Starbucks’ “The Way I See It” campaign has been one of the best examples of “influence” I’ve seen. It’s another way for Starbucks to add to the experience and give someone one more thing to look forward to when they get their cup of coffee.

What are you doing to subtly influence others?

Clients love to set you up and get you to “do some groundwork” first before deciding on moving forward with you. They want to see a proposed strategy or outline first of the work you’ll do for them, or maybe have you “just do a preliminary plan” first.

Don’t fall for this trap. You’ll wind up doing work you should be getting paid for.

Instead, use the little used “Let’s Pretend” strategy, often taught by students of Sandler training.

Here’s an example of a prospect requesting you do some “groundwork” first:

Prospect: “I’m really impressed with what I’ve heard so far. I’d like to see a preliminary plan and strategy for the next six months, along with some costs and timeline for completion.”

Do not simply agree to this! Instead, play “Let’s Pretend.”

You: I’d be happy to work on a preliminary plan. Let’s pretend for a moment that when I come back with our preliminary plan, you are completely comfortable with our approach, the estimated costs are within your budget, and the completion dates meet your deadlines. What would happen at that point?”

In a matter of seconds you’ve done all the “groundwork” and the “preliminary plan” form them, at least virtually.  If the prospect isn’t wiling to make a committment to an action, you probably shouldn’t committ to doing the work. Unless you are charging for it.

Getting paid for your efforts isn’t something new.  It should be part of your strategy.

What’s your best price?  What’s it going to cost?

What clients really want is extraordinary quality, service convenience, and value. They want to work with a salesperson who can save them time and make there life easier.

Yet many clients end up buying price, and do you know why?

Because they find it so difficult to find all that other stuff.

The single biggest reason a client will buy price is that far too often it is the only alternative that you leave them with.

Each and every one of us has a systematic way to encode our sense of time in our respective minds. When you utilize the subtle yet powerful aspects of language, you can shift your customer’s perceptions and guide them in your persuasion.

This is perhaps one of the most fun concepts I learned while studying Neuro-Linguistic Progamming (NLP) many years ago, particularly when applying it to selling.

Your objective in using language is to put your product or service in their future and their objections in their past. Closely pay attention to how the customer is speaking of your product or service.  When you detect how specifically they are speaking, you can shift your words and lead them to follow you in language and in mind.

Is your customer speaking of your product or service in conditional terms? Are they saying such things like, “I would like to own this product,” presupposing there is some limiting condition present that is stopping him or her? Are they speaking phrases that indicate they are buying (in the present)? An example is “What we’re wanting is..” Are they using past tense phrases such as “Well, we were thinking about buying this…” indicating they may not be buying today?  A possible response to this may be, “So you’re now thinking about buying this…, do you mind if I ask you a question?

Why end the sentence with asking if you can ask a question? Because it distracts them from realizing what you just did – acknowledged what they said but rephrased into the present tense. But instead of focusing on that, their mind will go to answering the question you asked about asking a question.

In a future post I’ll write about how to make your customer see their decision to buy with you, something that’s already been done and already in their past (in their mind).

All of us have a metaphorical bucket representing how we feel from moment to moment. But how do we keep that bucket full and keep ourselves brimming with positive energy that not only improves our own lives but the lives of others around us?

Are you using what you’ve learned in your NLP training to shine a light on what is right in life instead of what is wrong?  How do people “feel” when they are around you? What impression do you create? What impression do you leave?

Richard Bandler stresses that NLP is nothing more than an attitude that has left in it’s trail some great techniques that have been developed as a result. This attitude of curiosity stems from the desire to understand people, how they ‘work’ (perfectly) and how to improve lives.

If our lives as practitioners of NLP is to improve those around us, than it’s worth modeling people like Tom Rath.

You can do this from reading his book “How Full is Your Bucket.” I could write a long review but it doesn’t need it. It’s an easy to read book, to the point, and if you practice the principles your interactions with others (including your customers) will improve. He’s also the author of Strengths Finder 2.0 and several other books. Here a video to give you a taste of his book.

I read an interesting article today that answers the question, “What inspires people to take NLP training?”

Here is a paragraph from it, and it’s an article worth reading:

“For a start, NLP training provides an in depth understanding of NLP itself. Neuro-linguistic programming (or NLP) is essentially the study of excellence and understanding how and why those who excel in their fields do so.”

Read the full article here

These are 8 reasons that I’ve found to be true when observing why people put salespeople off during the sales process. It’s of course, not an absolute list.

