What Does Memory Have to do with Selling?
…OK, so people have weird memories…so what? What’s it have to do with influence? Change? Selling? Marketing?
Well…almost… everything….
You see, if you can apply the gold you find in this article, you will add clients, be far more influential and save sales you would have lost every time in the past.
- Wouldn’t it be nice if you could facilitate your client’s remembering how good you really are/were?
- Wouldn’t it be nice if you could keep a powerfully positive image and message about you and your product at the forefront of your client’s mind all the time?
- Wouldn’t it be great if your client defended you and your services instead of calling them into question when talking with others?
- How about virtually guaranteeing positive word of mouth marketing?
And…
You’ve never read about this anywhere.
You’ve never learned this from anyone.
It’s new and it’s for you.
Be prepared to be blown away….
Did you know?
People have 2,3,4 Different Memories…of The Same Event
People don’t just remember it (an event, personal history, what happened an hour ago, how well your service worked for them last time…you name it…) my way or your way…they often remember it in many different ways. Said another way, people have multiple “memories” and playbacks of actual events.
Quite often, people forgot their actual experience and instead remember incorrectly what their friend said about the event happened. (Remember last year in The Science of Influence series, when I shared with you how by suggestion I could get you to remember an event that didn’t happen?)
Sometimes they tell you that they did “it” and sometimes they tell you that they didn’t. They might believe each story equally and completely forget their first recollection (thinking you have lost your mind!)
Sometimes you were the good guy and sometimes you were the bad guy.
How Does the Brain Record Memories?
In the Science of Influence CD’s I’ve shared with you how the memory …does not work. “It” doesn’t record like a video camera. “It” collects information and shakes it up with other beliefs and attitudes and memories and external (environmental) influences and then gives you some output…and then “the” memory changes every time you bring “it” to mind.
If I have made your heart race about the absolute fragility of each person’s opinion about you, your product and service…I’ll come back later and instill another rollercoaster like feeling with what happens if you do NOT take this CD to heart and follow the strategies here….
…now let’s go look at some background.
Suggestion and Memory
You’re the member of a jury. You hear an “argument” from an attorney or testimony from a witness. After listening to it, the judge tells you to ignore it and notes that the testimony is “stricken from the record.”
Forget it?
Impossible.
It’s often made more powerful by the very suggestion of forgetting it! (I’ll show you how this happens later.)
What’s interesting is that when you tell people that what they have just heard or seen is not true, whether from the source themselves or someone else, the memory in no way deletes the information. In fact, when the correct information is finally given, shared or shown to the individual, the person still is largely influenced by their original exposure to the information or experience.
Problem: Once a person has formed a belief about you, your product or service, it is difficult to replace it or delete it.
Observe…
Participants in a research project were asked to figure out which suicide notes they were shown were real and which were fake.
After they finished reporting which notes they thought were real and why, then those that they felt were fakes and why, they were given feedback about how accurate their guesses were.
Later, when they were asked how well they THOUGHT they would do when first presented with the task, the participants reported something fascinating.
Participants who were told they did poorly, “remembered” that when faced with the project, they would do poorly. Those particpants who were told they did well, “remembered” that when faced with the project, they would do well.
Participants were given feedback at random. Their reports of their memory was anything but….
So what do we learn from this?
From all this, we learn:
People “remember” thinking/predicting/guessing/estimating, what actually happened as opposed to what they thought would happen.
This kind of research has been done over and over again, in different contexts and the results come up the same every time.
As long as the person doesn’t publicly communicate their thoughts/feelings BEFORE an event takes place, you can be certain they will “remember” predicting the result as it actually happened and not what they thought at the time.
Priming and Memory
In 1981 an article was shown to participants of a research study. The article was a retrospective view of President Richard Nixon. The article was entitled, “Was Nixon a Crook?”
The article completely discredited the notion that Nixon was a crook.
The participants concluded that Nixon was indeed a crook. The priming of the article title was everything.
I was talking with a good friend two months ago. She said, “Well was the behavior passive aggressive?” I went on to share that the phrase “passive aggressive” means nothing. It’s like saying “smart stupid,” “fat skinny,” “black white,” “strong weak.” It’s meaningless. It is a filter that people look through to see what they currently believe. (“Sometimes she is hostile, sometimes she is withdrawan, it’s that passive aggressive behavior!”)
In other words, I described the behavior of the person I was discussing. My friend then confirmed that her diagnosis was correct. She pointed out the passive behaviors then the aggressive behaviors.
That’s how the brain filters information.
How you can give someone a personality disorder…
A person is given a DSM-IV summary (the diagnostic book psychiatrists use to determine if people suffer from a mental illness) of someone who “has” Narcissistic Personality Disorder. (The summary doesn’t actually show if this is Narcissism or Narcissistic Personality Disorder, two very different set of behaviors and thought processes.)
The person identifies about a dozen specific experiences that the person felt proved the person in question was “narcisstic.”
