Here we are with another article on the amazing linguistic presuppositions, those incredibly powerful language patterns that you can use to covertly and conversationally persuade others for fun and profit.

Today’s pattern is the “Negative Question,” and is very similar to simple questions. For simple questions, remember, when you phrase the question so simply by answering “yes,” or “no,” your listener or reader will have to accept the underlying idea.

When you make a negative question, it works basically the same way. A negative question is simply phrasing the question with a negative contraction at the beginning.

Don’t you want to go to the beach?
Aren’t you hungry?
Haven’t you had dinner yet?
Don’t you want to see that movie one more time?

When used incorrectly, these can sound a bit confrontational, as it is obvious the speaker is “forcing” the listener to acquiesce.

If you’re boss walks up to you at the end of the day and says (with a disapproving look):

Don’t you want to work overtime tonight?

You know you’re in trouble.

It sounds a lot less confrontational if she said,

Do you want to work over time tonight?

When using these conversationally for persuasion, make sure you aren’t “forcing” your listener or reader to feel any sort of pressure. That never works well in the long run.

Idea = exercise is the best way to lose weight

Aren’t you aware that in order to lose weight, all you really need to do is exercise, and that you don’t need to spend any money on diet pills or mail order diet plans?

Keep in mind that if you say this before your listener has expressed an interest in losing weight, or if you aren’t already talking about ways to lose weight, it will sound terribly rude.

Don’t you realize that all you need to do is simple exercise, only five minutes day, in order to lose weight?

Make sure when you say this, to genuinely believe that you are helping your listener to achieve his or her goals, and not tricking them into losing weight for your sake.

Idea = dollar cost averaging is the best way to make money in the stock market

Aren’t you aware of all the people that have generated huge nest eggs through simple dollar cost averaging?

Aren’t you ready to start an investment plan based on dollar cost averaging that will surely grow your nest egg and provide you with an easy and relaxing retirement?

Aren’t you aware of the power of presuppositions to help you to easily persuade others, and to help you protect yourself against manipulation?

Haven’t you discovered yet just how you can use these patterns in your daily conversations to covertly convince others of their great potential?

Aren’t you aware that the great persuaders and orators of all time have been using these very patterns for centuries?

Isn’t it time you started to really practice them yourself so that you can powerfully enrich the lives of all those around you?

Here we are with another lesson in linguistic presuppositions, those powerful language patterns you can use to covertly and conversationally persuade and influence others to your way of thinking.

Today’s pattern is the Selection Restriction pattern. This particular pattern has a wide variety of applications, both good and bad. Anytime you take a group of things (ideas, time periods, people, etc) and categorize them into sub groups, and assign one “sub group” a characteristic, you are implying that the other subgroups do not have this characteristic.

Lawyers make excellent politicians.

Although according to the rules of logic, this statement says nothing about people who aren’t lawyers and their ability to be politicians, the listener will assume that is the meaning of the statement, that lawyers are the best politicians.

Women have excellent communication skills and can talk about many subjects at once.

While not stated explicitly, this implies that men don’t have excellent communication skills, and can’t talk about more than one subject. (I’ll leave the actual truth of that for you to decide.)

He’s the guy I see walking every morning.

While “that guy” you see walking every morning may do a variety of things during the day, he is only “the walking guy” in your mind, as described in that statement above.

Anytime you give somebody, something, some event any sort of “label” you are effectively defining it only in those terms, and are using this pattern, for better or for worse.

So how to use this persuasively, in a positive way?

Simple

Separate out groups of “pretend” people into two groups. Attribute some genuinely desirable characteristic to one group, and phrase it so they achieved that “desirable” trait by doing whatever it is you are persuading your listener to do. Be careful not to put the “other” group into any sort of “bad” light, as that will diminish your persuasive power, according to the laws of Karma.

Some examples:

Idea = exercise is the best way to lose weight.

Plenty of people have tried plenty different weight loss techniques, and those that have had the most success have discovered that the best way to lose weight is through simple daily exercise.

So here you have a group within a group. The first group is people in general. The second, sub group, is people who have tried to lose weight. The group within that group are the ones that have successfully lost weight. And they lost weight because they exercised.

Idea = dollar cost averaging is a great way to make money.

Many people have tried many different investment strategies over time, but the people that are now happily retired will tell you that the easiest way to get there is through simple, dollar cost averaging.

