Let’s imagine here’s the car salesman going, “Would you like the red car or the blue car?” When really there might be other criteria they’re shopping for on the car other than just the color. The same as do you want the big computer or the small computer? Well, what can it actually do? Will it fit my family? Does it fit this criteria? And very often this is why sales gets a bad rap because too often it’s done badly. Is that someone’s trying to jump to that sale a little too quickly, which is where I’m going to show you some methods today to use the double bind, even open up the conversation. Let’s take this influential method and do it much sooner inside of our communication, this way by the time we get to that closing strategy, most of the work is already done. You know your business can change people’s lives, but you don’t yet have the right words to inspire them to take action. Imagine the changes you will create in your business as you tap into the secrets of ethical influence and positive persuasion to not only better serve

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your clients, but also to supercharge your financial freedom. I’m your host, Jason Linett, and welcome to the “Hypnotic Language Hacks” podcast. I help entrepreneurs and business owners just like you to close more premium sales. And no, this isn’t about tricking or manipulating people. Not at all. It’s about helping your prospects to appropriately sell themselves into your products or services. Please hit Subscribe and get all the episodes now at jasonlinett.com. Have you ever had that moment inside of your business where you’re talking to that prospect, who, for lack of a better term, they’re already sold on what you do? They’re already ready to make use of that product or service that you’ve got and that buying decision is basically already taken care of. And yet, for whatever reason, they’re not yet pulling the trigger. There’s something that’s standing in the way.

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And mind you, always to be ethical here on “Hypnotic Language Hacks”, it’s not that there’s a big, hairy, appropriate objection standing in the pathway. They can afford what you do. There’s not even a fear that what you offer is going to help them, it’s instead that final place where, as we say here, you know your business can change people’s lives but you don’t yet have the right words to inspire them to take action, where metaphorically it’s as if there’s like that one little twig that needs to be broken, that one little thing that needs to be patched and restored, and that’s going to release that flood gate of the business to really begin that relationship. This week’s episode of “Hypnotic Language Hacks” is exactly on that topic. This is episode number 21, all about how to influence a decision to access the resources, the show notes, plus a full transcription of this episode. Head over to jasonlinett.com/21. Let’s get started. This is how to influence a decision.

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Before we get started today, if you want to easily grab people’s attention, naturally build authority and organically have your prospects wanting more from you even before you’ve made an offer, I’ve created a step-by-step program to help you to do just that. It’s called Business Influence Systems. And this is your opportunity now to visit jasonlinett.com to get a free behind the scenes tour of the exact hypnotic persuasion strategies that you can ethically use to better start up or scale up your business. If you want a proven framework to boost your confidence, attract premium clients, and inspire more people to take action with you, get Business Influence Systems now at jasonlinett.com. Now, I said this at the top of the episode, that we should always work from a place of ethical influence and positive persuasion because the business model that

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I only teach from is that of creating raving fans of what you do rather than that person who’s got buyer’s remorse. And also tell you the real intention behind everything that I offer on “Hypnotic Language Hacks” is all about giving you real-world applications. And it’s also where coming from a hypnotic background, so often we can get caught up in the terminology, we can often nerd out on the linguistics and the strategies and even so, how some of these methods have some really cool names. And my goal as your guide along this journey is not for you to be that person who can step back from a distance and point and say, “I know what that technique is.” It’s instead to have you in that position where you can use this content easily, naturally, and let it sound organic as it’s from you. With that in mind, let me give you the two bullet points of the topics, the sort of techniques I’m going to be sharing with you here on this week’s episode, which is a preview. This is a segment of phase three of Business Influence Systems where a

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business influence occurs hypnotically in four steps. We start from a place of emotional intelligence. This is where we’re building that foundation, that state management as to how you carry yourself to really build that unstoppable confidence. Phase two is then about calibration. This is about creating dynamic relationships and rapport with other people. The content today is, in most part, part of phase three, which is often the part we have the most fun on, that of words and patterns. You’re going to learn two specific linguistic applications of hypnotic influence for business today. And really, I’ll be teaching these to you in the sake of specific applications, which, by the way, that’s part four of hypnotic influence, which, again, head over to jasonlinett.com. At the top, click the button for Business Influence Systems. You’ll see exactly what I have to share with you there. So the two specific techniques, the two linguistic strategies, I’ll give a quick overview of them first, but as I tend to say,

