Learning Persuasion

•Ways We Learn Small Pieces Of Persuasion
A student recently asked me, Kenrick, how the heck do you keep track of all of the persuasion strategies you know? Each time we have a coaching call, it seems like you pull out some new strategy. I can't even remember the basics like using the unconscious hello. How can I remember to remember?' So I asked my student, Have you ever learned a second language? He said, Yes. I asked, Well, were you fluent within a week of starting it? And I asked him, And have you ever learned to play a musical...

•Exploring Curiosity Hunger For The Unknown
When we are born, we are open and curious and fascinated at the new world around us. We are sponges. And as we develop, and if, and only if, our basic needs are satisfied, we grow to the point of requiring self-actualization. Learning. Curiosity. Creativity. Knowledge. If you are interested in persuasion, odds are, you've got most of your basic requirements met. You've moved on to this higher level of consciousness where you want to absorb more and more of this field of human nature,...

•Pitch Your Pitch Ditch Your Script
The aim of marketing is to know and understand the customer so well the product or service fits him and sells itself. - Peter F. Drucker What is a pitch? A pitch is designed to attempt a logical series of steps in order to arrive at a desired outcome. What is a script? A script is the same thing as a pitch. As I see it, there are two ways scripts and/or pitches can be useful. The first is they can be useful to learn something new and the second, they can be used to persuade the write of...

•Language Pattern Awareness
The moment one gives close attention to anything, even a blade of grass, it becomes a mysterious, awesome, indescribably magnificent world in itself. - Henry Miller Words thrill me. I find language magnificent. Linguistics is an incredible world. I've been studying persuasion for over thirty years. If I think about it though, I've been studying the language of persuasion. Aside from mirroring and matching, and physical anchors, persuasion is about words. The Awareness pattern is essential...

•Full Of It
Confidence... when we interact with our affluent clients and prospects, we need to exude confidence. We need to show them what we are made of. There's a point where confidence becomes over confident and self assuredness becomes arrogance. These are not good things to be full of. Being competent, self assured and having a solid sense of self are excellent things to be full of. Persuasion relies on our prospects perceptions of us. The reputation of people who sell isn't always flattering or...

•Flexing Your Persuasion Muscles
Over the last few years I've become a new man. How? Well, I'm finally becoming congruent with my thoughts and my body. I've shed over one hundred and forty unwanted pounds of fat. A new lease on life and a new attitude toward the gym, as well as a drastically revised relationship with food have combined to achieve huge results for me. When my weight was at its height, I was over four hundred and twenty five pounds. I was diabetic and near death having experienced what the doctor suggested was...

•Beyond Boxes
If you're in the world of sales, it is quite likely you have gone through traditional sales training and learned that there is 'a way' or maybe `one way' to sell. Maybe it was the Carnegie method. Maybe you learned 'features and benefits'. Maybe you learned some other easily definable, package-able way to sell to affluent clients or prospects which sort of hammers away at their defenses and attempts to corner them into buying your product or services. These techniques are responsible for...

•Persuading With The Thirty Six Chinese Stratagem
So it is said that if you know your enemies and know yourself, you will win a hundred times in a hundred battles. If you only know yourself, but not your opponent, you win one and lose the next. If you do not know yourself or your enemy, you will always lose. -Ancient Chinese Proverb I love to learn. One of the fields of study I have most enjoyed and which has brought a huge amount of insight and is entirely relevant in relation to persuasion, are the ancient Chinese proverbs known as the...

•The Power Of Belief
The term baggage is definitely an overused pop psychology term in our culture. We use it to describe the excesses and useless junk we carry around with us from our worst childhood memories to when our romantic relationships went bad to all manner of past problems we can't seem to shake or get rid of. It's as if we've packed away tightly all of these sorrows and frustrations and grief and resentments into metaphorical suitcases which we continue to carry around with us and which continue to...

•Layers Of Complexity In Life And Persuasion I Am An Onion
I love a good metaphor. An especially powerful metaphor for me lately has been that of an onion. The Cleveland Method deals with a deep understanding of our core drives and unconscious motivations. When we focus inward, only then can we genuinely understand others. In recent months I've noticed a tremendous amount of growth in many of my students who have been applying persuasion techniques not just to business and sales, but to every facet of their lives. One of my students, an adviser who...