Unlock Your SME Growth with Critical Thinking Insights from Social Psychologist Bo Bennett

In this episode of the Talk About Digital Podcast, host Mark A Preston welcomes social psychologist and business expert Bo Bennett to discuss how small business owners can harness critical thinking to make better decisions, connect authentically with customers, and ultimately grow their business. With a background in building multimillion-dollar ventures and expertise in human psychology, Bo provides invaluable insights on how business owners can shift their mindset to succeed in a competitive market.

What Will You Learn?

Bo explores how critical thinking is more than just a concept—it’s a transformative approach to making well-informed, strategic decisions in business. By learning to evaluate your beliefs, question assumptions, and focus on what’s true (not just what feels good), you’ll gain clarity that drives real, sustainable growth.

Key Takeaways for Small Business Owners:

• Mastering Critical Thinking: Bo breaks down critical thinking into practical steps, showing how it can help you avoid common biases, make data-driven decisions, and see your business with fresh eyes.
• Connecting Through Customer Psychology: Discover how understanding the psychology behind customer decisions can improve your marketing and communication strategies. Bo shares how small businesses can create authentic connections that build trust and encourage loyalty.
• Finding the Balance in Marketing: Bo discusses the fine line between honest marketing and “puffery” (acceptable exaggeration). Learn how to connect with customers ethically and effectively without overstating claims or manipulating emotions.
• Making Strategic Business Choices: With tips on setting up a business mindset that values truth over comfort, Bo’s advice will help you make decisions that position your business for long-term success, even in challenging markets.

Why Listen?

This episode offers practical advice for SMEs looking to improve their decision-making, avoid cognitive biases, and strengthen customer relationships. With Bo’s critical thinking approach, you’ll gain tools that help you view your business from a clear, unbiased perspective, enabling you to make strategic moves that align with your goals.

TAD Takeaway: Bo’s advice for listeners is to commit to valuing truth over comfort. By focusing on what is genuinely true—rather than just what feels good—you’ll be better positioned to make strong, objective decisions that drive growth and resilience in your business.

If you’re ready to elevate your business with smarter thinking and a clearer focus, this episode is packed with insights you can apply today!

Connect with Bo Bennett:

Website: https://www.bobennett.com/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/thedrboshow/

Connect with the Host - Mark A Preston:

Website: https://www.markapreston.com/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/markprestonseo/
X: https://x.com/MarkPreston1969
Mark's Latest Book: Customer Growth Unlocked

This podcast is produced by Voice It Podcast Agency
https://voiceitpodcastagency.co.uk

Transcript

[00:00:00] Mark A Preston: Welcome to Talk About Digital, the podcast for small and medium sized businesses looking to grow new customers through impactful, low cost digital marketing strategies. Have you invested in digital marketing with zero positive impact? If this sounds like you, then this is the place for you. Each week we provide actionable steps to move your business forward with our TAD Takeaway, helping you to harness your biggest asset, yourself, to achieve big impact with minimal investment.

[00:00:36] Stay tuned as we dive into the world of digital marketing, offering insights and advice that will transform your business. Let's get started. Welcome back to another episode of the Talk About Digital podcast. Today, I'm thrilled to have with me a true entrepreneur at heart and an expert in success, business, and critical thinking.

[00:00:59] His journey from building his first business into a multimillion dollar venture to helping businesses. Thrive in the digital world is full of lessons and can empower you to take your small business to the next level. We're about to explore insights from someone who's not only scaled businesses, but also mastered the art of critical thinking and psychology to fuel growth.

[00:01:26] Ready to walk away with practical advice that can make a big impact with minimal investment. It's my honor to welcome. Bo Bennett. Hi Bo. Hello. I was going to say before we get into a Q and A, could you just give your own whirlwind tour of your personal 

[00:01:44] Bo Bennett: journey? Yeah, you bet. I graduated from Bryant College back in 1994 with a degree in marketing, an undergraduate degree in marketing.

