You can describe it accurately and also use metaphor. Metaphor is really powerful because it goes straight to the unconscious mind and creates a canopy of consciousness. I do it all the time in my sales letters. I should print one out tomorrow and read it to you so you get it. You go to my website, www.Seduction.com, and read my product sales letters.
Then I also say, “But now imagine this,” and I describe what you‟ve been through. There‟s that beautiful girl, blah, blah, blah. You can say, “Isn‟t that being specific?” I‟m not too specific. I‟m just describing a very common male fantasy of being with a beautiful woman. I‟m not saying what she looked like. I‟m not saying she has blond hair and blue eyes.
I‟m specific enough to identify the fantasy, but I keep it general enough so they will identify with the fantasy. “There she is. You wake up next to her. She‟s absolutely stunning.” I‟m specific enough to identify the fantasy, but I‟m general enough so that they fill in the details in the fantasy.
You can do this with wants, hopes and fears. You can also do it with fears, failures and frustration. Then I add in metaphor. I use dating is a form of gambling. You instantaneously identify what I mean.
When I say dating is a form of gambling, whether you agree with me or not, in what way would you say dating is a form of gambling? Participant: You don‟t know the outcome.
Ross: That‟s right. You don‟t know what the outcome will be. You‟re playing the odds. If you‟re asking how to find the metaphors that will best describe the fears, failures, frustrations or hopes, dreams, wishes and fantasies, just look at common language.
Common language will tell you. It‟s rolling the dice. I got lucky. It‟s a numbers game. Men are already using that metaphor to describe getting with women. Whether or not you‟re interested in getting with women is not the point. I‟m using it as an illustration.
The formula is you can describe what the fears, failures, frustrations, fantasies, hopes or desires are. You can identify them without getting too specific.
Fundamentally, what you‟re selling is not bath salts, cream or beauty necessarily. You‟re selling indulgences, people doing something indulgent for themselves. That‟s what you‟re really selling. As soon as you get that, your business will transform.
I would have your people start out by saying, “Excuse me. You look like the kind of person who loves to do something really great for yourself. Come here.” Ask, “When was the last time you really treated yourself to something? Let me show you something.
“I don‟t know if that‟s for you, but do you like to feel good soaking in the tub? Do you like to feel good when your face feels clean and young because you‟ve used something that makes you feel beautiful no matter who you‟re around and what you‟re doing?” Then point to the product.
The five paragraphs and, “This comes from the Dead Sea.” No one wants to know unless they‟re geologists. You just got your money‟s worth.
Come up with metaphors. Think, “Here‟s my audience. In need to identify the fear, failure and frustration. How can I identify it so they know what I‟m talking about and perceive that I know what I‟m talking about, but not be so specific that I use details that don‟t match?”
Then throw in metaphors. You say it‟s a form of gambling. You‟re rolling the dice. Politicians use this all the time. Whether or not you agree with their policies, I‟m not talking about that. It‟s about whether they‟re a good persuader.
Whether or not you like President Obama, that man knew how to persuade. His marketing team brought in $950 Million in contributions over the internet. The champion internet marketer, my friends, is Barak Obama and his team of people. They knew how to market on the internet. Those people never even got a shirt or button. They just gave him the money because they felt like they were participating in a dream.
Whether or not you agree with President Obama is not the point. The point is it was brilliant marketing because he knew how to identify with people‟s hopes and frustrations. He did both. He knew how to install a sense of hope and how to use metaphor.
He could identify the problem without being so descriptive that it didn‟t match. We‟re all struggling. Struggling in what way? And then he would give specific examples like the mother who doesn‟t have
healthcare or the son who can‟t go to college. Everyone in the audience would agree.
He didn‟t give so much detail that it didn‟t match. He didn‟t say, “The son who can‟t get into USC because of this and this.” He gave enough so you felt he was identifying it without describing it so accurately that you couldn‟t match it to yourself.
The next thing you do is come up with a metaphor. Sit down and look at their area of life and think what the common metaphors are. What are the common metaphors when you think about making a good decision? What are the common metaphors that the ethnic group or demographic you‟re addressing use and believe in? That‟s another way to establish authority in the world of the people you want to address.
What‟s the first technique? It‟s pacing the ongoing observable reality. What was the second technique? Be artfully vague. What‟s the third technique? Identify the fear, failure, frustration, desire, hope, need, wish or want. Describe it enough so that they get it, but not with so much specificity that it doesn‟t match.
That‟s a really good art form. That could be an entire day of teaching. Any one of these is powerful. When you combine all of them, people say, “He or she must be someone worth listening to.” Do we have any questions about this? I could break you up into a little workshop right now. We could take half a day coming up with examples. This tells me in an advanced version of this program, that‟s what I‟ll do. I will create a tape series establishing authority and show you all the ways to do it. We had a question.
