Have you ever felt a really deep connection with somebody? A deep feeling of similarity? Well, here’s a short talk on how you can easily create that feeling with anybody, anytime.
Tag Archives: Persuasion
How to be a Powerful Communicator
I remember I used to have this sales job. It was based on multi level marketing kind of structure. I don’t remember exactly what it was that they sold, some kind of paper products. It was a pure commissioned sales job, meaning that you only made money if you sold something. And if you recruited one of your friends, and they sold something, you got a piece of the profit. The job entailed going out and “cold calling” small business owners. If you have never experienced cold calling, I recommend you try it at least once. Basically it entails waking up to strangers and trying to sell them something. It’s a great way to force yourself out of shyness, and increase your self confidence. I’ll be honest, though, it’s incredibly difficult and can cause a lot of stress, if you are totally focussed on a need to make a lot of money. If you do it just for the experience, it can be a positive eye opener. You can learn a lot about yourself.
Because it was so high stress, at this company we would meet in the morning, have a kind of cheer leading type meeting, where we’d get all pumped up. Then we’d go out in pairs and cold call all day. We’d hit up about 60 businesses, and if we were lucky we’d get about three or four sales. That mean about fifty five rejections a day, ranging from polite to “GET THE HELL OUT OF MY SHOP! CAN’T YOU READ THE SIGN THAT SAYS NO SOLICITORS!” It really can be a way to develop thick skin, which can be useful in today’s climate.
After we’d head back to the office, we would have a breakdown meeting. I guess we would try and cheer each other up after getting rejected all day long. I discovered one very interesting thing during one of these meetings. One senior sales person asked how my day went. I said it was difficult, but it helped to be persistent. I remember that I used the word ‘persistent.’ And he responded with “Oh, so it helps to be diligent?” I kind of nodded, because it was late and I wanted to go home. Now it seems like a trivial difference “persistent” versus “diligent.” After all, if you look the two words up in the thesaurus, you’ll find the two listed as synonyms. But that doesn’t tell the whole story. When I used the word “persistent,” I specifically chose that word, because based on my own experience, that was the best word to describe my own personal experience for that particular day. When he reflected back my description of the experience back to me, he chose a different word. In my mind, that word didn’t describe at all the day I had. So the end result of his “coaching,” was that he didn’t appear to understand AT ALL what I experienced that day.
It reminded me of a seminar I went to once on communication. We were all asked to think of a duck. When we shared our ducks, they were all different. Small ducks, rubber ducks, even the AFLAC duck. A simple four letter noun yielded many different ideas of a duck. Is it any wonder that a abstract word like “persistent” can have such different meanings from person to person?
In some communication models, people are taught to paraphrase what people say back to them. I disagree with this. In the above example, the salesperson tried to paraphrase my words, which were a description of my own personal subjective experience, and failed miserably. In a split second, he became somebody that didn’t understand what I had gone through that day, simply by choosing one single word incorrectly.
How to get around this? How do you communicate to somebody that is telling you about an emotionally charged experience? Simple. Repeat back their exact words to them. I’ve heard this technique referred in some places as “parrot-phrasing” rather than paraphrasing, and I think the term is accurate. If the person in the example above had reflected back to me the same word, I would have felt respected and understood, rather than otherwise. It’s simple, and all that it requires is for you to pay attention to the person talking to you, and pay attention to the words they seem to put emphasis on. They might pause a litter bit before these words, they might say them with a different tonality. Be aware that these particular words have special significance to the person using them. When you treat the other persons word with respect, you will be treating them with respect. And it not only make you appear to be really a sincere, intuitive communicator, but it will make them feel safe in talking with you and sharing their experience.
How many situations can you imagine where this would be useful?
