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1. Anchoring States to Physical Objects:
People get attached emotionally to physical objects all the time. We do this often with objects that hold sentimental value. Imagine what it would be like if you could trigger these intense emotions in others and naturally, easily, and all the time.
Now imagine what it would be like if you could make your prospect attach strong emotions of pleasure and desire to your product?
With persuasion and covert hypnosis that’s what happens with anchoring physical objects.
It happens when you elicit a feeling and anchor it to a physical object, so that every time your subject becomes aware of the object they feel the emotion you elicited.
Here is a videowhere you will see Kim McFarland anchor strong emotions to sugar packets.
2. Like Me Hate Them
This one is easy and completely covert and very simple. Elicit a bad emotion anchor your competition in it. Elicit a good emotion place yourself or your product in it. Here’s a video of Tom Vizinni demonstrating this one:
3. Anchoring Amnesia
I believe this anchoring strategy is from Kenrick Cleveland’s off the market Dark Side of Persuasion course. The Dark Side was a controversial course where Kenrick teaches persuasion strategies that could cause serious harm to people. Kenrick also made purchasers sign an agreement that they would only use the Dark Strategies as self-defense only.
Anchoring amnesia is probably less practical of a skill unless you just want to just f*ck with people. Some find it humorous others find it cruel. This is the only one of the bad ass anchoring strategies I would advise against using. Read my Warning and Disclaimer before watching this video of Kendrick Cleveland displaying anchoring amnesia.
4. The Swish Pattern
The NLP swish pattern is a strategy of anchoring similar to the “Like me, Hate Them” strategy above. With the swish pattern you elicit a feeling of uncertainty in your subject and then elicit a feeling of absolute certainty. Next, you fire the anchor when you speak of something you want them to be certain of or uncertain of.
For example is sales, you could make your client uncertain about your competition or make them absolutely certain that your product is the best for them.
In the following video world famous mentalist, and my hero, Derren Brown uses this type of anchoring it to make a woman forget the color of her car.
If you want to become masterful at persuasion then you will want to build on the following skills. The following three things listed I have found in my experience with persuasion and covert hypnosis to be are essential.
1. Intention
State you intention before you are begin persuading someone, and state your intention silently I when you shift methods when you are persuading someone. I have no idea why it works, if there is some mystical force or if it is psychological, there are arguments on both sides of the coin. But I do notice that when I state my intention inside to use a technique the technique seems to work better.
I do believe in the pop-psychological philosophy of what you focus on expands, so perhaps focusing on what you want to do increases you perasuasive power. All I care about are results.
Many top NLP trainers teach constructive hallucinations to amplify you intention when persuading. At a recent hypnosis seminar a fellow student was telling me how he was at a Richard Bandler seminar and he was telling people to imagine throwing lightning bolts at the peope they want to persuade. Tom Vizzini and Kim Mcfarland of essential-skills.com teach an effective method of using your intent to gain rapport using visualisatiosn like these.
2. Calibration
“People will teach you how to sell them if you’ll pay attention to the messages they send you.” - unknown
A friend of mine sells mattresses. He says one of the best mattresses he sells is this new mattress called a Tempurpedic. It’s made of this material called memory foam. Its this really flexible foam that has what called a “sense and response” foam. It senses you unique position and body weight and responds with the proper support.
I know it’s a strange metaphor, but when you are persuading someone, whether in the board room, in the night club, or on the streets, you need to be like memory foam. You need to be able to sense where the person you are persuading is at mentally and emotionally and be flexible enough in your strategy to respond with the proper technique. Persuasion artists call this caliberation.
The essence of persuasion is taking someone from where they are emotionally and re-directing them to where you want them to go. People are always communicating unconcious messages to you via non-verbal gestures, overall rythem vocal inflection etc. To the extent that you are able to receive and understand these unconcious messages, will be the extent you are able to shift and direct their emotions to what you want them to do.
3. Rapport
One day I heard a world fameous hypnotist say it isn’t amazing what hypnotists are able to make people to, what is really interesting what people are willing to do when you have rapport with them. Creating rapport means creating the bond, connection, or trust makes powerful persuasion and conversational hypnosis to be most effective. Part of covert hypnosis means giving people hypnotic commands and suggestions If you don’t have rapport, people are more likely to resist your commands and suggestions
I will save specific rapport strateges for another article, but the essence of all of the covert rapport strategies require that you to become as much like the person you are persuading as possible. This includes matcing and mirroring body movements and gestures, matching a persons over all rythem or vibe, and matching a persons vocal tonality.
So, here you are reading an article about persuasion, reading at a speed that is best for you, focusing on the information that you identify and resonate most with, coming to new conclusions about just how more persuasive you can be.
And as you ponder how persuasive you can become, what you’ll find is the more you focus on those conclusions, and the more you think about what you are reading now, the more this message begins to ring even clearer to you, sounding you off to go and get exactly what you want out of life.
