 The next speaker I'm happy to introduce Marcus Oakey and he is really the go-to guy for charisma conversation skills. He's been teaching this stuff for 10 years. It's a long time and he's worked with pretty much all the big players in the dating industry as a consultant for their companies. He's a returning speaker at the 21 convention and he goes by your charisma coach or the conversation king he's known as and today he's going to be talking about conversation hacking. It's a kind of a new pioneered thing in its infancy so I'm excited to learn all about that and he's spoken all over the world so let's welcome Marcus. I'm here today to talk to you about conversation hacking. It's something I'm very excited to be sharing with you because I haven't really shared with this with anyone before at all. I spend a lot of time helping people from different walks of life improve their communication skills and over the last 10 years I've worked with some great people. During that time I started to notice little patterns emerging in conversations I was having, conversations that would flow really well and really elegant. In fact I got to the point where a good friend of mine, a guy called Joss, we'd be on Skype in the evenings and we'd chat to each other and we'd say guess what? Having a conversation today I threw in this little line into the conversation and a great thing happened and I thought oh this is interesting. So we started to see patterns in the conversations we were having. What we learned is if we could take those patterns and apply them to future conversations we get similar results. So the reason I'm here to teach conversation hacking is to help you improve your persuasion skills to really give you simple shortcuts to instant influence. In other words bite-sized pieces of persuasion that you can use with people. So for me the real charm of this has been the practicality. I never dress as neat as I could I don't think. I'm never sort of one of these people that goes into the most fashionable places and covers myself in very good clothing as you can tell now and so a problem I always used to have is I'd go up to nightclubs kind of you know they're not really my thing but I go up sometimes and I get turned away because I was wearing trainers. When I was in Australia recently and walked into a nightclub the guy looked to me and said I'm sorry mate you can't come in it's your trainers and I remembered a conversation hack I said put yourself in my shoes here no no really I really wish you would put yourself in my shoes here because that means I'd be able to get in because then you'd be wearing my shoes and I'd be wearing your shoes and he laughed and he let me in. I was like great. So conversation hacks are little things that will improve your persuasion skills. Now I can't promise you they're going to turn you into a Spengali-like person who can you know charm the birds out of the trees but they might make you maybe 20% 30% 40% more persuasive and the best thing of all is we can use them right now. So I've you know I've been lucky I've managed to live a champagne lifestyle on lemonade money. I think a great thing is to be free and to travel the world and certainly the case for me is you know I've always liked to say yes to any opportunity that comes my way. Recently I was boarding a plane and for some reason I thought I'm going to experiment because a conversation hacker experiments you think I wonder if this would work what would happen if I did this and I boarded the plane with my ticket 47j and I walked up to stewardess and I said if you can guess my ticket number I'll give you a kiss. She went 47j. I was like it is 47j. Now I expected she was going to pucker up but she didn't. Instead all the color came from her cheeks and she kind of went into a state of shock which is pretty standard when I try and give her a girl a kiss. So she said oh my god I must be psychic. I thought she's probably playing some sort of stunt with me. She's obviously clearly got a screen that's telling her all the seat numbers that have been allocated but no she just lucked it. She actually guessed my seat number. So I got on the plane and the stewards and stewardesses are running up to me more the stewards and they were asking oh my god are you psychic is our co-worker psychic and you know it wasn't it was just luck. But what I realized was what I'd done is by saying that I created a bit of drama I created a spike of emotion as soon as I got on the plane because that stewardess had probably just been sat there all day going yeah seat 47b 28j and so forth. So I mixed things up I flipped the script a bit so I was getting all that attention I started talking to all the stewards and stewardesses. I started getting extra deliveries from first class of champagne and I was thinking this is quite good because I created that moment good things happened. Let's see if I can repeat it again. My next flight got on the plane tried the same thing I said uh if you can guess my seat number this time I'll give you a dollar they guessed the wrong they guessed the number wrong I didn't get it at all but again it created that spectacle that little moment where everyone's so bored they just want to sit down on the plane some English guy holding up the queue but what's going on this time I went to the back of the plane stewardess came up to me I said listen I said you didn't win or I can't give you the dollar I'm really sorry about this she said no she goes I just wanted if