Of course, had the person been given the description of a diagnosis of bipolar, depression or Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, they would have found two dozen behaviors to fit those diagnostics.
The point is, of course, when someone has an initial impression or communication, “Oh that person is a narcissist (or a Libra) then you literally go find all the information that proves the point.” It’s foolproof….and dangerous.
So, you’ll sell the person on their flawed thinking by what? By telling them that they are incorrect and to ignore the past information? Most people don’t have the mental skills to accomplish that. Wegner and Erber (1992, 1995) showed in different studies that telling someone NOT to think of something, makes it more likely that the person will indeed think of it.
Indeed, this is how people think. In marketing, selling, therapy and relationships your job is to head it off at the pass, if you can! Otherwise, the person will have a belief that becomes a filter for all future communication about that subject. Attempting to change the filter is like getting me to change the oil filter on a car. An arduous task at best…
Confirmation Seeking (keep your eyes open for the gold in this section!)
Lord, Ross and Lepper call this “confirmation seeking.” People will look to find what confirms their beliefs. It’s that simple. Lord, Ross and Lepper also found that people who believe X will not look for evidence to disconfirm their belief…and when they do “see it” they will discount it. (Ignore it.)
Even “Experts” Respond to Memory “Falsely”
It’s not just your clients that have this way of thinking. It’s people who understand the mind as well.
When psychologists are given information that creates a belief (a kind of study that is far better controlled now than it has been in the past because of the huge long term effects of creating false beliefs in people) then told the information was made up, the psychologists still tend to believe what they were told or not discredit it completely when evaluating information.
And these are people who should know how the mind works.
…it can be done…it will take time.
You get people to change, you persuade them, by having them track the efficacy of your service starting this day and moving forward. Changing their memory and belief is like changing a car tire in a tornado. You’ve got to get the person actively involved in tracking the success of what you are selling.
Your client isn’t going to put the mental effort necessary into challenging their current beliefs and attitudes. The reason they are beliefs that are held so closely is so they don’t have to think about those things anymore. It’s easy to fit everything in your beliefs and confirm you were correct.
It takes lots of cognitive lubricant to evaluate a belief, and as I have discussed before, you want to use emotions when you do so…because statistics and logical inferences will be thrown out the door!
If you found this article and the goldmine of information contained in it helpful, you will want to check out the home study program: Covert Hypnosis: An Advanced Course in Subsconscious Influence. You will find many communication techniques utilizing the subconscious in an effective and powerful way…
Covert Hypnosis: An Advanced Course in Subtle Unconscious Influence The Master’s Secrets Revealed! (Vol. 1 – 8)
“This is THE advanced course in subtle influence! Remember when you read Covert Hypnosis: An Operator’s Manual, and you got that WOW! feeling inside?! Well, that was just the beginning. In Covert Hypnosis: The Master’s Secret Revealed, you are going to learn how to subtly move inside the minds of anyone you communicate with. In trance or out…this is the most powerful material on Covert Hypnosis on the planet. Period.” Kevin Hogan, Psy.D.
In CD 1, Kevin Hogan reveals specifically the secrets of how to weave the exact messages you want others to act upon into stories that captivate listeners.
CDs 2 & 3 show you how to motivate and compel other people to change their behavior as quickly as is humanly possible. Benefit: You can utilize these covert tools with your own unconscious mind because they link into the core drives and desires that you have!
CD 4 reveals ALL 22 elements of Covert Hypnosis for this first time anywhere! Never before released by anyone, anywhere. The complete Covert Hypnosis Model for change is here. Business? Sales? Consulting? Coaching? Therapy? Learn specifically how to generate change in their thinking with the Covert Hypnosis Model.
CD 5 gives you all the tools necessary to take a person’s deepest drives (sex, eating, acquisition, connection, etc.) and fuse them into building compelling outcomes (the girl of your dreams, lose weight, acquire wealth, meet new people easily). Ignore either aspect, and failure is assured. Successfully meld the two in the unconscious mind and amazing things can happen.
CD 6—Pattern Recognition: Getting someone to think about something is one thing. Getting someone to feel driven to DO something and then watch them do it like magic is something else entirely. Learn so much in just this one CD!!!
CD 7 – This today’s neuroscience and research that reveals how to rewire the brain. Some neuroscientists call it “sculpting.” It’s not something that happens instantly and it requires the use of both hemispheres which can be pretty tricky if you don’t know what you are doing.
CD 8 – You are going to learn some unique techniques in the eighth volume of Covert Hypnosis. Not only are you going to learn the truth about values (when they are critical and when they are MEANINGLESS) but you are going to discover the values of the unconscious mind! The unconscious mind and conscious mind do not correlate to each other but they both correlate to the behavior of every person you meet.
Intrigued? Discover the secrets to what separates Covert Hypnosis from every other compliance technology Discover what even the experts don’t know about how the mind interacts with the unconscious mind.
More Information about Covert Hypnosis or to order