Brock: It‟s common in sales and copywriting to know you can get people‟s attention using negative images.
Ross: I‟m going to stop you here. Whenever I hear the word “negative,” I reach for my gun because I don‟t know what it means. What do you mean by negative? New Age people, when I point out the flaws and errors in their philosophy, they say, “You‟re negative.” My idea is, “No, I‟m clear, and you‟re a fool.” I‟m not saying that to you, but what do you mean by “negative”?
Brock: I guess I would define “negative” as something that makes you contract, like a fear, failure or frustration.
Ross: Often, you can start with that. I do it in my headlines.
Brock: Do you want to follow that same pattern throughout the sales letter you‟re selling on something positive? You might start with negative. Ross: I can‟t tell you which one you should start with. I can tell you that
you use both. You want to pull people toward something, and you also want to push them away from something. You need to give them a kick in the ass and put a ring in their nose. You need to do both to make sure you cover your bases, particularly if you don‟t know your audience face to face.
If someone is reading a sales letter that‟s going out to 1 million people, there is going to be some minority of those people who only move toward what they want. There will be some people who only move away from what they want and don‟t listen to the positive reward. Eighty-five percent of the people are going to be motivated by both.
The question is not which you start with. It depends artistically how you feel and what the issue is. The point is that you want to use both.
Are there any questions so far about establishing authority?
Participant: When you‟re dealing with authorities, and you want to convince them that you have the solution to their rhetoric, they‟re the ones who make the rules. How do they take authority from you when they have the authority?
Ross: Give me a specific. That‟s too vague. I‟m visualizing something, but I don‟t know if it‟s what you mean.
Participant: For instance, at one time Governor Schwarzenegger said he wanted to pass a law reducing emissions by 22%. The federal government EPA sued him saying that was impossible. It was 20 years out.
Ross: This is an exception. When you‟re dealing with a bureaucracy with structural rules, it‟s a completely different game. Within that game, you can still play. But if there‟s structural rules and bureaucracies, that‟s a different kind of thing.
Participant: But it‟s rampant throughout the whole thing. Everywhere I read, it says, “We want this.”
Ross: How does that apply to your own specific persuasion challenge? Participant: My perspective is that I have the solution for what they are looking
for.
Participant: They don‟t want to be convinced. Ross: Or you don‟t know how to do it or both. Participant: Exactly.
Ross: That‟s a different issue.
I‟m going to show you one more thing. Then we‟re going to break up. We have time for all the workshop people. Don‟t worry about it.
Stealing the Authority of Others
There‟s one more sneaky way to establish authority. I don‟t know if I want to say to establish authority. In a sense, you are establishing authority. That way is to steal the authority of others.
“Steal” is such a bad word because when you take something, it means they don‟t have any left. You can borrow the authority of others. We see examples of this in celebrity endorsements. If Kobe Bryant endorsed athletic shoes, they‟d fly out the door. What does Kobe endorse?
Participant: Nike.
Ross: That‟s worth a lot because people take the adoration and admiration they have for Kobe, and they transfer it to the shoe. Let‟s say you were trying to sell to Evangelical Christians, and you really could get Jesus Christ to endorse your product. There‟s a commercial that says, “Hi, I‟m Jesus Christ, and I like this Bible so much. First of all, I wrote it and every word is true. You can trust these people. Buy it today.”
I don‟t mean to offend anybody. I apologize if I have, but think about it. The orders would fly out the door because you take the authority and believability of the celebrity, and you glom it onto the product.
The old model of advertising used to be interruption. You‟re being entertained, and then they interrupt you to shove an ad down your throat. Now they know that doesn‟t work so they try to sneak it in. Have you ever watched “Smallville”? I love that show. Clark Kent is eating Sugar Pops. They take the product and it becomes part of the background of the show. It slides past resistance. Obviously, you probably aren‟t going to get Kobe Bryant to endorse your products, but there are some sneaky tricky ways around it.
One of the things you can do is if you‟re in a board meeting, you can steal the body language, inflection and gestures of the person who is obviously in charge. Unconsciously, people will then associate that authority to you.
If you‟re sitting in a board meeting, and you observe that the president or head of the company taps his pencil in a certain rhythm, you don‟t want to tap the pencil. That‟s too obvious. You can tap your finger or something else. This is not mirroring. It‟s stealing the other person‟s gestures, emblems or emblematic gestures.
There is one guy whose tapes I‟ve been listening to. It‟s not Shinzen, but somebody else. I notice that when he says a concept that he thinks is really good, he says, “Mm.” When I meet him, I‟m going to say, “I have an idea for you. Mm.”