The Power of Pacing and Leading
I love to cook. Even more than loving to cook I love to eat. And when I like to cook, I like to use many gadgets to help me in those endeavors. One of my weaknesses in life is buying stuff that I really don’t need. I don’t know what it is, maybe I have a weak resistance to an effective sales pitch. Maybe I like to imagine all the wonderful ways I can use that gizmo that looks so incredibly cool here in the store or on TV. Most of the time, when I buy something, I really enjoy it for a while until it loses it’s luster. Then I go and buy something else. Rarely do I ever regret making a purchase. Once I bought a kitchen gadget from an infomercial, used it frequently, and then saw the commercial again. It was such a persuasive commercial, I was tempted to buy another one.
If you can turn off your automatic impulse buying response for a moment, you can learn a lot about persuasion from those infomercials. They grab your attention, lead you through a fantastically engineered sales presentation, and then make you think that you can’t afford not to buy what they are selling. Two of the techniques that they use fairly well are the principles of pacing and leading.
If you’ve read my article on rapport, then you know what I mean when I say pacing. Pacing is when you match the other persons reality as much as possible. You do and say things that they will agree with. You do this enough times that they slowly begin to turn off that “critical factor” that we all have in our brains that tell us be careful of things that we are not sure of. Once this “critical factor” is shut off, we will follow anybody, anywhere. If you can pace somebody to the state where they have shut this off, you will be in a good position to begin to lead them.
When leading somebody, it is important to take them in small baby steps first. If you ask them to take a big step too soon, it will jar them back behind the protective guidance of their critical factor. If you’ve ever bought something from an infomercial, you’ve realized that the whole system is seamlessly set up to increase the amount of money you’ll spend. You start to watch the show. They are talking about how you hate to cook (uh huh). You have a long day at work, and when you come home you don’t want to slave away in the kitchen (uh huh). You wish there were a better way (uh huh). You’d like to spend only few minutes to create a delicious meal for the whole family (uh huh).
Wouldn’t you know it? Here we have a brand new tool that can help you! (ok!) You can use this tool to slice (ok!), dice, (ok!) and puree (ok!)! And it’s not three hundred dollars, not even two hundred dollars, not even one hundred dollars. You can buy now (ok!) for the low low price of 39.95 (ok!).
Think about the actual product you are getting for your money. If you were sitting at home, and some guy knocked on your door, with the exact same product with the exact same price, you’d likely tell him no thanks. But watch a twenty minute infomercial, complete with studio audience and genius level engineered persuasion tactics, and you are rushing for your phone with your credit card in hand.
Same product and price, but two completely different methods of information delivery. Do you think it pays to be able to harness the power of persuasion? Do you think you owe it to yourself to learn this powerful technology?
Who would you rather be, the poor guy going door to door and getting rejected over and over, or the multi millionaire selling the same product on TV? Stay tuned for more articles on how to become a powerful persuader. Bookmark this page so you can come back and read articles under the “persuasion” category any time.
The Magical Power of Rapport
Try a little mind experiment with me. Imagine a friend of yours, one that you’ve known for a long time. You trust that person, right? If they suggested that you do something,and it didn’t sound too crazy, you’d probably do it, right? Me too. Now imagine if somebody that you didn’t know came up to you, and asked you out of the blue to do the exact same thing. How would you react? Probably the same way I would . Tell the person no thanks. If they persisted, then tell them to get lost.
What’s missing from this is a feeling of connection. A deep feeling of similarity with this person. Similar beliefs, ideas, experiences. It’s very hard for somebody that hasn’t known you for a long time to create this feeling. But what if there was? What if there were a secret method, known only to a few of how to create this feeling?
This technique is called rapport. The word rapport is probably familiar to you, but unfortunately it gets thrown around so much, not too many people really understand the power behind it. Rapport is that deep feeling that you experience when you are really connecting with somebody on an unconscious level. And the best part about it, is it’s really easy to do.
Here’s how.
