[Top Agency Series] Why the Growth of Your Agency Depends on Evolutionary Psychology with Tim Ash, Author of Unleash Your Primal Brain

Tim Ash is an authority on evolutionary psychology and digital marketing. He is a sought-after international keynote speaker and the best-selling author of Unleash Your Primal Brain and Landing Page Optimization.

Tim has been recognized by Forbes and Entrepreneur Magazine because of his online marketing success. He has worked with companies like Nestle, Google, American Express, Verizon, and many more.

Tim was the Co-founder and CEO of SiteTuners, a strategic digital optimization agency, for nineteen years. He developed deep expertise in user-centered design, persuasion, understanding consumer behavior, neuromarketing, and landing page testing. In the mid-1990s, he became one of the early pioneers in the discipline of website conversion rate optimization (CRO).

Here’s a glimpse of what you’ll learn:

• Tim Ash shares his most prized event as a keynote speaker 
• Why Tim wrote Unleash Your Primal Brain 
• The inspiration behind the start of SiteTuners in the mid-90s
• Big lessons from Tim’s 19 years as an agency owner 
• Why Tim transitioned from an agency owner to a solopreneur — and what he found interesting about it
• The value of stories in Tim’s new book 
• Marketing messaging doesn’t always have to be pleasurable 
• Understanding the place of pain in marketing
• Powerful psychological hacks to terminate crappy marketing 
• What drives Tim?

In this episode…

As an agency owner, you’re constantly trying to convince and influence people — employees, clients, and others — on behalf of your clients. Not only is that one of the most challenging things to do, but it is also exhausting when you don’t have a full grasp of human decision-making and behavior.

After running his own agency for 19 years serving companies like Google and Nestle, Tim Ash understands the power of evolutionary psychology too well. He explains it in his book, Unleash Your Primal Brain: Demystifying how we think and why we act. But how did Tim come up with these ideas, and how do you apply them to your business?

Listen to this episode of the Inspired Insider Podcast with Dr. Jeremy Weisz and guest Tim Ash, author, speaker, and agency founder. They discuss the mental struggles an agency owner faces and how to think about marketing to better serve your clients. You don’t want to miss any part of this insightful episode, including why marketing messaging should also convey pain, psychological hacks to upgrade your marketing, and more!

Resources Mentioned in this episode

• TimAsh.com
• PrimalBrain.com
• SiteTuners
• Tim Ash on LinkedIn

Special Mention(s):

• Dr. Robert Cialdini on LinkedIn
• Chris Snyder on LinkedIn
• Digital Growth Unleashed
• ManKind Project
• Neuromarketing: Tap Into your Customer’s Primal Brain course
• Martin Greif on LinkedIn
• The Social Dilemma

Books Mentioned:

• Unleash Your Primal Brain: Demystifying how we think and why we act by Tim Ash
• Landing Page Optimization: The Definitive Guide to Testing and Tuning for Conversions by Tim Ash
• Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion by Dr. Robert Cialdini
• Pre-Suasion: A Revolutionary Way to Influence and Persuade by Dr. Robert Cialdini
• Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind by Yuval Noah Harari
• Why We Sleep: Unlocking the Power of Sleep and Dreams by Matthew Walker

Related Episode(s): 

• “[Sweet Process Series] How to Make Your Business the Next McDonalds of Your Industry with Michael E. Gerber”
• “[Sweet Process Series] How to Achieve Stress-free Productivity with David Allen of Getting Things Done”
• “P90X: Earning Food & Rent Money as a Mime to over $500 million in Sales- with Tony Horton [Business Inspiration]”

 

Episode Transcript

Intro 0:15

You are listening to Inspired Insider with your host, Dr. Jeremy Weisz.

Jeremy Weisz 0:22

Dr. Jeremy Weisz here, Founder of InspiredInsider.com where I talk with inspirational entrepreneurs and leaders. And I’m here with Tim Ash I’m going to introduce formally but Tim, I always like to mention past episodes of the podcast because check out I was thinking won’t be appropriate for today is Tim is an amazing author, speaker and many other things and founder. So you could check out episode I did with Michael Gerber of the E Myth. David Allen of Getting Things Done. And other interesting ones, I’m thinking popular ones that people like people like the one that I did with Tony Horton of P90x. And that story I like talking about the, you know, we’re going to talk about stories, Tim, because you’re really, you really hit on hit home on on stories specifically. But he talked about some of the low points, you know, we see Tony Horton is the the founder and probably untouchable. But he talked about how he drove cross country had no money and he made food and rent money. Just putting his head on the street doing street performing. So that’s how he made his food and rent money at the time, you know, as a stream mime. And I made him do street mining on the actual podcast, so you can watch it and see him do it. And before I introduce Tim, this episode is brought to you by Rise25, which I co founded with John Corcoran, and we help businesses give to and connect to their dream 100 relationships by helping you on your podcast so generates, you know, generates makes sense to give to your network. And the number one thing for me, Tim is relationships. I’m always looking for ways to give to my relationships. And I found no better way than to have the people in companies I admire to have my podcast, I was trying to convince Tim before we hit record to reinvigorate his podcast. And I think it’s an amazing medium. And I think everyone should have a podcast and I’ve been saying that for over a decade. And so if you’ve thought about podcasting, you have questions, you go to Rise25.com feel free to email us and we’re happy to answer anything that your heart desires. And so without further ado, Tim Ash is he’s an authority in evolutionary psychology and digital marketing. And he’s a sought after international keynote speaker is a best selling author from Unleash Your Primal Brain. Tim has been mentioned in Forbes Entrepreneur Magazine, because of you know, all of the marketing and the thought leadership that he’s produced. And he has had worked with companies like Nestle, Google American Express, Verizon, and so many more a laundry list of them. And, you know, for even for 19 years, he is co founder and CEO of SiteTuners, which was a strategic digital optimization agency. And he just has a deep expertise in user centered design, persuasion, understanding consumer behavior and all that. And he’s it. He’s an OG of this stuff. He’s been doing it since the mid 1990s. And he’s been an early pioneer. Tim, thanks for joining me.

Tim Ash 3:13

Yeah, my pleasure to have you with you Jeremy. I just want to know how that mime on a podcast thing worked out. I’m glad this has a video component to because that would be a boring

Jeremy Weisz 3:23

exactly the moment when on the podcast. Yeah, you cannot. Good point. Um, you’re speaking of video, we’re on video. So if you’re watching the video, you should watch the video because if you’re looking behind Tim’s shoulder, he’s got the cool, coolest background, which is all the badges. Not all of them. Probably just some of them that he spoke at and Keynote at a conferences. Right, Tim?

Tim Ash 3:51

Yeah, it’s a it’s a bunch of wallpaper back there probably a couple of 100 badges from the last 15 years of speaking across four continents. I kind of feel ripped off in 2020. Because I don’t get virtual event badges. I mean, I’ve done hundreds of those as well over the years, but I can’t put the scalp on the wall. You know, talk about you know, I

Jeremy Weisz 4:09

was asking before we hit record about some of your most prized events in your mentioned RD Summit. Yeah, tell me about that.