684: Founder and CEO of Triggers, Leslie Zane. The Power of Instinct: The New Rules of Persuasion (Strategy Skills classics) episode artwork

EPISODE · Sep 9, 2026 · 48 MIN

684: Founder and CEO of Triggers, Leslie Zane. The Power of Instinct: The New Rules of Persuasion (Strategy Skills classics)

from The Strategy Skills Podcast: Strategy | Leadership | Critical Thinking | Problem-Solving

For this episode, let's revisit a strategy skills classic interview with an award-winning marketer, TEDx speaker and authority in harnessing the instinctive mind to accelerate brand and business growth,  founder and CEO of Triggers, Leslie Zane. Leslie is the author of The Power of Instinct: The New Rules of Persuasion in Business and Life. In her book, Leslie shows that to grow a brand, business, or even a social movement, traditional persuasion tactics fall short. Instead, you must connect to the instinctive mind. And to do this, you need to understand the science of consumer choice and employ techniques that work with a person's brain, not against it. Leslie Zane is an award-winning marketer, TEDx speaker and the foremost authority in harnessing the instinctive mind to accelerate brand and business growth.    In her early career at P&G and Johnson & Johnson, Zane championed the position that what people say is unreliable and that telegraphic cues are more powerful than direct communication, but her unconventional thinking was often disregarded. In 1995, she founded Triggers®, the first brand consulting firm rooted in behavioral science, where she continued to champion the primacy of the instinctive mind in brand decisions. With her groundbreaking discoveries in boosting salience, the Brand Connectome® and Growth Triggers®, Zane and her team have delivered over $20 billion in incremental revenue for Fortune 100 clients.  Today Triggers' strategies are evident in diverse fields from consumer-packaged goods, health care and insurance to fighting anti-Semitism, showcasing its versatility.  An alumna of Yale, Harvard Business School and Bain & Company, Zane is a recipient of the Congressional Women of Distinction and the Ogilvy Award. In 2021, she coined the term "Covid-stasis" forecasting the pandemic's lasting psychological and behavioral effects.  Zane has been published in prestigious publications including Knowledge@Wharton, Harvard Business Review, World Economic Forum, Newsweek and Ad Age. Zane is a board member of El Centro Hispano, the leading non-profit empowering Hispanic immigrants with skills to thrive in the United States. Get The Power of Instinct here: https://rb.gy/l3ofdo Claim your free gift: Free gift #1 McKinsey & BCG winning resume www.FIRMSconsulting.com/resumePDF Free gift #2 Breakthrough Decisions Guide with 25 AI Prompts www.FIRMSconsulting.com/decisions Free gift #3 Five Reasons Why People Ignore Somebody www.FIRMSconsulting.com/owntheroom Free gift #4 Access episode 1 from Build a Consulting Firm, Level 1 www.FIRMSconsulting.com/build Free gift #5 The Overall Approach used in well-managed strategy studies www.FIRMSconsulting.com/OverallApproach Free gift #6 Get a copy of Nine Leaders in Action, a book we co-authored with some of our clients: www.FIRMSconsulting.com/gift

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684: Founder and CEO of Triggers, Leslie Zane. The Power of Instinct: The New Rules of Persuasion (Strategy Skills classics)

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