Power Words

The words you use have power. The power words you use can increase that power. You have the power to hurt or to heal. Power to tear down or to build up.

We will focus on the positive aspects of words.

Doing a search on power words will bring you a cornucopia of vocabulary building sites and tutorials. The words they will teach you will indeed increase your word power.

Beyond those words are certain words that have a unique power. They have an ability on their own when put into a sentence to increase the reception and assimilation in the mind of the hearer. These are the words of focus here.

Words that when heard give the mind the all's clear signal. These cause the mind to feel safe to continue on.

Most of what we say is the equivalent of driving down the road to our listeners. Those hearing us only consciously registers about 15% of what we say. Occasionally we will say words the mind will focus on and act as yield, caution, go slow, windy road ahead, and stop signs.

When your driving what happens if you see any of the afore mentioned signs? What do you do? A chain of reactions start through your autonomic nervous system and your voluntary nervous system. So part of the response is voluntary and part is involuntary.

There are occasionally a few signs that direct you to take a scenic route. You do and you take in the view. You even enjoy it. You may tell others about it.

What if you could use words that didn’t cause people to put on the mental brakes? Words that didn’t cause a reaction and only caused a response.

Look no further. These words are right here. There are only a few. More important than what these power words are is how they are used.

These power words bring about a response. These power words are like turning the switch to the on position for listening and accepting reception in the brain.

These power words are essential for persuasion. These are the business power words required to get buy in from an audience. These are the power words for selling.

Relax as we take a scenic drive down the path of the essential persuasive power words.

This is one of the best because…

There was actually a study I read about on the site of one of my favorite copywriters, Bencivenga Bullets.

A book on influence by doctor by Dr. Robert Cialdini demonstrated a simple principle of human behavior. If we ask someone to do a favor for us we will be more successful if we offer a reason.

Then he referred to Harvard social psychologist Ellen Langer and a study that demonstrated the truth of this principle.

The test group asked a favor of those in a copier line. They said, “Excuse me, I have only five pages. May I use the copier machine because I'm in a rush?"

Notice the power word 'because' gives the credibility to the request. In this case, even though the reason is, well, lame.

The next aspect referred to was those who only asked if they could use the machine. No reason. They just asked politely. That group had a 60% compliance instead of the 94% in the control group.

Here is the kicker. As you read on, notice the power of 'because.'

Dr. Langer had a third group who started with the original phrase and only stated as the because reason, “I have to make some copies?"

That's it, "Can I jump ahead of you in line because I have to make some copies.’ The drop in compliance only went down to 93 %. And you thought the first reason was lame. This was a non-reason reason. The slow sign, the caution sign, or what ever traffic sign that would normally have resulted in an autonomic and physiologic reaction was ignored. Why? Because the filters in the brain on hearing the 'because' registered it as a valid reason.

Imagine what you can accomplish with the ethical use of this power word because.

The If-Then Duo

New and improved, more, free, and a few others have mental spam written all over them. This is because of their over use and abuse. How many times can detergent be new and improved. Especially if it looks just like the soap you used since you were a kid. Even worse, if you were a kid 50 years or more ago.

So to capture the minds of an audience, a reasonableness factor needs to be included.

One of the greatest ad campaigns simply used the ‘if then’ duo to sell its message. If you spend only 5-7 minutes a day then you will…..fill in what ever success you could imagine. Surely your have 5-7 minutes you could spend every day? Perhaps driving to work. During your exercises or daily walk.

Simply put if and add an appropriate reasonable action with a resulting then. Use this power word duo and take note of how it improves your power of persuasion.

If you had a headache wouldn’t you want to do what 8 out of 10 doctors do to get relief? Wouldn’t you want to use the tooth paste that dentist use. Why. Our brains are programmed to submit to authority.

By adding the authority to what we say, it enhances our ability to persuade.

An Anecdotal Authority Story.

The setting, at a lecture on the use of a drug known as a clot busting stroke stopping drug. The presenting doctor was challenged by one of his colleagues. Actually, the colleague was more like a sniper trying to kill an unsuspecting passerby.

The challenger stated that the outcomes for the drug according to an authoritative medical journal were not very good. The shots were fired at the presenting doctor with the precision of a master marksman perched high in a tree.

The presenting doctor not only was not hit, he successfully returned fire and put the sniper out of our misery.

He indicated what the sniper said was absolutely true. The reason for the poor outcomes in the clinical trials was the time laps from when someone qualified to enter the trial and was given clearance and the time they actually got the drug. In their case, they were getting the drug at the end of the window of opportunity.

This explained why the numbers were bad but didn’t take out the sniper. At least yet.

He continued, “All I know is that based on my experience of having had over 1150 patients in this valley (second highest elderly population in country) over (he stated the number of years) this drug has been available. Of all of those who got it at the beginning of the window as opposed to the end of the window my success rate is 99%. It didn’t work in about a little over 100 people.

The sniper went in for a kill, or so he thought. “What were the outcomes for those who did not have full recovery? He asked.

"The worst only had about 10% loss of function. The rest only lost about 5% function."

This was followed by another doctor who had a wife treated by the speaker. In telling her story, it turns out she had a stroke at a very young age and risked permanent loss of mobility on one side. She consented to the treatment resulting in almost no loss of function and was expecting full recovery.

In this instance it was the anecdotal evidence that was the authority. How do you speak against a 1000 successful stories?

And what were the power words.

According to

Based on

Experience demonstrates

Let the evidence or the authority speak for you. Let the higher authority leverage what you say. Use the power words to act as the pry bar to give you that leverage.

These are just a few of the examples of the most essential power words.

There are more. There will be more. This is because language is ever growing as are we.

Use these wisely, use these to benefit your audience.

The Spam Exception

There is an exception to the rule. It is the instance where you have traveled before and you have seen and know the windy road sign and the road it identifies. You know how fast the road can be safely navigated. You know the sign doesn’t apply to the circumstances.

In this instance, it is your own unique experience that makes this so. Someone else would be different.

The exception words that our own unique experience in life has taught us do not apply. These exception words are treated like mental Spam.

A good example is free. How many times have you responded to get something free and found it was nothing more than a piece of junk or a trinket. If you see a road sign that says free your autonomic nervous system may not even flinch. You just keep going.

Another is wealthy followed by the word combo of get rich. How many times have you read about becoming wealthy and yet have you ever known someone who has? Actually there have been people who have gotten wealthy off those products and advertisements. I think there are a total of 27 in the whole world.

When you hear these words what goes on in your minds. Your spam filters go on and you tune out. Like that sign that you ignore because you know the road. You know if it is too good to be true, it probably is not true or even worse it is a scam.

So be leery of using the words that will bring on the yeh sure response.

Are there more power words? Time will tell.

Use these wisely. Use these to benefit your audience.

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