The selected group is happily retired people (which presumes a group of unhappily retired people), and they got there through dollar cost averaging.

Now, I don’t know exactly where you are in your sales career, or your particular skill level when it comes to persuasion. Some people like to study persuasion and persuasion techniques as a hobby, while others use it on daily basis to make a significant amount of income.

Those that do are either naturals, meaning they were born to sell, and have been persuading people as long as they could walk, or those that learned the techniques consciously, and perfected the art of persuasion over a period of time.

Those that have learned to become masters of persuasion through the study of specific techniques and language patterns will tell you, hands down, that presuppositions are likely the most powerful, most effective, and most useful set of language patterns to use conversationally that exist.

No other set of patterns will allow you to carefully lead the mind and emotions of your listener to better and more empowering places, so that everybody benefits.

This is an article in a series on linguistic presuppositions. These powerful patterns can dramatically increase your capacity for covert, conversational persuasion, as they are structured to deliver ideas to your listener or reader that will bypass their conscious “critic” and go straight into the unconscious.

Today’s pattern is cleft sentences. Cleft sentences are sentences that start with either “It is…, ” or “it was…,” that can be used in various ways; here I will go over two powerful methods.

The first is to insert a commentary adjective (interesting, wonderful, fantastic, surprising, etc) after the “It is..” and then insert the idea you want to persuade your listener or reader.

Some examples:

Idea = Exercise is best for weight loss
Adjective = interesting

It’s (it is) interesting that exercise is one of the best ways to lose weight.

Idea = dollar cost investing is the best way to make money
Adjective = surprising

It’s surprising that dollar cost averaging is such a great way to make money. I had always thought that you needed to have inside information, or be an expert.

Idea = presuppositions are powerful persuasive tools
Adjective = amazing

It’s amazing how much you can increase your persuasive ability by studying presuppositions.

Another way to use this pattern is to use a reference, and then put them in the past tense. Then phrase the sentence as if the outcome has already been accomplished. Just find somebody who has already exhibited the idea you want to persuade your audience.

Some examples:

Idea: dollar cost averaging is a great way to make money
Reference: friend (or somebody you read about) who already made money through dollar cost averaging.

I was talking to (reading about, etc) this rich guy the other day. It was his consistent application of dollar cost averaging that allowed him to amass so much wealth in the stock market.

Idea = exercise is the best way to lose weight.
Reference = friend of yours who lost a lot of weight

I have this friend who looks great. I asked her how she did it, and she said she tried all kinds of different weight loss methods, but in the end, it was consistent daily exercise that made it easy to lose the weight.

Idea = presuppositions can skyrocket your persuasion skills
Reference = a friend (or somebody you read about) that is the top salesperson in their company

I was reading this article about this guy who always comes in first in his company’s annual sales competition. He said that it was his relentless study of presuppositions that gave him such powerful sales and persuasion skills.

One thing that never ceases to amaze me is how wonderful it is that there are these language patterns that can give you incredible power in your social life as well as your business, whatever it may be.

Indeed, most of the most successful people you’ll meet will tell you that it was their continued desire to learn more information and techniques that gave them their edge.

I don’t know if it’s your desire to increase your success that makes you optimistic about the future, or your capacity for continued improvement in all areas of life that drives you to continue to learn and improve yourself, but one thing is for certain: It is presuppositions that can give you a powerful edge that most people aren’t even aware of.

This is an article in the series on linguistic presuppositions. Linguistic presuppositions are powerful language patterns that can dramatically increase your ability to persuade others.

Today’s lesson is on the subordinate clause of time pattern.

A subordinate clause is when one idea in a sentence is linked to, or dependent on another idea in the same sentence. A subordinate clause of time links when temporally, or according to time. When one thing happens, another thing will automatically happen. Commonly used time words are, when, after, as soon as, once, before, prior, while, yet, etc.

Consider the difference between the following two sentences:

If I go to the store tonight, I’ll buy some apples.

And

When I go to the store tonight, I’ll buy some apples

In the first sentence, the “buying apples” part is dependent upon “going to the store,” but the “going to the store” part is not a done deal. Maybe I’ll go, maybe I won’t. Maybe it’s dependent upon something else that I haven’t mentioned.

On the other hand, the second sentence, going to the store is assumed to happen, no mater what. It has already been decided. And buying apples, which is dependent on going to the store, is already decided as well.

