Where does any speech, flirtation, conversation or suggestion begin? It begins when the other person - the manager, the boyfriend, the girlfriend, the audience, the man - finds out that you exist and focuses their attention on you. It sounds obvious, but there is no point talking to a hall that is staring at its smartphones out of boredom. How do you get someone's attention?
But first, allow me to ask: why draw attention to yourself at all? Presumably in order to get your way. And the whole joke of influencing people lies in worming your way into their (sub)conscious mind without demanding anything directly and without insisting. So that the person is listening to us about one thing while subconsciously working out something else, the thing we need. O. Henry said as much in his book "Cabbages and Kings":
The art of the storyteller lies in keeping from his audience everything it wishes to know until he has set out his innermost thoughts on a wide range of questions that have nothing to do with the matter in hand
O. Henry in the book "Cabbages and Kings"
Clear? Not clear? Then I have already said what I needed to say and you did not notice it! BUT! First it would be good if the other person started listening to us at all.
How do you get attention?
What we are talking about is ATTENTION FIXATION. So that the person is actually inside the conversation with us. So that when we speak, our words are not merely background noise for them. Attention Fixation is where many door-to-door salesmen come unstuck: instead of a greeting they are met with "I don't buy anything". The salesman simply never gets the chance to say a word. Because the very best advertisements on Australian television have no effect on us. And the most exquisite clips on YouTube will not move us if nobody offers them to us to watch.
Can you plant a suggestion without Attention Fixation? You can, but only in rare cases: when you have rapport with the other person, when you are on the same wavelength, in the same field. In short, when the person feels good with you. If there is a direct interest in me personally, the other person will listen anyway. Parents, for instance, can drone on with their instructions. And the children will listen, even if they do not like it. Only they will carry those instructions out later, much later. And how do you do it sooner and faster?
Get inside their information space!
There is a film called "After the Rain on Thursday". Some fine young fellows come to Koschei the Deathless, and he asks: "What brings you here?" They answer: "Nothing!" Says Koschei: "Dear, dear, dear! Coming to me empty-handed! So you have come to steal! And stealing is a sin!" The young men start telling him tales, and Koschei's whole attention is on them!
Well then: at the threshold of every listener's information space there sits a "Koschei", and he asks:
What brings you here? Why should I listen to you?
the author
We need to come up with a reason for being let into that information space, and only then can we start sowing suggestions there.
Where do we begin?
The first fixation happens at the start of the story, when we announce the subject. "Did you hear what happened in the next street the other day?" That line has to arouse interest. The aim: that the person should be waiting for what comes next, and ideally should demand: "Go on then, tell me!". Then Fixation has taken place. What will make a person start listening to us? It could be:
- An interesting subject
- An interesting name
- Danger to the person.
- The beginning of a story
An explosion in Japan is dangerous, but far away. A story about a Japanese man who lived through a tsunami will be heard out by many. Even a deaf person wants to hear a story to the end. Openers like these sound good:
- A friend of mine bought a monitor the other day. And her eyesight got worse. It turned out that...
- Your surname affects the size of your penis, especially in women.
- Do you know why a person dies quickly?
- Do you know what can make other people dislike you straight away?
- Actually... (Aha, there is something there that I do not know)
- Your tutor rang me today
- It seems to me the organisers have left out one important stage.
- I have heard that private property is to be abolished.
It works less well if the opening sounds like an advertisement, or too formal.
So, we have hooked their attention. The person is listening to us, and now we can start planting suggestions. We keep watch: attention drifts, the listener grows bored - and we hook them again. There is no need at all to keep them on edge, or the poor soul will drop dead from the strain.
So now we have worked out how to get attention. All that is left is to practise it! You can do that at the meetings of our Club.
