More On Persuasion Continuums

In the first article of this series, "Persuasion Continuums" I started to describe one of the slickest persuasion tools around. I'm going to take it a little further here.

A brief recap of article one: Continuums work best when your prospect is at one end or the other of the scale, not if they're in the middle. (This will make more sense as you read on.)

If your prospect is at the far left side of one continuum (say the towards and away continuum) but in the middle of another one (like the internal/external continuum), then you'll want to concentrate on towards and away and ignore the internal external because whatever language you're using in that regard is not going to affect them much anyway.

These continuums are organizing principles for people; they're a filter, a way of looking at things. And, lucky for us, they're habitual, meaning, people tend to keep the same perspective within the context in which you've inquired.

Radical life changes can alter orientations but for the most part, they are a set way of experiencing the world.

We all view the world through these different lenses to one extent or another. We have a 'towards/away' lens, an 'internal/external' lens, and an 'options/procedural' lens. Once you understand how these work and what to say in order to access them, you will be able to zero in on the way a person functions and influence them with amazing precision.

All it takes is some attention and knowing how to adjust your language to fully take advantage.

Most likely, up until now, you might have assumed that everyone else thinks the same way that you do. And when I say 'thinks the same way', I don't mean that they have the same views. I mean that their thought processes work the same way. And this is simply not true.

Nothing could be further from the truth. You think the way you do. I think the way I do. Your prospect thinks the way he or she does. We're all wildly different.

So step one in learning how to work this is to put your mind in a white board state. . . a blank slate, so to speak. Your interaction with your prospect is about you being there to be marked upon and allowing a part of you to be molded by the way your prospect thinks and speaks. It's a kind of mirroring/matching.

You are not at all changing your core values or beliefs. You are temporarily changing the way you express and receive information within the context of talking to this particular person.

'You are what you eat,' 'Clothes make the man', 'You can tell a lot by a person by who they keep company with'. . . these are all cliches and/or truisms (depending on your frame), but are you really what you eat? No. Are you really what you wear? No. You are a great deal more than the parts that make you up.

You're way closer to being a belief or a value, than you are to being the shoes you wear. But still, you're not just a belief. You're not simply your values. When you combine all that you think and feel and believe and, yes, wear, together, that's who you are.

It's really important to understand that when you change your language, you're not changing who you are, you're changing your shirt, you're changing your shoes, you're changing your tie.

Our main goal in persuasive communication is flexibility, bending to the ways your prospect or client bends, not maintaining our rigid views.

As the context changes, so does the orientation. If we're talking about health and then switch to finances, then in that given context, the orientation has to be reestablished. Don't assume that because someone is 'away' in one context, that they'll be 'away' in all contexts.

Coming soon: Backing the Ambulance Up to the Door: The 'Away' Perspective.

About the Author

Kenrick Cleveland teaches techniques to earn the business of affluent prospects using persuasion. He runs public and private seminars and offers home study courses and coaching programs in persuasion techniques.

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