you could help me I guess the reason she came up to me is because we'd had that bit of conversation before so therefore I was a bit more approachable. She moved me down uh free seat so I had the whole road to myself which was pretty good for an 11 hour flight again she went to first class got free champagne all this for helping her out but really the opportunity was created by creating that little moment with that one little golden line see if you can guess my seat number so this is a conversation hack it's something you can still and you can use yourself go and try it out see what happens with that several years ago I was driving along with my girlfriend at the time it wasn't a great relationship unfortunately and um I was in the passenger seat which is always bad when you're a guy and the girl's driving and it was one of those hot sticky days and we just hit snarl up a traffic and I remember just I needed to get to this party in time and we were running late and I turned to her and I said the golden line which is not the best line you can ever say but I said do you know what it'd be quicker if I walked she went mental and I was like hang on a minute now one girlfriend later and a few years later I'm driving along again and I'm in a similar situation and I thought oh what was that line I used before we're in traffic again it's really you know there's a lot of frustration I wonder if I bust out that line again um do you know what it'd be quicker if I walked and I waited sure enough she went even more mental and this is when I started to get excited for the first time about this because I started to see these patterns now again try this out ironically a few weeks ago I was trying with my girlfriend at the time still the same one I was trying with my girlfriend and I'm driving we hit traffic I'm driving and I turned to her and I say do you know what it'd be quicker if I walked and she still went mental so I'm either picking really but this is it it's pushing people's buttons and it's pushing people's buttons very effectively and very quickly through your use of language it's basically using language as powerfully as you can really what persuasion is is the ability to get people to comply with you in other words to have them do something for you you know if you're persuading somebody because they're doing something for you they're complying with your wishes and what I found is um we can all see the same thing but from different perspectives I've spoken about this before but if we have a glass of a glass of water here which is happily at my side you know somebody might say ah the glass is half full you probably say the glass is half full you know you're around your mother-in-law's she's just made you a nice a nice you know cup of soup the glass is half full but if we change the perspective and put it somewhere else maybe in the desert now the glass is half empty so persuasion is really about flipping the context of how people see the world and there's three parameters you can do to flip flip the script for people three levers you have at your disposal the first is the emotions and what's something really bad let's say you're a Nancy that's pretty bad isn't it so if you're very emotional we're being a Nancy yay I'm a Nancy we're you can maybe say well I had have you considered joining the Nancy party look they're all having a great time now I'm not saying a lot of people will because we've got the context now the history is changed but we can change people's emotions if we can do that we can flip how they feel so that's what I did with the stewardess I created a spike of emotion and all of a sudden created opportunity in my life second thing we can do we can change the the context hey I'm a Nancy but I am also a Nancy and we're in Germany in 1939 so in that context it's okay to be a Nancy well not if you're the rest of the world but in if the context is changed the situation is changed lastly we can change the timeline hey I'm a Nancy oh no I hate you that's true but in the future we might be friends yes this is true so we can change the context we can change the emotion and we can change the timelines and all the hacks feed into changing these three things now I really wish I didn't use the Nancy example but that's the first thing that came to mind please leave your comments below this video so the first hack the first really sort of golden line I think to use is starting a conversation with somebody is usually the most difficult thing I find for people we all have that kind of that anxiety of starting a conversation from scratch what I like to use is a pre-frame a pre-frame sets up the expectation for the conversation before you begin speaking so for example if you say to somebody you'll laugh at this usually there's pressure for them to laugh at the joke you come out with and so if I'm ever if you're ever listening to my dad tell a joke you say you'll laugh at this and there's like that pressure to laugh you know that's a good joke I'll still steal it anyway um the best pre-frame ever is I could be wrong here but if you see somebody looking you know looking at a cocktail list you could walk up to them say do you know what I could be wrong here but whatever you say you've already built curiosity up in their mind and if you're correct in your assumption that's great and if you're incorrect that's great because you could have been wrong and you were so if you want to start a conversation up I could be wrong here but it's great when