Dear Persuader,

“Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms - to choose one's attitude in any given set of circumstances - to choose one's own way.”   - Victor Frankl

Every time I hear someone talk about “thinking outside the box” I chuckle.  Like any cliché or catchphrase, thinking outside the box has been so overused as to become downright irritating.

From business coaches and management consultants to the realms of education, sports, sales and self help... think about how many times you’ve heard someone say in order to succeed or break through to higher levels of achievement, we have to step outside of the boxes that society has dictated we exist in.

Well, what is this box and why is it such a hindrance? And isn’t this just another way to say we need to be creative with the frames that we use to view the world?

I agree in theory with this concept in that persuasion requires a fluid creativity and flexibility that is not easily contained by restrictions and limitations. Business has been reduced to a rigid constant in many respects.  Trying to distill something as broad as business, and something as complex as sales, into easily digestible bites has been something old fashioned sales and marketing trainers have long tried to do.

Every situation is particular, each client or prospect has a very specific key or trigger which our creative sleuthing requires us to uncover. Remaining static is not an option in this quest. We have to have agile, almost yogic minds, able to bend the way our prospect bends, and twist the way our clients twist.

We’re not all cookie cutters. Unfortunately old-fashioned sales training has attempted to turn people into just that. It’s the same thing over and over. Instead, and through the process of learning persuasion, we don’t have boxes to begin with. We have frames, which like a pair of glasses can be changed according to what we’re wearing or whether it’s sunny out. The frames we use are far more powerful in determining our prospect or client’s needs and desires as we work with them.

When we choose how we view the world instead of allowing outside forces to choose for us, we have a magnificent capacity to influence and sell like never before.

Our capacity to frame improves with practice (similar to all things from learning a language, to learning an instrument, to learning yoga or starting an exercise regime). We absolutely do improve the more we try something. There’s no getting around that. The key is to do it. And do it again.

Writing out exercises and repeating language patterns within our given fields, coming up with lists of objections that we commonly get and then reframing the objections before they even come up in conversations with our prospects and clients, studying the thirty six Chinese stratagems as a way to further our internal understanding of what it means to be persuasive. . . these are easy steps to really installing in yourself the ability to persuade powerfully.

Kenrick

Dear Persuader,

A student of mine once posted a comment about my use of the relationship between teacher and student in an example of presupposition. They suggested, with a wink and a smiley face, that maybe I was being a little sneaky in using the example in a persuasive way.

It’s kind of interesting in life how when people know that I’m an expert in persuasion; they assume I’m using my persuasions skills on them all the time. That’s been something that I’ve struggled with my whole life. People actually say, ‘Well, I don’t know if I can really trust him, because, after all, he’s one of the top persuasion experts.’

This always kind of upset me until finally I just kind of got used to it.  I just realized, people are going to think whatever they’re going to think.

I really am just genuinely myself. And I’ve had to struggle to remain un-jaded. Not always having ulterior motives is part of operating with a lot of integrity.

But what is an ulterior motive? An ulterior motive lies beyond what is evident, revealed, or avowed.  That could be a negative thing, especially if the motive is being concealed intentionally so as to deceive. But there can be ulterior motives that aren’t sneaky.

When an ulterior motive is supportive, I have no problem with that. An ulterior motive, in a sense, is behind the scenes. If I were to use skills to help people to stay involved with me, provided that I’m really giving them value, I find no problem with that whatsoever.

For my suspicious student, I would suggest that people find I’m providing value regardless of me attempting to install it or not. And you’ll find the same is true for you.

It is kind of a humorous topic so I thought I would show you a little bit about the inside workings of my mind, how I’ve dealt with some of those kind of things and how it affects me.

Early in my career, I too would find myself asking those who I was studying with, if they were using persuasion on me because I wanted to see where their minds would really go.

It doesn’t mean I’m actively attempting to do it, though I know full well that my intention is to not only provide information but entertainment. Not only information and entertainment, but longevity for my clients and me to be work together.

That’s going to come out. These are my intentions. And my intention is to help and help and help some more. As long as that is recognized then I feel really satisfied and I think this is something you might want to examine in your own life because it will be something that comes up from time to time and it’s nice to have thought it through so that you know where you stand on it.

Be sure and post your thoughts and comments on the blog.