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show is a whole lot more fun than tell. So I’ll actually illustrate them to you by actually giving you some real-world examples from my business or even those I’ve consulted over the years. Let’s have some fun here. So the two strategies, first of all, is a double bind. Now, for some of you, this might be a technique you’ve heard of before where the idea is we’re giving a bit of an illusion of choice. I’ll give you the stereotypical version, which traditionally doesn’t work as well as people would like it to be. Let’s imagine here’s the car salesman going, “Would you like the red car or the blue car?” When really there might be other criteria they’re shopping for on the car other than just the color. the same as do you want the big computer or the small computer? Well, what can it actually do? Will it fit my family? Does it fit this criteria? And very often, this is why sales gets a bad rap because too often it’s done badly, is that someone’s trying to jump to that sale a little too quickly,

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which is where I’m going to show you some methods today to use the double bind even open up the conversation. Let’s take this influential method and do it much sooner inside of our communication, this way by the time we get to that closing strategy, most of the work is already done. So the basics of a double bind comes down to the idea of, would you like option A or would you like option B? The magic of this pattern is the fact that you’re leaving out option C, which perhaps is, “I’m not going to work with you.” Or option D, “I hate you. Please go away.” Or option E, “I’m going to give my money to someone who’s not you.” Those are clearly other options inside of this arena, yet we’re going to create the illusion of choice of giving a menu. Do you want this one or that one? And if you want a beautiful tag question for this one, try this on. “Of those two, which one’s the best fit for you?” So it’s not a matter of going, “Do you want A or B?”

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“Well, we can do this. We can do that. What’s best for you?” And that’s a very organic, natural way to put the double bind into motion. Stick around though because I’ve got some specific examples I’m going to be sharing with you. The second strategy, the second linguistic pattern… Get ready for some jargon, get ready for some high-tech terminology here. It’s all about punctuational ambiguity. And I’m going to resist the urge to just stop the episode right there and say, good luck figuring that one out, because this is all about sharing, let me tell you exactly what this is. Punctuational ambiguity is the mechanism where to listen to a sentence… This is one that works more verbally than it does on print. I’ll explain an application of how you can experiment with this though in an online format at the end of this episode, or maybe sooner. Let’s see where it goes. Where the idea is by listening to the sentence, it’s not exactly clear where one sentence ends and the other one begins. Now, let me throw something out there for those of you who have any bit

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of background already in hypnotic language patterns, which is that if this were hypnotherapy, which is not the focus here, but if this was, there is a method of what’s called a hypnotic induction, which is the formal process of creating a hypnotic state in a client in a hypnotic process, whether it’s hypnotherapy for change or this even applies for stage hypnosis. That’s the actual process of going to a formal hypnotic state. For “Hypnotic Language Hacks” for Business Influence Systems, we don’t need that deep trance state for this stuff to be effective. Everything you’re learning from me is conversational hypnotic suggestion, conversational influence. We don’t have to ask them to close their eyes because, in most business situations, that would be weird. So don’t do that. But I bring this up because oftentimes in therapeutic respects, in terms of a technique for change, you might use confusion as a strategy. I would say, for the most part, confusion is a strategy that I tend

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to step away from in a business context, because if the headline is confusing, they’re not going to keep reading. If they’re not quite understanding what you’re offering, that’s where it becomes a challenge. This is where there’s a small bonus here. There’s a small value, or actually, there’s a massive value to taking whatever you provide, whether it’s a product, whether it’s a service. And as you’ve already heard me do, break it down to a proprietary process. Even if these are themes that are already out there, perhaps the USP, the unique selling proposition, the secret sauce of what you offer is that here’s your system of doing this common thing. You’ve heard mine, which is part of my program, an online community, Business Influence Systems. Emotional intelligence, calibration, words and patterns, hypnotic applications for business. That’s my process for this. So I bring up confusion, because, again, this is where as I use the jargon