you're giving advice for somebody as well and they say well what do you think I should do do you think I should buy this red car or this blue car well I could be wrong here but I think you'd like the blue car if they get the blue car and they don't like it hey don't worry you pre-framed it okay so saying I could be wrong here but builds up a little bit of curiosity and allows you to communicate very elegantly so if you're starting a conversation from scratch great little line to use the best opening line in the world that's always that that magic bullet line I was doing my research on conversation hacking and I came up with one in fact I stole it actually to be honest from a guy called RAD Dr. Raj Passard reading a book and Sack the Juggler and I was reading a book and came across it it says you look like you're having fun there if you walk up to anybody and say that you look like you're having fun there if they're not having fun then you can bring fun you've set the expectation that you're going to bring fun to the conversation if they are having fun then you're just joining the party so again it's just a little line that seems to work more often than it doesn't of course the context the emotions going on in the room at the time the time frame will all change how effective that line is but these are just general conversation hacks that seem to work in most places the point is you take them out and you just have really quick fun with them a friend of mine is one of the best salespeople I've ever met works in sales she's the number one person in her company she sells more than anybody else she's rated number one out of a staff of six thousand and every single moment she's top of the tables and people come up to her and say listen um you know uh I need some I need this product you're selling and she says right okay um how much you need and they say uh yeah okay give us a price she'll give them a price and somebody somebody one day came in and said um that's your price is it you have to do better than that all of a sudden it forced her to come up with a better price another really great hack if you're buying anything and somebody quotes your price you say you'll have to do better than that because what that does is it forces them to come up with a better price for you you're getting them to do your work getting them to do your negation negotiation work so because we're conversation hackers we thought well there's got to be a counter phrase you can throw back to that and there is she learned the next time somebody came in and said hey that's the price you're going to have to do better than that she counters better for who because of that she didn't have to change the price she put the emphasis back on the guy there's a guy called Herb Cohen master persuader and he basically has three phrases he uses to negotiate anything the first phrase is very simple in fact I'd like you to repeat it after me so you will learn it okay so we're going to go on three the first phrase is huh okay ready huh great you guys are going to be great the second phrase is for example have you seen this new car huh the door's open it's really good it's got a stereo huh and the windows undo and the third phrase he uses is um what is the third phrase he uses actually uh the third phrase he uses is um oh my god I've completely forgotten the third phrase he uses um bear with me oh my apologies the third phrase he uses are is there have to be some adjustment in the price so for example huh huh hmm I'd like to see some adjustment in the price that's all he does so my apologies so these are three little hacks as I said this is in its infancy at the moment this isn't a business we're just working out what's working where are we seeing the patterns how are they allowing us to manipulate conversations and why we say manipulate in other words empower the conversations we're having I was working in a cinema and uh one day somebody came into me we all have those jobs in life that we don't end up enjoyed doing you know we we just do them and we go through and we get along with it but mine was serving ice cream and you know I was really stingy I'd never fill the ice cream pot up properly one day customer comes in and says listen I'm 50 I'm 50 cent short will you let me off I said sorry nah and he looked at me and he gave me puppy dog eyes and he said would it break your heart would it break your heart just to let us off this once now because we've all been conditioned not to go around breaking people's hearts I had to say no in my mind no it wouldn't break my heart and of course three minutes later he's walking away with a big pot of ice cream and he hasn't paid the full price so we steal that I was buying a mobile phone recently looking at the contract it's given a price huh it's given the price I said you're gonna have to do better he said I can't do better I'm gonna get you know I'll get in trouble with my boss with my boss I said listen would it break your heart this one time just to see little change in the price and what you can start doing is stacking each individual little hack and you can start using them together so you build up a repertoire of conversation um the next hack and I hope you don't mind I'm just gonna go through some of these that we found the most useful in what we do my friend Joss was late I think we're all late we're a nation of late people in England and um my friend Joss was late for a train and the ticket was booked in the wrong name and he was