Maintaining Influence Over Others Through Mastering Your Command of Language

You want to know the real secret to winning friends and influencing people? It's mastering your command of language. By which is meant studying how language is perceived, taken in and processed and then becoming a master at manipulating those steps. Achieving success in a corporate headquarters, in the office of your college professor or even in the bedroom with the spouse is all a matter of earning yourself a Ph.D in communications control.

Questions Control a Conversation, Not Answers

Ever notice how people who are asked questions because of their position of leadership so very often reply with a question of their own? Good reason for this and it works. He who is charge of asking questions is the person who acts as the travel guide for the entire conversation. You will find it is much easier to control the direction a conversation takes when you are in charge of the questions rather than the answers. Learn how to subtly take charge of any conversation by cunningly slipping in a few questions along with your answers and simple declarative statements. As control of the conversation begins to slide in your direction, make your questions more frequent and more open ended. Always avoid questions that ask for a simple yes/nor, either/or response or a one-word answer.

Word Choice is Everything

When taking control of the system of communication to enforce your own will upon the outcome, you need to remember the simple rule that it isn't so much the content of what you are saying as it is the word choice you utilize to transmit that content. Word choice is a fluid thing that can rapidly change even in the middle of a single conversation. In some circumstances, you may find you need to be crude almost to the point of insensitivity to take control of the dialogue. In most cases, of course, you will strive to avoid even the barest hint of insensitivity. Start off by reading the state of mind of others involved in the communication, whether it be an actual conversation or a case of public speaking. Look for signs of intelligence, wit and professional understanding. Then when it's your turn to speak, engage them with the correct education level in your vocabulary and grammar. This means in some cases you may have to "dumb it down" and even take the risk of someone thinking you really are that dumb. In other cases, your word choice should reflect how highly articulate and educated you are.

Repetition of Keywords

If you have done any kind of writing for a web site of any kind, you should already be familiar with the concept of repeating certain key words and phrases that will be picked up by the search engines. In conversation, you have to be that machinery that puts out feelers for what keywords are being repeated either openly in conversation or entirely inside the minds of those with whom you communicate. The human brain has been trained to seek out only certain relevant pieces of knowledge and the repetition of keywords that pertain to that relevant knowledge will produce a much more effective response than unleashing a bombardment of words that proves you know seven synonyms for every adjective. It's okay to repeat certain adjectives, nouns and verbs as part of daily conversation when communication is the primary means toward establishing influence and maximizing performance. Getting people to respect that you know what you are actually talking about is still accomplished best by leaving them behind with a handful of pertinent phrases and words lingering in their memory.

Perfect Milton's Model

Politics, advertising and the business world still cling to the Milton Model with all their might. You should learn how it works as well since it most certainly does work. The Milton Model is based on precise word choice that allows you to remain nebulous and vague while instituting a certain desired effect in the listener. The Milton Model engages tactics like understanding when to start of a sentence with "we" or "you" to achieve a very specific desired response. The Milton Model also encourages wording that stimulates the listener to feel emotionally attached or detached according to your desires and to use wording that either indicates they have attained a level of independence and trust or that they are expected to initiate some critical thinking skills under the supervision of others in order to solve a problem.