Well. . .it seems like some of my readers have been paying careful attention. I like that. A while back I wrote an article about the eight most common avoidable pitfalls in language–but, if, try and might. Hey, that’s not eight! What are the other four? Several people commented on my blog that I was utilizing the open loop method of persuasion by saying there were eight, and only revealing four. Was this intentional? Maybe.

Now whether or not I was being sneaky and slipping in an open loop on purpose . . well, I’m not going to admit or deny that at this time.

So if you’ve been glued to your computer waiting for part two, I appreciate your anticipation.

Would have, could have, should have or, if you prefer, woulda, coulda, shoulda.

These three phrases are all past tense which in and of itself isn’t a problem, but for persuasion purposes, they have a negative impact on our message.

Keeping our prospects and clients present with us is a huge part of persuasion. We don’t want to push them into their heads, into the past, with what could, would or should have been. We want them to “be here now”, with us selling to them now, and them buying now.

When we allow our prospects to drift off into nostalgic, there’s also the potential to create a whiny atmosphere which has the air of regret. ‘I should have taken advantage of that situation. If only I had known. . .’

Number eight of the top eight words . . .

Can’t. When we ‘can’t', we are defeated. Can’t is a negation and poses a persuasion hazard in that it has the potential to cancel out all that we have worked for. I had a teacher in high school who forbade us to use the word ‘can’t’ and I only fully understood why when I started teaching.

If you were to say, “You can’t use negations”, this forces your mind to first picture using negations then in some way negating that picture.

When you tell yourself you can’t sleep, what happens? You can’t sleep.

When you use a negation, it forces the mind to think about exactly what you do not want it to think about. Having your prospects creating a mental imagine of what you want them to do is the goal here–not having them negate the imagines.

Words like “can’t” create the very image you don’t want the person to make.

You can use negation powerfully and creatively. Simply take care that when you use them, you use them properly.

Now you can sleep well at night having received part two of linguistical pitfalls.

Tags: NLP

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