in Hong Kong at the time in in Hong Kong the standard reply is oh you can't get on the train because the ticket is wrong like no help shutter comes down so he said how do we fix this how do we fix this if you say that line at any time it forces the other person to do the hard work for you again you want the other person to do all the work and solve your problems they've got all the power let them use their power if you can't get into a club try saying how do we fix this the bouncer the club or the club manager might give you an opportunity you might say well okay you need to change your trainers so ah but these trainers hurt my feet so much how do we fix that what you're doing is you're creating new opportunities you're giving people new new ways to solve your problems for you you're almost creating a um a shared world between you and that person where you're in cahoots because like okay i'm going to try and think of a solution for you now that won't always work but it will work say 40 or 50 percent at a time maybe it's even 20 percent of time but it gives you an extra extra throw the dice so you've always got something up your sleeve I have nothing up my sleeve another really good hack we found is have you ever had to deal with friends who always you know they're always going through some life issue I think everyone in life is going through some problem they're facing some challenge they're dealing with in fact if they're not going through a challenge they're probably in a state of nirvana and floating around like a hippie so the problem when it comes to you when someone's got a problem uh usually an emotion problem they feel really bad they feel like the steam's out their the wind's out of their sails why do you think that is if you ask somebody why they think that is they become introspective and they think about their own problem uh so for example oh i'm really upset why do you think that is oh because i don't know i'm a bit depressed why is that i don't know i just don't follow me control of my life okay so you're not controlling your life well why do you think that is oh it's because i don't have a job ah so if you've got a job you'd be more controlling of your life yeah so you can channel down and you can dig down and solve people's problems very quickly without getting too involved with it they're giving you all the answers you're just steering them along is this useful so far guys okay great so we're looking again for these little patterns these little phrases uh we stumbled on one recently that we kind of love and the the way to sort of refine your hacking skills is to give presentations is to um it's to practice is to play with them as much as possible so the one uh my friend and i found out we call it entrapment and basically uh you uh you go up to somebody you say um listen um you know you want to be liked don't you people would generally respond yes or no people respond yes you want to be like don't you yep then why are you making it so hard for yourself so you use their answer against them it's very sneaky so because it's a hack we thought well how can we use that structure of language and apply that somewhere else um again uh my partner was buying a mobile phone and um used the same thing she said listen i i really like the contract here and you want me to buy the phone don't you and the guy the salesman said yeah she goes then why are you making it so difficult so that forced the salesman to renegotiate and come up with a better price again this is just short sharp little lines you can throw out little phrases little ways to push buttons my dad used the same entrapment principle on the telephone two days ago i was around his house and he was complaining because the roads hadn't been resurfaced and he called up the guy i was listening to conversation on the phone he said um just just a question for you he goes are you left handed or right handed the guy goes i'm uh i'm right handed he goes ah he goes judging by the state of the road outside my house you can't tell you're fucking left from your right can you so you can use people's answers against them um is anyone here had a friend that they want to go out on a friday night and the friend won't come out ever had that you know you're all suit and booted your mate doesn't want to come out really good little hack for that listen um the old steve would have come out the old steve would have done it so you're using all his past highlights of what he hoped he still was and saying well look you've fallen so far from the tree now of where you were you're no longer that person but now this is your opportunity to make it back come on the old steve would do it and steve says well look i haven't got the right shoes on and you say well how do we fix that steve and steve says uh well look i i can get i can get my dad shoes they don't fit properly and you say steve you'll have to do better than that so all these hacks can be interchanged and used and you start building up an arsenal and your language starts getting more fluent the best way is to take one little phrase and drop it into all your conversations so you want to listen out for one when anyone says anything to you and it triggers an emotion in you now sometimes somebody might swear at you swear words trigger emotion that's because they're swear words they push a button very quickly rich language usually triggers emotions but the way somebody stretches a phrase might trigger an emotion as well we realize that um when