How is it that brain uses metaphors to think? While this is a complex subject too big for a single blog post, it’s important to understand key concepts in order to have a foundation for a discussion about their role in market and sales messaging. (If you are hungry for more detail you will not get a bitter taste by reading cognitive scientists and linguists such as George Lakoff).
When the brain is very young, we experience and learn about our world through metaphors. As an example, when we see a glass of water filled, the level rises and we begin to associate rising level (and upward direction) with increased quantity. As a result, we may eventually understand, and in a similar manner, that when prices rise, they are going upward, and the value is increasing in quantity.
When we are children and are held by our parents, we feel warmth (temperature) and learn to associate warmth with affection. What happens in these two cases is that our brains do something called neural recruiting. Two neurons, each holding different concepts, begin to be connected. The more often that two things are associated together, the more the neurons that hold each of these two things begin to connect or wire together.
But when we say that a sales deal is getting hot, we don’t literally mean that the people are physically heating up. We know what is meant in a very visceral an unconscious way. Or when we when sales are rising, we don’t mean that they are literally floating up into the sky. But we can use the concept of rising to associate with all sorts of things that are increasing in quantity.
Complex metaphors are made up of simple metaphors and link in the brain to form more complex thoughts. The more a neural pathway is used the stronger it gets. The linkage also tends to wire from the externally verifiable to the internally verifiable.
So with the concepts of warmth (or temperature) and affection, you may hear that a prospect is warming up to you (increasing affection), but don’t hear that the deal is getting more affectionate. This is because temperature is externally discernable and affection is not. The synapses that hold the link to temperature fire more often and as a result take dominance. The linking of the two goes from temperature to affection, but not the other way around. That’s why words for temperature are used for affection. i.e. Our relationship is heating up.
Again, metaphors are actual mental structures in the brain that are independent of language, but can be expressed by language to help us understand something. They become the foundation on which frames and narratives are built. The key concept here is that our brains use metaphor to think. I’ll continue to explore using frames and narratives as a very powerful way to message to your markets and prospects in upcoming posts.
(As a silly example of the use of metaphor in messaging, haven’t I just positioned you as a beaver at the end of the first paragraph? Note that this is a negative frame, depending on how you feel about beavers, but it discourages you from further reading and works subtly if this was my intent. Just as easily, I could have used the concept of ‘eager beaver’ for a positive frame.)
Lee Stocking
Prairie Sky Group
Driving Sales Through Customer Focused Marketing
lee.stocking@gmail.com
651-357-0110 (24×7)