Thursday, January 15th, 2009
Comments... How say you?

Can You Persuade Someone and Not Be There?

Future Pace- NLPHave you ever influenced someone to do something or buy something? Then after they made the decision, there was an opposing influence greater than your own which caused them to reconsider.  Most of you are nodding your head YES.  It seems as if no matter how good you are at persuading someone, people can easily get influenced to change their mind on you. Don’t feel powerless because there is a way!

How to keep people committed

There is a brilliant technique called Future Pacing that allows you to almost magically persuade someone to keep their commitment. The idea, like most of the concepts I teach, is simple.  What you’re doing is creating a scenario(s) in a person’s mind that may happen in the future.  So after you close the deal, you’ll need to rehearse a practical scenario(s) that may occur to this person.

For example:

Let’s say that you are convincing a client to purchase a ticket to go to a self-help seminar. They are a bit hesitant to go because their wife might get upset.  Right away, we know that even if your client decides to say yes, his wife might change his mind.

When you future pace your someone, you must

  1. Acknowledge their commitment to you
  2. Reinforce the reasons they decided to say yes to you
    1. Ask them ‘why’ questions. Why did you say yes? What made you agree with me?
  3. Reiterate their response and intertwine them with benefits as to why they made the decision.
  4. Add a couple more motives about why they made the right decision
  5. Create a mental scenario of an event that might happen in the future
    1. i.e. “If you talk to your wife and she isn’t as excited as you are about going, what reasons will you instantly remember and explain to her allowing her to understand why you said yes to me today?”
  6. Reiterate and detail out their response. Use their response to create another compelling statement for their decision to say yes today.
  7. Ask, “Can you think of any other reasons to use to influence _____ that you’ve made the right decision?”
  8. If done correctly, your client is securely closed along with being rehearsed to handle the objection they might get from a scenario which might cause them to not go through.

You’re probably starting to FEEL GOOD after discovering such a powerful technique. One of the best parts is that it will seamlessly be integrated in most situations:

  • Buyer’s remorse
  • Significant other
  • Spouse
  • Family
  • Friends
  • Events
  • Competitors
  • Writers
  • Bloggers

Note: When future pacing someone, it is important to integrate the pain & pleasure concept.

Is this techique something you can use?


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Category: Objection Handlers / Persuasive Linguistics
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  • Very compelling technique! I will study this a bit (to keep it solidified in my head) and try this out for my fitness classes. It really seems to blend a lot of sensible things that I've run across elsewhere in one method.

    -Liz
    www.Twitter.com/LizDonnelly
  • Great, let me know how it works for you. And yes, almost all of the techniques, strategies, ideas, can be applied in numerous aspects of your life.
  • I am unable to understand this post. But well some points are useful for me.
  • You can email me from my contact page to clarify your confusion, I'd be more than happy to explain and simplify it for you .
  • Wow, I love this technique. I will put it to test and see how it goes. Awesome tip here, AJ. Keep them coming, :)
  • Thanks, please do let me know how it works for you
  • Angese Alono
    I am amazed with it. It is a good thing for my research. Thanks
  • Let me know if you need any more info :)
  • This once again is some very powerful advice. It's like solving a problem before it happens, very nice indeed. I realized I was unconsciously doing this to my clients every time I close a deal with them. At first, I thought this style of persuasion is kinda on the dark side, but I guess it depends on how you use it right?
  • I think you are thinking like sukrat, but I think you should cover the other side of the topic in the post too...
  • I respect your opinion, please do elaborate what do you mean?
  • many people are using the economic times we face today to delay their purchase. How can we use future pacing to overcome the objection of a uncertain economy?
  • When you deal with objections about this type of economy, it's imperative that you get your clients to FEEL COMFORTABLE with you. If there is no rapport between you two, then they wouldn't trust your opinion.

    Future pacing generally applies after a person is SOLD. People are SOLD because they believe your product/service will keep them away from some type of pain or bring them towards some kind of pleasure. Then after you uncover and recover their reasons to buy, figure out what scenarios might occur.

    Economy:
    "in the next couple of weeks, you might begin to hesitate and be unsure whether or not you made the right decision. Yes times are tough right now, so what will you tell yourself when you have this thought?

    Note: They are sold. Now your preparing them to keep their commitment. So if they were to ever have that thought in the future, their brain will atomically play the conversation between you two in their head. Thereby eliminating their objection without you having to be there.

    Does that make sense?
  • Future pacing is great and it applies to much more than sales. Writers and bloggers do it to reinforce their points. C-Level executives do it when they're negotiating with co-workers and external executives. And, going forward, everyone else should do it too because we all have ideas we want to communicate and persuade people to act on.
  • Thanks for that Derek, you are right. Future pacing can be used in many other scenarios. As a writer or blogger, it will be equally as powerful.

    Also, I will update the post with this :)
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