Your success as a business person firmly rests on your ability to motivate your customers and clients to perform the actions you want. You want to change what they think, feel, believe and do. I ran across a fact-filled website, ChangingMinds.org,  describing many methods of persuasion and I’d like to share three of these by describing examples you can use to motivate your customers to buy.

(1) Monroe’s Motivated Sequence
This method of persuasion relies on a sequence of actions by you (the seller) to trigger a response in the customer and ultimately motivate them to act on your final call to action.

• Grab Their Attention -  All you need is a simple attention grabber. Let’s say you work a cosmetics counter. Your customers are likely motivated by their need for beauty. Your displays could invite them to come closer for a look with big, glossy blow-ups of their favorite celebrity using the product.
• Trigger A Need -A stimulated need leads to the person seeking a solution.  What you’re looking for is their particular aesthetic appreciations. Let’s say your display worked and she’s looking at the cream eye shadows. Play to this by telling her you have the latest greatest must-have cream eye shadows to stroke that need. It’s something she doesn’t have and you’ve got her interested.
  • See CIN Needs Model (changingminds.org)
• Create a Path to Satisfaction -Propose a way to satisfaction by meeting the need you have just stimulated. Show her that brand new cream eye shadow. Pull it out of the box. Unscrew the cap and let her get a good look at it.
• Help to Visualize the Solution -Move the customer to see that the path you have just indicated will be the right answer for them to meet the need. Put the opened product into her hands. Suggest she rub a bit on her skin to test the color or put some on her eyes to see the effect. You want her to see it for herself.
• Call to Action -Prompt the customer to implement the solution you both now know to be the right thing to do. Compliment her on the way it looks. Perhaps even suggest she try a shade a wee bit different just to make sure it’s the perfect color. Make her aware of the price of the product. Ask her if you can wrap it up for it.

(2) Foot in the Door
Ask for something small. When they give it you, ask for something bigger.

Here’s an example: Let’s say you run an auto parts store. You could find a product that is popular, low cost, and needs to be replaced often and then offer it at a deep discount everyday. The lower the better. All you need to do is break even. Advertise heavily that you have this item for sale everyday at this incredibly low price. Every time a customer makes a repeat visit for this item you build trust with them which gives you future opportunities to sell them more profitable products.

• Further reading: Bonding Principles (changingminds.org)

(3) Repetition Principle
Repeat something often enough and you will persuade them. Everyone has some advertising jingle locked away in their head that gets triggered every time they see the product. Brylcreem is my personal demon. I once did a project that required I edit a piece of video of an old Brylcreem commercial. I must have watched it back-to-back a couple dozen times. Now, years later, I still hear that catchy tune whenever I see a guy with his hair slicked back. Brylcreem…a little dab will do yah.

Through repetition of that TV commercial, I became familiar with the Brylcreem brand and my awareness of it is locked away in long-term memory. In fact, I honestly don’t know of any other brand of hair tonic, but I know I’ve seen them on the store shelves. If I was ever in need of hair tonic, I would certainly go looking for some Brylcreem since I feel I have some connection or understanding of the product. What first seemed strange, became clear and understandable with repeated exposure. If the problem is that my hair is a mess and unmanageable, what I need to solve the problem is Brylcreem. Not hair tonic. Not some other brand. It has to be Brylcreem. I’m convinced that I’ve found the solution to fulfill my need because I can see the guy on the commercial with his messy hair. He can’t get one girl to look his way. But after using Brylcreem, he’s a chick magnet.

The point is, use repetition to create familiarity and generate liking. Use it to help the customer remember the things you want them to remember. And associate the repetition with a trigger that can re-stimulate good feelings. Brylcreem…a little dab will do yah!

Further reading from ChangingMinds.org:

• Using repetition
• Theories About Memory
• Theories about Meaning