Podcast: How to Persuade People with Ben Newell

Ben Newell was the first guest we got by recommendation. After giving a talk on persuasion techniques at ProductTank Dallas-Fort Worth, it was a no-brainer for us: this is a key skill for anyone whose job includes wrangling tricky stakeholders, herding teams or presenting to senior management – an area where in which we'd all like to improve.  A long-time veteran of the travel industry and now the VP of Product at rewardStyle, Ben shared some easy-to-use tips on how to get better at something you do almost every day.

Quote of the episode

I was scared to put this talk together and let my wife see it – for fear that she might get all of my tricks.  Where you have someone you respect greatly, and is like-minded, and is equally as skilled at what they do… these are the areas where it’s most challenging.

Listen if you’d like to learn more about:

• When to have that conversation – how your daily hormone cycle affects what kinds of meetings to have, and how this affects remote and co-located teams
• How to run a meeting, and the difference between presentation and discussion
• Using data to tell a story
• Using WIIFM to your advantage

Links mentioned in this episode:

• The chart Ben mentions can be found in this fun article from Wired:
  4 Tricks to Sharpen Your Mind for the Best Workday Ever

Hosts

The Product Experience is hosted by Lily Smith and Randy Silver.

Lily enjoys working as a consultant product manager with early stage and growing startups and as a mentor to other product managers. Lily has spent 13 years in the tech industry working mainly with startups in the SaaS and mobile space. She has worked on a diverse range of products – leading the product teams through discovery, prototyping, testing and delivery. Lily also founded ProductTank in Bristol, the Product Managers' meetup with regular events and talks on Product now with 800+ members and growing. This year Lily will be launching Productcamp in Bristol and she joins the MTP team as co-host of  The Product Experience podcast.

A recovering music journalist and editor, Randy has been working as an interactive producer and product manager across the US and UK for nearly 20 years. After launching Amazon’s music stores in the US and UK, Randy has worked with museums and arts groups, online education, media & entertainment, retail and financial services. He’s held Head of Product roles at HSBC and Sainsbury’s, where he also directed their 100+-person product community. He's also spoken at Mind the Product Engage (Hamburg), at a number of ProductTanks (London, Zurich, Manchester, Birmingham, Bristol, Oxford,  & Brighton… so far!) and at conferences across the US and Europe.

Music

Our theme music is from Hamburg-based Pau, featuring ProductTank Hamburg’s own Arne Kittler on bass. Listen to more here: https://www.facebook.com/Paupulism/

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