- Persuasion secret number five, pre-suasion
- Pre-suasion
- So what is pre-suasion?
It is the process of arranging for recipients
to be receptive to a message before they encounter it.
This is a whole book by Dr. Robert Cialdini,
I heard it's pretty good.
- It's a good book. - So what is this
really mean though, basically, as Stephen talked
about with framing, its pre-framing
so it's creating a perception
about a person or a thing before they even get to it.
- And I'll give you a very simple life example,
let's use a dating example, okay?
- Oh, okay. - Imagine--
(laughing)
How excited he gets, look at the young guys!
Stephen's getting old (laughing).
I don't get excited about that anymore.
Anyway, so think about,
let's say you are,
okay let's say you are a lady,
and you've been single for a while,
let's say a couple of years,
and you're looking to date again, right?
(laughing)
And someone walks up to you, right?
Someone walks up to you and says,
"Would you like to date me?
Would you like to go on a date?"
And you're like, "What the hell, get outta here weirdo!"
Right, it's like, they don't wanna talk to you.
So that's selling without, that's not persuasion by the way,
that's being, just, weird.
(laughing)
You don't do that.
- Don't be direct, don't be direct.
- So on the other hand, let's look at pre-suasion,
how you can do...
Imagine you are, again, a lady, you're single,
you're looking, or you're not looking,
but you've been single for a couple of years.
You're having coffee with a friend, right,
one of your best friends, right.
You're having a talk like, "How are things?"
"Yeah its good you know, you know what"
And your friend says, "I have this really great guy
"that's in my, whatever sports club I'm involved with,
"very nice guy, very good looking,
"exercises all the time, good body,
but just a very good guy", and she's talking about how,
good this person is, raving about this person,
"you know what, next week we're actually getting together,
"with a barbecue, with a bunch of us,
"why don't you come along?"
You're like, "well, okay".
You go there and you see, wow, low and behold,
yeah he is good looking, he is kind of handsome,
and you know, nice body and very nice, very charismatic,
and your friend introduces you to him.
Now, before you guys connect,
what's your impression of this person?
Go ahead and check.
What's your impression of this person?
Before even, before you guys speak a single word.
It's positive, it's nice, right?
That's what I'm talking about.
That's pre-suasion.
How do you know?
You don't know yet.
But your friend has done all the pre-suasion, right?
And done all the heavy lifting.
So before you even talk to this person,
you have a very good impression of this person,
then in your mind, when you meet with this person,
you're kind of like,
"Let's see if this guy lives up to the expectation".
And if he does, it will be an instant,
it's easier for you to like this person.
You will be able to scale, we call that scale of trust.
Scale that trust a lot faster, you with me?
You follow what I'm saying?
- To add to this too, all you psychology geeks out there,
just like me, this is called Confirmation Bias.
So when, someone tells you something, right,
like, "oh that guy's a really nice guy".
What happens is that, here's what's interesting.
Our brains are full of weird wiring, right.
We go into that conversation,
everything that they communicate to us,
whether that's verbally, through their body, whatever,
we are filtering through that, we're confirming,
we're looking for things to confirm what the friend said.
That he is a nice guy. - But more important,
it's gotta be, on the other hand,
let's do a totally different scenario.
Okay, same thing, you're single, you know,
you're looking for someone,
your friend talks to you about this guy.
But your friend, this friend is a different friend.
This is a friend you've known for a while,
but she's got a bad track record, okay.
She's recommended a few guys to you in the past,
they're all damn jerks, just some bad recommendations,
and she's always introducing all these guys,
they're all bad and she's talking about this,
amazing guy, and you're like "here we go again".
And before I meet the guy, "what is going on,
"he's gonna be another loser".
So that's the wrong pre-suasion, right,
she's still trying to pre-suade you.
But it's a wrong pre-suasion, you with me?
I believe, as an entrepreneur,
as a copy writer, as a marketer, as a closer,
we don't spend enough time,
setting the tone,
setting the stage.
We don't do enough pre-suasion.
When I'm actually very big on pre-suasion.
When you are good at pre-suasion,
persuasion is much, much easier.
- 100%.
- It's much, much easier.
In some cases, the pre-suasion is so powerful,
it makes persuasion not necessary.
Give me a scenario in your life,
where the pre-suasion is so powerful,
persuasion is not necessary.
Maybe your friend telling you
about a certain movie,
that he thought you should watch.
You know like, "ah I don't know anything about the movie".
But the pre-suasion is so powerful,
you're like, "okay I'm gonna go watch that movie".
Or a restaurant, or an incident right,
or dating, right?
Yeah, John Wick Chapter Three, same thing.
How about Game of Thrones?
- [Man With Glasses] Oh god, yeah
- [Stephen] How about Game of Thrones,
how many of you are anticipating to watch
Game of Thrones, the new season.
- [Younger male] Is it good?
- Yeah, final season.
That's it, right?
It's a lot of pre-suasion, before you watch it,
"Aw it's gonna be good, it's gonna be good,
"it's gonna be great".
So much hype building around it.
Apple, they're good at it.
The launch, the product,
hyping up the presentation, like all of that,
Apple, well, they were very good at it,
they're not as good today.