The first step in rapport is to match body language of the person that you want to persuade. Mirror them as much as you can without getting caught. When they shift, you shift. This is so simple, yet so mindbogglingly powerful its amazing so many people don’t use this on a daily basis. If they are slouched a little bit, you slouch a little bit. If they are resting their elbow on the table, you rest your elbow on the table. I’m not going to even begin to describe how powerful this is on a first date, because I’m sure you can think of many ways you can use this.
The next step is to match their speech, as closely as possible. This one is a lot more complicated, because most people feel weird when speaking in a voice that is not ‘normal’ for them. It gets easier the more you do it, though. It’s important to match their tone and speed. If they speak really fast, you speak really fast. If they speak slow, and pause a lot, you speak slow and pause a lot.
The next step is to see their point of view. This doesn’t mean agreeing with everything they say. This means listening, not interrupting, and really making an effort to see things from their point of view. Even if they have a belief which is diametrically opposed to yours, one such controversial topics such as abortion and gun control, hold your tongue. Listen patiently, and at least let them know that you respect their opinion, and you can see how they would have such an opinion. This is a major stumbling block for people. So much so that some people refuse to date or even be friends with people that have opposite opinions than theirs. This can be very limiting, as being able to see opinions from viewpoints than your own can be very rewarding.
These are just the beginning steps of developing deep rapport with somebody that you want persuade. But because they are so powerful, once you master these, you will have an edge over almost anyone you meet.
Sneaky ways to Persuade
If you’ve ever tried to convince somebody to come over to your side of thinking, you know how difficult it can be. No matter how hard you try, some people just seem to be set in their ways, their opinions, their beliefs. Imagine that you have a great idea that you want to tell your boss. One that you are completely sure that if your boss would take this idea, he could quickly and easily use this idea to make money, become more successful, and attract more customers.
And try as you might, you just can’t get the other person to see things this way. No amount of arguing, convincing, masterly designed powerpoint presentations can sway them. You may as well be banging your head against a brick wall, for all the good you are doing.
But what happens when you stop, now, and consider that there may be a whole new level of communication that you are forgetting about? What if you could realize that there is a layer of communication that supersedes mere logic and cause effect language? When you realize that exists another set of language skills at a completely different plane of thought, you can begin to leverage that to your advantage. When you do this, you will naturally begin to persuade people at will.
What I’m talking about is the language of structure. Language structure is very difficult to wrap your mind around because it is designed to take place outside of conscious awareness. Linguists have known for years, thanks to Noam Chomsky, that there is a ‘deep structure’ to language that children pick up automatically, without any conscious thought whatsoever. In other words, children consciously how to say words like ‘horse,’ television,’ ‘hot,’ ‘cold,’ and so on. But when they begin to string words together, the grammar rules of how to do this is completely unknown. Many scientists agree that we have some kind of ‘grammar structure’ organ in our brain, that is preprogrammed to learn grammar at a completely unconscious level.
Because people learn and use the structure of language at a deeply unconscious level, you can use this to your advantage. For example, it has become widely known, due to the work of Richard Bandler and John Grinder, that people take in, and express information through three main channels. Eyes, ears, and touch. Or to use the technical terms, visual, auditory, and kinesthetic. We also use words that are based on these senses in our speech and our writing.
Some people rely heavily on visual words: See what I mean? I can’t get a clear picture of what you are talking about. That idea is not clear to me.
Others are use more auditory words: Nice to hear from you again. I hear what you’re saying. Mexican food? Sounds great! Have you heard the latest news?
Still others use mainly kinesthetic words: I haven’t been feeling myself lately. I feel you, I really do. I feel uncomfortable with that idea.
Most people use a combination of all three. The trick is to listen to the person you are trying to convince, and pay attention to which category they rely on most. Then just simply use words from that same category when you are convincing them how great your idea is. You’ll be amazed not only how well this works, but how incredibly sneaky it is, because nobody will have any clue that you are doing it.
