Anchor-and-Amplify
Tie an emotional state to something, then re-trigger and build on it until it peaks.
- Difficulty
- Advanced
- Time to result
- ~weeks to results
- Steps
- 4
- Confidence
- 80%
Anchoring, in Fladlien's use, is setting up conditions where emotional states get tied to things, numbers, or images. The easiest form is price anchoring — a study showed people who wrote higher last-two-SSN-digits later appraised a house higher — so he references 93 million miles to the sun and 8 billion people before asking for just $997, making the price feel insignificant. The more advanced form is storyboarding a single testimonial across the webinar: reveal a sliver in the intro and lock in an emotional state, re-show the image mid-webinar to re-trigger it, and reveal the finale during the offer. This anchors the state to the image, then amplifies it each time, effectively yielding three testimonials from one person that also land stronger.
Origin
Fladlien draws on the Social-Security-number anchoring study and NLP anchoring, then describes discovering, almost by accident while trying to make testimonials less boring, that storyboarding one testimonial across a webinar produced the anchor-and-amplify effect.
Core principles
- 01Anchoring ties emotional states to things, numbers, or images.
- 02A larger number set first makes your price seem insignificant by comparison.
- 03Once an emotional state is anchored to an image, re-showing it re-triggers the state instantly.
- 04After anchoring, you can amplify — build on the state to reach a more powerful version.
- 05You can anchor negative states (fear) to behaviors you want stopped (procrastination).
How to run it
- 1
Anchor the price against a huge number
Reference a vastly larger figure before naming your price so the ask feels insignificant by comparison.
Pro tip 'We're 93 million miles from the sun serving 8 billion people, and I'm asking just $997.'
Watch out Fladlien calls this a 'dumb' close, but it works — the value is anchored relative to larger amounts.
- 2
Anchor an emotional state to an image
Introduce a testimonial early, evoke an emotional state, and lock that state to the testimonial's picture.
Pro tip Only share a tiny bit of the story in the intro to set the anchor.
- 3
Re-trigger and amplify
Re-show the image at the mid-point and again during the offer; each appearance re-engages the state and builds it to a more powerful level.
Pro tip Storyboarding one testimonial this way yields three testimonials from one person that each land stronger.
- 4
Anchor negatives to bad behaviors
Tie an unpleasant state like fear to a behavior you want stopped, such as procrastination, so avoidance drives the desired action automatically.
Pro tip Make them more afraid to procrastinate than to take action.
In the wild
Instead of a five-minute testimonial that kills webinar pacing, Fladlien reveals a sliver of one person's story in the intro, unpacks more mid-webinar after teaching what that person did, and reveals the finale during the offer — re-showing the same picture each time.
→ One person's testimonial became three, each landing stronger because the emotional state was anchored to the image and amplified on each re-appearance.
Fladlien anchors price by noting we're 93 million miles from the sun yet it powers all 8 billion people, then asks for just $997 to invest today.
→ The huge reference numbers make the $997 feel insignificant — price anchoring in action.
Common mistakes
Dumping a full testimonial at once
A five-minute testimonial is boring, the pacing is too long, and it's the kiss of death on a webinar — you lose the anchor-and-amplify effect and the attention.
Is it for you?
Best for
Advanced webinar presenters comfortable orchestrating emotional pacing and multi-touch testimonials.
Not ideal for
Beginners who should focus on a great offer first — Fladlien calls this esoteric and secondary.
From the transcript
“anchoring is setting up a a circumstance of conditions that emotional states can be tied to things”
“I have three testimonials even though it's one person they still treated it like three so I got three times the amount of testimonials from…”
From the episode
Jason Fladlien: The Quarter-Billion-Dollar Webinar Man Reveals His Best Marketing and Sales Secrets
Jason Fladlien