Ok, if just went into a deep trance and hit your face on the keyboard my apologies (just kidding)
Obviously my opening two paragraphs are covert hypnotic language patterns. This pattern is called pacing and leading. The art of pacing and leading is stacking truisms and then strategically throwing in suggestions to take them in a new direction. It’s pretty slick. You do this by stating undeniable truths a person cannot argue with in their internal or external environment. Then leading would be adding a new idea or action you want them to take.
Pacing and leading works because there is less resistance from the person to do what you are suggesting when you soften the statement with things they can’t resist. Old-school sales courses refer this to a “yes set”, but this is a lot more covert and hypnotic and when done with the proper congruence and tonality.
This hypnotic language pattern will allow you to lead any conversation covertly and smoothly.
Here is a popular formula for pacing and leading:
Pace, Pace, Pace, Lead
Pace, Pace, Lead, Lead
Pace, Lead, Lead, Lead
Lead, Lead, Lead, Lead
*Assignment: read the first two paragraphs in this article again above and see if you can locate the different pacing sentences, and different leading sentences.
Here is a sales example, and I will mark the pacing and the leading:
(pace1)You’re here for some pretty important reasons, (pace2) reasons that caused you to come here today (pace3) like most of my prospective clients you probably have some questions, and (lead1) you will naturally use the information from those questions to make an intelligent decision today.
(pace1) and as we are talking about these things, (pace2) there will be some things I say that will make sense and some things that really make sense to your specific situation (lead1) and the more you focus on those specific things (lead2) the more you begin to realize that our product and your needs fit together in a really harmonious way.
(pace1)and that can seem like a tall order at first (lead1) at the same time as a result of our interaction today you will become even more aware of how true that is, (lead2) not because we need to sell or convince you that this is right for you (lead3) but because the right decision, with us, will always feel natural and easy, just like it has for all the other clients we serve.
Man that was really good one, I think I’ll use that one today! If you can’t hear the effectiveness of that pattern then check your pulse!
Study that and model if you are in sales, that is a really good use of hypnotic pacing and leading. When said with congruence, it will come across as someone who is confident that they are able to meet their client’s needs.
Use your new powers for good not evil, -Bill “Persuasion Artist” Alexander
This is case study 7 of The Great Rapport Experiment of 2008: Matching and Mirroring Edition. This is an experiment in persuasion to see what methods of influence work best in the real world. These are all true stories and all subjects are real.
Something unexpected happened in this case study, and I learned a new insight about the effect of mirroring someone you already have rapport with.
Normally when a new customer walks in the door, they don’t know me and naturally there is no rapport at first glance, I need to warm em up.
That was not the case in this unique case study. A nice young lady walked in the door that I had already met because her mother had purchased something from me many months ago. Because of this we had a little bit of rapport from the get-go as she remembered me.
Of course, I began matching and mirroring her movements.
The rapport shot through the roof!
The experience reminded me those movies where there is a scene between a man and woman and there is the tension of attraction as they finish each others words, because there is an obvious connection going on?
A good example for this is in that old Brad Pitt movie Meet Joe Black There is a scene in the film where he meets his female interest in a coffee shop, and there is a really strong and obvious connection and attraction underneath every word they are saying. Then you see them both pick up the sugar at the same time, then immediately after that they pour their cream in at the exact same time, and then they both pick up their spoon at the exact same time.
As I have said before, mirroring happens naturally all the time when too people connect.
It is also important to know that mirroring and matching of connections like this are the effect of rapport not the cause of rapport. The phenomena of someone moving like you do unconsciously is pretty neat if you think about it; but that’s not as important as the connection and trust that is occurring underneath all of that with allows you to influence someone.
Well meeting with this client was like that minus the romantic part. The rapport went through the roof, we were laughing together, and we chatted long after the sale was closed. The most interesting part was that I intuitively knew what she was going to say at times before she said it.
It was a little eerie, I don’t want to say it was like a psychic connection, but I was really aware of her state, such that it felt like it was my state.
Case Study 7 Insight:
Supports idea that when you already have rapport matching and or mirroring accelerates rapport. I believe that mirroring is the effect of deep rapport rather than the cause of it.
Here is the clip from Meet Joe Black where we see a great example of people naturally matching and mirroring each other, as the effect of rapport and connection:
Hello, my name is Bill "Persuasion Artist" Alexander. I am an avid student of persuasion and Influence.
I have a strong fascination for the mind, and I am passionate about the words, actions, and energies that influence the minds of others.
This is a blog of my insights on capturing and leading the imaginations of others using psychology, hypnosis, NLP, suggestion, and subconscious communication. I’ve been called a genius and I’ve been called dangerous.
All powerful forces can be used for good or evil. I encourage my readers to use these strategies for good and not in a harmful and manipulative way. Please see my Warning for more on ethics and persuasion.
Keep an open mind, feel free to ask me anything, I respond to all comments quickly, and I encourage and welcome intelligent discussion and debate. The content here is all free, so enjoy.
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