is to keep us alive, whatever the decision is, and if you think about it, we make many, many stupid decisions. When you really rationally think about the decisions, you think never why. Why did I do that? What was wrong up there?
Dr Ariel King:I really like understanding also that this is the primal brain and a lot of what we do in living is trying to figure out. I won't say how do we trick the primal brain, but how do we put it on pause a little bit and subdue it, so then we can go to a higher form of thinking.
Dr.Thomas Trautmann :Yeah, that's the hard part, because the primal brain is 200 times faster than the rational brain. So I mean, everything is screwed up up there. So you are in trouble, whatever you want to do, okay. And one very good example is you know, when someone tells you something, or your spouse tells you something, and you say yes, but have you ever had that feeling? The moment you say, but up there, it says no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, don't say that exactly. It took 200 times to say you are going to say something stupid, my friend, and the yes, but comes out and the fight starts it changes everything, that but yeah, I really understand you.
Dr.Thomas Trautmann :But, yeah, and that's too late, and you know it, you get that alarm signal going off there and say, don't not too late, Now we're in trouble. I love it. It's complex.
Dr Ariel King:It's really complex, I find it so fascinating, but it's fun when you have the tools, it's fun, it's fascinating. Could you please tell our audience how to um get in touch with you or how to get some of your writings and some of the things that you're you're doing right now? How can people find you get in touch with you?
Dr.Thomas Trautmann :so, uh, the main website is, uh, happy-brainscom. There is a new one coming out with make-me-greatcom, and you can, of course, also find me on on linkedin. I'm the bold guy with the brain, says the brain guy, so that's another way to get hold of me thank you. So there you can see my, my books and so on.
Dr Ariel King:Yeah, Thank you. I want to ask you if you would consider coming back again, because 30 minutes is not enough. I've had such a good time. My brain has been so happy. If your brain is happy, it's been a pleasure.
Dr.Thomas Trautmann :I really enjoyed it.
Dr Ariel King:So did I. Thank you, and to our audience, thank you so much for joining us. And remember if I am not for myself, who will be for me? If I am only for myself, what am I? If not now, then when? And I like to say, if not me, then who? Thank you.