But at the time, especially Steve Jobs,
when he was around, that they're very, very good.
Not selling it, but pre-suasion.
Pre-setting the frame, pre-suading people,
why they need their product.
So, before when they launch, people just go buy it.
- Yeah how much selling, did their staff
really need to do, let's be real.
- You line up, people line up overnight,
sometimes days ahead, to buy it.
You don't even know, you're not using the product yet.
It's not like using it, this is great.
You don't know everything about the product,
you just think it's gonna be awesome or,
"I need to have one, I must have one"
That's what I'm talking about.
- All right, so here are some more of the tactical stuff,
you're thinking about, okay, you're not gonna
produce a Marvel movie, right?
You're not gonna produce a Marvel universe
for whatever you're selling,
or you're trying to pre-suade your clients
or customers to use, this is some very simple stuff.
Scientists were asking, very simple right,
at the mall, say you own a little stand at the mall, right?
Here's a perfect example of pre-suasion.
Instead of asking people to directly fill out the survey,
these guys, all they did was ask one more sentence.
You can ask one more question--
- One, like one sentence to pre-suade.
- One sentence to fricking pre-suade.
"Are you a helpful person?"
And a soon as they filled that out,
send their results pretty much two and a half, 2.66x.
You see that? - Right there.
- People were asked to buy a new flavor of pop
or something like that, and they found similar results,
like 20%, whatever it is.
And then all they did was ask one more question,
it's right there actually. - Yeah up the top.
- Oh shit, "do you consider yourself adventurous?"
Right, for all you single people out there,
you could use this at the club, whatever right,
"Do you consider yourself adventurous?"
You can instantly pre-suade, you know whoever
you're talking to, to more likely say yes to you.
That's the whole point of this right?
- Yes. - Boom, there you go.
- So, pretend you're hiring somebody.
Maybe you've got a little coffee shop going on,
and you want some new employees.
So you get their resume, and their resume,
you've got their full name on it,
you look at the credentials, what's the first thing you do?
Put it in the comments.
What's the first thing that you do after you,
get somebody's resume and you're pretending to hire them?
If you're considering them.
- Check their social media.
- That's exactly right, exactly right.
- Ask questions, referrals, look at their skills,
throw it out (laughing)
check spell check, okay.
- Look them up online, check their social media.
- Exactly , social media-- - Definitely social media.
- Is the ultimate pre-suasion, that's either
going to kill you-- - That's huge.
- or help you.
So how do you use pre-suasion?
You fill out the important social media profiles
to pre-suade others to like you and trust you,
before they've even met you.
So, imagine somebody, we've seen so many people
who've come through our program who start off this way.
Your photo, your profile photo...
Okay there was one guy, he had like a
really, really creepy room, it was dark, he was shirtless,
and he had like a creepy smile and it was a selfie.
And then, his entire feed was weird links to YouTube videos
that are really morally ambiguous,
and its all photos of him drinking and partying,
and being really creepy.
So if someone wants to hire you,
or if someone wants to do business with you,
or whatever your purpose is
for trying to pre-suade somebody,
that is the wrong way to do it.
And then, you have the other way to pre-suade somebody,
which is the positive way.
Which is, like I said, it depends what your goal is,
the whole partying and drinking,
if your an influencer, and you sell the lifestyle,
okay, sure. - Very good point.
- Some of our students, they're like,
"Oh should I have party photos, or not?"
Well it depends, what are you trying to convey
through your photos.
If you're trying to convey that you are,
you are a fun person, and you are really selling--
- If they're trying to sell the 10, the 1000,
10 to 12,000 tickets,
to this amazing new event on a private island,
then it might be a good idea. - Exactly, right?
- Other than that its a big, bad fucking idea.
- Yeah, so have a, we'll have homework later on,
but have a professional photo,
or least a decent, a good photo,
for the love of God, no weird shirtless selfies.
Please, thank you.
(laughing)
It's not that hard.
- Potentially thank god, please don't do it.
- I think we are doing God's work over here,
we're reducing the amount (laughing)
of shirtless selfies on Facebook and Instagram.
So the really, really important social media platforms,
are LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram.
So, if you're trying to go for a job,
for example, if the person you're hiring,
going back to our previous example,
you're trying to hire them, odds are,
if you're searching their name, what are you gonna find?
Their social media profiles.
And it will be a LinkedIn, Facebook or Instagram.
And then probably Twitter as well,
but Twitter's kind of going down now
in terms of what people check.
Make sure your LinkedIn's professional, its clear cut,
it's not about me, me, me, me.
Talk about what kind of services you offer,
what you're into,
not just what you're into,
but what you're into that applies or relates
to what you're trying to convey.
Like, let's say you're an Engineer,
and you wanna get hired for an Engineering job,
but your interests are "laying on a hammock".
Like, who gives a shit?
But if your interest is,
taking things apart and figuring out how they work,
and when you were 12 years old,
you completely disassembled an entire Toyota Corolla,
and then you put that thing all back together,
with different parts.
You know that's a bit more interesting,
than some dude who lays on his hammock.
So use social media to your advantage not your disadvantage.