Picasso argued that “art is a lie that tells the truth,” writer Ursula Le Guin admitted that “deception is the novelist’s bread,” and Marlon Brando once said, “If you If you know how to lie, you can be an actor.” The work of any storyteller, marketer or copywriter largely consists of persuasion. Their goal is to convince us of their words, no matter how plausible they sound, and ours, in turn, is to believe them.
As author and renowned artist Hugh MacLeod said, “The market for things to believe in is limitless.”
Whether you're writing articles, closing deals, or designing websites, persuasion always pays off. Want to learn? Watch people who make you do unthinkable things. In this article, we'll tell you how the world's most notorious scammers, politicians, and salespeople use your emotions to push you into action.
Sellers
Let's start with the largest group of people who use persuasion techniques: salespeople. By definition, their main goal is to separate you from your hard-earned money. Peter Drucker, one of the most influential management theorists of the 20th century, stated that the goal of marketing is to make selling unnecessary:
“The goal of marketing is to make sales effort unnecessary. You must know and understand the client so well that the product or service fits him exactly and sells itself.”
Yes, in fact, convincing someone who is already interested in buying the products you sell comes down to a simple description of the benefits that the product provides. But what's so interesting about this? At least the fact that a good salesman is able to sell a venison steak to a vegetarian. How? And this is where all the fun begins. Recent research has shown that up to 95% of our decisions are made subconsciously, which means that people with the gift of persuasion can guide our choices in the right direction, even when we are not aware of it.
As Robert Cialdini, author of the bestselling book Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion, puts it: “People have a surprisingly poor understanding of the factors that influence their behavior.” You may not know why you do certain things, but a good salesman can read the subtle subconscious signs you're sending, play on it, and lure you right into their web.
Below are a few effective techniques that experienced salespeople use to get a prospect to say yes, even when he didn't mean to.
1. Ride the Persuasion Coaster
In his Neuroscience Marketing blog, Roger Dooley describes what he calls the "Slide into Persuasion."
All people have a certain level of intrinsic motivation, and master persuaders use it to their advantage. In Dooley's sliding model, it's gravity. The prospect's current motivation level determines how persuasive you need to be:
“Without a steep enough slope, the slide doesn’t work. If motivation turns out to be weak, the consumer will begin to descend and then stop. I distinguish two types of motivation: conscious and unconscious.”
Most of all, marketers focus on conscious motivational factors: product features, benefits, prices, discounts. However, all of these things only apply to the rational part of your brain - which, as we said, is responsible for only 5% of the decisions you make.
Unconscious factors can influence those who are not used to living with compromise. With their help, you make rational decisions more emotional and overcome the barrier of logical thinking, focusing on such things as:
1. Security: guarantee, proven
2. Control: powerful, strong
3. Understanding: because, since, so, true, real
4. Greed: money, “cash”, save, win, free, more
5. Health: safe, healthy, excellent
6. Belonging: belongs, happy, good
7. Virtue: exclusive, only, admired
8. Identity: you, (their names), we
9. Novelty: new, discover
However, you must remember that the meaning of these words may change over time as cultural associations change. Just take a look at the phrases your email spam filter doesn't miss: "Act Now!", "Free", "Available", "Cheap", "Limited Time Offer". All of these words were once “divine,” but overuse has tarnished their reputation.
2. Make them say no.
Although most sales training encourages you to get the word “yes” out of your prospects as often as possible, research has shown that such repetition only weakens the significance of each positive response. If you get your prospects to say “no” first, they will be more inclined to stick to their guns when they eventually agree to your terms. Design your sales funnel so that consumers can answer “no” at the beginning, which will increase their confidence in subsequent positive answers.
3. Put yourself in a position of power, literally.
There is plenty of research showing how body language can affect negotiations, but what helps in sales is moving from a weak position to a strong one. The best salespeople start the conversation a little from the bottom (both figuratively and literally).
Who's in charge here? Researchers have identified the weaknesses and strengths of body language. What positions do you think express authority:
A. Occupying a large area of the table
B. Crossing your arms and legs
C. Touching your neck, face, or arm
D. Leaning your hands on a wide surface
E. Leaning your elbows on the table with your arms folded
F. Opening your limbs wide
But as the deal progresses, they gradually rise until they finally take a dominant position. On a subconscious level, such a gradual transition makes the client more receptive to the suggestions of salespeople and consultants.
How do scammers cheat?
A recent article in the New York Times brought attention to the travails of 33-year-old Niall Rice, who gradually spent $718,000 on two psychics who promised to reunite him with his former lover. “I just got hooked,” he said. “That’s what people don’t understand.”
