Buckeroo and Attention Spans

I remember fondly on wet Sunday afternoons playing Buckeroo. You loaded up this spring mounted plastic horse with all sorts of plastic items – spades, boxes, blankets – the items got heavier and heavier and eventually the horse would bolt out of the springs, scaring you witless.

Great fun.

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You see there was only so many things the horse could carry before it bolted and that’s a little like humans and their attention spans.

NLP says that we can only concentrate on around 7 things. Only keep around 7 items in our head, in our conscious mind. Beyond that and we bolt like buckaroo.

We obviously don’t bolt but if we faced with handling more than 7 things, we ignore or our sub conscious takes care. And that’s where we can influence effectively. Let me explain some uses:

  • Make sure when you’re dealing with a customer or colleague that you want to influence, keep the distractions to a minimum. Apart from the obvious be aware of what’s behind you, it’s amazing what can distract. Remember 7.
  • Deliberately overload the customer and then slip in some hypnotic influencing techniques, here’s a couple of them:
  • Use the word “because” liberally to justify your reasons for your idea.
  • Soften your voice and lower it for an influential tone.
  • Match everything you can see and hear about your customer

There’s a whole list of things you can do whilst the customer is occupied and these serve to influence them. Its ok, it’s only influencing.