So here they are, the top 8 reasons why prospects put you off:

1. You didn’t sell on the value of moving forward quickly. What’s the benefit to them if they buy sooner than later? What are the consequences if they wait until later?

2. They are scared of making a bad decision.

3. They normally make decisions over a certain period of time.

4. They normally make decisions after hearing about it or seeing the offer a certain amount of times.

5. They need to feel they have some sort of proof.

6. Loss of options.

7. They are reactive people, rather than proactive.

8. They don’t believe you.

Creating urgency is tricky in sales. But there are ways to create urgency using various NLP language patterns tailored to how your buyer buys. Perhaps future or past posts will reveal these strategies.

NLP is full of fancy jargon, and you need a glossary of terms when attending a NLP Practitioner Training just to make sense of it all. “Presuppositions” are no exception, even though most think they know what it means.

Presuppositions are simply the linguistic equivalent of what most people call assumptions. But with a little more art and science to it when used on purpose.

Whenever we are communicating, we use presuppositions that assume something is already true; every sentence we speak in our everyday life has a presupposition in it. In most cases, we tend not to consciously recognize what we have presupposed, and instead concentrate on what is directly stated. Thus, presuppositions are unconsciously accepted as being true and the listener will act as if they were true.

Naturally, that’s the powerful part.

Think of it like this. Every sentence you speak contains a noun and a verb, so, with each sentence you speak you actually presuppose that something exists (noun) in the past, present or future.  You also presuppose that some action did or did not take place, is or is not taking place, or will or will not take place.

Great salespeople know how to use this to their advantage.

Some of my favorite “presuppositional” categories are:

Cognitive qualifiers: “Surprisingly, interestingly, amazingly, fortunately, luckily, happily, curiously, uniquely, naturally, obviously, etc.”  Everything that follows this word is assumed true as the focus is on the word (the cognitive qualifier) that starts the sentence assuming it so.  For more info on Cognitive Qualifiers – click here.

Presuppositions that shift space (in the mind of your prospects): “Along side of that, stacked on top of that, in addition to that, adding to that, instead of that, in front of that, inside of that, outside of that, behind that, underneath that, between that, above all that, etc.”

Presuppositions that shift time (in the mind of your customers): “look back on, in the future, right now, before, once, look ahead, finally, after, long awaited, everlasting, accelerate, presently, yet, carry through, then, when, now, etc.”

Presuppositional words that say something is factual, actual, or the truth: “actually, genuinely, unquestionably, surely, certainly, proven, obviously, self evident, valid, absolute, clearly, surely, naturally, etc.”

Presuppositional words of power: Realize, aware, notice, discover, uncover.

Future posts will have some examples of these, but this should get you thinking and more importantly, creating.

Metaphors. That’s the secret.

Surprised? You shouldn’t be. Using metaphors appeals the your prospects or customers right brain. It helps them visualize, instantly relate, and connect the dots to what you are saying or recommending. And it’s memorable.

The process behind a recommendation that’s rephrased framed with a metaphor is actually simple.

First, ask yourself: What am I actually recommending?

Second, determine the problem your recommendation will solve.

Third, run through various possible metaphors, selecting the one that communicates most clearly and vividly what you’re urging.

For example, let’s say you are recommending that your team goes through some team building training to improve collaboration on projects. The problem to be solved is lack of communication, morale, and productivity. Here is a sample metaphor you could use:

“It will move us from a company of stray shooters to a team of marksmen.”

Here is another example. You are recommending someone replace their current software system with the one you are selling. The problem is the old system is too slow. An example of a metaphor you could use is:

“When we’re done, it will be like replacing a horse and buggy with a Porsche.”

How can you work on this? Just follow these steps each time:

Step 1 – List out a recommendation you’ve recently made to a client.

Step 2 - What problem does it solve ?

Step 3 -What metaphor can make that recommendation more vivid in your customer’s mind?

Resource: You learned how to construct metaphors in your Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP) practitioner training. David Gordon’s book on Therapeutic Metaphors is a great place to start, and while not overtly so in the book itself, it’s just as practical for business applications as it is therapy.

I’ve written about dealing with resistance on this blog a few times  (see part 1 and part 2 posts).  I have a class I teach on the subject so there is a lot more that we could discuss to clarify this important part of selling.

However, while it’s simple to think of inoculating objections as “overcoming them before they come up” and reframing the meaning, it’s not the only way to approach it.