Manipulating Minds can lead to Creating Happiness
So if you’ve read the previous article about manipulation, and you’ve decided, like most people, that you’d like to be a really good manipulator of people, or if you prefer, a persuader of people, how do you go about doing it? There are several methods. Some of which I’ll discuss here, others which I’ll discuss in other articles for your reading pleasure.
First, lets review. What we are after here is win/win manipulation (or persuasion or influence.) Which means that you want to convince somebody to do or feel something and have them be happy that you did. Before we go further, lets find an experience where somebody did this to you. Think of something you bought at least three years ago, that you still use and enjoy. There was a time in your life where you didn’t know that thing existed, or that particular model or brand. And you were in a state of mind where you were thinking about buying this, maybe not.
But then you walked in, and saw this sitting there. And you interacted with somebody that was involved in selling you this item. And you paid for it, either by check or credit card or cash or payment plan. And then you came into possession of this thing. With me so far? The salesman that persuaded you to buy this, at least in respects was happy. You are happy, because here it is, so many years later, and you still are using and enjoying thing. Aren’t you glad that they persuaded you to do something? What do you think of now, when you think of the person that you interacted with. Were they friendly? Helpful? Wasn’t it odd that you’d never met them before, yet you had such a positive interaction with this person that you can still remember them fondly so many years later?
This is the natural result of a successful outcome of a win/win manipulation. Everybody is happy. So lets explore the different methods of doing this.
Brute Force
This is the simplest, the oldest, and the most common. This doesn’t necessarily mean physical force. It can be peer pressure, social pressure, or other pressure where you are in a situation where you feel you experience emotional discomfort if you didn’t do what was asked of you. Surprisingly enough, many of these appear as win/win, at least in the short term, because the relief due to relieving the stress of even an imagined negative outcome can feel like a win. Once you give in to the pressure, the pain goes away. Unfortunately, the win can be deceptive, and short term.
Covertly Harnessed Natural Desires
This where most advertising gets its juice. Everybody wants safety, sex, money, love, affection. And to be free from pain. Advertisers usually use these in a unique way to get you to buy their product. They ingeniously hook their advertisement into your base human desires, making you feel as if you just have to have what it is that they are selling. Politicians use this method when they convince you that by voting for them, you will be safer, richer, have more opportunity, and freer from debt. Usually the best politicians are the ones that do the best job of doing this.Â
CriteriaWhen someone you use this in a skillful and respectful manner, everybody gets a good long term win. This is when you find out what is important to a person, and craft your message so that it fits to what they think is important. This requires a personal, one on one approach, and only the most skilled and advanced salespeople and persuaders know how to do this. When done on a large scale, it is difficult to match each individuals criteria other than in a vague sense, and is almost impossible to follow through.Â
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So now you know three basic ways to influence people. Remember, when you sincerely have a desire to find out what is important to somebody, and you find these things out in a respectful way, you are more than halfway there to having them happily do whatever it is that you want.
Manipulation: Give First – Receive Later
Manipulation. What do you think when you hear that word? Evil, bad, wrong, secret, selfish. Do any of these come to mind? If you so you are not alone. People that use other people to get only what they want are considered to be manipulative, and should be avoided. Suppose you met a friend, and thought they were an ok, person. You ask around to see what other people say about them. What would you think if they only said that they were ‘manipulative?” Would that impress you? Would that want you to stay away from them? What if you were at a party, and some people came up to you and asked to speak to you alone. It was really important, they said. It was about your reputation, they said. They take you aside, and tell you that other people have been talking. They have been saying that you are a manipulative person. How would you make that feel? Proud? Happy? Sticky?
The truth is, humans learn to be manipulative since the day we learn to cry. We cry, not because there are any rational thoughts in our brain, only because we know that when we make certain contractions in our throats and force air out, it makes a loud sound. We don’t know emotions, or feelings, or thoughts, we are still at the very early stages of the discovery period of our lives. We scream, and then something cool happens. Those big people come and pick us up. Wow. Then they put us down, and leave. We take in a deep breath (although we don’t know yet what breath is) and do it again, and they return. Wow. We have discovered a new power within us. We can control parts of our bodies, and other people will respond. When we grow older and begin to learn to use words and phrases, we also discover how certain words, phrased certain ways, can get people to do what we want.