Kenrick

Dear Persuader,

You’ve heard the saying; you can’t know someone until you’ve walked a mile in their shoes. This is a technique on how to gain rapport by jumping into another person, stepping in, sliding in, moving in, being in that person, figuratively walking a mile in their shoes.   Harper Lee wrote in To Kill a Mockingbird, “You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view...until you climb into his skin and walk around in it.”

We are going to learn to climb into the skin of our prospects, experience them, their decision making mechanisms, their emotional states—so that we can better give them what they need and get what we need.

Our unconscious mind is a goal-seeking mechanism, and it’s a pattern recognition device that is incredibly brilliant and it can immediately pick up characteristics of others so that when we step into them, it already has formulated what we’re going to be experiencing.

How are we going to do this?  The way I do it is I just look at you and jump in.  I imagine in my mind that I am now you looking at me. It’s that simple.  When I look at you, my unconscious, knowing that I’m going to step inside you, can very quickly build a pattern of who and what you are, such that when I step inside you, it already has constructed what’s going to happen.  Once I’m inside you, I’m modeling you, or mirroring you so completely and so powerfully that the results can be startling both for you and for the person that this is being done with.

Is it real?  I don’t know.  I don’t really care.  It’s a mental construct.  I am making it up in my mind.  I’m making up that I’m now in your body looking through your eyes.

Another option, one that I’ve had students tell me about, is building a picture the person you’re ‘becoming’, then you turn around so you’re facing the same way I am and just step in.  This can be thought of as mirroring and this is one of the fastest ways of gaining rapport I have ever seen or used.

What if you work with people on the phone and you have no idea what they look like? Could you do the same thing anyway? Sure. What is it that you know about that person when you’re talking to them? They’ve got a phone to their ear, and they’ve got a voice, and their voice has characteristics, and those characteristics have conditions that your unconscious mind has seen before.

If we assume that there is a finite number of patterns that exist, and if we chunk up a little bit, go to a bigger level, we can say, for example, there are twelve astrological signs.  There are seven major personality types, depending on the system that you’re working with.  There are all sorts of different classification systems that will seek to limit the number of possible combinations.

Of course, humans are infinite.  However, wouldn’t it be interesting to know that your unconscious, in its vast experience of dealing with all the people it has dealt with, has come across most all of the major patterns and major characteristics of the people that you’re dealing with?  It knows what that other person can be like. Could you build an image of that person?  Sure you can, you absolutely can, and you can step right in, even if you’re just on the phone.

This is a construct. We are constructing an image. Will it be accurate?  Not exactly, but that’s okay, because if we’re in front of them, and we’re hearing them and we’re seeing them, and if they’re moving, we keep changing our construct until it’s identical to what they are, so for every minute, every second that goes by, ours gets better, and more complete and more powerful, and we’re locking right in to that person.

When you step in, you want to leave yourself behind and see through their eyes.  When you do this, it establishes rapport at a very, very profound and deep level.  Once you’re in them, you’ve really moved along the process of rapport, and you’ve moved it along because you’re so completely identifying with all of their behaviors, and all of who they are.

You can make this more powerful in a couple of ways.  First, marvel at what it feels like and what their clothes feel like.  If the person is of the opposite sex, you might feel what it feels like to be a woman or a man, whatever the case may be, and actually take on those characteristics.

What are their physical characteristics? How does it feel to have those characteristics? Notice when you step into the other person, where you feel the connection to them.  Do you feel the connection in your stomach, in your feet, in your hands, in your chest, in your head?  Where do you feel the connection?  By asking yourself these questions you’ll deepen the rapport.

Before trying this, here’s something to keep in mind: if the person’s sick, if they have something considerably wrong with them, if you know that they’re not a particularly good person or they are someone you just don’t like, you might not choose to use this level of rapport, because you may not be able to shake it all the way off.

This is incredibly powerful. Even if you’re not particularly in touch with your energy, you can still use this effectively.

All the best!

Kenrick

PS... Don't forget to post your comments on the blog.

Dear Persuader,

In a previous article I talked about using the term ‘everything happens for a reason’ to utilize the trust that many people have in this concept. I also wrote about superstition and the concept that ‘there are no accidents’ which happens to be a very powerful persuasion tool, and if you’ve read those two articles and attempted to implement the learning into your life, you already know what I mean about power.

Well, assigning blame is the other side of the ‘everything happens for a reason’/’there are no accidents’ coin. Wherein both of these concepts use our prospect’s belief in an ordered, equitable universe, assigning blame uses a common enemy as a means to persuade.