The best way to use this pattern is to use the thing, or idea, you are intending to persuade your audience to think or do, in the place of “going to the store,” in the above example, and then put something that most people would generally desire, in the place of “buying apples” in the above example.

Let’s look at a couple of examples:

Persuasive idea = dollar cost averaging is a good investment strategy

Generally desired outcome = make money

Linking words = (as soon as, after, once, since)

As soon as you realize that dollar cost averaging is really the best investment strategy out there, you’ll understand how easy it is to consistently make money.

Persuasive Idea = presuppositions are powerful

Desired outcome = able to easily persuade others conversationally

Linking words = after, as soon as, once

After you really appreciate how powerful presuppositions are, you’ll find that persuading people through regular conversation can become second nature.

Persuasive Idea = exercise is the best way to lose weight

Desired outcome = increased attention from the opposite sex

Linking words = as soon as, once, after

Once you understand that the easiest way to consistently lose weight is with a few minutes of exercise everyday, you’ll be surprised to notice all the additional attention you’ll be getting from (men/women/boys/girls).

You can also flip it around, and use before, prior and other words, and simply reverse the sentence.

(Before/Prior) + (desired outcome) + (intended persuasive message)

Before he started getting all kinds of massive attention from girls at school, he understood that exercise is the best way to lose weight.

Prior to making so much money in the stock market on a regular basis, he read a book explaining why dollar cost averaging is the best investment method there is.

Before he became the best salesperson at his company, he really took the time to master linguistic presuppositions, so that he could easily skyrocket his sales.

Now, I don’t know what it is you’d like persuade others to do, maybe you’re in sales, maybe you’d like to increase your social skills, or maybe you’d just like to feel more powerful and in control of the conversations you find yourself in. Whatever the reasons are, once you really take the time to learn and practice these presuppositions on a regular basis, you’ll really see an improvement not only in that particular area of your life you’d like to improve, but in many other areas as well.

The human brain is a wonderful computational machine that will likely not be understood for many years to come. Only now are scientists starting to scratch the surface of how the brain operates, and how the microscopic circuitry can give rise to complex emotional and psychological behavior.

One thing that mystifies many is how exactly language works. Until only recently, it was thought by many that the mind was a “blank slate,” and how we are raised, our culture, our religious, and even our language is determined by what we are taught.

While that may be true in some cases, in the case of language, there is more and more evidence that our brains are pre-wired to soak up language, and use a specific grammatical structure to translate our thoughts into sounds that others can easily understand.

At first glance, it may seem that different languages have nothing in common. If you’ve ever studied a language that differs from English in its SVO (subject verb object) structure, it can be easy to fall into the trap of thinking that the languages of the world are vastly different, so different that we can’t share a common grammar “organ” somewhere in our brain.

Yet experimental researchers in recent years are discovering that indeed, we seem to have a grammatical structure, and it is only a matter of flipping a few internal switches in the first few weeks of our life to figure out what the particular grammatical flavor of our culture of birth is. After that, it’s simply a matter of filling in the blanks.

This leads to some interesting phenomenon. One that is particularly useful, and particularly sneaky, it to leverage the pre existing structure of our language to carefully construct our speech to make it much easier to persuade somebody that by suing old fashioned logic.

There is a special class of language patterns called “Linguistic Presuppositions” that when used correctly, can have a powerful and dramatic effect on your ability to persuade unconsciously. And that means you can get other people to do what you want, and think what you want, all the while thinking that it was there idea.

There are 28 identified patterns of linguistic presuppositions, all of which will be described here in detail over the next few weeks.

Once you get skilled in using them, you will literally see the world in a whole new light. You will also be able look underneath the speech of others with laser like precision, to see precisely what they are thinking, and what is on their mind.

This can have profound effects on your ability to persuade, as well as dramatically increase the quality of the communication within your relationships.

Linguistic presuppositions are at once the least understood, yet one of the most powerful language patterns you can use for easy and natural persuasion.

Stay tuned for more information.

So the other day I was having an argument with a friend of mine. Not really an argument, although it could have easily turned into one if either one of us had a hugely vested interested in our opinions, which we both agreed were merely opinions. We’d argued/discusses several issues at length enough times to know that pretty much either issue we choose, it’s fairly easy to shoot holes in each others arguments, and we almost always end up agreeing to disagree.

One of the things we do sometimes is to play devils advocate one each other, if that’s even the right term. We pick an issue, an issue that we disagree on, and which is highly controversial, such as gun control, or abortion, or animal rights, and argue the opposite that we normally would.