Evolutionary Biologists are starting to wonder if the purpose of language itself is for persuasion rather than simple data transfer. Think of the things you’ve said to people recently. Although they may have been factually based messages, wasn’t there underlying purpose to persuade somebody to think a certain thought or to feel a certain emotion? Isn’t a pure transfer of data anyway a persuasive effort to get somebody else to think the same thoughts that you are thinking? When you call your husband or wife to say you are running late, aren’t you using your language to persuade her to remain calm? When you write the correct answers on an exam, aren’t you using a specific form of persuasion to get the professor to give you a good grade? Isn’t television, radio and the recent explosion of the internet merely other means of grabbing your attention in an attempt to persuade you to buy the advertised products?
One of the forgotten elements of persuasion and manipulation is the win/win concept. Everyone persuades, everyone manipulates, all the time. The only times that it sticks out is when somebody selfishly disregards the win/win model and reverts to the win/lose, or the more popular win/i don’t care. And when you think about it, the different kinds of manipulation are not good or bad, they are just effective and ineffective. Suppose you were to realize that the most effective form of persuasion and manipulation model is the win/win model? And suppose you took it a step further, and discovered that the easiest, friendliest way to manipulate and persuade somebody was figure out a way to let them win first, and then by winning, they would in turn feel compelled to help you get what you want, since you’ve already helped them get what they want? Imagine if you could let go of any expectation long enough to help somebody get what they wanted, with the full knowledge that the laws of karma would reciprocate, somehow, someway? What would happen if everybody lived according to this model? What kind of world would it be?
The Power of The Throat Chakra
Imagine you walk into a room. You walk up to a group of people that you haven’t met yet. They look up when they see you. Curious. Curious because you carry yourself with complete confidence and poise. Curious because you have a look on your face that tells them that what you are about to say is very important. You open your mouth to speak, and all their thoughts are forgotten as they turn to wait to hear your opinion, your thoughts, your guidance.
Now some people, when they read that, might think “oh, no, I could never do that,” or something along those lines. But that is only because they haven’t been able to discover the power that everyone possesses. They aren’t able to discover the wisdom that everyone can express to share with others.
The reason is not a matter of knowledge, or experience, or expertise. The main concern here is one of communication. If you can find a way to embrace and express your truth, then without question people will listen. And one powerful way to begin to do that is by opening the Fifth, or Throat Chakra.
The Throat Chakra is all about communication, expression, persuasion. The more open your Throat Chakra will be, the more naturally and easily you will persuade others to your point of view. And you know as well as anybody else that people throughout history have been able to use this power both for good and for evil. I’m not going to give examples of either, because I’m sure you can think of plenty.
Before you begin your meditation on the Throat Chakra, ask yourself the following questions. Remember, as I’ve said in my other articles about the Chakras, you don’t have to get clear answers, just ask the questions, and be open for any responses that come.
What is truth?
What is my truth?
What are my desires?
How do my desires coincide with those of others?
How do all of us want the same thing?
How do I want people to think, feel, respond when I speak my truth?
Take a deep breath, slow. In. Out. As you exhale, imagine a small blue ball of light appear at your throat. Allow it to grow in size, slowly, with each exhale. Imagine the infinite wisdom of the universe breath through you into slowly growing ball of blue light. Allow it to grow slowly, until it is completely surrounding you. Sit inside for seven deep slow, breaths. After seven breaths, slowly allow it to shrink back down into our throat. Still filled with the wisdom of the universe, channeled through you, resting in your throat center, waiting to power your expressions.
How does it feel, now, as you sit there, to have such power resting in your throat, awaiting for you to express your truth? How much can you help others, now, that you know you have such power? What can you give? What can you share?