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Employing The "Loop D Loop" In Persuasion

Hi Persuader,

As you may have noticed, in the recent posts (“Linguistical Pitfalls”) I told you there were EIGHT dangerous words that you should avoid in your persuasion situations. Then I proceeded to give you just four of those eight. (By the way, there really are eight, and I’ll be writing about the other four in the very near future.)

Now, I did this to demonstrate a very clever point with you that you’ll have great success with in your persuasion…

The point is to teach you a strategy called “Temporal Pattern Loops”.

We’re going to create loops in the mind of the listener. This is a favorite pattern of mine (as you now know, since I just used it on you Wednesday morning).

There are three really powerful things you need to know in order to understand how to use loops:

Number one, people need to have closure.

They can’t stand to have balls up in the air. They need to have the balls land. They need closure, a yes or a no.

An example in sales of the prospect keeping an open loop with the sales person is that dreaded phrase, “I’ll need to think it over.”

You want to either end it or don’t end it. Either say yes, or say no, but don’t tell me you want to think about it.

Number two, when they don’t get closure, their response potential is increased.

That’s all you’ll ever need to know about loops.

But wait a minute… didn’t I say there were three things?

I did. I told you that there are three powerful things you need to know in order to understand loops and I only gave you two. Isn’t that frustrating?

People need closure. And when they don’t get it, their response potential is increased.

What’s the third thing? Let me ask you, how much do you want to know what number three is? Do you really want to know?

Sorry. There is no number three. There are only two things you need to know about loops.

Why would I do that? Same reason I only gave you four of the eight most dangerous words in persuasion. Because by leaving a loop open, by purposefully leaving the third blank, I increased your response potential and piqued your interest.

Don’t close all the loops. In fact, leave most of them open. Use loops all the time.

Think about something you know really well. Just as an example, let’s say you’re pretty sure you know all there is to know about the Civil War. Say you’re a real history buff and there’s nothing you don’t know about that period of time in that section of the world.

What if someone was teaching a class about the Civil War and there was some new information? Well, how could there be? You know everything. All your loops regarding the Civil War are closed.

You can use loops when you want to increase response potential because if you leave a loop open, it makes people want to sit forward and try to figure out what it was that you didn’t tell them.

In other words, they’re missing something. Like when I wrote, “There are three powerful things you need to know to do these loop patterns” and I told you two of the three. For many of you, you just had to know, “Well, what’s the third one?”

Now, if you were just skimming and weren’t paying attention, it may not have had that effect on your conscious mind, but it did have it on your other-than-conscious mind.

When you open loops and don’t close them, people begin to believe that they don’t know all there is to know about the subject. And if people know all there is to know, they go away and don’t come back. After all, there’s no apparent reason for them to stay.

Until Next Time,

Kenrick E. Cleveland

Click Here to Leave a Comment Below 4 comments
Mike Ottjepka - September 4, 2007

Hi Kendrick,

How do I overdeliver when using underdelivered open loops?

I’m a sucker for open loops (data junkie) and I appreciate the impact of the “increasing response potential. ” Keep them wanting more.

I also feel cheated (uneasy) when I am aware that something promised me has been
overlooked or omitted.

How do you sort this out?

Mike Ottjepka

Reply
Kenrick E. Cleveland; Affluent Activator - September 4, 2007

[quote comment="198"]Hi Kendrick,

How do I overdeliver when using underdelivered open loops?

I’m a sucker for open loops (data junkie) and I appreciate the impact of the “increasing response potential. ” Keep them wanting more.

I also feel cheated (uneasy) when I am aware that something promised me has been
overlooked or omitted.

How do you sort this out?

Mike Ottjepka[/quote]

Hi Mike,

That’s an interesting question. Thanks for posting it.

Here are my thoughts.

I think it’s important to keep in mind that over delivering is done in the context of the overall process. In other words, when they think of what they want, you gave them more.

The loops are used on some of the specifics to increase response potential – thus allowing you to over deliver on the entire premise of why you are talking.

And, I’d be careful in how you think about loops. If you believe using them puts you in a lying frame, I would simply not use them. However, if you adopt the frame of using them to increase response potential, and don’t use them on a materially important element of what you are delivering, then you have done both yourself and them a favor.

I hope this helps you.

Reply
Paul Speziale - September 5, 2007

Hey Kenrick,

Does the “temporal pattern loops” you mention relate to the Zigarnick (sp?) effect? –

the whole “stay tuned for next week’s episode to find out what happened” effect?

There are very few things I have seen in persuasion that are as powerful as that and that was one of the reasons the movie “The Secret” took off so well, wouldn’t you agree?

BTW: love your blog! You are one of 3 or 4 blogs I actually read out of 50 or so subscriptions. Thank you!

Reply
Kenrick E. Cleveland; Affluent Activator - September 5, 2007

[quote comment="201"]Hey Kenrick,

Does the “temporal pattern loops” you mention relate to the Zigarnick (sp?) effect? –

the whole “stay tuned for next week’s episode to find out what happened” effect?

There are very few things I have seen in persuasion that are as powerful as that and that was one of the reasons the movie “The Secret” took off so well, wouldn’t you agree?

BTW: love your blog! You are one of 3 or 4 blogs I actually read out of 50 or so subscriptions. Thank you![/quote]

Hi Paul,

Yes, it does relate to that. And it is indeed very powerful.

Thanks for the kind words.

Reply

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