There is a fine line between a good salesperson and a scammer, but the biggest difference lies not only in why the scammer is pushing you to take certain actions, but in how he does it. The success of a good scam depends on following one golden rule: know your worth.
In her book The Confidence Game, Maria Konnikova spoke with scammers and their victims to understand how these people operate and why their methods work. She found that in this craft, as in a complex transaction, everyone relies on emotion.
Step 1: Know who you are talking to. Know what they are confident about and, more importantly, what they doubt.
Step 2: Look for loopholes. Emotionally vulnerable situations give you a lot of opportunities for persuasion. When your life no longer makes sense, you are more than willing to listen to someone who provides you with the answers you need.
Step 3: Create a cult of trust. The psychics in Niall's story used mysticism to convince him to keep paying. Their services were based on faith, not reason. This means that you should not go against widely held belief systems. Instead, apply your knowledge to create your own belief systems.
Ferdinand Waldo Demara, also known as the “Great Impostor,” who posed as a surgeon (who performed real operations), a lawyer, a prison guard, an oncology specialist, and a Benedictine monk, called this principle “expanding the power vacuum.” the power vacuum):
“In this case, there is no competition, no past standards to compare you to. There are no laws, rules or precedents that hold you back or limit you. Make your own rules and interpretations."
Persuading and influencing is much easier in industries where you can become an authority, as people are more likely to trust expert opinion. But as Paul J. Zak, a neuroeconomist at Claremont Graduate University, explains, the secret to the scam is not just that consumers trust the scammer, but that he trusts them:
“Social interactions, especially those where we feel some kind of superiority over another person (for example, helping to solve a problem), trigger a powerful brain cycle that releases the neurochemical oxytocin. This hormone makes you want to reciprocate people who express trust in you—even if you are strangers.
The effects of oxytocin are modulated by our large prefrontal cortex, which houses the “executive” areas of the brain. Oskitocin is about emotion, while the prefrontal cortex is about thinking.”
So, even if we think we are acting rationally, showing trust and vulnerability forces us to think emotionally, which is the key to all beliefs.
We tend to reciprocate people who express trust in us - even if we are strangers.
Politicians
At the top of our pyramid of persuasion are politicians. While con men may convince one or a few people of the truth of their story, politicians face millions of opponents, each with their own unique worldview and emotions. So how do you convince such a large group of people to follow your ideas?
In essence, by voting for this or that politician, you are choosing your lifestyle. This choice is dictated by your moral principles and considerations of what issues really matter. Additionally, in their study From Gulf to Bridge: When do Moral Arguments Facilitate Political Influence, Rob Willer & Matthew Feinberg also found that we perceive these moral beliefs to be factual and universally applicable.
Once we begin to believe in certain values, it becomes incredibly difficult to convince us otherwise.
In this state, opposing beliefs may seem “wrong” to us without any logical reason. Trying to understand these third-party values, we find ourselves in the so-called moral empathy gap - the inability to look at a problem from someone else's point of view.
The main mistake that politicians and would-be leaders make is that they do not realize how ingrained these moral beliefs are. You can't rationally discuss the merits of, say, same-sex marriage or increased military funding with someone who doesn't support such ideas on an emotional level.
Do you think this is a dead end? Not really. There is a technique called moral reframing that can help you reframe your arguments and align them with your audience's values. Focus on what they value, not what you do.
In the paper “Mapping the Moral Domein,” published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, Professor Jesse Graham surveyed thousands of people around the world and found that our moral values can be divided into 5 main categories:
1. Harm/Caring
2. Justice/Reciprocity
3. Loyalty
4. Authority/Respect
5. Integrity/Sacred
Looking at United States politics as a prime example of strong moral beliefs, Graham and other researchers found that liberals are most concerned with issues of care and fairness, while conservatives focus on loyalty, respect and integrity.
But how can good speakers and motivators use this knowledge to persuade the opposition? Don Draper from Mad Men would say, “If you don't like the conversation, just change the subject.”
In their study, Wheeler and Feinberg exposed liberals and conservatives to one of two messages in favor of same-sex marriage. The first emphasized the importance of equal rights for same-sex couples (and was aimed at those more committed to the moral values of fairness), and the second argued that “same-sex couples are proud and patriotic Americans” who “contribute to the development of the American economy and society."
Liberals supported same-sex marriage equally no matter what statement they were shown, because they already believed in such a relationship and did not need convincing. But to conservatives, the idea of same-sex families seemed much more attractive if they read the patriotic message.
