5 Psychological Switches to Persuade People
Persuasion is everywhere.
No matter where you look and no matter who you’re dealing with, you’re either trying to persuade someone or someone is trying to persuade you.
Think about this for a moment:
In every conversation, interaction or connection, you are either the
“persuade-e” or the “persuade-r.”
If you don’t persuade your boss to your view – that you deserve a raise or promotion – she will persuade you that you’re not ready for that raise.
And you’ll walk out of there believing you need to work for another year (or 10) before you’ll be considered for a promotion… or even deserve one.
With something so powerful at your fingertips and tongue tip (aka persuasion), you as an entrepreneur must become not just so-so at persuading the masses…
You must become a Master Persuader.
How else are people going to choose to buy from you?
How else are you going to create customers?
And not just persuade once, but over and over… and over.
The good news is that…
Most people, especially your competitors, are absolutely clueless when it comes to persuasion.
If you improve your skill by just 2%, you can outshine, out-sell, and out-master everyone in your industry.
Persuasion Switch #1 The Prestige
The prestige switch is all about status but not your status… put your ego to bed.
When you flip this switch in your copy and in conversations with potential buyers, you reveal
how your product will elevate THEIR status.
There are 2 key dimensions of this switch:
- Prestige Boosters
- Prestige Diminishers
Prestige boosters are everything the average joe thinks will level up their personal or professional status in their environment. Those include – wealth, beauty, charismatic personality, influence over others, knowing something others don’t.
You need to show them how your product will help them improve their status by using as many prestige boosters as possible.
The tricky part is that they need to feel confident that your product won’t diminish their current status. In other words, gain without pain.
This is where you make it crystal clear that your offer will help them escape these diminishers…
- Shame from making a poor choice
- Fear of being taken advantage of
- Poverty
- Being out of the loop
For example, here we imply higher social status:
Win over the heart of your dream woman…
Then we use the prestige diminisher to promise that public shame is not something to worry about.
… without worrying about being rejected or insulted in front of all your friends.
Persuasion Switch #2 The Curiosity Switch
Humans:
We’re nosy little fucks.
Since the dawn of mankind, curiosity has proven itself to be an exceptionally powerful and innately human emotion.
Without curiosity, there would be no psychology-backed, neuroscience-proven persuasion — or any science at all for that matter! Curiosity is impossible to ignore and impossible to resist.
When the unknown is unknown, we CRAVE to make it known. To figure it out. To see what’s going on. To find out how we might be missing out. If you manage to take a jab at your customers’ sense of curiosity, you might as well check your inbox, because the payment notifications are going to fill it up FAST.
But there is a danger here…
When you get your customers curious, you have their attention. When you have their attention, you absolutely MUST deliver.
To turn on the curiosity switch, make sure your copy answers these questions:
- Does my headline or title make my potential customer think, “I HAVE to know what happens next”?
- Am I using enticing phrases in my supporting copy to hold their attention and motivate them to keep reading or watching?
Example:
“What my obese mom taught me about eating healthy.”
Now, you must be wondering how that’s possible…
Persuasion Switch #3 The Desirability Switch
The grass can be greener on your side.
More specifically, on your customers’ side.
Because you and your product or service will make that happen. A tomorrow where they will be gorgeous, fit, rich, happy, or whatever it is they’re trying to achieve that you can help them do (or become).
With the desirability switch, you are painting a “word picture” of what their life is going to look and feel like after they’ve used your product or worked with you.
Example:
Imagine how your life will change when you get a good night’s sleep night after night and feel 10 years younger because you have truckloads of energy (to spare) all day, every day. What would it feel like to leap out of bed and be ready to go instead of hitting the snooze button for the tenth time?
Persuasion Switch #4 The Edutainment Switch
Most people live deathly boring lives — a sad statement that seems truer the
more you think about it…
Most people wake up in the morning and stumble into a morning routine that keeps them from meditating on the thought that plays on repeat inside their brains:
“Another boring day. Just like yesterday. Just like tomorrow. Kill me now!”
Maybe an exaggeration — but you catch my drift.
If your customers are bored, they don’t learn. When your customers don’t learn, they can’t improve their lives using your ideas, methods, or services.
When your customers are having fun, they can get out of their own way and actually LEARN something — in this case, learn what it will take to get the results they want… then actually follow through!
If you can lighten up someone’s day with an email or a Facebook post or a video module that makes them smile or laugh, they’re going to love you — and love learning from you.
Persuasion Switch #5 The Relatability Switch
People buy from people they know, like, and trust.
But how do you make people know, like, and trust you…
And then BUY from you…
When they haven’t met you in person yet?
When they don’t know anything about your life besides what you put in front of them on the internet?
By using the relatability switch.
Answer to these 2 questions:
- Am I using the art of story to get people emotionally invested in my life and why I care about theirs?
- Am I creating relatability touch points throughout my copy and messaging so that my audience views me as a “real person” and not an airbrushed online personality who views them as objects to use and abuse to get rich?
Example:
Have you ever been in that situation…you know the one… you walk into a party or a networking event and every single soul there is a complete stranger? How did that make you feel? Frozen? Terrified? Suddenly feeling an irresistible urge to jump out the nearest window? I know that feeling because it happened to me just a week ago…
