The Art Of Conversational Magic, Part III

Good morning! It's a glorious Monday morning here in Los Angeles, and I'm sure you're just as thrilled as I am to be back at your desk.

At the very least, I expect to be able to make your day a little more interesting with this email, which I believe will be more entertaining and enlightening than most of the random gray bytes that find their way into our mailboxes these days.

Let's get on with another tip on conversational magic.

In the last article, we talked about the power of presuppositions, and how the mind has to accept certain parts of a sentence as true in order to understand a given sentence.

One of my discoveries along the path of learning NLP was the persuasive power of adverbs. Adverbs, you say? Those prosaic-looking words that end in -ly and modify verbs?

Yessir (or ma'am)—adverbs are a class of presuppositions unto themselves.

Before I get all technical on you, just read the following pairs of sentences and judge for yourself their relative persuasive power:

"Bob, you want to take this course."
"Naturally, Bob, you want to take this course."

"You can decide to give me a raise."
"You can easily decide to give me a raise."

"This car is a great choice for you."
"Clearly this car is a great choice for you."

If you, like me, are just casually reading these sentences, you may notice that the second sentence of the pair just feels more persuasive. If I were to give the first sentence a 3 or 4 on the 10-point persuasiveness scale, then the second sentence gets a 5 or 6 at least.

Now just by adding a 'clearly' to the sentence, it's not like I'm going to jump up, hand over my credit card and buy the car. However, something soft yet subtly powerful is sneaking its way into your head. You can already feel it.

And the power of presuppositions is in their *combination*. You string a bunch of these together, and it just starts making a lot more sense.

Are you adding any more relevant information when you say "Naturally you want to take this course?" as opposed to just "You want to take this course"? No. Most people think that it's additional information and logic that makes people decide.

Ain't so! Most decisions are made emotionally and justified rationally after the fact. Emotions operate at an unconscious level, which is exactly where presuppositions work, too.

Any number of adverbs can work this way: Joyfully. Intuitively. Obviously. What I recommend is to pick two or three, stick them on a Post-It note on your phone or computer, and make a habit of using them regularly.

So next time you're talking, just incorporate those adverbs into your normal speech. My favorites are naturally, easily and clearly.

Now I've teased you about combining presuppositions, so it's not fair for me not to give you at least one example of how to do that easily and effortlessly.

Another class of presuppositions is presuppositions of causality. I'll illustrate by example:

"You want to buy this car BECAUSE it gets great gas mileage."

"This persuasion course is great for you BECAUSE it will add to your wealth and happiness."

"You'd like to give me a raise BECAUSE it increases my productivity."

When you add a 'causality tag' with a word like 'because' or 'since', the part that precedes it automatically becomes presupposed.

Human beings are curious creatures, and for some unfathomable reason, whenever you add one of those 'because' tags, they just go along with what you say.

I've cited Prof Ellen Langer's copy machine experiment several times before since it illustrates that point so well.

If someone cuts in line and says "Can I cut in line, please?", 60 to 70% of the time the person lets them cut.

But if they say, "Can I cut in line because I'm late for a job interview and need to make some copies?", compliance goes up to 97%. Big difference.

But wait! Here's the kicker: if she says "Can I cut in line because I want to make copies?", compliance is at 94%.

Pretty crazy. This says that it's not the compelling nature of the reason that makes people comply. That just gives you a 3% edge, if that, over some nonsense reason like 'I need to make copies' (as opposed to what—coffee? Doughnuts? Right).

It has much more to do with the fact that *there is a reason at all*, and because you used the word 'because.'

This activates the 'click-whirr' mechanism inside people's heads, as Robert Cialdini phrases it, to get them thinking, "Yup, that sounds reasonable. Let's do it."

Now causality phrases are really easy to combine with adverbs. Watch:

"Naturally you want to buy this car because it gets great gas mileage."

"Naturally you want to get this persuasion course because it will add to your wealth and joy."

"Logically you want to give me a raise because it will improve my productivity."

Naturally, you can do this, too. Pick your major premise. Stick a 'because' and a reason after it. And start with an adverb like 'naturally' or 'easily' and presto! You have way-persuasive sentence whereas before you had plain-vanilla request.

Now in the vast edifice of persuasion, presuppositions are the bricks. Like a brick, they are pretty effective in their own right. However, their true power lies in what bigger structures you can build with them.

To carry out the metaphor or persuasion as a building, we start with the foundation, which is self-persuasion and rapport. If you don't believe in the product, you can't sell it; and if you can't connect to your customer, you can't sell him or her. Those two come first.

On top of that, you can now put presuppositions—like laying down the bricks. And also some technical proficiency, like vocal control.

And you need to know how to lay those bricks down—what the larger pattern is going to be. And for that, you have stories, decision strategies, and a synthesis of all the tools.

That's all for now.

The power is within you,
Dr Alexn