Repetition in Sales: Electrify Your Impact

Repetition in sales is a simple, yet powerful tool. With skillful repetition, you can take a blob of information and create structure, significance, and rhythm for deeper impact. The power of repetition in sales has to do with establishing a pattern. When you establish a pattern with repetition in your selling, you make it way easier for your prospect to follow along with the conversation and, ultimately, buy from you.

Repetition in three is a subject we’ll have more to say on in future articles, so keep checking back for those and be sure you subscribe to the site, which is updated daily, so you won’t miss anything.

Using Repetition To Install Ideas, Opinions, Beliefs

The basic principle is that when we encounter information repeatedly, it becomes more deeply ingrained in our memory and more likely to influence our thoughts, beliefs, and behaviors.

This phenomenon is known as the “mere exposure effect,” which states that repeated exposure to a stimulus leads to increased liking and recognition of that stimulus.

Different Forms Of Repetition

The repetition of information can take many forms, including verbal repetition, physical repetition, visual repetition, and emotional repetition. For example, when a child hears a parent repeatedly say “Don’t run with scissors,” the message becomes firmly implanted in their mind and they are less likely to engage in the dangerous behavior.

Similarly, a person who practices a new skill repeatedly is more likely to remember how to perform that skill and to perform it with greater proficiency.

As persuaders in a sales context, the majority of our repetition will be verbal, the reiteration of an idea – which may not use the same word or same words each time – though there is an emotional context as we seek an emotional response in our prospect.

Use Visual Repetition In Your Marketing

Visual repetition is particularly effective because it involves both the visual and auditory areas of the brain. For example, when we see a commercial for a product repeatedly, the image of the product and the message associated with it become more deeply ingrained in our memory.

This is why companies invest heavily in advertising and why we are often able to recognize products from their logos and packaging.

Install An Idea with a Strong Emotional Experience

Emotional repetition can also be a powerful tool for installing ideas in the mind. When information is associated with a strong emotional experience, it is more likely to be remembered and to influence our thoughts, beliefs, and behaviors.

For example, a person who experiences a traumatic event may replay that event repeatedly in their mind, strengthening the memory of the event and the associated emotions.

Use Multiple Sources

The frequent repetition of information can also have a social influence on our thoughts and beliefs. When we repeatedly hear the same message from multiple sources, we are more likely to accept that message as true.

This is why effective propaganda and marketing campaigns often involve repeating the same message over and over. In this way, repetition can induce a truth effect which can be used to shape public opinion, overcome competing ideas and install beliefs and values in individuals.

Use The Right Kind Of Repetition

In order to maximize the power of repetition, it is important to focus on the right type of repetition. Verbal repetition is most effective when the information is repeated in a consistent and coherent manner. Visual repetition is most effective when the images are eye-catching and memorable. Emotional repetition is most effective when the information is associated with strong emotions, such as fear or desire.

Additionally, the repetition should be consistent and prolonged, rather than sporadic and brief.

Maximizing The Power Of Repetition in Sales

In conclusion, repetition in sales is a powerful tool for installing ideas in the mind. By repeating information repeatedly, we can increase our likelihood of remembering that information, accepting it as true, and acting on it.

Whether we are trying to learn a new skill, shape public opinion, or simply remember important information, repetition can help us achieve our goals. By focusing on the right type of repetition and timing the repetitions effectively, we can maximize the power of repetition to install ideas in our minds and shape our thoughts, beliefs, and behaviors.

Repetition in Sets of Three

I mentioned near the beginning of the article that in a sales persuasion context, one of the most powerful strategies in this field is ‘repetition in three. We’ll be going into the details of how this skill is used precisely in a future article, but the name speaks for itself: you implant ideas and beliefs in your prospect by repeating crucial information and cues three times.

Now this isn’t done by simply saying the same phrase three times end to end. The same message would be conveyed three times, perhaps in slightly different words but the same meaning, during the course of a few sentences, perhaps a story you tell to illustrate a point.

Leveraging Belief Patterns

There are a number of reasons why repetition in three works, and why three is a particularly important number since it leverages people’s beliefs. Our society is indoctrinated with the concept of the Godhead being in its form of a trinity.

Most every major religion on the planet talks about three things: God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit. Even in humanist psychology, they’ll talk about the id, the ego and the super ego. The conscious mind, the sub-conscious mind and the super-conscious mind. There are all these different iterations of the same. There’s the father, the mother and the child.

Example: A Subconscious Reference To Religion

There are all kinds of iterations of the number three in our society. And it’s actually quite profound, but if anyone who’s ever been exposed to anything religious – and that’s pretty much 100% of the population on the face of our planet today – has heard something from the Christian religion that deals with the Godhead being a trinity and even if they couldn’t express it in those words, they’ve heard of God, his son Jesus and the Holy Spirit. Most likely they’ve at least heard those names. They may not understand it much but at least they have heard it.

That’s one reason repetition in three works: it immediately is a reference to religion. It’s a subconscious reference to religion simply by virtue of its threeness. And if the people you were persuading were highly religious, repeating in three would have a dramatic impact on them, or it could. Okay?

Leveraging Belief with Repetition in Three

You might even leverage this more explicitly and say something like…

“Today, there are a few of the things that I believe so strongly in that I want to emphasize so profoundly, that I believe in with all my heart, that I’m going to do my best to try to take the position of a father who’s giving this information to his beloved son in such a way that he can infuse his heart with the spirit of the message, such that it’s really understood through and through and there is a resulting change, such that today, by the time we’ve gone through this process together, you will experience this information in a whole new way.

“Not only will you be excited about it, not only will you feel fantastic about it, not only will you have a sense of understanding that you’ve never had before, but you’ll begin to experience how it will work in your life. Now I want you to understand that for me this is a mission, it’s a mission that I live my life for every day.

“See, my dad taught me something important when I was young, he said, ‘Son, if you love what you do for a living, you’ll never work a day in your life.’ And he also taught me that if you don’t like what you do then every day will be a struggle and a fight.

“So I realized early on I had to love it and it’s my mission to help people understand these principles just like I do so that they can have a change of life, they can completely accept into their heart a new way of understanding, a new way of dealing with this subject matter and that’s my goal for us today as we talk.”

Example: Combine With Religious Symbolism

Now, what have I done? Well I’ve used all kinds of religious symbolism—repeating in three, I used the Father, the son and the Holy Spirit symbolism to infuse you with the spirit, blah, blah, blah, I’m talking to you as a father, meaning God and for any of you that have a Christian orientation or background, you’ll have heard that very loud and clear and you’ll understand the power this kind of language would have on somebody if you began using it like that.

On the other hand, if you were talking with non-believers, people who aren’t Christian in orientation, it may not only not influence them positively, it may go the other way around. But, the repetition in three per se will work everywhere you use it.

Repetition Helps Install Anything

Let’s focus on one of the main reasons that it works and that is that every single person that you use a repetition of three on is having your message repeated. Repetition helps install anything.

So if you were a conservative politician, for example, and you were talking to your conservative base of religious people, well, my goodness, would you absolutely be able to use this to your advantage? Well, you bet you could. And it would probably make a very considerable impact on them.

Conclusion

As you can see, repetition is a great way to install ideas in your prospect’s mind. The best pattern of repetition is in sets of three. Three of anything establishes a pattern. So what you do when you employ repetition in threes is you establish a causal pattern that links the three things together into a cohesive unit. This is a powerful tool to combine with strategies such as leveraging existing beliefs and installing new ones. The possibilities are endless with this strategy. Just remember that when it comes to repetition… three is the magic number.

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