Better hang on here if you are religiously oriented because I’m going to shake the tree just a little bit here. (Disclaimer: My intention is never to intrude on anyone’s beliefs or practices because I vehemently believe in Freedom of Religion and to me, this extends to spiritual practice of all kind. But, like it or not, religion and spirituality are intertwined with everything in life and I use the examples below to teach persuasion, not to push my beliefs or dissuade yours.)

In group theory, there’s a lot of discussion about enemies, common enemies. One of the greatest ways you can ever use to bond a group is for them to have a common enemy.

Let’s start with Christianity as an example. What’s the common enemy of Christianity? Well, you probably know right off the top of your head, it’s the devil. How is this installed in Christians from an early age?  Well, we start saying things like, ‘We as humans are born into a world of sin and the mere act of being born causes us to not be able to get into the life hereafter until and unless we accept Jesus as our savior.’

That’s pretty intense. Let’s look at the enemy. The enemy is, just being born, because we’re born into sin. Who’s responsible for that? The devil.

This is a great tool. I heard someone say many years ago, ‘The devil is the best friend the Christian ever had because without him, there would be no need for a savior.’ Think about the word ‘savior’. Savior implies someone needs saving. And if you’re born into sin, you in fact do need saving.

Again, I’m not debating any of this. In fact, I’m kind of being the devil’s advocate here, so to speak, because I’m literally standing back and removing my own beliefs just to point out to you what’s going on so you can see this.

Now does it mean, by the way, having a common enemy is a bad thing? No, I think common enemies are great things. But one has to be careful and responsible. Is it responsible of a Christian to say that the devil’s a common enemy? Absolutely.

Also note the advantage of pointing at a common enemy that you can’t see, you can’t hear, and in fact, even humanities basic drives and desires can be attributed to the influence of this being? It’s pretty amazing. (From my previous article ‘Very Superstitious’, can see how this might fit into the definition of ‘superstition’?)

We have an inherent need to assign blame. In fact, it’s so fundamental to the core of who we are that everybody does this.

How about a political example? How about the ‘War on Terror’ or the ‘War on Poverty’? It’s virtually impossible to argue that anyone is for ‘terror’ or ‘poverty’.  These are cultural common enemies. Terror and poverty, however, are concepts, not actual, tangible physical groups against which a war can be won, but notice how insanely powerful as enemies.  If winning a ‘war’ against a concept were possible, I’d sign up and fight.

So I’m contrasting ‘things happen for a reason’ with ‘blame.’ So at our core, we look to assign fault.

A word of warning: I wouldn’t dwell in the land of negativity, it’s like a double-edged sword. It cuts going and coming. Be very careful.

Kenrick

PS... Be sure and post your comments to the blog.

A very spiritual woman I know shared the following with me: she said, ‘I used to have unfortunate beliefs about myself and I received back from external influences unfortunate results. When I decided to take control and raise my resonance, to be the change I wanted to become, to allow abundance and love come flow through me, absolutely everything fell into place. I am now living a life of leisure with a beautiful husband and I can draw what I want into my universe at will.’

What does it take to be a love magnet, or a money magnet, or a health magnet?

It takes a shift in perception and really, that’s all it takes.

We choose what to focus on. We choose to be really bummed out when it rains, or we choose to appreciate the downpour as a great opportunity to take care of indoor activities, or even better, to leave the umbrella at home and go for a walk. One person’s inconvenience is another’s puddle splashing fun.

When we focus on good, good comes to us. When we focus on grief, we grieve. This is not to say there’s no place for grief in life, it’s just to say, we need to be mindful that we’re not suffering over our own suffering. We do not need to be grief magnets.

I overheard a girl in a café the other day telling her friend, ‘I’m a freak magnet. I can’t leave my apartment without running into someone either clinically insane or whacked out on drugs or fanatical about some weirdness who wants to have extensive interaction with me.’

The friend responded, ‘That’s so strange. You live in a really nice place, in a really nice neighborhood. You wouldn’t think there’d be that many weirdoes around.’

‘They’re everywhere I am. It’s like they’re out there waiting for me to leave my house just so they can shout in my face or try to get me to join their cult.’

I thought to myself how awful it was for this girl to have this belief about herself, that no matter where she goes, no matter what she’s doing, she’s going to draw the lowest common denominator to her.

This is really how attraction works. What you think about yourself, you are. What you believe about the world, is your reality. What you speak, is your truth.