In another study, Wheeler and Feinberg found that conservatives were more sympathetic to environmental legislation when propaganda messages were framed in terms of purity rather than in terms of liberal values of harm and control. In both cases, respondents were told the same thing, but the wording of the messages changed everything.
As Professor Wheeler summarized in an article from The New York Times:
“To get into the heads of the people you want to persuade, think about what they care about and provide arguments that appeal to their principles. By doing this, you will show that you see those with whom you disagree not as enemies, but as people whose values are worthy of your consideration.”
Principles of Persuasion
1. Know who is up against you
The first step in any scam or argumentative persuasion comes down to researching the audience you want to influence. Studying market conditions, consumer feedback, tracking data - all this will allow you to get an idea of your opponent.
2. Understand their suffering and show them the benefits.
Fraudsters can simply tell a person a certain story that will lead him to the necessary conclusion without significant instructions. But everyone else must conduct thorough research to provide clients with a clear solution to their problems.
3. Lubricate the slide
Add some scarcity and social proof to your offer to continue the “slide to persuasion.”
4. The more difficult a belief is, the more emotional it should be.
Show emotion when faced with objections or refusals. Almost all modern scams and mass beliefs show that we are just emotional beings who are more than happy to make decisions without following the laws of logic.
5. Change the topic of conversation
Flip the script. If what you say isn't working, use your empathy to understand how the other person thinks and align your arguments with their values.
Instead of a conclusion
Remember that any swindler, swindler or politician succeeds only because we allow him to. A carefully planned scam will only work if it affects one of the significant aspects of your life. The motivation is already there, somewhere inside of you, and no matter how small that spark is, with the right approach, someone can ignite it into a bright flame.
However, you should not use the art of manipulation with bad intentions, because as Robert Cialdini warns:
“When these instruments are used immorally as instruments of influence, any short-term gains are almost always accompanied by long-term losses.”
How good are you at convincing people? What techniques do you use and are they always for good purposes? Share in the comments.
High conversions to you!
(c) https://lpgenerator.ru/blog/2016/03...uchimsya-u-moshennikov-politikov-i-prodavcov/
As author and renowned artist Hugh MacLeod said, “The market for things to believe in is limitless.”
Whether you're writing articles, closing deals, or designing websites, persuasion always pays off. Want to learn? Watch people who make you do unthinkable things. In this article, we'll tell you how the world's most notorious scammers, politicians, and salespeople use your emotions to push you into action.
Sellers
Let's start with the largest group of people who use persuasion techniques: salespeople. By definition, their main goal is to separate you from your hard-earned money. Peter Drucker, one of the most influential management theorists of the 20th century, stated that the goal of marketing is to make selling unnecessary:
“The goal of marketing is to make sales effort unnecessary. You must know and understand the client so well that the product or service fits him exactly and sells itself.”
Yes, in fact, convincing someone who is already interested in buying the products you sell comes down to a simple description of the benefits that the product provides. But what's so interesting about this? At least the fact that a good salesman is able to sell a venison steak to a vegetarian. How? And this is where all the fun begins. Recent research has shown that up to 95% of our decisions are made subconsciously, which means that people with the gift of persuasion can guide our choices in the right direction, even when we are not aware of it.
As Robert Cialdini, author of the bestselling book Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion, puts it: “People have a surprisingly poor understanding of the factors that influence their behavior.” You may not know why you do certain things, but a good salesman can read the subtle subconscious signs you're sending, play on it, and lure you right into their web.
Below are a few effective techniques that experienced salespeople use to get a prospect to say yes, even when he didn't mean to.
1. Ride the Persuasion Coaster
In his Neuroscience Marketing blog, Roger Dooley describes what he calls the "Slide into Persuasion."
All people have a certain level of intrinsic motivation, and master persuaders use it to their advantage. In Dooley's sliding model, it's gravity. The prospect's current motivation level determines how persuasive you need to be:
“Without a steep enough slope, the slide doesn’t work. If motivation turns out to be weak, the consumer will begin to descend and then stop. I distinguish two types of motivation: conscious and unconscious.”
Most of all, marketers focus on conscious motivational factors: product features, benefits, prices, discounts. However, all of these things only apply to the rational part of your brain - which, as we said, is responsible for only 5% of the decisions you make.
Unconscious factors can influence those who are not used to living with compromise. With their help, you make rational decisions more emotional and overcome the barrier of logical thinking, focusing on such things as:
- Reciprocity - Make the buyer feel a sense of obligation towards you. In society, people tend to pay quid pro quo, so free samples or an unexpected “update” almost always entice us to spend more.