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of punctuational ambiguity, that’s a hypnotic induction all unto itself. Here’s a preview. We’re going to let the last word of a sentence possibly sound as if it’s the first word of the next sentence. And I’ll give you a quick hack to make this work, which would be take the word now and put it in your mind as if the word now serves the purpose of the sound effect, um. So these are the options I have for you. Now, how soon would you like to get started? So that word now could have been the end or could have been the beginning of the next sentence. How do you apply this for online print? This is going to vary, because, again, now in the 21st century, I think it was Perry Belcher who I heard one say, “Just work from the assumption that no one ever is going to look at your website or your funnel again on a desktop computer.” Because almost all traffic is now on mobile. This is why it’s so helpful to use different platforms where you can see what

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it’s going to look like on desktop and mobile. This is going to be helpful for the point I’m sharing with you here, which would be that play with what the first word of every headline sort of line break would be. That’s how you can start to somehow model this punctuational… Is that the right word? Ambiguity in a print format? I promised you specific examples, but there’s the overview. Option number one is you can make use of a double bind, find that place where you can give the illusion of choice. Simplest one would be, “Well, you’ve got some options here. We can either get started as easily as a single payment of this smaller amount, or…” here’s another pattern we’ll talk about later. “Most people decide to go ahead and just pay for the entire program because you’ll see that saves you about $300. What’s best for you?” That’s a double bind. That’s one option here. Or there’s the ambiguity by way of punctuation, “As you consider these options now, how soon would you like to get started?” Survey says, Family Feud style. What’s the most common answer I get?

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Well, now, which then becomes a small bit of backtracking as oftentimes my schedule is full a couple of weeks in advance. Let’s get into some real-world applications here, and specifically here’s a story of mine that started a segment of my business that really helped me to leave behind a career I was burned out in to then go full time doing something that now I’m clearly passionate about. So the story was, I wanted to work with schools. Now, mind you, for those of you who do any work with schools and perhaps it’s part of your industry, don’t get too excited because this is now a market that I’ve since retired myself from. My company still provides programs for some of these schools. I’m just no longer the one going out and doing them just because my passion is elsewhere and it’s my business, dagnabbit, and I can make that decision. How about that for some profanity from turn of the century gold diggers? Anyway, that being said, here was the story, which the premise,

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the sort of headline of the segment is if you’re trying to break into a new market, be the expert, not the vendor. And I think that’s a major flaw that a lot of people make in their business where perhaps they find that vendor fair, perhaps there’s a lot of people in my audiences that are trainers, therapists, nutritional counselors, and they find the health fair and they decide to get a table and basically give out samples and talk to people at the table. There’s a problem to that model. When you’re in that role, you are the vendor, you are not the expert. And my common advice is if you meet with that kind of opportunity, do not say yes unless there is an opportunity to speak. If you need some help with the speaking, we’ve got some systems for that inside of the program, Business Influence Systems. But here’s the real story, or even better, here’s the metaphor, the “Pied Piper of Hamelin,” the classic story, true or not, was that he would blow

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the whistle, the rats would follow him, and he drove all the mice out of Ireland. I believe I’m getting that story close enough to be right, but you get the idea. I would rather pied piper people, that was easy to say, from the stage, from the platform, back to my table to then explain, here’s how to get more. So do you see the difference? Otherwise, I’m the person standing behind a table with a bunch of strangers walking around, basically asking either, “What are you giving away for free?” We all love swag bag stuff. Or two, “What are you trying to sell me?” They’re not using that exact language, but that’s really what’s going on in that situation. Well, the difference becomes, be the expert, not the vendor. So back to my story. I wanted to break into schools. And in one of my segments of my business, everybody else was talking to colleges, almost nobody was talking to high schools. So that was the area that I decided to focus on. And I discovered through a little bit of market research, take note of that statement.

