Pain and Pleasure: Utilizing the 2.5 : 1 Ratio
Kevin Hogan
The metaphors of pain and pleasure that change minds instantly:
A. Experience Pleasure......................................Avoid Pain
bright future sick of the way things are
feel great stop getting hurt
move toward away from
make new friends stop being lonely
obtain get rid of
Decades of scientific research clearly show that people are more motivated by pain than by pleasure. In fact, pain is approximately 2.5 times more of a motivator than pleasure is.
What this means is that you not only will paint a picture of a vivid wonderful future for your customer, but you must also find their current wounds (pain) and heal them. In fact, this one Point drives over a hundred other Mind Access Points the foundational string is that people will do almost anything to avoid significant pain.
Mind Access Point #539. People are motivated to move toward pleasure and away from pain. Of the two drivers, most people are genetically and culturally programmed to move away from pain more than moving toward pleasure.
When your customer was a child he was regularly threatened with pain (a spanking, a slap in the face, loss of privileges) when he behaved in a bad way. This developed very thick and powerful Mind Access Points which many other Mind Access strings are attached to. A smaller number of your customer's parents regularly motivated them as children by offering rewards for good behavior. Most parents use threats of punishment in order to gain compliance. Your customer continues to want to do anything he can to avoid pain. If that means complying with you, that is what he will do.
The Amway Corporation has built one of the largest privately held corporations in the world by pulling the Mind Access Points of those with an entrepreneurial spirit and focusing on the pleasure end of the pain pleasure metaprogram. They help their distributors build dreams and create vivid and lush futures. They move their distributors toward pleasure, as a rule of thumb.
In contrast, hundreds of the world's largest corporations have built their fortunes by pulling the Mind Access Points of the populace on the pain side of the pain/pleasure metaprogram. History and scientific research has shown that people are very averse to pain. As mentioned above, most people will do far more to avoid pain than experience pleasure. The experience of pain is the driving force of billions of dollars in the advertising industry. How many of these slogans and commercial themes sound familiar to you?
"Aren't you hungry for Burger King, now?"
"Do you suffer from headache pain?"
"Do you feel achy?"
"Can't sleep at night?"
When you are talking with your client, your job, in part, is to show how your product or service will create great pleasure if they buy from you and also act as a way to avoid pain. If they fail to hire you, you show them how their wound will grow and create pain for them in the future. If they hire you, you will help them heal their wound.
Anthony Robbins, the world's most powerful motivational speaker, got to that apex by being able to clearly create vivid pictures of what would happen to people if they didn't allow him to help them. You can utilize the power of the pain/pleasure metaprogram just like Robbins has done.
If you have elicited your client's metaprograms then you can focus on the context specific information you have elicited instead of relying on the general rules we have discussed here. In marketing we must rely on the norms. In the direct sales situation we have a marked advantage of knowing exactly what motivates each specific client.
One effective language pattern that helps the client experience the pain of not working with you, is for you to say a variation of the wound opening, "If you don't act on this now, then won't things simply get worse?"
The more the customer fears and moves away from pain, the more likely she is to act now. It is our job to paint a picture of the consequences of failing to hire you. Experiencing pain must be more than an idea, it must be real to the customer.
If we fail to sell our customer the services that they need, then they still associate too much pain to change and you have not done your job. No amount of "closing techniques" will get a person to change their point of view or buy a product if they are still unconvinced. You must help the person see the obvious and clear benefits, emotional and logical to accepting your products and services.
Your job is often to paint the status quo as miserable. Most people have a fear of change. It is pre-programmed within them. Therefore, when painting the status quo, it must hurt to experience it. You must bring out the pain of not changing and make it vivid. Someone who associates no drawbacks or very little pain in the status quo will not accept your proposal. They will say, "no."
Mind Access Point #329. The more someone moves away from pain and experiences fear, the more likely they are to act on a decision, now.
The Amway Corporation has utilized a wonderful tool for helping potential distributors feel the pain of failing to become Amway entrepreneurs. For just a moment, remember when you were first presented with the opportunity to become involved as a distributor. One of the dark pictures the speaker painted for your future was this: If you don't become a distributor, how else are you going to become, financially independent? Do you really want to work at that the same job and forever? Are you really going to be happy with $35,000 per year, every year for the rest of your life?
Does Amway or any company or salesperson, have a right to pull at these Mind Access strings? You bet they do, because they are making the world go around. Multi-level marketing may or may not be an outstanding entrepreneurial opportunity for any individual, but just for a moment, realize how Amway has become so vast: Amway utilizes the pain/pleasure metaprogram better than any private organization in the world.
This Exercise Is Worth $100,000 or more over the course of your career. Why not Do It Now!?!?!?!
Use the space below to write down 20 painful futures that your customers could experience if they don't own your product or use your service. Then write down 20 bright futures that your customers will experience if they do use your product or service. The next time you meet with a client you will have a vast array of futures to offer your customer. It is the quality of the images that you help your customer see that will make you thousands of dollars per year in additional sales.
COVERT HYPNOSIS: An Operators Manual for Influential Unconscious Communication in Selling, Business, Relationships and Hypnosis
by: Kevin Hogan
Covert Hypnosis is the utilization of techniques and strategies to change the perception and behavior of others in a completely unconscious way. The optimal applications for covert hypnosis are in the fields of selling, advertising, marketing, relationships and of course, therapy.
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This 100,000 word manual includes truly up to the minute scientific breakthroughs in the area of unconscious influence. For the simplicity of the reader the book is written with examples pertaining to either therapy or selling situations but of course the approaches discussed herein would apply equally as well to pastoring, teaching, training, and other relationship and group situations.
