Its official – subliminal advertising really does work!

Controversial research by James Vicary in the 1950s (Vicary admitted to fabricating some of his results) led to subliminal advertising (such as flashing messages onto a cinema screen for such a short time that viewers are only unconsciously aware of the message) being banned in many countries.

Now, fifty years on, British scientists using sophisticated scanning techniques have shown that subliminal messages that we are not consciously aware of can leave a mark on our brain.

The findings strongly suggest that subliminal advertising does have the power to affect our decisions.

One powerful way that you can incorporate subliminal suggestions is to use a technique called embedded commands.  These can be used in any form of interaction, for example, when presenting a book proposal to an agent or publisher, or selling your books to an audience when speaking.

I use them a lot when I am speaking at conferences as a way of encouraging the audience to buy my books and other products at the back of the room after my speech.

Embedded commands are a technique that is utilised by hypnotists.  It is a common misconception that people need to have their eyes closed or to be sleepy to be influenced by hypnotic language. Nothing could be further from the truth!  Specific hypnotic language patterns exert a powerful effect on people whatever state of mind they are in.

Because they are beyond conscious perception, embedded commands exert a powerful unconscious influence on people.  So let’s take a look at how they work and how I use them to increase my back of room book sales.

Embedded commands work as follows:

It is possible to embed a suggestion or command within a larger sentence. For example:

“As you are looking over the proposal, I’m hoping that you want to go ahead now, so that we can get the show on the road.”

“Now that you have had chance to understand the benefits, I’m hoping that you want to say yes to the proposal.”

I have embedded the suggestion (highlighted in italics) “go ahead now” and “say yes” within the larger sentences above.

And I have placed the suggestion buy my books within this sentence! Indeed if you read this article carefully you will notice a lot of suggestions to buy my books!

You make embedded commands work by marking them out with some slightly different and subtle form of behaviour that is not noticed consciously.  However, the difference is registered at an unconscious (or subliminal) level and that is how the embedded command makes its mark.

For example, you can:

• Shift your voice tone when saying the embedded command e.g. slightly lower tonality, deeper tonality than the rest if the sentence within which they are embedded
• Pause slightly before and after saying the embedded suggestion
• Raise your eyebrows or make a physical gesture when making the embedded suggestion
• or indeed use all of the above in combination

I will also stack embedded suggestions one after the other to maximise their impact.

For example I could say:

“At this stage most people just want to buy, buy, buy! Why don’t we go ahead right now? If you say yes right now you can start enjoying the benefits sooner rather than later, can’t you?”

When I’m speaking I frequently embed subliminal suggestions (such as buy my books) into my speeches. And I’m always delighted with how many people want to buy my books when I’ve finished speaking.

As I frequently speak on the subject of sales, I often include material on hypnotic influence as audiences absolutely love hearing about it.  And I tell them that as a sales speaker I am a going to demonstrate techniques such as embedded commands by getting them to buy my books!

People generally laugh at this stage as they are in on the joke and are interested to see how I am going to do it.  This in no way detracts from the impact of the embedded commands and indeed I suspect that because people are enjoying themselves, they are more relaxed and therefore even more susceptible!

I then run through a range of hypnotic techniques littering them with suggestions to buy my books.  For example, I may say “It is entirely your choice whether you want to buy my books or you don’t want to buy my books.  If you choose to buy my books now then it will be your choice.  And the sooner you choose to buy my books the faster you will benefit, won’t you?”

Or I tell them a story about when I was speaking in Monte Carlo and a long line of people were queuing up to buy my books and a gentlemen, who had seen me speak before and had already decided to buy all my books, said to another person in the queue, “Simon Hazeldine’s books are fantastic you want to buy them all!”

And at the end of my speech I walk off stage, sit behind my table with my books in front of my as people queue up to buy my books! Just imagine people eagerly queuing up to thrust money into your hands! It’s amazing!

Now you may have spotted several suggestions to buy my books embedded in this article and if you find yourself wanting to buy my books then why don’t you buy your copy of ‘Bare Knuckle Selling’ right now, turn to page 80 and read about a whole range of powerful hypnotic persuasion techniques including presuppositions, tag questions, embedded suggestions and quotes.