Part One
Your Persuasion Challenge
Invest 20 minutes right now as what you read here will directly affect everything you do for the rest of the day. Read this then do it. This article will disappear from the web on Saturday, so please, do it now!
Your competition will if you don’t. Your boss will pay you a heck of a lot more money in bonuses, and, if you work for yourself …you will add about 12-13% to your gross income by simply using this information…ready?
If you had only one piece of information about other people, how they think, buy, say “yes” or “no” and precisely WHY….then this would be the most useful 20 minutes you ever invested in persuading others to your way of thinking. (More than the law of reciprocity? More than Omega Strategies? More than expectancy? More than your attitude? More than anticipated regret? More than framing? Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, and yes.)
How Do People Think?
If people had to “think” about everything that they did or had to do, nothing would ever get done, decisions would never be made, sales would never close and no one would ever get well. Each decision in life would simply take an enormous amount of time and we would all be dead in the morning…
(The car is coming into my lane. Hmmm…should I swerve to the left or to the right. If I go to the left, I will certainly hit him. If I go to the right, I will fall 20 feet into the ravine. These aren’t good options…..SPLAT.)
Can’t happen. You simply react. Poof. In a split second you spun left or right and whatever happens…happens.
So what?
Each hour, you face 50-100 “potential decisions.” These are “choice points” where you can choose X, Y, or Z…or other options…or you can simply run on “autopilot” and do or not do what you have always done in these situations.
(Should I start dinner? Wash the car? Take a shower? Switch to Small Cap Value Stocks? Ask her out tonight? Call the prospect or email her? Take a nap or finish the project?)
Overwhelm?
The Brain’s “Rules of Thumb”
Not usually. Your brain has basic “rules” or “rules of thumb” that it has learned from “experience” in the past and will act instead of taking the time to decide. Sometimes these “instincts” or “intuitions” will turn out to be “good decisions.” Other times you will wonder what you were thinking!
Because there are about 1000 choice points each day, the brain has a whole bunch of preprogrammed reactions to the things you get yourself into…and everyday situations. These preprogrammed reactions are what make life less overwhelming. They have evolved to help us survive in the jungle and on the Savannah but sometimes they don’t do very well in New York City. (The reaction to a loud growling noise in the jungle is almost the same as it is to the loud horn tooting in the Bronx…and reaction is pretty much the same in each case. Oh my….)
And what does this have to do with persuasion?
Only everything!
How to Present in a Winning Way
You see, if you present information to someone in a way that triggers a preprogrammed response in your favor, you both win. If you present information in a way that triggers a preprogrammed response against you, you might both lose. It all starts with knowing HOW and WHAT the other person has programmed inside of them. THEN you can determine WHAT information to present to them…and HOW to do it. Result: “Yes!”
And….you can know in advance how most people have been programmed. The majority? Yes…the VAST majority.
I’m going to show you how…
I’m going to show you how to present information and what will likely happen in each situation. Over the last 30 CD’s of Science of Influence, I’ve shared a number of these with you. (Anticipated regret, framing, overconfidence, hindsight biases, mood, viral contagion and so forth) You’ve applied them and made a lot more money…and a lot more friends.
I want to show you the basic “categories” for how to present information so it is readily accepted, then I’ll give you several dozen more specific “lines of code” so it’s easier to think of them as you communicate. There are only…four categories so you shouldn’t have any trouble learning them, remembering them and then utilizing them!
The Persuasion Code (and how to decipher it!)
- Self Deception: Your client believes that he is better looking than the average person. He believes that he is happier than the average person. He believes he is smarter than the average person. He believes he got a good deal on his last car purchase. He believes his doctor is the best. He believes that he “broke even” the last time he went to Vegas. He believes he predicted 9/11 would happen because of lax security in the 1990’s at American airports. He believes that he knew the NASDAQ would crash when it hit 5000 in 1999. He thinks he works hard. He thinks he got good grades in school (mostly “A”‘s). He thinks he made a lot more money last year than he did. He believes…you get the idea?Self deception is at the root of understanding how your client is programmed. (Some hardwire…some environmental)Most people don’t make up lies and then tell the world. But your client makes up stories and reasons to support why he behaves in the way he does. (Underline this, highlight it and paste it on your refrigerator.) Why? Because he wasn’t thinking. He just did X. There was no thought. He simply swerved one way or the other. Then someone comes along and says “why did you do that.”He says something made up out of thin air…because he has NO idea of WHY he did what he did. He just DID it.Before digging into just what all this self deception does for your client and how real it is to him…and HOW to work within the framework of his self deception, let’s look at the next category.
