Persuasion By Association: The Power of Linking New Ideas to Existing Concepts

Your job is to lead your audience to come to the intended conclusion on their own. It’s now their idea, and everyone benefits.

A middle-aged man storms into his doctor’s office, steaming mad.

“Doc, my new 25-year-old wife is expecting a baby. You performed my vasectomy five years ago, and I’m very upset right now.”

“Let me respond to that by telling you a story,” the doctor calmly replies.

“A hunter once accidentally left the house with an umbrella instead of his rifle. Out of nowhere, a bear surprised him in the woods … so the hunter pointed the umbrella, fired, and killed the bear.”

“Impossible,” the man snaps back. “Someone else must have shot that bear.”

“And there you have it,” the doctor says.

So, that’s a bit of 50+ humor for you. And while the gentleman is embracing his apparent midlife crisis with vigor, he’s got an obvious blind spot when it comes to his young bride.

The doctor could have just come out and said the man’s wife must be cheating on him. But the analogy allowed the patient to come to that conclusion on his own, which is ultimately much more persuasive.

Lead Them to Their Own Conclusion

This brings us back to one of our key points about persuasion. It’s not about you telling people what to think or do; it’s them deciding that the way you think is the right way for them to think as well, and then take action accordingly — which is the action you want them to take.

It seems like a silly distinction, but it’s not. Most grown-ups resist being told what to do, and this may be particularly true with older adults. Your job is to lead your audience to come to the intended conclusion on their own. It’s now their idea, and everyone benefits.

Mental associations are the building blocks of thought. This reflects the brain’s infrastructure, with its complex network of neurons, axons, dendrites, and neurotransmitters.

While the term “thought leadership” has effectively lost all meaning due to unsophisticated attempts at “content” marketing, Leading Expert practitioners know that we persuade our prospects with language that intentionally influences mental associations with our content and copy. 

So, how your audience thinks and emotionally reacts results from the associations sparked by your words. All you need to guide those thoughts and reactions are the right words.

It’s amazing how the right verbs, adjectives, personal pronouns, and nouns can trigger an association that makes it more likely that people will adopt your point of view. It’s also fascinating how the careless use of language can backfire on otherwise well-crafted content and copy.

At the heart of things, persuasive writing is about your audience understanding your message. Understanding leads to acceptance when your point of view is sound and well-targeted, and you make the conclusion unavoidable.