No warranty may be created or extended by sales representatives or written sales materials. The advice and strategies contained herein may not be suitable for your situation. You should consult with a professional where appropriate. Neither the publisher nor author shall be liable for any loss of profit or other commercial damages, including but not limited to special, incidental, consequential, or other damages.
For general information on our other products and services or for technical support, please contact our Customer Care Department within the U.S. at (800) 762-2974, outside the United States at (317) 572-3993 or fax (317) 572-4002.
Wiley also publishes its books in a variety of electronic formats. Some content that appears in print may not be available in electronic books. For more information about Wiley products, visit our web site at www.wiley.com.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data:
Vitale, Joe, 1953–
Buying trances : a new psychology of sales and marketing / Joe Vitale.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978–0–470–09519–5 (cloth)
1. Selling—Psychological aspects. 2. Marketing—Psychological aspects. I.
Title.
HF5438.8.P75V58 2007
658.8001'9—dc22
2006031241
Printed in the United States of America.
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
ffirs.qxd 7/17/07 3:14 PM Page ix To Roy Garn and Milton Erickson
ffirs.qxd 7/17/07 3:14 PM Page x
ffirs.qxd 7/17/07 3:14 PM Page xi Nothing more directly challenges status quo marketing research than the emerging scientific consensus that almost all mental activity isn’t fully conscious.
—Dan Hill, Body of Truth: Leveraging What Consumers Can’t or Won’t Say, 2003
Ideas which have the greatest suggestive power are those presented to us by the actions of other persons. The second most effective class is probably the ideas suggested by the words of our companions. Advertisements that are seen frequently are difficult to distinguish in their force from ideas which are secured from the words of our friends. Advertising thus becomes a great social illusion.
—Walter Dill Scott, The Psychology
of Advertising, 1908
ffirs.qxd
7/17/07
3:14
PM
Page
xii
ftoc.qxd 7/17/07 3:15 PM Page xiii Contents
Foreword Kevin Hogan
xv
Acknowledgments
xix
Author’s Strange Introduction
xxi
Got Trance?
1
The World’s Largest Private Collection of
Hypnosis Books
13
The Man with the Golden Helmet
17
The Truth about Why People Buy
29
The Nude Wizard of Moneymaking Appeal
35
How I Discovered the Buying Trance
43
How to Uncover Someone’s Current Trance
51
The Story of the Portable Empire
69
Conversational Trances: The Four States of Mind 77
How to Handle Resistant Prospects
81
The 10-Second Trance Induction
85
Who Else Wants to Write a Headline That
Always Works?
95
xiii
ftoc.qxd 7/17/07 3:15 PM Page xiv xiv
Contents
What Is the All-Time Best Trance Inducer?
101
How to Get People to Buy Virtually Anything
107
How to Create a Magical On-the-Spot Buying Trance 111
The Most Important Chapter in This Entire Book 115
The Hypnotic Power of Agreement
133
Don’t Read This Chapter
137
Listen to This: How to Create Buying Trances for Radio 141
Watch This: How to Create Buying Trances for Television or Video
145
A Secret Buying Trance Induction
149
The Surprise Gifts: A Revealing Summary
167
Bonus Special Report—
The One-Sentence Persuasion Course
Blair Warren
169
Bibliography
187
About Dr. Joe Vitale
201
Index
203
flast.qxd 7/17/07 3:15 PM Page xv Foreword
Buying Trances.
Three for $1,000?
Some trances are absolutely amazing.
They can take you deep inside the most passionate of places or move you to the peaks of peaceful calm; still others can bring you the power and perseverance you might want to be the best at what you do.
Trances.
Three for $1,000 could be a bargain.
Trances fascinate.
The moments before you fall into slumber are called the hypnogogic state. The moments you are waking up, unsure of whether you are walking around or still in bed, only to be assured you are still in bed, are the hypnopompic state.
Every day you and I experience these two states. In an average person’s day there is no time that we are more susceptible to suggestion, which is why I stopped listening to the radio in bed two decades ago.
Joe Vitale calls himself a hypnotic marketer, an appropriate title for what he does.
Hypnotic writing?
Joe coined that phrase and I love it.
Sounds absurd when you first hear it, doesn’t it?
Isn’t hypnosis where you stare at a watch and go to sleep xv
flast.qxd 7/17/07 3:15 PM Page xvi xvi
Foreword
and hold your arm out for an hour while someone gives you suggestions, after which you remember nothing?
Certainly that could be one kind of trance or one trancelike state (not a great state for buying products and services, though).
Hypnotic writing.
Lewis Carroll wrote perhaps the single most powerful piece of hypnotic writing in history: Alice’s Adventures In Wonderland.
Have you read that recently?
May I suggest what the power of the mind can do . . . and the power of a trance? Please grab a copy off your bookshelf and simply read the first 15 pages or so.
Alice sees a rabbit. He carries a watch. He goes into a hole.
She follows.
She gets tall and small.
She gets wide and thin.
She has adventures that she never wanted but would have a story to tell for life. I promise you—read the first 15 pages or so and you will be in one of the most surprisingly focused trances you’ll ever experience.