- Scarcity - Make your consumers feel like they only have one option to get the product. We are more likely to ignore any logical arguments when we think we won't have another chance to buy.
- Use fundamental terms - every language has words. which have greater cultural significance. The editors of the blog Changing Mind divided these words into three categories: Divine (good), Devilish (disgusting) and Charismatic (more intangible, but still powerful).
1. Security: guarantee, proven
2. Control: powerful, strong
3. Understanding: because, since, so, true, real
4. Greed: money, “cash”, save, win, free, more
5. Health: safe, healthy, excellent
6. Belonging: belongs, happy, good
7. Virtue: exclusive, only, admired
8. Identity: you, (their names), we
9. Novelty: new, discover
However, you must remember that the meaning of these words may change over time as cultural associations change. Just take a look at the phrases your email spam filter doesn't miss: "Act Now!", "Free", "Available", "Cheap", "Limited Time Offer". All of these words were once “divine,” but overuse has tarnished their reputation.
2. Make them say no.
Although most sales training encourages you to get the word “yes” out of your prospects as often as possible, research has shown that such repetition only weakens the significance of each positive response. If you get your prospects to say “no” first, they will be more inclined to stick to their guns when they eventually agree to your terms. Design your sales funnel so that consumers can answer “no” at the beginning, which will increase their confidence in subsequent positive answers.
3. Put yourself in a position of power, literally.
There is plenty of research showing how body language can affect negotiations, but what helps in sales is moving from a weak position to a strong one. The best salespeople start the conversation a little from the bottom (both figuratively and literally).
Who's in charge here? Researchers have identified the weaknesses and strengths of body language. What positions do you think express authority:
A. Occupying a large area of the table
B. Crossing your arms and legs
C. Touching your neck, face, or arm
D. Leaning your hands on a wide surface
E. Leaning your elbows on the table with your arms folded
F. Opening your limbs wide
But as the deal progresses, they gradually rise until they finally take a dominant position. On a subconscious level, such a gradual transition makes the client more receptive to the suggestions of salespeople and consultants.
How do scammers cheat?
A recent article in the New York Times brought attention to the travails of 33-year-old Niall Rice, who gradually spent $718,000 on two psychics who promised to reunite him with his former lover. “I just got hooked,” he said. “That’s what people don’t understand.”
There is a fine line between a good salesperson and a scammer, but the biggest difference lies not only in why the scammer is pushing you to take certain actions, but in how he does it. The success of a good scam depends on following one golden rule: know your worth.
In her book The Confidence Game, Maria Konnikova spoke with scammers and their victims to understand how these people operate and why their methods work. She found that in this craft, as in a complex transaction, everyone relies on emotion.
Step 1: Know who you are talking to. Know what they are confident about and, more importantly, what they doubt.
Step 2: Look for loopholes. Emotionally vulnerable situations give you a lot of opportunities for persuasion. When your life no longer makes sense, you are more than willing to listen to someone who provides you with the answers you need.
Step 3: Create a cult of trust. The psychics in Niall's story used mysticism to convince him to keep paying. Their services were based on faith, not reason. This means that you should not go against widely held belief systems. Instead, apply your knowledge to create your own belief systems.
Ferdinand Waldo Demara, also known as the “Great Impostor,” who posed as a surgeon (who performed real operations), a lawyer, a prison guard, an oncology specialist, and a Benedictine monk, called this principle “expanding the power vacuum.” the power vacuum):
“In this case, there is no competition, no past standards to compare you to. There are no laws, rules or precedents that hold you back or limit you. Make your own rules and interpretations."
Persuading and influencing is much easier in industries where you can become an authority, as people are more likely to trust expert opinion. But as Paul J. Zak, a neuroeconomist at Claremont Graduate University, explains, the secret to the scam is not just that consumers trust the scammer, but that he trusts them:
“Social interactions, especially those where we feel some kind of superiority over another person (for example, helping to solve a problem), trigger a powerful brain cycle that releases the neurochemical oxytocin. This hormone makes you want to reciprocate people who express trust in you—even if you are strangers.
The effects of oxytocin are modulated by our large prefrontal cortex, which houses the “executive” areas of the brain. Oskitocin is about emotion, while the prefrontal cortex is about thinking.”
So, even if we think we are acting rationally, showing trust and vulnerability forces us to think emotionally, which is the key to all beliefs.
