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Eliciting Peak Emotional States For Persuasive Power
We've all had this experience: a song comes on the radio and we're transported back to a time and place ten, fifteen, twenty years ago or longer. Maybe it was a song that reminded us of a time when we were struggling through a broken heart, or maybe it was just the opposite, the soundtrack for our first true love.
We’ve all had this experience: a song comes on the radio and we’re transported back to a time and place ten, fifteen, twenty years ago or longer. Maybe it was a song that reminded us of a time when we were struggling through a broken heart, or maybe it was just the opposite, the soundtrack for our first true love.
As you drift back in your memories to that girlfriend or a boyfriend, remember having a date with somebody that you really wanted to date. And if you didn’t have any dates in high school then pick another time.
When I was about sixteen years old, I met my first wife. She lived east of Portland in a rural area. At the time we started going out, the song ‘Twenty-five or Six to Four’ by Chicago was popular. When that song comes on the radio now, I’m transported back to that time, driving my new Toyota Celica GT east on 84 through the Columbia Gorge toward my future wife’s house, the new car smell still in the air, and Chicago is on the radio. I feel full of anticipation and power and I’m thrilled to be alive.
That was over thirty years ago and it’s crystal clear. And I’m taken back by a song.
Maybe right now in your marriage or with your significant other you have a song that when you hear it both of you say, ‘Oh, that’s our song,’ or maybe you’ve had an ‘our song’ in the past that you can remember.
What is this? And what does it have to do with persuasion?
It’s called anchoring and anchoring has everything to do with persuasion. Music can put you in intense emotional states. These emotional states are connected with the stimulus of the memory. They travel through neuro-pathways of emotions and memories that words and language cannot. And sometimes music affects us so intensely that we want to share it with others, but a song that touches me deeply may not touch you as deeply. It’s extraordinarily individual and powerful. Aldous Huxley said, ‘After silence, that which comes closest to expressing the inexpressible is music.’ We’re constantly exposed to things that we have been conditioned to react to. It’s often been said that we are far more reactive than proactive. The human brain is really more on automatic pilot than it is a conscious device. We think we’re conscious. We have a vested interest in thinking that. But we’re really not.
Most of the things you do are habitual. The deepest core things you do are obviously and completely automatic. How long can you pay attention consciously to your breathing? Seconds? A minute or two? But you sure don’t do it twenty-four hours a day. What about when you’re sleeping? If you had to consciously remember to breathe, we wouldn’t be here.
As this applies to persuasion, we simply need to elicit an emotion and get that emotion up to it’s peak. We then pair that peak emotional response to a unique stimulus. And thereafter, every time we trigger that unique stimulus, our prospect or client is reminded of that peak state.
This is not to say we’re going to elicit our prospect’s musical history and play the songs and attach that special, happy, excited or calm feelings to ourselves, but if you can understand the way anchoring works through the example of ‘our song’, then you’ve internalized the concept of anchoring.
The way this works with our prospects and clients—elicit their strongest emotional states by discovering their criteria. Their highest criteria is a peak emotional state. When this happens, pair it with a unique stimulus. It’s that simple.
Stay tuned for future articles on anchoring as one of the most important tools in your persuasion toolbox.