Constructing facts with presuppositions

August 7th, 2007 · 3 Comments · Tags: Copywriting · Persuasion & Influence

Everybody loves to hear just how infinitely powerful the human brain is; but I have a little secret that brain-gurus don’t like to talk about: The brain, as powerful as it is, can only focus on one thought at a time… (sorry to burst the bubble for all “multi-taskers” out there).

Psychologists has been proven that when the human brain is faced with multiple thoughts at once, it will either focus on one and ignore the rest or it will focus on one and will accept (presuppose) the other thoughts as fact.

And so, expert salespeople and copywriters have used this knowledge to develop a highly-effective sales technique called presuppositions. There are two different ways to establish presuppositions in the mind. Here’s how it’s done:

1) Creating presuppositions through questions.
This technique works by forcing the brain to form an opinion or answer a question, while at the same time slipping an extra thought or two into the sentence. Here’s an example:

“What will you do with the extra money you’ll pocket from applying the powerful marketing techniques you’ll learn by reading this course?”

In the above sentence, by asking the question “what will you do?” I’m forcing the brain to answer it (either verbally or mentally). But in order to do so, the brain will have to presuppose that applying the techniques from the course will earn the reader money. Notice how the above sentence also makes the reader presuppose he will in fact be reading the course.

2) Creating presuppositions with trigger phrases & -ly words.
There are certain words and phrases that when placed properly in a sentence, make the human brain automatically accept the statement made as a fact. Here’s an example of this technique in action:

“As you have clearly discovered by reading this entire letter, you need marketing course to make your business thrive and prosper beyond your wildest dreams.”

Because the second part of the sentence is such an obvious truth for any business owner, by force-feeding the brain multiple thoughts, I’m virtually forcing it to accept the first part as true. After reading that sentence, the reader will most likely think he has in fact “clearly discovered” that he needs to buy the course.

Some common trigger phrases and words to establish presuppositions are:

• I don’t have to tell you that…
• I don’t need to convince you that…
• As you already know…
• As a matter of fact…
• I’m sure you know that…
• Everybody knows that…
• It’s a known fact that…
• Clearly
• Obviously
• Undoubtedly
• Naturally
• Evidently
• Apparently
• Certainly

Any statement that you use along with the above phrases will be covered in a halo of credibility and will be more readily accepted as fact by your readers. Try establishing a few presupposed facts in your copy, you’ll clearly see it was worth the time doing.