I actually met this guy several years ago in a sales seminar, and that was one of the ways they taught us to overcome objections, was to put yourself in the customers shoes, and come up with as many objections as possible. The seminar itself was based on the overcoming objections part of the sales process. One of the things we learned was that the best way to overcome an objection is to not only defeat it, but to bring it up before the other person even thinks about it. In technical terms this is called “pre framing” as opposed to “re framing.” When you reframe something, you take an already stated objection, and try to twist it around so it’s not such a big objection. The problem with this is that many times, by the time the person has formulated the though well enough to present a coherent objection, they’ve usually been thinking about it for a while, and it’s pretty well entrenched in their mind.

So a great way to get rid of objections is to simply reframe them before they come up, or preframe them. That way when the client starts to formulate the thought that would have otherwise turned into an objection, instead they’ll think what you want them to think.

Here’s a great example that I witnessed in real time, several years ago. While you may object to the content of my example, the structure of how the particular objection in question was handled before it came up was particularly elegant. I was eating dinner at a restaurant with a group of guys. One of the guys, who was around 40 years old at the time, liked the younger ladies. He wouldn’t date anyone older than mid twenties. (If you find this distasteful, please press on. The example lies in the structure, not the content.)

At the time of this incident, the TV show ER was really popular, and starred George Clooney, who was the latest heartthrob. I believe at the time Clooney was late thirties. So my friend was flirting with this young waitress. I don’t think he intended to actually follow throw, he was just practicing his “game,” so to speak.

They were flirting back and forth, with eye contact, and conversations that lasted jut a tad bit longer than your normal waitress/customer interaction. He asked what she did when she wasn’t waitressing. She mentioned that she was in nursing school. He smiled and said, “Oh, you want to be like on ER, right?” And she blushed, as it was obvious that she liked that show, and at least entertained the idea of being a glamorous nurse like on TV.

So my friend, noticed a golden opportunity to preframe the “how old are you” question, that younger girls sometimes ask seemingly older guys. While she was still smiling about the thought of being a nurse “like” on ER, my friend says:

“Me and George Clooney have the same birthday.”

Now if she fantasized at all about being a nurse on ER, she surely fantasized, at least a little bit, about George Clooney. And my friend put himself in that same category in her mind. If he decided to pursue this girl (he didn’t,) and the age question ever began to arise in her mind, she would remember him having the same age as George Clooney, and of course she wouldn’t have a problem with George Clooney, so the age question was deflected and dismantled before it ever came up.

When I asked him later on how he was able to think in the moment like that, and preframe a pretty powerful objection right there on the spot, in real time, he told me it was simply through practice. He had dated quite few younger girls, and they would inevitably come up with the same questions. So what he did was to write out all the questions he got over and over, on some business size cards. And everyday, while he was taking the train to work, he would flip through the cards, look at the questions, and think of the best way to answer them that would respect the questioner, and also put himself in the best possible light.

He said that after he did that for a while, he began to see the questions coming long before they were ever actually expressed verbally, and easily preframe them. After a while, they never, ever came up again, and he enjoyed much more success (take that however you will) with his pursuit of dating younger girls.

In that sales seminar I went to, they taught us the same thing. To make a list of all the objections you get on a regular basis, and figure out the best way to answer so that you’re not disregarding or disrespecting your client, but you’re also putting your product or your service in the best possible light.

If you take the time to actually write down the objections you get the most, and practice going over some possible answers, you’ll find that they begin to come up more and more, and you’ll even be preframing them conversationally without even realizing it. To the untrained eye, they will seem to have magically disappeared.

Another thing we learned at the seminar was a way to increase mental flexibility and open mindedness. And that was through purposely arguing a point that you don’t believe in, with a willing partner. Take an issue, like some of the ones I’ve listed above, find a willing partner, and choose opposite sides that you’d normally take, and let the battle begin.

Use all your skills of persuasion and sales to convince the other person, while resisting their argument (which is the way you really feel). Do this few times and you’ll never look at the same old issues again.

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To easily discover many powerful ways to skyrocket your success in any endeavor, persuasion or otherwise, check out the link below. Find out why more and more people today are beginning to realize the vast potential of NLP:

Success with NLP

Have you ever been window-shopping, and maybe decided to venture into a store to get a better look, and one thing led to another and you ended up buying something that you hadn’t set out to buy that day? Or maybe you were kind of in the market for something, like maybe a TV or something, and weren’t quite ready to make a purchase, but you came across a salesperson that somehow seemed to make buying a TV that day the most obvious choice in the world?