We tend to reciprocate people who express trust in us - even if we are strangers.
Politicians
At the top of our pyramid of persuasion are politicians. While con men may convince one or a few people of the truth of their story, politicians face millions of opponents, each with their own unique worldview and emotions. So how do you convince such a large group of people to follow your ideas?
In essence, by voting for this or that politician, you are choosing your lifestyle. This choice is dictated by your moral principles and considerations of what issues really matter. Additionally, in their study From Gulf to Bridge: When do Moral Arguments Facilitate Political Influence, Rob Willer & Matthew Feinberg also found that we perceive these moral beliefs to be factual and universally applicable.
Once we begin to believe in certain values, it becomes incredibly difficult to convince us otherwise.
In this state, opposing beliefs may seem “wrong” to us without any logical reason. Trying to understand these third-party values, we find ourselves in the so-called moral empathy gap - the inability to look at a problem from someone else's point of view.
The main mistake that politicians and would-be leaders make is that they do not realize how ingrained these moral beliefs are. You can't rationally discuss the merits of, say, same-sex marriage or increased military funding with someone who doesn't support such ideas on an emotional level.
Do you think this is a dead end? Not really. There is a technique called moral reframing that can help you reframe your arguments and align them with your audience's values. Focus on what they value, not what you do.
In the paper “Mapping the Moral Domein,” published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, Professor Jesse Graham surveyed thousands of people around the world and found that our moral values can be divided into 5 main categories:
1. Harm/Caring
2. Justice/Reciprocity
3. Loyalty
4. Authority/Respect
5. Integrity/Sacred
Looking at United States politics as a prime example of strong moral beliefs, Graham and other researchers found that liberals are most concerned with issues of care and fairness, while conservatives focus on loyalty, respect and integrity.
But how can good speakers and motivators use this knowledge to persuade the opposition? Don Draper from Mad Men would say, “If you don't like the conversation, just change the subject.”
In their study, Wheeler and Feinberg exposed liberals and conservatives to one of two messages in favor of same-sex marriage. The first emphasized the importance of equal rights for same-sex couples (and was aimed at those more committed to the moral values of fairness), and the second argued that “same-sex couples are proud and patriotic Americans” who “contribute to the development of the American economy and society."
Liberals supported same-sex marriage equally no matter what statement they were shown, because they already believed in such a relationship and did not need convincing. But to conservatives, the idea of same-sex families seemed much more attractive if they read the patriotic message.
In another study, Wheeler and Feinberg found that conservatives were more sympathetic to environmental legislation when propaganda messages were framed in terms of purity rather than in terms of liberal values of harm and control. In both cases, respondents were told the same thing, but the wording of the messages changed everything.
As Professor Wheeler summarized in an article from The New York Times:
“To get into the heads of the people you want to persuade, think about what they care about and provide arguments that appeal to their principles. By doing this, you will show that you see those with whom you disagree not as enemies, but as people whose values are worthy of your consideration.”
Principles of Persuasion
1. Know who is up against you
The first step in any scam or argumentative persuasion comes down to researching the audience you want to influence. Studying market conditions, consumer feedback, tracking data - all this will allow you to get an idea of your opponent.
2. Understand their suffering and show them the benefits.
Fraudsters can simply tell a person a certain story that will lead him to the necessary conclusion without significant instructions. But everyone else must conduct thorough research to provide clients with a clear solution to their problems.
3. Lubricate the slide
Add some scarcity and social proof to your offer to continue the “slide to persuasion.”
4. The more difficult a belief is, the more emotional it should be.
Show emotion when faced with objections or refusals. Almost all modern scams and mass beliefs show that we are just emotional beings who are more than happy to make decisions without following the laws of logic.
5. Change the topic of conversation
Flip the script. If what you say isn't working, use your empathy to understand how the other person thinks and align your arguments with their values.
Instead of a conclusion
Remember that any swindler, swindler or politician succeeds only because we allow him to. A carefully planned scam will only work if it affects one of the significant aspects of your life. The motivation is already there, somewhere inside of you, and no matter how small that spark is, with the right approach, someone can ignite it into a bright flame.
However, you should not use the art of manipulation with bad intentions, because as Robert Cialdini warns:
“When these instruments are used immorally as instruments of influence, any short-term gains are almost always accompanied by long-term losses.”
How good are you at convincing people? What techniques do you use and are they always for good purposes? Share in the comments.
High conversions to you!
(c) https://lpgenerator.ru/blog/2016/03...uchimsya-u-moshennikov-politikov-i-prodavcov/
