How to Coach Yourself and Others How to Influence, Persuade and Motivate | Page 290

Put yourself in the mall candy store buying one pound of chocolate candy
for your sweetheart. The young lady at the counter scoops up the
chocolates and places it on the scale. She notices she does not have
enough and starts to add more. The other alternative is that she dumps all
the chocolates on the scale and begins to take them away. Which one will
leave you the most satisfied? In the first scenario, you would feel as if you
were getting more and that the deal was being sweetened, whereas under
the second set of circumstances you would feel like you were being
robbed.
Reducing It to the Ridiculous: Create Perspective
This technique involves paring down your request to something that
seems manageable to your prospect. Let's say you are trying to convince
someone to purchase a life insurance policy. The client wants a $250,000
policy and you feel that is not high enough for his needs. To adequately
take care of his family, you suggest a $500,000 policy. He feels that the
monthly payment for a $500,000 policy is too high. So you break it down
for him, telling him that for an extra 50 cents a day, or the cost of a can of
soda, he can insure himself and adequately take care of his family if
something were to happen to him. With this contrast, your client can see
that the extra 50 cents is worth it to have the extra $250,000 in coverage.
You have reframed your request into simple terms to help your prospect
see it fitting into his way of life.
Shifting Focus
Sometimes it is a good idea to simply give your prospects a different
frame of reference, or to merely shift their focus slightly. This is kind of
the "glass is half full" idea. University of Iowa researchers Levin and
Gaeth conducted a study where they gave samples of ground-beef burgers
to two groups of tasters. The burgers were exactly the same, but one slight
difference in advertising strategy was employed: One group was told the
burgers were 75 percent lean, and the other group was told the burgers
were 25 percent fat. The group that was told the burgers were 75 percent
lean rated them significantly leaner, of higher quality, and better tasting
than the 25 percent fat group who rated the burgers as fatty, greasy, and of
low quality.[3]
In the following example, notice the two different ways the doctors
present the patient with the diagnosis:
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