We’ve all had the experience of being hounded by a salesperson that just wouldn’t take no for an answer, and know what it feels like to be on the receiving end of hard sell after hard sell. You know a salesperson is desperate for a sale when they relentlessly follow you around despite your clear indications for them to take a hike.

So what’s the difference? Why does on salesperson seem to be helpful, and when you do make the decision to buy something, you feel grateful and want to tell your friends about him or her, while other sales people, they just emit an aura of desperation that triggers every single one of your warning signals?

Or more importantly, if you are trying to persuade somebody, whether it is in direct sales, marketing, or other form of persuasion, how do you be the first salesperson and not the second one?

Most people will tell you that being able to sell things is a natural gift that you either have it, or you don’t. Like a guy being a “natural” with women, wherever he goes, women follow. And no matter how hard you try to emulate him, you just can’t figure it out.

Part of the problem with so-called “naturals” is that they themselves have no idea how they do what they do. Unless they’ve gained their skills through long concentrated practice, they likely have no clue what makes them such a persuasive and charismatic salesperson. And unfortunately, many books on sales are written by these “naturals” and aren’t all that helpful, as they don’t really know how to describe what they are doing in a way that makes it easily repeatable by others.

They may say things like “respect the client,” “develop rapport,” “be sincere,” but these are particularly vague. How exactly do you “respect the client?” What is the best way to “develop rapport?” if you ask ten different successful salespeople these questions, you’ll likely get ten very different answers, which will likely be just as vague and unhelpful.

Enter NLP.

NLP, or neurolinguistic programming was developed as a powerful modeling tool to figure out exactly what these “naturals” were doing that made them “naturals.” It all started with therapists. Most people, when they think of therapy, they imagine going to a shrink every week for many years, and talking endlessly about childhood problems and parental issues (like Tony Soprano). But when NLP was first developed, they studied a few therapists that could “fix” people in just a few sessions.

Somebody would have this deep emotional problem, they’d go see one of these “naturals” and in a couple of weeks, through three or four sessions, their problem would be completely obliterated. And these weren’t your basic problems like not being able to smile at a pretty girl, or ask your boss for a raise. These were deep emotional problems that had to do with sexual abuse, alcoholism, and other serious relationship issues.

So how did they do it? The interesting thing is when one of the co-founders of NLP, Richard Bandler, showed one of these therapists her specific language patterns, she was surprised. She herself didn’t even know that was how she was doing it. Bandler basically showed her that she was using the same language structure over and over again with her clients, and it was creating magical results. Much better than that stereotypical image of a useless psychiatrist who just sits there and says, “how do you feel about that? What do you think that means?” over and over again.

Through the creation of NLP, people were suddenly able to model excellence in human behavior and human communication. By asking the right questions, and paying attention to the specifics of the communication structure, they were able to figure out exactly how those “naturals” were doing what they were doing.

And a major part of their “natural” abilities was a strong belief about their capabilities. This went far beyond affirmations in the mirror every morning. This was a deep, powerful subconscious belief that they totally capable of doing what they were setting out to do, whether it be curing a child of his bedwetting, or selling a fifty thousand dollar car to somebody who was merely “looking around.”

There were subsequently several method and procedures developed in NLP to install these beliefs in people, or for people to install them in themselves. It became possible to become a natural without experiencing the random childhood that produced a natural salesperson or therapist. As Richard Bandler put it, with NLP, it’s never too late to have a happy childhood.

There is a huge amount of free NLP information available on the web, and there are several great sources of self study NLP courses, as well as NLP based self development products. With NLP, there really isn’t any reason why you can’t be a natural in your chosen field.

One powerful program that many people have been having massive results with is success with NLP. If you check out this website, you’ll find that this is just one of the many programs that uses NLP to help you become successful in any field you choose.

Success with NLP

One thing about studying NLP is that it is by no means a “quick fix.” Many of our beliefs that we’ve been carrying around for a while can take some effort to re engineer, but once you do, you’ll be amazed at how much you can accomplish in life. Take a look at success with NLP and see for yourself.

Many people discover that once they start down the path of self-development with NLP, they realize that the sky really is the limit, and studying and mastering NLP becomes an obviously essential skill of life.

