The Law of Involvement: Create and Awaken Curiosity

Listening can be a very passive act; you can listen to an entire speech and not feel or do a thing, if you are not involved in.

The law of involvement

The law of involvement suggests that the more you engage someone’s 5 senses, involve them mentally and physically, and create the right atmosphere for persuasion, the more effective and persuasive you will be.

There are many ways to use involvement. We are going to focus on the following:

1. Increasing participation 2. Creating atmosphere 3. Maintaining attention 4. Using the art of questioning

5. Telling mesmerizing stories 6. Repeating and repackaging 7. Building suspense and distraction 8. Generating competition

You can create involvement through increased participation. The more we take an active role and get involved, the more open to persuasion we become.

1. Increasing Participation

2. Creating Atmosphere

Atmosphere is really just a state of mind that you can create.

Atmosphere can also include the tension in the air. Is there a rush, or are customers relaxed?

Rushed vs. Relaxed

We know from our own personal experience that we tend to let our minds naturally drift when we are listening to other people.

3. Maintaining Attention

Master persuaders can make a person want to pay attention and stay focused. You may loose your audience’s attention from time to time, but it is your job to bring them back to full attention status.

Questions are used in the persuasion process to create mental involvement, to guide the conversation, to set the pace of conversation (to adjust its

speed), to clarify statements and objections, to determine beliefs, attitudes and values, to force you to slow down, to find out what your prospect needs, and to show your sincerity.

4. Using the Art of Questioning

You can capture attention by telling a story but you will loose long-term

persuasiveness if your story does not relate to you or your topic.

5. Telling Mesmerizing/fascinating

Stories

Stories can be effectively used to do any or all of the following:

#Grab attention and create involvement#Simplify complex ideas#Create memorable hooks #Trigger emotions#Tap into existing beliefs#Persuade without detection #Bypass existing resistance to you or to your ideas#Build interest#Encourage participation

5. Telling Mesmerizing (fascinating) Stories (cont.)

The more you expose someone to a particular concept or idea, the more that concept or idea will become favorable to them.

6. Repackaging

You have to be careful to use repetition wisely, however. My motto (principle) is, ‘Repackage; Don’t repeat’. This means you can use the power of repetition, but you don’t always have to say the words exactly the same way.

‘Repackage; Don’t repeat’

We all are naturally curious about the unknown, when we feel we have been left hanging, it drives us crazy! We want to know the end of the story. This is also known as the ‘Zeigarnik Effect’, named after Bluma Zeigarnik, a Russian psychologist. This effect is the tendency we have to remember uncompleted thoughts, ideas, or tasks more than completed ones.

7. Building Suspense and Distraction

Most humans are very competitive, When you package something as a competition, most people will want to be involved.

8. Generating Competition