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As soon as you identify who your audience is, you can start to reverse engineer how to get in front of those people. And I found an amazing asset. This is the magazine that if you become a high school principal, at least this was true, like 13, 14 years ago. If you become a high school principal, you don’t even have to subscribe to this magazine. They just start sending you copies of it. The same as I’m convinced, as soon as you have a home, at least in the United States, you’re going to start to get those 20% off coupons for Bed Bath & Beyond. They might even be addressed to the person who lived there before, but they’ll still honor it, even if they’re expired. So much helpful advice, I know, inside of this program. So be the expert, not the vendor. This is where I used the double bind because you know what? Here’s another mindset to be aware of, instead of the imposter syndrome game that too many people get into, put the ownership of need on the individual to whom you’re speaking. Here’s the best way to look at that. As soon as I found a copy of this magazine, it was like 50 or 60 pages.

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And this magazine came out every single month. And think about this major challenge that these people, these editors, these publishers have to deal with. They have to come up with so much content every single week, every single month, otherwise there’s empty spaces, and I’m sure, amazing, very helpful publication. Therefore, the story changed in my mind, that it was no longer, “Who am I to write for this magazine?” But instead, “What a great favor I’m giving them to reach out and say.” Here comes the double bind. “You know, I do programs for schools and I found a copy of your magazine and you know, I’ve put together presentations, one on this topic and one on that topic. These are things that often I’ve found schools are facing as a challenge. Of those two, which one do you think would make for a helpful article for your principals?” What happened next was beautiful. Well, let’s rewind back for a moment before I point out the beautiful aspect.

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What happened next was we continued the conversation. We talked about it. I shared some helpful information and eventually, they went, “Yeah. Option two. I think that’s the better one.” Which, if you’re curious, one was about dealing with contracts, with vendors who are not directly inside of the school system, which I was. The more exciting topic was that of boosting student participation. Fun fact, we published the second one a few months later. I eventually got to do both. But what I didn’t do was this… And mind you, this is the part of the intention behind all that I teach. This was the backstory of my book, “Work Smart Business,” which came out in January, 2019. I didn’t call up and say, “Hey, I’m a hypnotist that sells a program to a school. Can I write for your magazine?” Because you and I both know exactly how well or not how well that would have gone. Not even a matter that they cringed at the H-word, hypnosis or not. No, it was instead, they didn’t yet know they needed what I had to provide.

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“So I’ve got these two topics I can write an article about. Of these two, which one do you think your principals would find the most value in?” We immediately were into a conversation. It was already the assumed close. I was sending over drafts within a few days. And if you want the rest of that story, printed, I bet, 1,000 color copies of that article and mailed it to all the principals in about a 300 miles radius going, “I’m sure you already saw this, however, here’s an extra copy for your records. If you’re curious about what I do, here’s how to find out more.” A very non-sales-y thing. And I’m telling you, if it weren’t for that moment, I probably wouldn’t be standing here teaching the things that I’m telling. That’s what put my business on the map. Be the expert, not the vendor. Similar to this too, let’s go for an easier when, which is where, of course, everything from 2020 into 2021, we’re in a world, for the moment, most everything is happening online. So what I’m about to say next is what I did to go into like the rotary meeting,

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the kuanas [SP] meeting, the local civic group, the business lunch and learn, the chamber of commerce, fill in the blanks, to basically go in and give a live presentation. And I wasn’t, again… Take note of this. I wasn’t going, “What can I sell these people?” It was instead the question of, “What can I give them?” And that question made all the difference. So I did not call up a business group and say, “I’m a hypnotist. Can I talk to your group?” Because, again, they would have said no. Not for the reason that they didn’t like me or they didn’t like my topic, the truth was, they didn’t yet know they needed what I provided. This is going to sound familiar. “Hey, I saw the agendas for your meeting on your website that’s on the chamber of commerce site. I’ve got two presentations that I’d love to share with your membership. One of them is about relieving stress in the workplace, the other is about producing more confidence in public speaking. For both of them, I do a active demo and everybody leaves with techniques they can use right away.

