Save this article
Use this article for free on your own website
Republish this article for free on your own website or blog. Or search or browse for more articles that your audience will appreciate. Huge choice available. Ideal for finding quality, free content. Read our publishers guide.
Getting Deeper Into Persuasion Continuums
In a previous article "Persuasion Continuums" I began to describe one of the most powerful tools of persuasion. When I last left you, you were either completely confused about or you were well on your way to understanding one of the slickest tools in the persuasion toolbox.
In a previous article “Persuasion Continuums” I began to describe one of the most powerful tools of persuasion. When I last left you, you were either completely confused about or you were well on your way to understanding one of the slickest tools in the persuasion toolbox.
To recap: Continuums work most powerfully when you find that the prospect you’re influencing is at either end of the continuum not more or less in the middle. In other words, the powerful continuums are the ones where the person is extreme.
Let’s say that your prospect is at the far right side of the continuum at the far ‘towards’ side. And let’s say for ‘internal/external’, well they’re right dead in the middle. They don’t seem to go either direction, they don’t seem to really care. I just would ignore the internal/external in my languaging because that one just isn’t going to make a big difference.
People organize their thoughts and reactions through continuums. They are a way of viewing the world, filtering experiences, and luckily, for persuasion purposes, they remain relatively static within a particular context. So if you’ve inquired about security or finances and the prospect’s orientation is ‘towards’, they will likely remain towards in these areas.
Sometimes big life changes can make these things change, but basically they are a set way of looking at the world.
We have the ‘towards and away’ lens. We have the ‘internal/external’ lens. We have the ‘options/procedural’ lens. These lenses, when you understand them, enable you to focus straight into the mind of the person you’re influencing. This is where they start getting real powerful.
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.
Wrong! They think the way they do.
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.
I am not talking about changing your values or your beliefs. I’m not talking about changing who you are at your core. I’m talking about changing the way you express yourself to influence another person.
As an example, are you what you eat? Are you the shoes you wear? Are you the car you drive? Are you the city you live in? You are none of these things and you are made up of all of these things. You’re a sum total of a great bunch more than what you eat, wear, drive, and where you live.
Are you a belief? No, but you’re closer to that than you are a shoe. Are you a value? Well, that’s part of who you are. You’re part of all those things. When you combine it together you have you.
By changing your languaging with your prospects, you retain who you are. It’s more like changing a shirt or getting a different haircut.
When we’re pushed into a corner and we have to come out swinging, we’re going to simply do what it is that we know how to do. And from there, we hope to improve. Every time you’re in front of a prospect, you’re in a corner, so to speak, and you do what you know how to do as best as you can. The goal is to have flexibility, to increase that.
Remember, that as the context changes from like work to home to love to health, so too will the way a person uses a continuum including not using that continuum at all in some, but not other contexts. Don’t assume that because you know the continuum in one context that it will hold up in others.
Coming soon: Backing the Ambulance Up to the Door: The ‘Away’ Perspective.