132 Part II: Winning Friends and Influencing People
People with towards meta programs may be seen as naïve by the away from
people because the former don’t always think about and cater for potential
problems in the pursuit of their goals.
Towards people are motivated by the promise of the carrot. Tell them about
the benefits of improving revenue and receiving a bonus and watch their eyes
light up. This reaction isn’t necessarily down to greed, but instead because
they’re excited by positive benefits.
You can find out whether a person has a preference for moving towards or
away from something by a series of questions, as in the following example:
Person A: ‘What’s important to you about your work?’
Person B: ‘I know I have security.’
Person A: ‘So what’s important to you about security?’
Person B: ‘I don’t have to worry about paying my bills.’
Person A: ‘And what’s important to you about paying your bills?’
Person B: ‘It means I’m not in debt.’
Going to at least three levels of questions is useful because initially people
may have a tendency to respond with something positive, which can hide
their away from patterns. In the example above, the initial answer is towards
security, although subsequent answers reveal an away from preference.
When selling a product, research the customer’s language patterns. You can
then elicit whether the person wants to buy the product in order to gain a
benefit – such as buying a sports car in which they can have fun and feel the
excitement of whizzing along with the sun roof down and the wind blowing
through their hair – or to avoid a problem – for example, when buying a safe,
solid family car with a focus on keeping their family safe from harm. Modify
your language accordingly to save time and get results.
You move away from or towards your values. If moving away from values
are not serving you, you may decide to change them. If sports at school were
a painful experience and consequently sports days a humiliation, you may
have problems keeping up an exercise routine. One way of releasing the emo-
tions invested in negative memories is through Time Line Therapy® (which
we discuss more in Chapter 13).
✓ A person with more of a towards meta program uses words such as
‘accomplish’, ‘get’, ‘obtain’, ‘have’, ‘achieve’, ‘attain’, and ‘include’.
✓ A person who operates a more away from meta program uses words
such as ‘avoid’, ‘remove’, ‘prevent’, ‘get rid of’, and ‘solution’.