I was waiting in line down at this new electronics shop last weekend. They had this massive grand opening, and they were going to give away this really cool flat screen TV along with a home theater system. They said they’d give out free raffle tickets to the first five hundred people that showed up, and then they’d draw later on in the afternoon to see who won. The catch, of course, was you had to be there to claim your prize. And since they gave out the free raffle tickets at eight o clock in the morning, they were assured that five hundred people would not only likely buy something that morning, but make plans to come back later. Marketing plans like this are fairly obvious. Give somebody a gimmick to get them in the door, and then do your best to up sell them while they are there.

Car dealerships are notorious for doing this. They’ll run an add in the paper for a certain make and model for a ridiculously low price. Of course they’ll say in the small print that there is only one particular car at that price, you can tell as they list the VIN, or Vehicle Identification Number of the car in question. Sometimes they’ll have three or four at that price. People see the ad, and mistakenly believe (to the hopes of the dealer) that all of the cars are at that price.
Then when they show up, they’re told they all sold out. When that happens, the dealership has two powerful tools of influence naturally working in their favor.

The first is something called “Commitment and Consistency,” as pointed out in the often referenced “Influence, Science and Practice,” by Robert Cialdini. When people make a public commitment, they are much easier to be persuaded to do something that is along the lines of that commitment. Political campaigners know this. When they phone people the week before an election and ask them if they are going go out and vote, most people naturally say yes. Since they’ve made a public commitment, even to a complete stranger over the phone, they are much more likely to vote than the average citizen who hasn’t made such a commitment.

By going to the car dealership in search of a good deal on a car, you make a certain commitment. It’s not like the car salesman pulled you in cold off the street.

Another powerful factor they have working for them in this case is social proof. As much as we’d like to think otherwise, we humans are pack animals and are extremely susceptible to crowd behavior. We love to follow fashions, stick to the status quo (unless you are a singing basketball player), and follow the crowd. So when you show up, and the car you wanted is “all sold out (all one of them),” it gives the impression that many people are after the same car, which makes it more desirable.

So by putting those cheesy ads in the paper, and getting you to make a trip to the dealership, just by showing up you have two powerful forces of social influence guiding you to buy a new car.

It’s no wonder that stores use the same tactics. They work, and they work beautifully. Stores use them so much because they work so well. All those incredibly insane “door busters” that you see the day after Thanksgiving, or black Friday, are carefully designed instruments of social manipulation. In case you are unaware, the reason it’s called “Black Friday” is in reference to the black ink bookkeepers use when they are making a profit. In this case black is very good.

To make matters worse, sometime they’ll have free giveaways, but the “winner” is actually a ringer. A plant that works for the store. Even though this is clearly immoral and unethical, it’s pretty hard to uncover and prosecute. The only danger lies in a store being found out, and it’s business getting a bad reputation. Even when people have a suspicion that the winner may indeed be a “ringer,” they still line up, “just in case.” We humans can be terribly easy to manipulate sometimes.

If you can figure out a way to get the free stuff, without giving in to the temptation to buy whatever they convincing you to buy through their masterful social engineering, so much the better.

One thing I usually do in a case like the free TV giveaway is only take five dollars with me, and leave all my credit cards at home. That way even I’m persuaded by the slickest of salesman, I won’t be able to buy anything. Hopefully by the time I race home to get my credit card, I’ll stop and wonder if I really do need that beef jerky machine. It’s not like I eat beef jerky every day, or even once a week. Why in the world do I need to cook the stuff?

So as I was standing there in line, looking at all the awesome electronic gadgets that I would surely buy if I were rich enough, I started talking to the guy behind me. He was involved in several MLMs and told me places like this were a great opportunity spread his business. People were surrounded by all this stuff that they wished they had enough money to buy, so naturally they would be open to opportunities to make more money, at least in principle. This guy said that he had great success recruiting people for his “downline,” at these “free” offerings. He scans the paper every week, and goes to as many as these as possible. He said the best time is right before the actual drawing, when people’s interests are the highest.

He said he was kind of “piggybacking” on the social manipulation of the business. He would show up in the morning, talk to a few people in line, and not mention anything about his business. Then he would come back that afternoon, strike up a conversation again with the people he already met, like he was an old friend. Then while the excitement and expectation was high, he would slowly ease the conversation into his well-crafted sales pitch.

