Dave Lakhani - Subliminal Persuasion: Influence & Marketing Secrets They Dont Want You To Know

Subliminal

Persuasion

INFLUENCE &
MARKETING
SECRETS
THEY DON'T
WANT YOU TO KNOW

DAVE LAKHANI

This book is dedicated with love to Stephanie and Austria and To the memory of Mabel McKelroy and Nina Houston

CONTENTS

vii

xv

xxi

Chapter 1

Chapter 2 21

Chapter 3 45

Chapter 4 63

Chapter 5 77

Chapter 6 89

Chapter 7 111

Chapter 8 127

Chapter 9 143

Chapter 10 159

Chapter 11 169

FOREWORD

I confess that I read things, see life, and business, a lot differently than most people do.

For me, people in sales and marketing are heroes. Without them there is no company, no hiring of Uncle Joe to work in Engineering, the Lab, the Front Office.

"If I can persuade, I can move the universe," said Frederick Douglas. (Douglas was a black slave who escaped to freedom in the 1850's and became a well known abolitionist and orator.)

People who can't persuade are impotent....

Persuasion is the purpose and intention of communication.

You tell your spouse, "my, you look gorgeous..."

Why?

You have an intention.

Are you simply broadcasting the news to her? ... Newsflash, Jane looks absolutely smashing, film at 11.

No.

You are communicating a message to her that has at least two purposes. Sharing a fact with her, and, persuading her of that fact, and perhaps there are other reasons as well.

"Eat your food, young man." My Mom, never gave up on getting me to eat vegetables. She was persuasive and had multiple intentions.

She wanted me to eat so I wouldn't be hungry, she wanted me healthy for lots of reasons, she wanted me to have a better life.

"Honey the dog is outside."

Another newsflash?

Of course not. It's a message of multiple intentions most of which are persuasive the least being, "hey at least I put the dog out," or perhaps, "see I do pitch in, I put the dog out;" or perhaps, "I put the dog out, let her in later on because I'm off to bed"

"I love you."

Certainly that isn't a persuasive message ...

... but it is. One of the most intentional persuasive messages there is.

It might mean, "you are great and mean the world to me and please know that," where you are trying to create a bridge from your feelings to hers."

It could mean something in the future. She doesn't know you broke her necklace and when you tell her tomorrow, you'd like her to have built up a set of messages that create an image so she doesn't take your life when you tell her what happened.

Or it might mean, "let's go to bed," or, "I appreciate you," again with the purpose of creating an image of you in addition to sending a message of appreciation.

This isn't to say that all communication is intentionally designed to persuade other people to your way of thinking. That is simply not the case.

Life would be much easier if people would communicate with the intention to persuade. Most people simply communicate without thought or plan and then that message, however it is received becomes persuasive for something, about something, in the person's mind.

It's extremely hard to create a message with or without intention that doesn't persuade.

"It's 78 degrees outside."

Oh my, the weatherman says it will be a nice day, I won't need a jacket.

The weatherman said it was 78 degrees. You made up the rest. But it was a persuasive message because it got you to change your behavior. The weatherman personally might not care what you wear to work. He might have simply been "reading the weather" to get paid. But his message still persuaded.

"Dear God, Please let Daddy get a new heart. I really love him a lot."

We attempt to persuade God. In fact a lot of people attempt to persuade and negotiate with God asking for more and offering less than in any other negotiations they enter into.

In the Bible Abraham bargained for the Cities of Sodom and Gommorrah.

"Lord, if there are only 20 just men in the Cities won't you spare them destruction?"

"OK Abraham, if there are 20 ..

".... if there are 10"

"Yes, Abraham .. "

And then Abraham hit God's least acceptable result. He (God) made sure those that had an ounce of possibility in them, out of town and then he went nuclear ... and this wasn't all that long after he wiped out the entire earth with a flood.

The Bible says that God has a temper, but it also shows on numerous occasions that he can be successfully bargained with.

In the New Testament, The Apostle Paul took the Jewish Religion and the story of Jesus to the Greeks and Ephesians and a bunch of other people on his tours north and west of Israel. His entire purpose and message was persuasive.

Paul would compliment the heathens on their religiousness and devotion to their Gods, he'd build rapport and then come in with a message about the Unknown God and then record that he "successfully persuaded many that day."

Persuasion is what caused us to develop language in the first place. As a species we needed stuff. We learned to speak so we could ask for help in getting that stuff.

Persuasion is simply the stuff of life.

Subliminal persuasion is the experience you have when you aren't completely aware of everyone popping 20 dollar bills in the collection basket, you have a 10 but for some reason you decide to dig for another 10 and make it twenty.

A significant percentage of the actions you take are because something you were not consciously aware of caused you or primed (prepared you unconsciously) to act in a specific fashion.

"Subliminal" can mean "invisible" or "covert" but it can also mean ... what it means... stimuli that you are not aware of.

In the last decade more research has been done on subliminal and supraliminal messages than the previous century before.

We now know that audio subliminal messaging is a great scam and that video messages designed to subliminally persuade because they simply don't work how the brain accepts information. But scientists and researchers in subliminal persuasion now know what does prime and persuade people at the unconscious level.

We can cause someone to drink X over Y or X over not drinking at all.

And those things can be done while looking at a computer screen and having an image of the word "drink" revealed at a duration too short for conscious awareness to pick it up, even if you're "looking for it."

The research in subliminal messages is nothing short of mind blowing in potential. The ability to change short term behavior can assist in changing long term behavior. The ramifications are beyond measure in society.

Propaganda is persuasion on a large scale.

I used to tell audiences, "I have propaganda at the back of the room. Please feel free to pick it up, check it out and...