I almost wanted to say to her, ‘You know, you could just as easily not be a ‘freak magnet’ by simply telling yourself that you’re another kind of magnet.’ Then I realized that, sadly, my intrusion would only further confirm her self-diagnosis and she’d misinterpret my advice as more freakery, as in, ‘Yeah, this guy came up to me in the café and told me to be another kind of magnet. He looked pretty normal, but what a freak!’

So whatever your beliefs are about the world, I implore you, take this freak’s advice and adjust it to bring you all that you ever wanted and not the lowest common denominator.

Kenrick

PS... Be sure to post your comments and thoughts on the blog.

Dear Persuader,

Last week I got a call from an acquaintance of mine. He said, ‘Remember that conversation we had about Africa a few weeks ago? Well, I just checked my e-mail and you won’t believe it. I won an international lottery originating in Africa.  You know, I’m just convinced everything happens for a reason, don’t you think?’

I thought for a few moments and I responded, ‘You know, I think you’re right. Everything does happen for a reason and really it’s a good thing that we’re talking right now.’ I went on to explain that I personally win probably three or four international lotteries a day and none of them are real.

I got to thinking about this conversation and I realized that people look for supporting evidence for what they want in their environment. In this case, here he was remembering our conversation, then he received an e-mail talking about winning a lottery from Africa and somehow he kind of put two and two together in a way that didn’t add up. That’s when he began talking about everything happening for a reason.

Unfortunately, I had to burst the bubble in order to keep him safe, but the point of it is why did he use that language? This language pattern is going to knock your socks off and enable you to influence and persuade in a very deep and profound way.

Why do people look for supporting evidence for what they want in their environment? Oftentimes they do this because our world is very unstable. Whenever there’s a tremendous lack of stability, with everything kind of up in the air, people start turning to religion, they start turning to God, they start turning to spirituality and they become more superstitious.

As I explain this pattern to you, please understand, my goal is to break things down in a way that gives us tremendous power with our language, our words and persuasion, and in so doing, help you to have more success in your life. That’s my purpose in this discussion. If you don’t believe in God, or you’re not a spiritual person, my point is not to influence you towards or away from anything except towards a language pattern or away from not being as successful as you like, that you’ll be able to use these patterns for your benefit and for the benefit of your clients.

When I said, ‘everything does happen for a reason’ it means that I’m alluding to something more than simply what he’s just referred to and that’s really important that he understood. Then I went on to say, ‘Good thing we’re talking’. Again, this implies that there’s perhaps something more than what he was just thinking about. That set the stage for me to have entry into his mind and to help him to understand the difficulty that he was about to face.

People look for supporting evidence for what they want in their environment and I believe it’s our job to give it to them. There are language patterns that are in the popular lexicon right now that we can use to our advantage very powerfully.

When we hear these things we can use them to our advantage powerfully, and I mean, really powerfully. For example, saying ‘things happen for a reason’ supports what you want to happen.

Let’s say you’re an advisor and you’re talking with someone, and they say something positive like, ‘Wow, it’s a good thing that I’m talking with you here today because I feel like I’m really getting somewhere in my learning, in my understanding of how all this works.’ And your response could be, ‘Fantastic, after all, there are no accidents, right?’

Is that a stretch to say? I don’t think it’s a stretch for anybody, no matter what our belief system is. After all, everything happens for a reason, it’s just a matter of whether or not it’s a reason you like.

No language pattern is an island and our goal as persuaders is to layer pattern upon pattern and these patterns piece together a deeper sense of reality when you do this right, what you’re going to be doing is using all sorts of these patterns at high speed.

To your success!

Kenrick

PS... Don't forget to post your thoughts and comments on the blog.

Dear Persuader,

Have you ever gone into a supermarket or drugstore for a tube of toothpaste and found yourself confronted with forty different varieties?

It’s a simple enough substance—toothpaste—which we use every day (hopefully - don't get me started on Jessica Simpson), and yet there are dozens and dozens of choices.  There are toothpastes with whiteners and/or baking soda; toothpastes for sensitive gums; natural toothpastes; toothpastes of various flavors —cinnamon, spearmint, fennel, wintergreen; kids toothpastes--silly strawberry, bubble gum, berry. And once we figure out the brand, we have to figure out what size and then tube, pump, squeeze bottle etc...

It takes most of us seconds to choose because we don’t stray from what we’ve been using ‘forever’ or staying brand loyal to what our parents used. But when our parents were growing up, there weren’t nearly as many choices.