I‟m going to repeat his thing that lets him know it‟s a good idea. You can watch to see how the person in authority does his verbal expression, other than words, that shows he agrees. You just repeat those back every so often when you‟re addressing the group.
The other thing you can do is borrow his emblem. What does that mean? Let‟s say he leaves the room for some reason. Get up and sit down in his chair. Don‟t sit down in his chair. That‟s a sign of disrespect. Stand behind his chair and say, “Here‟s what I think.” If you sit down in his chair, it‟s too aggressive. If you stand behind his chair, now you‟re in his position of authority.
Here‟s another thing you could do to convince a jury. That wouldn‟t be useful, would it? Let‟s say the judge has a particular sound he makes when he‟s expressing agreement or disagreement. The judge has some noise he makes, like, “Hm.” Borrow it when you address the jury.
Juries may not believe the lawyers. Generally speaking, they look at the judge with high respect. See if the judge has any kind of small mannerism you can borrow. I‟m borrowing something from someone‟s work. You don‟t want to do the full mannerism because you will get caught by the jury or the judge, and he won‟t like it. You can do a portion of the mannerism, like one-third or one-fourth of it. Unconsciously, the people will begin to associate you with the same authority as the judge. Is that fair? Not if you‟re prosecuting me, which will never happen.
You can use this all the time. I teach this in a seduction way. When I teach Speed Seduction®, I tell the guys, “Women have what I call self-anchors.”
Have you ever said to a woman, “Tell me about the first time you fell in love.” She goes, “Ah!.” What is she doing? She‟s accessing the feeling flowing in her body that lets her know she‟s in love. I‟ll just repeat that. Later in the evening, I‟ll say, “I‟m having such a good time, ah!” I don‟t even have to do the whole thing. I‟ll just do a part of it, like one-third of it, and she goes into the state.
You also watch for the other person‟s self-anchors, the sounds or gestures they make when they‟re having a positive emotion, and you fire it off just before or as you‟re talking about what you want them to believe.
If you train your salespeople to watch and say, “You look like someone who really wants to do something wonderful for yourself,” and they go, “Hm,” that‟s their sign that accesses the feeling.
From time to time, your employees should repeat that subtly whenever they touch the product. “Have a look at this, hm.” They‟re going to associate that feeling with a product. How do you know? That‟s what they do to get in that state.
Participant: Can you do it with the same tone?
Ross: Close, but mirroring is bullshit because people will pick it up. Do it just one-third of what they do. Use one-third or one-half of their emphasis or volume. Experiment with it. Some people need the full thing because you really need to wake them up.
Cognitive Momentum and Emotional Inertia
When people tend to make decisions or enter strong flows of feeling, generally speaking, they‟ll make some subtle gesture, expression and/or sound that tell them, “Turn it on.” That‟s their way of pushing the button.
Here‟s the beauty of it. When they push that button, it engages a flow of feelings and a train of thought and visualization that takes on its own momentum.
Why does it take on its own momentum? It‟s happened so many times before that it has what I call cognitive momentum and
emotional inertia. If you do that little bit, you fire it off, and they‟re
going to engage in the whole thing.
Participant: I understand cognitive momentum, but I don‟t understand emotional inertia.
Ross: I was talking with my friends about how it is possible that people keep repeating their patterns of behavior when they really do want to change. Is it that some part of them wants to sabotage? Have you ever heard this notion, “You‟re sabotaging yourself. A part of you doesn‟t want this.” That‟s bullshit. It‟s almost always bullshit. The process by which old patterns of behavior and thinking come
up is simply that they‟ve done it so many times that they have their own momentum now. They‟re moving on their own because they‟ve done it so many times.
Here‟s a metaphor. See how I used metaphor? First I gave a general description of the problem, enough so that you could identify with it, but not so specific that you misidentify.
It‟s like a train. Imagine a train that weights 100,000 tons, and it‟s only going one mile per hour. If you threw on the brakes, it would be pretty easy to stop that train.
The same train weighs the same amount. Now it‟s going 150 miles an hour. You have to throw on the brakes a lot harder. Why? It has been moving and accelerating.
If someone has a pattern with a lot of emotional charge, and they‟ve done it many times, by sheer force of that repetition, it has momentum. It doesn‟t even have to add anything in to be going fast. If you cut the motor on that train, it will still be going with a lot of force for quite some time.
Here‟s the key thing. When people reveal to you those little things, those little sounds, facial gestures or noises they make will engage those patterns that have the emotional momentum and cognitive components that you want, fantasize and desire. It sets in motion a chain reaction of things. You may have to reinforce it and likely you do.
Another thing you can do is steal the anchors of an authority figure who they all believe in. We could do a day or hours on each one of these techniques.
Let me give you an example. Does anyone remember the first O.J. Simpson trial?
Participant: Yes.