somebody drops something you can say sack the juggler which we just did uh because it triggers an emotional response other phrases that will trigger an emotional response in that situation see this is why we can't have nice things if anyone drops something at the bar causes a scene see this is why we kind of have nice things the third one uh which uh my friend sasha taught me is um did your parents drop you like that as a kid as well so these little phrases work in every situation and they're out there and there's so many we don't know so when you see something that triggers an emotion write it down if you see something that makes you act in a certain way that you wouldn't if it steers your if it steers your behavior in a certain way you know somebody calls you up and says come on the old the old markers would have come out last night you think oh god that's good write it down drop it into your conversations when you start pulling apart the nuts and bolts of conversation then you start having power of the conversation the reason this works is wherever you go in the english language conversation is pretty much the same pragmatics linguistics um it's all very similar the style may be different the style the way people talk may be different but the actual structure remains pretty much the same and so we can hack it it's like if you ever want to persuade somebody to do something they're more likely to do it if you give the reason because it's quite an old one but just saying because so for example i was in a bar with my friend and i needed to use a chair and well i needed to use the chair all night i said can i can i can i have your chair and they said no my friend went watch this he could uh can i can i take that chair because my leg hurts yeah i've got the chair straight away because what a powerful word see the patterns take them copy them use them yourselves so would would you like to hear some more okay right whenever i meet somebody for the first time a big question i always ask them is what's your goal with all this everybody as i said is facing a challenge in their life they're going through some hardship they're trying to uh sort of remove some dream they're aspiring to everyone here is aspiring to improve themselves so you're all facing a challenge now if you hear that somebody's facing a challenge you can find out what the challenge is very quickly what's your goal with all this what's the big picture here what's the big plan with all this what that does is that tells you their immediate challenge now if you can remove that challenge for them you'll make a new friend instantly so if i speak to somebody and say well do you know what my big challenge is i want to travel all around the world and i want to be footloose and fancy free and i said oh great um why is that and i said well i used to do a nine to five job i never really enjoyed it and you know and this will give me that freedom i want okay so what's the big challenge in the way right now well the big challenge is uh you know finding somewhere to stay now if i can if i know somebody in the destination they want to go to so if they they're going to sydney for example and i know somebody in sydney i'll hook them up i'll connect them and so i find i can network with people very quickly by just asking what's the big challenge here because if you can remove someone's pain you're making instant friend immediately we talked about how compliance is really the sure sign that persuasion is going on in other words could you pass me that drink someone does you've persuaded them to pass you the drink because they've complied with you a very effective way to boost your your skills is a friend of mine when he's in situations where he's like here go to a cinema he never ever comply with requests he's hacking conversation without even realizing it so he'll walk up and he'll he'll say can i uh can have a popcorn please and uh you know the person on the uh the desk will say um sure do you want uh an apple or orange combo with that now what were the two options apple or orange so what do 99 of the population say apple or orange so here say i don't know and it froze the person or here say you know do you want apple or orange why and so the person's f they're going um well uh because the orange one is really nice i don't know and he'll just get the minute is now he just does it because he has fun just seeing what he can do in conversation what he can just pick apart how he can tear conversations down a really good way to practice this yourselves and just to get into that mindset of picking apart conversations is to play the questions game now how the questions game works is very simple you answer any question with a question so for example um if i say uh you know are you having fun are you having fun oh hang on okay so some people said yes you will lost the questions game and one person the back said are you having fun how would you feel if i was okay so you lost the questions game okay so basically if you answer somebody's question you're complying with them on a very small small scale i might say so it's we're we're brought up just to go along with it just to just yep okay i'll have apple i'll have orange because they're the options given to us step outside that how can we change the uh how can we change the perspective here what um how can we challenge what's going on so really good thing to do after this talk is to get into pairs and try the questions game out amongst yourself and a