The Forbidden As Persuasion
Kenrick Cleveland
'Forbid us something, and that thing we desire.' - Geoffrey Chaucer
It all started with that damn apple tree in the Garden of Eden. The only thing Adam and Eve were asked NOT to touch, and sure enough, that's the one thing they wanted most.
Fast forward to today--taxicab confessions, the circus atmosphere of talk show, Scull and Bones and other secret societies, websites with hidden cameras, underage drinking-it's all about exclusivity and secrets.
Just look at the popularity of that one show where they catch online predators. At first I thought this was a one-time special but there were over a dozen episodes. The premise is that the "reporter" or "investigative journalist" poses as an under-aged online chatter and sets up a "date" with the alleged predator. The strangest part. . . after a few episodes had aired, nearly every single one of the men caught says to the person, 'I knew it. I knew this was a trap.'
Somehow, despite having "known" it was a trap, they go through with the date anyway. Despite the possible prison time, public humiliation, personal devastation and professional ruin, THEY GO THROUGH WITH IT ANYWAY. How is this possible?
(Obviously this example is not just about the forbidden, but about a baser human instinct which we'll explore in a later article.)
The forbidden speaks of a desire to know more, to know way beyond what humans are supposed to know. There was a story in the Bible of the tower of Babel where man tried to build a tower so high as to reach God and know what God knows. The tower of Babel was destroyed and all of their tongues were mixed up so that they couldn't understand each other and work in concert to build up because only God knows what God knows.
So what is it about the forbidden that intrigues us? And more importantly for our purposes of persuasion, how can we use this innate instinct of wanting to know the unknowable and be in on the secret, to sell more effectively?
We may not always be able to get to the full blown forbidden, but we can sure get to the hidden and we can sure get there through secrets.
We build trust with secrets. Here's how. By telling your prospects and clients your "secrets" you have more access to theirs. Say, 'I have a secret to tell you. . .' and give them some information about yourself that will add to their feeling of rapport with you.
When we tell them a secret, even if it's not anything really super profound but tends to show that we trust them, they will then respond in kind by trusting us. It's the law of reciprocity.
In his book, "The Psychology of Persuasion", Robert Cialdini, explains, "One of the most potent of the weapons of influence around us is the rule for reciprocation. The rule says that we should try to repay, in kind, what another person has provided us."
In other words, secrets will get someone to hear you and accept you and then share back with you. And what does that mean? Well, there's rapport. There's trust. There's belief.
Kenrick Cleveland teaches strategies to earn the business of wealthy prospects 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 strategies.
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