Introduction
Language patterns – persuasion or manipulation?
The most important persuasion tool you have in your entire arsenal is integrity.
Zig Ziglar (1926–2012) author, salesman and motivational speaker
You may have come across Brilliant Persuasion as an electronic download or, maybe, you are in a bookshop right now reading every word. Perhaps you know someone who has attended a Proactive Persuasion Seminar and they have lent you what they, undoubtedly, consider to be the Bible of Persuasion. However you have discovered Brilliant Persuasion, it will positively change the way you think about using language to persuade.
In every aspect of our day-to-day lives, it is essential to be able to influence others, isn’t it? Particularly at work, with ever increasing pressure always to over-achieve and to be someone your contemporaries and superiors will revere and the competition will fear. If you are a self-employed entrepreneur, having the skills to convince and engender interest and curiosity consistently in your products and services can mean the difference between foreclosure and bankruptcy or a level of wealth only you can imagine.
If you are employed full-time or retained on a freelance basis, managing your own business or currently exploring recruitment opportunities, imagine what it would be like to feel intensely secure about your future as you consistently exceed your targets and secure the most profitable contracts. Doubtless, you are already beginning to realise you hold in your hands the means of achieving your goal.
Brilliant Persuasion is a practical step-by-step guide developed to ensure your future security by intensifying your powers of persuasion and influence far beyond their current levels. You will discover real-world techniques that you will apply to everyday situations where you need to change somebody’s mind or influence and encourage them to accede willingly to your point of view.
Curiously, it is possible that you already use some of the persuasive language revealed in this book without being aware. However, it is more than likely you have little idea of the hidden power of your vocabulary. The more you read every word, the more you will notice how stress-free it is going to be to become more persuasive, and we are enthused to have the opportunity to guide you step by step through the process and reveal how you will be able to accomplish this more quickly than you believed possible.
Other publications about persuasion often shroud the subject in mystery and, worse still, make it appear more complicated than necessary. That is why in Brilliant Persuasion we have removed the jargon. The issue is not about the technical names of the techniques we reveal. The issue is how quickly you assimilate the techniques into your daily conversations and enjoy tangible, quantifiable results from doing so. That means having fun in the knowledge that you are following in the footsteps of some of the most successful sales and business development professionals in the world.
With Brilliant Persuasion you will learn quickly and use frequently covert conversational techniques known as language patterns. Moreover, as you think about acquiring these impressive skills, you will realise how using them will change your life.
Imagine the increased rewards and benefits you will enjoy when you start to use the techniques revealed in this book. We like this, because if you are currently in a sales role, you will begin to notice how smoothly and quickly, with just a little practice, you will be able to overcome all objections. Imagine! What would being able to do this mean to you? Think about it.
If you are a manager, persuading your team to follow a challenging path, you will enjoy learning how to bring everyone swiftly on board.
If you are seeking promotion or attending job interviews, the new skills you will have gained once you have read every word in this book will enable you to enjoy significant advantages over others unaware of these techniques. Now think about it, a person can get really motivated about this, can’t you?
It is fair to say that the techniques you will learn in Brilliant Persuasion will enable you to build deeper levels of rapport, lower resistance and increase responsiveness to you and the messages you are delivering. As you read this now and absorb the significance, yet simplicity, of the techniques, you will appreciate how useful and powerful they are. Most importantly, though, you will begin to understand exactly how you will start to use them every day.
Warning
Because language patterns are so powerful, we have to guide you forward towards the most efficient way to deploy them; having said that, we cannot, of course, control how you, ultimately, decide to use your new-found skills.
We urge you always to use the information in this book carefully and only in situations of mutual gain. By doing so, your reputation will strengthen and grow, more people will want to work with you and it is very likely that you will be on your client’s personal speed dial list. Imagine becoming the ‘go to’ person for everyone. Using language patterns like this means you are using them to persuade.
Now, if you want to use language patterns without mutual gain, what began as a genuine ethical desire to persuade becomes manipulation. Your potential commercial partner may feel uncomfortable, you may still be awarded the job, sell the product/service or gain agreement, but, it will never be repeated. Your reputation will be tarnished forever and it is possible that you will become someone with whom others will prefer never to engage.
Proceed with care and enjoy the journey.
Brilliant Persuasion is divided into four parts:
Part 1: Talking to the subconscious – embedding commands and suggestions
The first part of this book looks at the subconscious. Initially, the clinical psychologists who used this technique reckoned it was too dangerous for release to the general public. Training was restricted and very expensive. Today, this inspirational, yet formidable, style of communication permeates the airways. Most multinationals, government officials and those business development professionals aware of this technique routinely use it every day to persuade and influence others. If you are not using it, be prepared because your competition unquestionably is!
Part 2: Persuasive language patterns
The second part of the book is devoted to a selection of the most persuasive techniques available, modelled after the communication style of some of the most persuasive and successful sales professionals in the world. The techniques you are about to discover will enable you to:
- Instantly resolve objections and lead sales conversation towards your goal – The redefine.
- Effortlessly remove resistance and increase rapport – The agreement frame.
- Subconsciously add and delete thoughts and reverse objections – Linguistic mathematics.
- Instantly establish resonant rapport – Rapport.
- Intensify your powers of influence – Because logic.
- Gain, unconditionally, acceptance of everything you say – Awareness patterns.
- Rapidly gain agreement and bypass criticism – Verbal pacing and leading.
- Magically resolve every objection with empathy and understanding – Feel felt found.
- Secretly direct others to think what you want them to think – Internal representations.
- Discover the hidden driving force compelling your prospect to make purchasing decisions – Motivational direction.
- Decipher the secret messages revealed in your prospects’ eyes – eye accessing cues.
- Weakening objections and embedding suggestions – Parts theory.
- Plant suggestions without saying a word – The quotes pattern.
- Command attention with non-verbal communication – Persuasive body language.
Part 3: Persuasive questioning technique
In the third part you will discover how some questions are more powerful than others. Equipped with this insightful information, you will quantum leap your persuasive abilities and questioning technique, making it possible to take greater control of any conversation and be able to lead and direct your prospects and colleagues towards your goals. Asking the right questions is at the heart of effective communication and information exchange. However, not only will you elicit information with carefully constructed questions, you will plant positive suggestions into the minds of your prospects even without their awareness; you will gain instant agreement and even enable your prospects to experience the most persuasive powerful experience of all, their imagination! We’ll show you how to:
- Make it easy for your prospects by generously providing them with the answers you want – with pre-suppositional questions.
- Gain spontaneous agreement – with tag questions.
- Open your prospects’ minds, stimulate curiosity and covertly plant suggestions – with powerful questions.
- Make your prospects crave your products – with future pacing or time-travel questions.
- Link what your prospects want to the benefits of your product – with criteria questions.
Part 4: Preparing to persuade
In the final part the tables are turned as we present a set of tantalising questions designed to force you to think outside of the box and to enhance your focus and overall preparedness. We’ll show you a proven technique to boost your confidence level far beyond what you ever thought achievable, and to improve your proficiency we’ll show how to practice using language patterns.
- Prepare yourself for every outcome and consequence – Questions to ask yourself (Cartesian and pre-contact questions).
- Develop the confidence to persuade – Building natural confidence.
- Practise makes sales – How to practise.