[00:01:54] I spent about the first 15, 20 years of my life focusing on business. Mostly in the internet. I started an internet web hosting company back in 1995, one of the first around. So that did really well when I sold it in 2001. Since then, I've been doing a lot of different internet ventures. And for the last 15 years or so, working with publishing, online publishing, book publishing.

[00:02:19] Uh, prior to that, about, uh, 15 years ago as well, I took a little time off of business and I went back to school. I got my master's degree in general psychology and then my PhD in social psychology. Because I've always been interested in human behavior, the way people think, what makes people think certain ways and really my, I would say if my life's about anything, it's really about focusing on critical thinking and how to help people think better.

[00:02:49] Mark A Preston: So, just so the audience can better understand, what exactly do you mean by critical thinking? 

[00:02:56] Bo Bennett: In a way, it's sort of thinking about your own thinking. It's a way to access your thought processes instead of letting your thoughts be passive. Uh, so for example, a lot of times when we think certain things about, um, Uh, about different topics or opinions or ideas.

[00:03:21] It's usually passive in that it's very visceral. It's emotional. We feel a certain way about something and then we kind of let that dictate how we think about it. We, um, it's called creating a narrative. We create a narrative, a kind of a story about how we feel about something in order to kind of justify our feelings.

[00:03:44] And that story is usually. Factual in, in nature, like it's, it's, it's either, uh, true or it's not. It either contains facts or it doesn't, but it's something that you could generally verify as opposed to just something that you feel like, uh, for example, I could feel really good about watching friends, the sitcom, the 90 sitcoms, it, I, it feels good.

[00:04:08] I like it. Uh, I could say that, and there's no argument there. You, nobody could argue with me that I don't like it. Like that's just a feeling. But if I start making claims about that, like, um, friends started in the early 1980s, well, no, that's just factually wrong. That's not the case. So we tend to do that a lot.

[00:04:31] Um, we, we let our feelings create facts when that's not actually what's supposed to happen. So when I'm talking about critical thinking, I'm talking about. accessing that level of thought. So you're basically questioning everything and everything of importance. Let's put it that way. You can't question everything.

[00:04:50] You don't nuts. You don't have the time. We don't have the cognitive resources, but at anything of importance, we look back at our prior beliefs, what we were grown up to believe, what our parents taught us. We look at some of our major philosophies, religions, social, um, agendas. We look at all of this with a very critical eye.

[00:05:12] And it's, um, it, and it's a way to get closer to what actually is true and that's what it's all about. It's, it's, uh, the desire to believe what is true, to believe more true things than false things. 

[00:05:27] Mark A Preston: All right. So, so from a small business perspective and they're doing all this digital marketing stuff and saying different things.

[00:05:37] all over the shop, on social, on the website, on LinkedIn. Now, are you saying that their potential customers who are reading that is basically trying to believe that it's true or not? I'm just trying to Trying to work out, uh, the connection between the critical thinking, the logical thinking behind everything.

[00:06:04] And, you know, basically how does a small business owner really connect with a potential customer in order to turn them into a paid customer? 

[00:06:16] Bo Bennett: Sure. Well, there's a couple of different ideas here. And when I'm referring to critical thinking, we, we can't. really control how our, like our audience, our prospects feel and how they think.

[00:06:31] I mean, that's not really the goal. When we're talking about critical thinking and business, it's more about the individual. It's more about the business owner. It's more about the individual. Like you critical thinking, making better decisions in business. That's what it's about. And you'll constantly be making better decisions.

[00:06:51] The better your thinking process is, you're, you're less likely to be biased. A lot of times we make decisions based on this overinflated idea of ourselves, like how good we are, how successful our business is going to be. We're perfect at everything. Everybody loves our product. And that's not the case.

[00:07:10] Critical thinking kind of brings you back down to reality and helps you make better decisions that will make it more profitable in the long run. Uh, what you're also referring to is more on the psychology end, the consumer psychology end, and that is not necessarily using critical thinking. As, as it is, but using psychology to connect with prospects and kind of think about like how they're thinking and what they're actually looking for.

