Kevin Hogan
If your client has made a decision to buy a competitor in the last six months and that experience failed, he probably regrets it. However, the experiences that happened years ago that cause the most regret are those things that weren’t done. How you direct the minds of your clients will in large part be based upon the time factors involved and the kinds of regret.
Now, this is important: When you are attempting to influence someone and they made a mistake recently they are still smarting from it. And they regret it. Now, if what you are proposing is similar to what they regret doing, you need to be prepared for the, “I did this with them and I really regret it. Been there, done it, not going to do that again.” You will need to prepare to FRAME your proposition differently.
However, if your client has NOT done something in the more distant past that they wish they would have, this is powerful leverage for them to take action now.
Legend Point: The problem is that if a person passes up one opportunity in the past they tend to pass up similar opportunities for the rest of their life!!! Counterintuitive when you consider that the things we regret more as times go by are the actions we did NOT take!
But there is more about regret that you have to consider.
What people regret most:
When an Olympian gets a Silver medal, they are happy on the stand. Probably excited. BUT, when time marches on, they realize they were just ticks away from the GOLD. This is something breeds depression, disappointment and frustration…forever. If you try and console the person by saying, “My you were second, good going!”…you will NOT build rapport. These emotional hot buttons are something you will need to work around.
On the other hand, the same Olympian winning the BRONZE medal…is happy. They have done well. They didn’t JUST miss the big medal. There was yet another person between them and the gold. They may have been close. They may have been ticks away, but this person is HAPPY with their result as time goes by. They are proud and it sticks. There is no significant regret.
Therefore, when you are communicating with someone about their accomplishments in rapport building communication be certain that you know whether they are likely to be feeling positive or negative about the subjects of conversation!
What’s the right thing to do when you discover regrets like this
Here’s a quick peek at how to handle this kind of regret so you can get beyond the regret and bring the client into more receptive feelings where they will be more likely to comply with your request. Let’s imagine a new auto sales decision.
Customer: “The last new car I bought turned out to be OK but it really wasn’t my idea but my wife’s to buy it. ”
You: “You know, sure it wasn’t sleek, but at least it was new, didn’t cost you anything to maintain, it didn’t break down, shoot, she could have made a better choice, but you didn’t lose anything. Today, we’ll get you exactly what you need.”
I play blackjack when I visit Las Vegas. I fancy myself a pretty good player. I play quickly, make decisions based upon statistical models and there isn’t much left to “intuition” or “hunches.”
If there are others at the table and someone makes a decision that turns out to be a mistake, (at a Blackjack table people think that anything that didn’t make them money was a mistake…not true) they typically want to see what the next card left concealed was so they could see if making a DIFFERENT decision would have been the “right” thing to do.
When they see that having made a different decision would have resulted in the same outcome (lost their money) they accept their fate and are annoyed. When they see the concealed card and realize that had they made a different decision they would have WON money, they not only feel annoyed but disgusted and frankly show symptoms of depression!
In either case the outcome was the same but the degree of regret is dramatically different.
I constantly remind my seat partners (if they made the right decision) that they did indeed make the “right” decision and that shows they know what they are doing. This helps build rapport and keep things calm, because NO ONE wants to look stupid or feel humiliated when it comes to putting money at risk…and losing.
Do the same thing when dealing with your clients! NEVER let someone feel stupid about past mistakes. Make sure they know that any intelligent person would have done the same thing if they were presented the situation they did. If you show even an unconscious body language cue that the person DID make a foolish mistake or they feel humiliated in anyway, the answer to YOUR request will be, “No.”
Now, imagine that your neighbor buys a new car. He had his old one for a decade!Your old one was a junker and you should have known better, but what do you know about cars? Nothing. Zip. You can’t even spell the words.
“Hey Mark, what kind of car did you buy when you sold yours the other day?”
“Toyota Camry.”
You know what you are going to buy?
A Toyota Camry.
If you do NOT buy a Toyota Camry and your new car breaks down, needs repairs, conks out after one summer…you are going to look like an idiot! You will massively regret it and that is precisely where your mind goes. Therefore, this is easy. Camry.
There can be no regrets if you buy the Camry. Sold.
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.
