Best Pattern Interrupts

Buckle up and grab a beer. The idea of this thread is to get creative, and produce some great pattern interrupts we can all leverage, whether they be for use in email, on the phone, or in person.

Pattern interrupts can be incredibly powerful tools and are commonly found in hypnotic inductions.

The idea (when used in a hypnotic induction) is simple:

• Initiate a "pattern" of human behaviour, for example: extend your hand for a handshake - this normally elicits an automatic response (pattern) which is that the other party will tend to extend their hand, expecting a handshake to take place.
• Interrupt that pattern - How long does a handshake last? - Have you ever met someone who keeps shaking for A LOT longer than you normally shake? This person wasn't trying to perform a pattern interrupt, they were probably just overly keen or excited to meet you, but they inadvertently put your brain into a "WTF? state". There is more than one way to interrupt the handshake pattern: make it last longer (induce a WTF state), start moving the hand in weird circles instead of a normal shake (induce a WTF state), or suddenly "yank" the hand, pulling the person off balance towards you (shock induction).
• Give the suggestion / command. The WTF state or shock opens a window in which you have ALL of the subjects attention (both conscious and subconscious). In a shock induction, this moment of shock is normally when the hypnotist will give the suggestion / command "SLEEP!" and most subjects will collapse into a heap. Slower inductions use the WTF state to start to "ease" you into a hypnotic trance.

Why am I mentioning this?

Because pattern interrupts give you the complete attention of your "subjects" (prospects).

This is of particular importance in prospecting, because if you come off like every other (crap) sales rep that a prospect has encountered before, then you'll get shut down without getting to perform a proper discovery. This is your chance to grab their attention.

Cold outreach will typically give a success rate of less than 5%. That is A LOT of wasted time and effort. But what if you used pattern interrupts to plant a seed that will germinate when the prospect is actually in the market for your product or service?

How do you use pattern interrupts?

Disclaimer:

Do NOT attempt a hypnotic induction with anyone without first undergoing hypnosis training. You wouldn't get into a car, start the engine and hit the accelerator if you didn't know how to drive, would you? Well, hypnosis is the same. The induction is just starting the engine and putting the car into gear. If you have no idea of hypnotic "steering", accelerating, breaking or how to "park hypnotically" and turn the engine off then don't start the damn engine (of someone else's car).