[00:07:41] And that actually, there's a little disconnect between critical thinking and some of the psychological techniques. That we tend to use in business and I think everybody knows this at a very basic level. Businesses use kind of like sometimes like little tricks or they say things that aren't actually like a hundred percent true.

[00:08:04] We use things called puffery. Puffery is the legal term that's basically the same as exaggeration, right? It's a way to It's a way to lie in a sense without being held legally liable for it. And it's something that pretty much everybody does in business and it's accepted. And you get, you need to know like, uh, you know, they're, they're ethical considerations with this as well.

[00:08:29] They, the key here is how to, um, I identify with your perspective, uh, prospects with your prospects, your perspective, customer base, and connect with them. in order to take them to the next step, whether it be to get them to sign up for a mailing list or to get them to get some free information or to get them to directly buy your product.

[00:08:56] Mark A Preston: So something you said before on the Connecting on an emotional level. Do you think that a lot of small businesses are doing that with their brands? Because a business is the brand. So do you think that the, the getting it right. Cause I've seen, I don't usually see a middle ground. I usually see business as being 100 percent open, honest, truthful, everything, or be on the other side and inflating The truth, like you've said to make them be perceived to be a lot better than they really are.

[00:09:40] I mean, where, where does it lie? Where, you know, in an ideal world, where do you want to be? 

[00:09:47] Bo Bennett: I would say it depends on the product and it depends on your brand in particular. So for example, The majority of major brands, they tend to use emotion at a high level. They tend to use puffery. They tend to pull out all the marketing tricks because it's really all about the bottom line.

[00:10:09] And in, in, in, it's, It's, I guess I'd like to call it unethical. Um, of course, ethics is a matter of like personal judgment. So what I might call unethical, somebody else might call perfectly ethical and that's fine, and we could have a debate about it, but there's, there's no right answer. Like what is definitely ethical versus what is not.

[00:10:32] Um, I mean, of course there are some like rules of ethics in certain industries that you either break or you don't break, but for the most part, what we're talking about here. Is that that fine line that, uh, like where is it crossing the line between like deliberately manipulating your audience or, or your, your prospects versus what's just good business and good marketing.

[00:10:58] And I would say that I would leave that question up to every individual, and I'll give you a good example here prior to my, my foray into critical thinking and psychology. I, I always had like a problem with marketing in that I felt like there was, there was a level of dishonesty to it. And I think this is, this wasn't me being completely, um, level headed, because I think I was, I was really focusing on like the worst parts of marketing, as opposed to like ethical marketing, what, what good, what Business people like could actually do.

[00:11:40] So because of that reason, I, my marketing was terrible. It, I mean, fortunately for me, I was in a great place at a great time. And I was, I was starting a web hosting company in 1995. And like the internet was exploding. So I, it didn't matter how terrible my marketing was. It didn't matter. I was going to do well.

[00:12:04] I mean, that's just the way it is, but really in most competitive industries, when, when there was so much competition, you need like every advantage you can get when it comes to marketing. So I had, um, I didn't have the best marketing back then, and I was okay with that. Once I kind of got into psychology, learned more about psychology, consumer behavior, um, how to identify with the customers.

[00:12:30] I was able to better change the message. Um, but I, I still even then felt like a little sense of, um, dishonesty anytime I went against critical thinking, because there, there's like two sides of me, right? There's this one side, Beau, the business marketer, and there's this other side, Beau, the critical thinker.

[00:12:51] And I see like everything from this very like critical lens. And I think about how people market to me. And I could like tear apart anything and I do that to myself and my own marketing So i'm extremely critical and not always being fair. So that's that's always tough, but I could tell you Getting back to one way that I decided to to kind of work with this Let's call it Let's call it a handicap, if you will, like in business, uh, it's kind of like when people have ADHD, you, you give them, you give them different techniques, right?

[00:13:29] How to, how to use their ADHD, um, that could help them out, that could benefit them and other people. Instead of being a problem. So I created actually a series of videos for, for my product called book marketing. pro for book marketing that, um, that used humor and, and kind of, um, like brutal honesty. Let's put it that way.