partner ask each other questions and answer the questions if anyone wants to give me a go i'm pretty good at it but i'm looking for someone to knock me off my post um i've already had some volunteers here in the audience if you're watching this at home uh try it out with a friend don't talk at the computer screen otherwise it'd be weird um so i always you know the french have this saying i think it's uh the wit of the staircase you know what it's like there's somebody in a bar uh says to you look i'm surprised you're not falling down on the floor like a drunkard you know and you come back with that beautiful retort how was your last family reunion and you know and it's oh so witty but usually i don't know about you but i never have that fast wit i'm not fast enough to get that i'm not a stand-up comedian the next best thing we can do is use a hack on them i made a mine has a great one whenever uh whenever uh you know i'd accomplish anything in life like i beat my record for lifting the most amount of bench press it's ever like i think it was 100k that i'd ever done and you know i'm feeble but um i i came off and i beat my personal record and i got up and i was so happy and i said look i've just beat my record and you looked to me went how'd you feel about that and i was like oh well i feel good yeah and i started to justify my behaviors to him now i was complying with him and i thought that line how do you feel about that that's great you can fire that back at any retort somebody gives you like you sir a complete wreck of a man how'd you feel about that well i feel quite upset really and then they start justifying themselves and you can start stringing these all these along so um you know you're not wearing the right shoes how'd you feel about that well i don't feel that bad i mean you know i mean is what's your big goal here is this your dream job no i know and you know you don't want to run this place no would it break your heart this once just to let me in how'd you feel about that there's a great little hack to throw back at any um any put down that's thrown your way another really good one is if anyone's causing a scene what are you trying to achieve here completely call them what are you trying to achieve here you know in that awkward situation where somebody's talking a bit too loud you know you're with your girlfriend in the bar and some guys trying to mercilessly chatter up or what about the situation where somebody's just causing a racket just say excuse me hey what are you trying to achieve here now they've got to just justify themselves to you and that lowers their status in doing that so of course maybe you want to put people down maybe you're a bad person well here's a line for you my friend down the gym you know he did his weights he beat his personal record and he did it really good and i was going to say to him how'd you feel about that they lifted the weight goes i just lifted 120 kilograms do you understand i was like uh yeah you see every hack has an equal and opposite hack any question if you ever asked a question you don't want to answer will you find trouble finding the answer there's a lot of variables involved you can pretty much answer any question with that hack there's a lot of variables involved but as i said every hack has an equal and opposite hack so equal hacks to that are there's a lot of ingredients in the mix there's a lot of factors at play there's a lot of forces at work that all the same way are described in the same thing because language is pretty similar wherever you go just the style is different now you might have a clever lecturer you might have a clever boss who says wait a minute he's just hacked me well you might not say that but if he does and you can counter he may counter you say what do you mean there's a lot of variables involved get specific now he's turned the tables on you so you have to hack him back so this is what happens to me something like that happens to go oh god what could i have said the learning we all get in life doesn't happen before we do it do the event it happens after we take action it happens after we walk home with our tail between our legs we sit on our desk and think oh what was the perfect thing to say i urge you to meditate on that to think about until you come up with that great answer because this is the answer i came back with get specific what answer would satisfy you in other words answer my own question for me he said don't play games with me so i said thinking hack hack hack you know what any answer i give you i can tell it's just going to add to more confusion so so it's like a one-up game all the time and the more you do it the more fun you have so guys um any questions any normal questions well if there's no more questions would you like some more hacks oh did you have a question okay you're just okay cool would it break your heart to have one i mean could you okay all right so this is the world i'm living in right now i'm always looking for these little lines and once a week my friend and i we just publish our latest one on our website conversationhacks.com and you know we urge all of you come in share your ideas share your your thoughts this is brand new we don't think it's ever been done really before these just these sharp sharp little lines that we can use just to push buttons um check out the site you'll be able to get hold of our seven seven ways to instantly influence anyone book and um you've been an amazing audience thank you so much