- Heuristics. (Ugly big word that means “rules of thumb”) Your client looks at a huge menu and freezes. He has no idea what to buy. It ALL looks SO good! The waiter points out the New York Strip Steak and of course he orders it. Whew. Menu’s freeze people and waiters unfreeze them. (Think that might be valuable in persuading YOUR client?!?!?)Your client is given tons of information everyday. He muddles his way through 1% of it. His unconscious mind makes 99% of all choices and decisions in the course of the day. This is done by preprogrammed responses to certain types of situations. (Hear gunfire: Run) Rules of thumb sometimes be referred to as assumptions.There’s no thought involved though:
The Cubs have won 7 in a row. Bet them to win today. Red has come up 10 times in a row on the roulette wheel. Bet BIG! The stock is hot. Buy NOW! Heads has come up 10 times in a row. You’re on a lucky streak!
And he will be broke in a month if he followed through on all the preprogrammed responses in his brain if he moves to Vegas.
- Emotions
“I get a gut instinct and I follow my gut.”
“It’s my intuition.”That and $4 will get your client a Starbucks but this is how he thinks. He believes his stomach talks to him and tells him what to do and that it is a good thing. If he has a multi million dollar business, a happy marriage of 50 years and kids that are in Harvard, then you might know he’s on target. Generally when his stomach talks he needs an acid reliever but you can’t tell him that or you’re out of the deal.
Emotions have nothing to do with reality. They are the interpretive part of reality. I’ve talked to you a great deal about emotions and how they play into the persuasion process. Just remember this: Your client believes HIS emotions matter in decision making and that they are right. He follows HIS gut.
You’re going to need to know the six basic ways emotions play out in the persuasion process and how to preframe every bit of your communication so his emotions stay in check while you present information to him. One thing is for sure. He’ll get a bad “feeling” about you if you don’t agree with his emotional beliefs.
- Social Interaction. Your client thinks he is unique in his decisions, that he makes good decisions and that nothing influences him. He would never believe that he will parrot what his neighbors and fellow church members do, say and believe. He would never accept the idea that he could be affected by viral marketing. He thinks he’s an independent thinker. He believes he bought his last car based on common sense and not the fact that it makes him LOOK good in the eyes of his neighbors and co-workers.The reality is of course that everything your client does is in large part to impress others and feel like he has received their approval. He wears the clothes he does because he successfully imitates those around him.You may or may not (probably may NOT) want to tell him that you understand this about him. In fact, he isn’t paying you to teach him persuasion, decision making, selling, therapy or social psychology. You are with him for one reason and one reason only. Accomplish that goal and move along.Now you have the four broad categories of reactions by which your client will react to information with. They will all happen in an instant. When they don’t he will have to think and that is darned inconvenient and your client, like everyone else, will repel the need to think and say. “NO!”IF ALL of your information fits into his filters (there are 26) then he will say “yes.” If they don’t, he will say “no.”It has very little to do with your client needing your services. It has to do with how he FEELS about you…and how he SEES you…and how he SEES OTHERS commenting on his RELATIONSHIP with you.
Where can you find more information like this? The only place we know that consolidates the newest influence research studies:
Science of Influence: The Master’s Home Study Course
Here are just some of the incredible things you will learn when you receive the first 12 cds in the series:
- The newest research studies on what affects the persuasion process
- The One Question that someone MUST say “Yes” to every time!
- Learn what may be the single most important element of influence you have ever been introduced to. I have NEVER released this information on audio, video or in manual form
- Discover how skeptical and non-skeptical people perceive and respond to persuasive messages in a VERY different fashion. (Hint: If you don’t know this information you will automatically lose almost 1/4 of all of your encounters.)
- Ethical techniques to hypnotically enter another person’s mind and reshuffle their deck!
- Discover which of the desire to gain or the fear of loss is TRULY the far greater motivator and how to harness that power in your persuasive messages.
- The one way that reciprocity can blow up and completely backfire.
- How to prepare your unconscious mind to always present the right body language at the right time.
- There is one KEY factor in making your clients’ decisions permanent: Here it is!
- How to specifically use Hypnotic Confusion in influential messages.
- The most effective non-coercive way to gain compliance on record.
- How do you create metaphors…based upon the person/audience you are speaking to?
- So much more!
The Science of Influence is the place to begin. What makes the Science of Influence different from every other program about persuasion? This material is fresh, potent, tested, and has nearly all of what you will discover is new! There is no rehash of past salespeople or scholars.
Science of Influence Master’s Home Study Course (12 CDs)
with Kevin Hogan, Psy.D.This program is the culmination of years of selling synthesized with the last five years of academic research into compliance gaining, persuasion and influence. You won’t find a program like this, designed for you, anywhere else.