[00:13:55] Right. So it's this, uh, it's this cartoon, like it's a 32nd cartoon commercial, like animation of a guy talking about my business. And he keeps on getting interrupted by the director because he keeps on being brutally honest. Like, uh, he'll say, for example, you, so you said that, um, you said that your book is great because your friends and your family told you it was great.

[00:14:19] Well, they're lying to you. And then the director cuts them off and says, no, you can't say that you can't call friends liars. So it's kind of like, I'm telling the truth, right? Because that is true. Most people think their book is fantastic. And the fact is it's not, they just think it's fantastic because they're friends and family.

[00:14:38] So it's like, how do you communicate this message with like, with honesty, without really ruining your own company? Right. So, so that's kind of the way that I chose. I chose to do it through humor, like brutal honesty and humor. And that. Works for me and I like doing it because I can look at this critically and say yes Everything i'm saying is 100 true people also Prospects will look at it and i'll say oh my god I'm signing up with you just because of that video because it's hilarious and and I like your honesty So, um, that's the path that I chose to take.

[00:15:14] Not saying that's going to work for everyone, but it works for me. 

[00:15:17] Mark A Preston: Yeah. Over the years, I've spoken to lots and lots of SME directors, small business owners, and a lot of them use their own personal stories. connected to the business and they are the front of the business. But then there comes a time in the business where they think, well, if I don't step back, I will be the business.

[00:15:42] And it'd be hard for me to sell the business because I am the business. And so in the whole communication, as far as connecting with the audience, building the business, but coming across authentic. I mean, what's your thoughts on the sort of middle ground behind 

[00:16:01] Bo Bennett: it? Well, as you mentioned, like removing yourself from the business, if you have plans to, to really grow the business.

[00:16:09] Or let, let's say to remove yourself from the business, that's something that you have to consider from, from the beginning and, and kind of like, at least work, work the marketing in that direction. Um, I'll give you an example of a local company by, by us in the Boston area in Massachusetts, there are these two guys, the Jordan brothers who run this incredibly popular furniture company.

[00:16:34] And they, they use humor and they're always in their own commercials and they've got really big. And what was interesting is they actually sold their company. However, they still like contracted with the company that bought them to be kind of like the face of the company. So they, they're lending their image and, uh, they do the commercials still, and for most people who aren't, like, intimate with business and don't care about the details, they don't even know, like, who actually owns it and that they sold it, but, but they, they kept it.

[00:17:07] Um, so I, I would say, like, If you're that type of person, not everybody is the type of person who wants to be a public face of the company. There are people with different personalities that wouldn't make a good face for the company. They're, they're just either not likable or they're not outgoing enough, or they're not able to deliver the message as well as like a paid actor will be.

[00:17:30] And that's another thing. I think that, um, when we're talking about honesty and talking about biases, That's important for, for the owner to, to get some like honest feedback from not friends or family, but somebody else who could say, yeah, you know what, you're, you're not really the most convincing person to be talking about this.

[00:17:52] Uh, you, you, you're better off like using another marketing strategy or hiring somebody else. Um, so it, it, I guess it really is personal, depending on a lot of factors, like how, how intimate one should get in the promotion of their own company. 

[00:18:06] Mark A Preston: Yeah. Do you think over the years, perception has changed as in, do people generally distrust marketing more now than they used to?

[00:18:19] Or do they understand that, well, I'm just trying to be sold to. I don't want to be sold to, I want to make money. I want to feel something. And I think that from a small business perspective, sometimes they find it hard to make their audience feel something as opposed to an advertisement being sold to.

[00:18:42] Bo Bennett: Right. I think that's, that's a really good question. That probably has a more objective answer, meaning that there were probably Like maybe a consumer, not consumer confidence, but it would be something similar where some kind of studies or surveys have been done over the years that address that exact issue when it comes to, like, how, how believable, how credible do they find marketing or business?

[00:19:07] And I don't know the answer. If I were to guess. I would probably say that it has been decreasing, and the reason for that is basically the um, the abundance of information that's available on the internet. The ability for anybody to fact check claims fairly quickly, for anybody to call, like go to a domain and then.

