The Persuasive Power of Supporting Evidence
Kenrick Cleveland
I got a call from an acquaintance a while back. He said, 'Do you remember the conversation we had about Africa? Well, I checked my e-mail and found, unbelievably, that I won an international lottery which originated in Africa. I'm just convinced that everything happens for a reason, aren't you?'
I responded, 'You know, everything does happen for a reason. Unfortunately, I don't think this lottery is the end result. .. but your call to me is.' I went on to explain that these international lotteries are scams and it was extremely fortuitous that he called me so that I could explain the scam to him before he lost any money. So in this way, yes, everything happens for a reason.
This conversation made me stop and really think about how people are looking for supporting evidence for what they want in their environment. In this case, my acquaintance saw our conversation about Africa as supporting evidence, or a coincidence, when he received the e-mail about winning the lottery from Africa. He added two and two together, but came up with a wrong answer.
It's unfortunate that these sort of scams exist. And I hated to burst his bubble, but it kept him safe and he learned something about not taking everything at face value. I learned that this phrase or language pattern 'everything happens for a reason' can be used to enable us to influence and persuade on a very deep and profound level.
Why do people look for supporting evidence for what they want in their environment? Oftentimes they do this because our world is very unstable. Whenever there's a tremendous lack of stability, with everything kind of up in the air, people start turning to religion, they start turning to God, they start turning to spirituality and they become more superstitious.
If you don't believe in God, or you're not a spiritual person, my point is not to influence you towards or away from anything except towards a language pattern or away from not being as successful as you like, that you'll be able to use these patterns for your benefit and for the benefit of your clients. As I explain this pattern to you, please understand, my goal is to break things down in a way that gives us tremendous power with our language, our words and persuasion, and in so doing, help you to have more success in your life. That's my purpose in this discussion.
When I said to my acquaintance that 'everything happens for a reason' I was alluding to something more than what he understood was happening. I went on to say, 'It's a good thing we're talking because. . . ' This applies that there is something more to it than what he was thinking about. It set the stage for me to have an entry point into his mind and explain the difficulty he might have faced had he moved forward with this lottery.
People look for supporting evidence for what they want in their environment and I believe it's our job to give it to them. There are language patterns that are in the popular lexicon right now that we can use to our advantage very powerfully.
Here's an example of where and how to use this: say you're an adviser and you have a potential client or prospect who says something very positive like, 'It's lucky that I'm talking with you because . . . ' This is an excellent entry place for this pattern. Simply respond, 'Absolutely. I completely agree. You know, there are no accidents and everything happens for a reason.'
Is this a stretch? I don't think so. No matter what our belief system this seems to work. If you think of it this way, everything does happen for a reason--it's just a matter of whether or not you like the reason.
No language pattern is an island and our goal as persuaders is to layer pattern upon pattern and these patterns piece together a deeper sense of reality when you do this right, what you're going to be doing is using all sorts of these patterns at high speed.
Kenrick Cleveland teaches techniques to earn the business of affluent clients using http://www.maxpersuasion.com/ persuasion. He runs public and private seminars and offers home study courses and coaching programs in http://www.maxpersuasion.com/ persuasion techniques. Click here to get your own http://www.uberarticles.com/home.php?id=25554&b=79 unique version of this article.
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