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Of those two, which one do you think would be the best fit for your community?” And immediately, again, we were into a conversation. Now it was no longer the decision as to whether we bring in Jason, yes or no, it was instead, the decision was changed. This is how you influence a decision, all about option A or option B. And the beauty of this is, is if you want the rest of the business model inside of Business Influence Systems, I teach how to pivot, how to upgrade the experience where it’s very simple to say, at the end of that presentation, “You can make use of what I’ve shared with you and get X and Y result. Though, for those people who want to Z…” fill in the blanks. “Even faster, I’ll briefly mention here’s how I’m available to help.” And that’s where in a very non-sales-y way, I made an offer. I wouldn’t even call that a pitch. And I had a line after the meeting. Now, it’s 2021. The world is a bit different right now. However, everything I’ve just said to you… Am I revealing too much?

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Is how I get on so many podcasts, is what I do when I’m offering to present a webinar to someone else’s audience. Do you see the value here? Here’s the reality of 2021. We all have local businesses, unless we’re actually an in-person physical service like construction, or let’s say massage, though there’s some creativity to be had there, I’m sure. So the benefit became, I give a menu rather than a yes or no, that’s the nature of the double bind. So that was the story of what really built out my business and got me up and running. So to bring that full circle, that’s the mechanism to get that foot in the door even earlier to influence the decision before you make the ask, the final sort of takeaway on this is that ambiguity by way of punctuation. I’m going to wait for that moment where, again, remember this principle, if something is explained in advance, it’s education. If something is explained after the fact, unfortunately, that’s often perceived

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as an excuse. So anything you can do to set the frame, to pre-frame in advance the sales process, prevents some of that pushback later on inside of the work. Imagine what will happen differently if someone fully sees the value of what you do, has connected all of the potential results to you and your service and your product, and is already completely comfortable with the price and knows they’re going to be inside of an under-promise, over-deliver outcome. These are the applications I share inside of the Business Influence Systems program. Though in that final phase, once I know all the checkpoints are in motion, once I know all the bullet points have been addressed, the T’s are crossed, the I’s are dotted and so forth, and other out-of-date statements, that’s where I’m going to then bring in that final syntactical… Sorry. Punctuational ambiguity, which is where I’m going to go for the final recap. I’m going to go for the stack. So as a reminder, inside of the program, you get lifetime access to these 40 hours

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of video, and it’s an ever-growing library because it’s not just the online program, it’s also an active online community. That’s where I’m there to answer your questions and then, again, so are the members of this program all around the world too. And we go online on a regular basis and do monthly hot seat webinars for the members, this way you can see the modifications as to what’s working right now, because any new content gets added to the program, plus we’ve got that thrive in community to support you the entire way through. Now, how soon would you like to join? As you look at the options, you could either make the single payment or you can invest in the payment plan. What’s best for you? And I kind of marked it out a little bit more mechanically there, so you could hear the strategy, but do you see how we started to blend the two tactics together? The more finessed you get at this, the more skilled you get at the delivery of this, the more you can layer, and layer, and layer where the beauty

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of this becomes, you don’t need just one specific technique to be effective because instead, it’s the cumulative effect of all these influential strategies stacked one on top of the other, that’s what can often take your business from good to great. So get out there, use your powers for good. And I encourage you, reach back out to me. You can leave a comment over on the show notes at jasonlinett.com/21. You can also interact with us inside of the Business Influence Persuasion Facebook group that we’ve got. We’ve got a link to that in the show notes there as well. Because I want to hear how you modify this for your business. These are the things that I’ve done in a world where I have to convince some people that I’m not going to make them bark like a dog or cluck like a chicken. And chances are, you’re in a much easier to grow a business that doesn’t have the barriers that I had. So if I can pull this stuff off in my world, I can’t wait to see the results that you create, putting these strategies to use in your own business. Talk to you soon.

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You have been listening to the “Hypnotic Language Hacks” podcast with Jason Linett. Please stop everything and start exploring jasonlinett.com for even more business influence and persuasion resources. Make it a priority right now to subscribe to this program and listen to every episode because the next one may reveal that one hypnotic influence secret to massively scale your success. Change your words, change your business, change your life. Get even more at jasonlinett.com.