[00:19:36] After it type scam alert or whatever and, or, or reviews and find independent reviews on the company and see what those other people are saying. And you will very often, you'll see that it doesn't quite match. There's a disconnect between the reality of the reviews or the reality of third party posts about the company versus the company's marketing.

[00:20:01] So you can do that now. It was very difficult to do that. Free internet. So I think that um back then it was just easier just to like believe kind of whatever you heard Um, but I but also like in another sense kind of balancing that out in more traditional forms of of media You were you're held legally liable for for things that you say.

[00:20:26] So for example, you can't go on a on a Public network and or commercial and just spout all these lies about your company and your business Because that's that could keep at least here in the united states. You could get in serious legal trouble for that So there there was kind of like this filtering process, but with the internet, there's there's none of that You can basically I mean, there's still legal issues, but you don't have that layer of protection from the different media sources so, um in that sense It's it's You know, there's a lot more crap out there as well, but maybe that's also why people I would think tend to believe things less.

[00:21:06] Mark A Preston: Well, Bob, you've already shared so much detail around everything. And do you know what? I just want people in the audience to just to think about what you're saying, you know, just have a think about it. I can't let you go without you sharing a TAD takeaway for the audience. It's one small piece of actionable advice the small business audience can implement into their business in order to help them grow new customers.

[00:21:39] What is your TAD takeaway? I would go with the critical 

[00:21:43] Bo Bennett: thinking aspect of it and going back to telling people to make the decision that you want to be a critical thinker, that you want to think better, that you want to make better decisions. And the way you do that is you need to agree with yourself that you care most about what is true, not what feels good.

[00:22:08] That's like the number one rule when it comes to critical thinking. And believe it or not, there are a lot of people who really don't care about what's true. They just kind of care about what makes them feel good. They want to go after the news. That, uh, that makes them feel better versus what's actually true.

[00:22:23] Uh, they, they want to listen to all of the good things that people say about their business, their product, their company, whatever, as opposed to the bad things. And this is all covered under the confirmation bias and cognitive psychology. And it's a big problem. But if you, the listener commits to saying.

[00:22:40] I don't care about what feels good. I mean, it's great when things feel good, but I'm in this for business. I'm in this for to succeed. I wanted this business to be the best it can be. The way to do that is to commit to believing what is true. And this will, and this should run over into your personal life as well.

[00:22:58] I mean, every aspect of your life, it's very difficult to compartmentalize your business life in terms of thinking versus your personal life in terms of the way you think. So commit in all areas of your life to this one fact, and that's you care most about what is true, regardless of how it makes you feel.

[00:23:19] That's a great place 

[00:23:20] Mark A Preston: to start. Wonderful. And my final question to you is what sort of conversations would you like to have with the audience and where can they find you? Well, in terms of 

[00:23:30] Bo Bennett: conversations, uh, you know, critical thinking, I've got many different books on that, on psychology, on business, success, all of those topics that we covered today.

[00:23:41] You could find my books at bow Bennett. And, uh, you'll, you'll find again, like I have over a dozen books there on all those different topics. And you could converse with me through my writing, I'd be, uh, I'd be honored for you to read my books. 

[00:23:57] Mark A Preston: Wonderful. Well, I know the audience. will receive massive value from this podcast.

[00:24:04] And I know inside my head, it's got me thinking, I mean, I've, I've been doing what I'm doing for 23 years, but I always say there's always something to think about in every conversation you have. And I'm sure this conversation, it's got myself thinking in a slightly different way. So from me to you, thank you very much for joining me today.

[00:24:29] And like I say, I know the audience will receive massive value. Thanks for having me. Thank you for tuning into the Talk about digital podcast. Remember, every small step you take brings you closer to your business goals. If you found today's episode helpful, subscribe to our podcast and sign up to your free 12 week TAD customer growth course At.

[00:24:52] www. talkaboutdigital. co. uk to receive even more customer generating tips and insights. Until next time, keep harnessing your strengths and making actionable, impactful moves in your digital marketing journey. See you soon.