Learning How the Mind Works Can Work For You

By Christopher M. Seymour


It's always a good idea to have an idea of how the mind works so you can adjust your sales copy accordingly to appeal to certain mind sectors. Let's just start with some basic information so you get a good idea of how the mind works.The brain does two major things - stores information in your memory and processes information that allows you to use/apply your knowledge to make decisions and solve problems. Next we'll look at what side of the brain does what.

Those words can still apply today. It depends on the internal representation that we have of the world in which we live. There is an objective reality but we cannot see it. All that we can grasp is our own perception of that reality and that perception differs with each individual.

Your right brain works with emotions, pictures, wholes and how all the parts all relate together, putting stuff together (that AH-HA moment), and simultaneous/holistic thinking. This side of the brain doesn't wear a watch like the left side does, and in fact can lose track of time. And like the left side of your brain, the right side governs/runs the left side of your body.

That personal bank of references is composed of an amalgamate of all the experiences that we've had in the past. It's a composite of the deductions that we unconsciously reached following every new experience that we've had.Some of these deductions may be quite accurate while others might be so fanciful as to make the angels cry. Yet, it is from that bank of reference and all those past conclusions that we view our world and everything in it.

We've all heard about limited attention span, and in marketing that sometimes seems to be the norm for customers. What this means is that only part of your memory can be activated at any one time and it will be a single area located in the most easily activated part of the memory. This will also be the most familiar one, the one used most often. The more often it is used it becomes even more familiar. Think repetitive marketing campaign, top of the mind awareness, copy crafted to appeal to certain senses that becomes familiar to your customer over time. People need to be told about a product or service at least SEVEN times before they buy it/try it. Think repeat customers here.

Throughout our lives we have fought with our emotions and struggled to change habits and behaviours with little or no success. We have been attempting to change the symptom of some cause without getting to the source. Trying to change with willpower alone is like trying to weed a garden without getting at the roots and wondering why the weeds keep growing back. We wonder why change is so difficult, but it's not that change is difficult, it's that we've been going about it the wrong way. Trying to shovel the snow of your driveway with a rake isn't going to work very well, so why not trying something else? To change emotions and behaviours we need to step behind the scenes and peek into our internal experience to see what is going on behind our emotions and behaviours. We need to look beyond the surface and find the source.

OK now you have a pretty fair idea of how the mind works. Let's go just one more step further. You already know about the language of the brain being pictures, sounds, feelings, tastes, and smells - in other words input from your senses that is your imagination when it is processed. Your brain can only work with positive information that it receives from your five senses. Your brain can't work with inputs you haven't experienced or otherwise called negative information.Here is a very important point to remember when thinking about your customers. They can't reflect and act at the same time. They need to be focused on one thing or another (reading your website copy, email etc) and thinking about it or taking action and buying something. Trick is to be able to switch them from one to the other quickly and effortlessly. Good thing you know about Neuro Linguistic Programming and how the mind works.

After the objective reality has finished being distorted by our previous references and our fundamental beliefs it has to contend with the ubiquitous mediatic barrage, most of which is taken at face value. What shreds of truth could maintain its integrity once it has been through all these distortions? No wonder that most of us are walking contradictions.

And here is why you want to know what they do for a living. A manager would be a left brain person (appeal to his/her logic and love of analysis). A leader would be right brain (appeal to his/her emotions and imagination). A producer - that would depend on the kind of work done. If the work done is verbal, logical, and analytical - that is left brain. If the work is intuitive, emotional, and creative - that is right brain. Can you be a combination? Yes, but usually one is more predominant that the other.




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