This week: 7 Ways to Use Priming to Reach Your Goals / Today: Free Speak Like a Leader Webinar / Simple is a Superpower / Flip the Script
7 Ways to Use Priming to Reach Your Goals
I went to see a musical last week. It was advertised as an upbeat affair. Yet the first scene was rather sad. The director wanted to prepare the audience for some serious topics. This is called priming.
You can observe the same in Hollywood movies when the first scene of a biopic shows the hero dying. The audience is primed emotionally not to expect a happy end.
Priming is highly relevant in business. If you want your campaign, presentation or message to be effective, it is crucial to understand this concept.
What is Priming?
Priming prepares our brain for what follows so it can recognize and react faster. Without this neat trick we would be pretty slow in the head.
Why Does Priming Matters for Business?
Priming is important because it influences how we perceive, interpret, and respond to information, often without our conscious awareness.
If you use it correctly, your audience is more likely to remember your key points and is also more open-minded and persuadable – whether they are customers, investors or colleagues.
If you don’t, your audience may reject your ideas – simply because they are in a different state of mind.
How Does Priming Work in Business?
There are four main types of priming you can leverage:
- Word Associations: If you repeatedly use words like "partnership," "collaboration," and "mutual benefit" in meetings with clients, you prime them to view the relationship as a cooperative and mutually advantageous one.
- Visual Cues: This includes images, colors, and textures. Displaying a graph with upward trends before discussing sales targets can prime your team to think positively about growth and success. This visual cue sets the tone for the discussion.
- Evoking Emotions: Create novelty or surprise to get the audience’s attention. Or share a success story about a past project to prime your team to feel motivated and inspired. They’ll be more likely to come up with ambitious and innovative ideas.
- Repetition: Repeating key messages like "quality," "trust," and "value" can prime your customers to associate these traits with your brand. Over time, these words will become linked to your business in their minds.
7 Ways to Use Priming Today
- Leadership Communications: Repeat your key message and terms like "vision," "growth," and "future" in your communications to prime employees to align their work with the company's long-term goals and vision.
- Client Meetings: Use words like "partnership," "collaboration," and "mutual benefit".
- Pitching: Before pitching an innovative idea, prime it with words like "creative," and "visionary" to encourage an open mindset. Show visuals that shout "groundbreaking".
- Team Motivation: Using words such as "achievement," "excellence," and "goal-oriented" in team meetings or feedback sessions.
- Innovation Workshop: Create the sensation of novelty at the beginning to open minds, for instance with a story or a prop.
- Presentation: Prime the audience to move the audience to action. For instance, when describing a problem, say “imagine if…” as a positive primer before offering a solution.
- Customer Support: Training customer service representatives to use words like "resolved," "quickly," and "efficiently" can prime customers to feel that their issues will be handled promptly and effectively.
- Marketing Campaigns: Using phrases like "premium quality," "trusted by experts," “unique” and "proven results" in marketing materials can prime potential customers to view your product as high-quality and reliable. This can influence their purchasing decisions.
The tl;dr of Priming
Use words, visuals, emotions and repetition to clear the path for your message. This makes it more likely that you achieve your goal.
If you don’t use priming correctly, the audience may react negatively because they are in a different state of mind.
NEWS
Free Speak Like a Leader Webinar today
The Speak Like a CEO Academy is your all-on-one solution to transform your leadership communications skills.
To celebrate the Academy’s launch I'm hosting two free Q&A sessions where I share my exact leadership communications framework that I use with my 1-on-1 CEO coaching clients.
The first one is today:
Friday June 7th at 1pm CET / 12 noon GMT / 7am ET
Link for Today (Friday): https://meet.google.com/kyb-iuhq-uru
If you can't join today, join us on:
Tuesday June 11th at 2pm CET / 1pm GMT / 8am ET
Link for Tuesday: https://meet.google.com/ujb-hyfw-rwa
Hope to see you there soon!
PODCAST
Simple is a Superpower
How do you craft simple messages that win big? That’s the question Ben Guttmann answers in this week’s episode of the Speak Like a CEO podcast.
Ben built, ran, and sold an award-winning marketing agency, teaches marketing at the largest business school in the US. He just published an outstanding book on messaging called “Simply Put: Why Clear Messages Win―and How to Design Them”
A clear and simple message is sticky, convincing, and moves others to act. In one word, simple is effective. You probably already know that. But the issue is: Simple is not easy. Fortunately for us, Ben identified the 5 factors to create a simple message.
Enjoy this fascinating conversation with one of the world’s preeminent experts on messaging.
Listen on Spotify and Apple:
BOOK
Flip The Script
In today's fast-paced, hyper-informed world, potential clients and investors are more skeptical and resistant to conventional sales pitches. In his latest book, Flip the Script, Klaff argues that to succeed, you need to "flip the script"—shifting the power dynamic to make your audience feel like they're pursuing you, rather than the other way around. Building on his successful methods from his bestseller "Pitch Anything," Klaff introduces a groundbreaking technique that turns traditional sales tactics on their head.
Drawing from his extensive experience in high-stakes negotiations, Klaff shares practical tools and real-life examples that demonstrate how to:
- Create a sense of urgency that compels your audience to act
- Overcome objections before they're even raised
- Establish your authority and credibility from the start
- Frame your offer as an opportunity they can't afford to miss
Klaff's techniques are designed to help you stand out in a crowded market, engage even the most resistant prospects, and ultimately, close more deals.
Hope to see you at the webinar later today!
Best,
Oliver
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