He said that if he only gets one person per “giveaway,” then it is well worth his while, because in the long run, each person that joins his “downline” is worth potentially thousands of dollars, if not more.

And, of course, I didn’t win the TV, and I bought this cool little vacuum cleaner for my keyboard, that plugs into my USB port. And a new computer mouse, because my old one, was, kind of, you know, needed replacing. Or something.

There are two laws of influence that can be used in a particularly powerful combination. These two laws have been identified by Robert Cialdini in his bestselling book, “Influence, Science And Practice.” If you are interested in influence at all, and would like to either become better at it, or just to understand how pretty much everybody around you is using these techniques, you should read this book.

There is a vague belief that persuasion is kind of an “art,” and that people that are good at it are like musicians or painters who are born with some natural talent. But Dr. Cialdini has shown beyond a shadow of a doubt that persuasion is indeed a science, rather than an art. A science that can be learned and applied either to benefit an individual, a company, or the leader of a nation.

There are several examples of how these principles of influence have been used without much concern for ethical considerations, but they still work nevertheless.

There is one fantastic example that comes to mind, which I’d like to share with you today. This was illustrated in “Influence.”

The first principle this involves is one of “commitment and consistency.” This is the idea that people are much more willing to do something if they have already publicly stated they will something, or have done something before that is similar.

A great Internet example is “click through.” If you visit a website of somebody trying to sell you something, you’ll likely have to click through several different pages to actually get to the point where you type in your credit card number. The reasoning behind this is people are much more likely to take the next step if they’ve already taken several previous steps.

If you land on some web page, and read some advertising text, and there is a button at the bottom that says “Buy Now!” The percentage of people that click on it is fairly low. But instead, if you shorten your sales page, and on the bottom is a button that says, “Click to Read More!” You’ll get much more people clicking through. Once you get visitors to click through three or four pages, they’ll be much more likely to click on a “Buy Now” button.

Another example is in jury trials. When they finish a trial, and the jury convenes they will often conduct a “straw vote” meaning that just give their first impression, guilty or not guilty, before the jury starts to discuss the case. Here’s the interesting part.

In jury deliberations where each juror publicly states, out loud, whether they feel the defendant is guilty or not guilty, the deliberations last more than twice as long as those where they jurors submit their initial guilty or innocent vote via anonymous slips of paper.

When people state their opinions out loud, they are much less likely to later change them. But when they submit their opinions in private, on an anonymous slip of paper, they later change their minds rather easily.

Another principle is one called scarcity. I’m sure you are well aware of this. Limited supply. Sale only lasts for two days. Only the first one hundred customers.

Study after study shows that people will give something a much higher value when they think it is scarce. A group of researchers did an experiment where they had people sample a cookie. In one case, they convinced the samplers that there were plenty of cookies, and the test would be going for quite a while, etc etc.

Then they told a different group of testers that the cookies were a limited batch, and it was a recipe that was only being tried out for a short period of time, and the testers were lucky to be in on the experiment. Keep in mind the testers or samplers were never sold anything, so there was no buying pressure.

The results? The samplers who were told there were many more cookies of the same kind gave it an average rating. The testers who were told that it was a small group of cookies, and they were a select group of testers gave it an excellent rating.

But they were the same exact cookie. Simply by telling people it was scarce, it made the cookie taste better.

Now for the powerful, Christmas time combination. I have no idea if this still happens today, but this story was illustrated in “Influence,” the book I mentioned previous.

There was a toy manufacturer. They made a toy, and put all kinds of TV commercials on, directed at little kids. They used all kinds of marketing tricks, mainly scarcity. Only a limited number of dolls made. Get yours today. Everybody wants this doll for Christmas.

Only when the parents went to the store to get the doll, they were all sold out. So they had to get a substitute gift for their kid. Then, a couple months after Christmas, they somehow found a hidden warehouse filled with these dolls. Of course, the kids saw this, told their parents, and their parents were pretty much obligated to buy the toy, as they had promised to buy it at Christmas but couldn’t find it.

Here’s how it works. Kid sees toy, bugs parent. Parents promises kid to buy them that particular toy. When buying time comes, toy isn’t available. Parent buys replacement gift. Two months later, toy reappears. Kid says, “But Daddy, you promised!” Daddy now has to go and buy gift.

