How To Sell Snake Oil (& Your Best Ideas) with Dr. Ed Tori 🐍🛢️

🐍 🛢️ How To Sell Snake Oil (& Your Best Ideas)
Persuasive Speech Patterns with Dr. Ed Tori

‼️In person at room 401-D at the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Library, 901 G St NW, Washington, DC

How do you get your ideas to land?
Have you ever heard phrases like “there’s no buy-in,” “they’re resistant,” or “this group will not move.” But what if resistance is not the problem? What if the issue is the way we communicate?

In this lively, participatory workshop, Dr. Ed Tori will introduce you to a set of practical and surprisingly playful persuasive speech patterns drawn from his work in influence, hypnosis, storytelling, and behavior change. You will learn how people naturally shift into more persuasive communication when pressure is removed and creativity is sparked.

At the center of the experience is a hilarious improvisational game inspired by the card game Snake Oil. Participants take on imaginative roles like zombies, pirates, or kindergarteners. Others must invent and pitch made-up products on the spot. The role-play creates immediate psychological safety and unlocks natural persuasive instincts you may not realize you have. Ed uses these moments to teach simple, powerful patterns you can apply to real conversations.

What you will explore

• Why people communicate more confidently and creatively when the stakes feel low
• How persuasive speech patterns can transform conversations in facilitation, coaching, leadership, and team settings
• Why resistance is often a signal of mismatched framing rather than unwillingness
• How to speak to the human behind the role, label, or stereotype
• How playful practice builds shared language, humor, and camaraderie among intact teams
• How these patterns apply across contexts: healthcare, corporate environments, education, and family systems

What you will experience

• A fast-paced, interactive group exercise that helps you practice persuasive communication through play
• Step-by-step teaching of speech patterns you can start using immediately
• Opportunities to experiment, reflect, and compare approaches
• Practical tools you can adapt for your own clients, teams, or classrooms

Who this is for

• Anyone who works with groups and wants their ideas to be heard.
• Ideal for facilitators, coaches, consultants, organizational development practitioners, educators, designers, and leaders at any level. This session is especially helpful for people who work in environments where “resistance,” “lack of buy-in,” and “difficult stakeholders” are common refrains.

About the presenter

• Dr. Ed Tori is a physician, educator, and expert in influence and communication whose work blends behavioral science, improvisation, and hypnotic language patterns. He teaches leaders, clinicians, and teams how to help others think, feel, and act differently through ethical persuasion and intentional communication. His sessions are energetic, funny, experiential, and unforgettable.