It’s a minor, run of the mill decision, but one that illustrates just how very many choices we make every single day, from our toothpaste, to cell phone provider, to the brands we eat, wear and use.

Barry Schwartz, professor of Social Theory and Social Action at Swarthmore College, has written a book called, ‘The Paradox of Choice: Why More is Less—How The Culture of Abundance Robs us of Satisfaction’.  It is a very interesting look at how the ever expanding amount of ‘choice’ we have in every dimension of our lives is eroding the simple pleasures that used to be omnipresent.

This is an important perspective especially as it relates to our professions, products, and services. How many of you are there out in the world? Are you one in a million or one of a million? And how can your existence simplify the life of your prospect or client?

The goal of choice has been to liberate us, to give us a degree of control over our lives, to give us autonomy and distinction. However, as Mr. Schwartz suggests, ‘. . .as the number of choices keeps growing, negative aspects of having a multitude of options begin to appear. As the number of choices grows further, the negatives escalate until we become overloaded.’

As people who sell a product or service, we need to keep in mind that there are a multitude of similar products or service providers out there and that what makes us special is that, as persuaders, we are able to reach into the core of our prospects and clients to discover their specific key, their unique combination of values and criteria. When we establish rapport, elicit criteria, and establish ourselves as ‘the answer’, there is no need for this unbearable overload to occur in the minds of our prospects.

Schwartz writes of the political philosopher Isaiah Berlin, who beautifully described the continuum of towards and away in his distinction between ‘negative liberty’ and ‘positive liberty’.  He says, “Negative liberty is ‘freedom from’—freedom from constraint, freedom from being told what to do by others. Positive liberty is ‘freedom to’—the availability of opportunities to be the author of your life and to make it meaningful and significant.”

Wow!  A better description of the ‘towards/away’ continuum doesn’t exist. Do we see in our prospects the desire to be free from constraints? How can we show them that our product or service is the answer to this? Do we have a towards person who wants to take in all the amazing opportunities our products and services have to offer? In what ways to do you see the paradox of choice at play in your business life?

Be sure and post your comments to the blog.

Kenrick

Dear Persuader,

I saw a commercial that really struck me as an example of hilariously warped framing. The soundtrack to this commercial is an old Rolling Stones song, ‘I’m Free’. People are frolicking around, as they are in many commercials, and they are spending money they probably don’t have. The commercial is for the Chase Freedom Card.

The frame is this: using this card frees you, liberates you, allows you to do anything you want to do, any time you want to do it. You can buy furniture, go to Paris, order anything you want online, and experience true, unadulterated independence, choice and autonomy if you’d only just apply for this card.

I don’t think they were going for irony, but it struck me immediately. Being in debt is the absolute opposite of being free.  Of course, they’re not saying you’ll be ‘free from debt’ but free to spend as much as your credit line allows and free to possibly default on your payments and in turn, free to pay exorbitant late fees and finance charges.

So, in a sense, I guess you really are free with the Freedom Card.

As a young man I realized the slippery slope that credit cards represented. And I’ll tell you, these years were not about frolicking and laughing about how much cool stuff I was able to get without exchanging cash.

My students are not people who carry enormous amounts of credit card debt, so when I teach it’s almost like I’m preaching to the choir when I say that debt, especially of the credit card variety, is bad debt.

If you’re in a position where you can’t yet afford to frolic using cash, it’s not time yet to frolic. Build up a reserve of ‘F’ you money (which, I realize, is a bit of a naughty term, but truly what it encompasses—the ability to tell any boss or employer “‘F’ you, I’m not going to be subjected to this”—is worth more than any bauble or superfluous item bought on credit with the Freedom Card).

Okay, enough of that lecture. . . My real point here was to discuss the frame around the concept of credit as freedom.  By taking a rather nefarious industry, giving it a fresh coat of paint, giving it a theme song, calling it exactly the opposite of what it is, Chase has tried to reinvent their image from something that imprisons people in debt, to something that gives people the ability to live life to the fullest.

Is it false advertising? I see it as that. Is the frame effective? Are people really buying it? Well, when I mentioned this commercial to one of my employees she told me that she and her husband have a ‘Freedom Card’ and constantly joke about how much freer they feel whenever they’re forced to use it (i.e. emergency vet bills or something unexpected popping up). She told me she recently replaced their television set and put it on the freedom card. ‘At least I’ll have something to watch while I’m not experiencing freedom.’

Frame your way to freedom... or not.  =)

Kenrick