Simply by manipulating the supply of the toys (scarcity) to increase demand, and depending on commitment and consistency (Daddy, you promised!) the toy company was able to double it’s Christmas sales. They sold a slew of replacement gifts (jacked up in price because of daddy’s guilt for not finding the promised toy) and then again a couple months later, when the original gift magically appeared, they had an increase in sales when all their competitor were suffering from a post Christmas slump

The beauty (or evilness, depending on how you look at it) of a plan like this is that this is almost impossible to defend against. What parent is going to tell their child they can’t have what the TV has said every other kid is getting? What parent is going to break a promise to their kid?

Everywhere you look, there are advertisements developed by companies who know and apply these principles on a daily basis. It helps to understand these principles so that you can use them yourself (in an ethical, win win scenario, of course) and to defend against them when they are used against you.

Which would you rather have, a big juicy hamburger, or a cracker with some peanut butter slapped on top? How about a nice two-week relaxing vacation on the beaches of Hawaii versus a free coupon worth on rental from your local video store? Or how about a date with Megan Fox compared to that homeless woman you saw the other day?

These may seem like obviously easy choices. But what about these:

You are standing next to the train tracks. There is a split right where you are standing. There is a train coming. As it stands, the strain is going to veer left. You have access to a switch that can make the train veer right if you flip the switch.
You notice there is a stranded bus filled with school kids on the tracks to the left. If the train continues on its course, it will hit the bus and kill the kids. But to the right, there is one fat guy working on the tracks. If you throw the switch to change tracks, the train will avoid the kids, but it will kill he fat guy.

What do you do?

If you do nothing, a busload of kids will die. If you throw the switch, you will save the kids, but you will be directly responsible for killing some fat guy.

Or how about this:

There is a boatload of kids drifting down a river, about to plunge off a waterfall. You are standing on a bridge. There is the same fat guy walking across the bridge. If you run up and push the fat guy off the bridge, he will hit the boat and diverge it from the waterfall, and save the kids.

What do you do?

Many people polled in various studies would pull the switch in the first scenario, as they see it as an act of saving the kids. But few people would actually run up and push the fat guy off the bridge.

Why?

They (those they people again) did a study where they took some students and had them stick their hands in a bucket of water, and then guess the temperature. Then they had the same students stick their same hands in the same water, but at the same time, they had them stick their other hands in another bucket of water, that was either really hot or really cold. When the other bucket was really hot, they underestimated the temperature of the test bucket. When the water was really cold, they overestimated the temperature of the test bucket.

Or how about this. It is not uncommon for real estate agents to show a potential client a really crappy house in a really crappy neighborhood that is within their stated price range. Then they show them another much better house, in a much better neighborhood that is priced slightly higher than their stated price range.

They’ve found that this works really well to convince them to increase their price limits. By showing them the first house (which is owned and maintained by the real estate company) they effectively make the second house look like a bargain.

Restaurants have also found this trick works really well when selling wine. If they have a bottle (or several bottles) they are trying to unload at, say, fifty dollars a bottle, the wine won’t sell very well if it is the most expensive bottle they have. But they’ve found by adding another bottle, priced at seventy five to a hundred dollars, they increase sales of the fifty dollar bottle significantly. It looks better in comparison.

Our brains don’t’ like to choose in a vacuum. We need to have something to compare our choices to. If the choice is only to buy a bottle of wine or not, we usually will choose not. But if it’s an expensive bottle or a cheaper bottle, we’ll choose the cheaper bottle.

This is a known psychological trick that has been used in sales for many years. We like to feel like we have a choice, like we are smart enough to evaluate those choices and make the best decision that we can. But our short hand thinking process can easily be hijacked by marketers who want to sell us something that we really don’t need.

There is one simple rule to avoid being duped. Simply know going in, before being presented with choices, what is important to you, what price you are willing to spend, and what options you want. And compare everything you see only to your list of options and your acceptable price.

Of course, if you are a marketer, and you are trying to sell something, say online, it would help dramatically to include something similar that is priced significantly higher. That way people will think the real item you have for sale is a bargain and they will be much more likely to buy it.

For example, if you run a product review page, and you are selling item “X” for fifty bucks, try and find a similar item, with only slightly better features, for two hundred bucks. Item “X” will seem like steal in comparison.

Another trick that has been proven very useful in this regard is to include only a little bit of information about the first, more expensive item, and then very detailed information about item “X.” That way, item “X” will not only seem cheaper by comparison, but your potential buyers will feel much more informed, and feel they are making a wise buying decision.

Happy marketing, and don’t push any fat guys off any bridges.