Inoculating objections is more about installing an attitude into your customer’s mind as a pre-frame to your presentation. What attitude do you want your customer to have? What thoughts do you want them to think? What do you want them thinking about?

Do you want them open minded? Do you want them interested? The good news is you can control how someone is thinking. You have tremendous influence over what your prospects are thinking about.

For example – take a moment and think of your first car you owned. What color was it? Do you have many memories that help you remember that first car?  If you are thinking of your first car, or visualized what it looked like in your mind, or if you thought of other memories you have that were related to that first car – I directed and influenced your thinking.  So again, what do you want your customers to think about? Also, remember to use 3rd party referencing.

How do you plant the open-mindedness seeds?

“Mr. Smith, you may be unlike some of our other clients, who are facing budget constraints for 2010. A recent client of ours made it clear that their budget wouldn’t allow for reallocation of funds to purchase what we offer unless it made perfect sense. And it wouldn’t make sense for them, of course, unless what we could do for them could increase sales. Luckily, they were open minded, and it ended up working our for them in the end.”

Following a customer presentation gone south, have you ever found yourself saying things like, “They took me the wrong way,” or “They just didn’t understand what I was trying to say,” or “They didn’t get it,” or “The misinterpreted what I was meaning to say,” or “They were looking at it from the wrong perspective,” or “They misunderstood the presentation,” etc.?

My guess is from time to time, we’ve caught ourselves saying this and thought nothing of our own reaction.

One of the more valuable presuppositions taught in Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP) is that the meaning of your communication is the response that you get.

If I asked you, do you like to be in control? What would your answer be?

My guess is your answer would be “yes.”

Most salespeople like to feel somewhat in control of their situation. If that is the case for you, why would you forfeit control to your customer by allowing the blame to go to them for misunderstanding you?

While it can be fun to point the finger or blame someone for “their misunderstanding” of what we were “trying” to communicate, it’s not useful for improving our communication.

If instead you adopt this empowering self-responsibility mindset of “the meaning of my communication is the response that I get”, you will find that it puts you in control of changing the outcomes.

I encourage you to approach each sales presentation, each customer encounter with this mindset, always asking what you could say different, how you could position your product in the way they will understand it best, based on how they buy, how they make decisions, and based on how they interpret the value best.

]]> http://nlpdaily.com/nlp-for-selling/feed 1 http://nlpdaily.com/seth-godin-gets-it http://nlpdaily.com/seth-godin-gets-it#comments Tue, 22 Dec 2009 05:49:33 +0000 Joe Soto http://nlpdaily.com/?p=287

NLP gives us the tools to understand people differently. The premise of Perceptual Positions is to develop the flexibility to consider a situation or customer interface from the perspective of self (1st position), another person involved (2nd position) or from a neutral, objective, detached point of view (3rd position; like “a fly on the wall”).

When I observe poor salespeople, they tend to have repetitive patterns in how they sell, and little flexibility to adapt to how someone buys. They tend to sell how they buy, therefore selling to those people who buy (and think) the most like them.

Seth Godin Gets It. In a recent blog entry on his popular (and worth reading daily) blog, he adds additional insight that can help you in your marketing as well as your selling. He states, “The challenge doesn’t lie in getting them to know what you know. It won’t help. The challenge lies in helping them see your idea through their lens, not yours.”

He’s dead on. Read the rest of his post here (in fact, if you want to be a better marketer – read his blog daily). I also recommend reading all of Seth Godin’s books.

This is a great video of Jeff Bezos (Founder of Amazon.com) discussing what he values as important in business chunking it up as “Everything he knows.” This list, as he says is short, includes 1) obsess over customers, 2) invent, 3) think long term, and 4) it’s always day one.

Practice your NLP modeling skills by observing (and making meaning from) his environment, his behaviors, his capabilities, his beliefs, and his personal mission (identity).  What state is he in? What is unique (or consistent with other top achievers) in his physiology?

So the big question is, what patterns stand out in this short 8 minute presentation and what can we learn from it?

While the concept of change blindness suggests we can’t pay attention to everything and all details, we can pay attention to more.

More meaning, what’s in front of you that means something of value in interpreting, understanding, and reading them.

NLP encourages us to pay attention to more and form (calibrate) meaning from what we hear, see and feel when communicating with each other. In all of my client training’s, the most popular topic is developing sensory acuity and developing our ability to notice things we may not have consciously or deliberately paid attention to before.

This video really gets interesting 1 min 30 seconds into it.  Would you notice if someone changed their shirt in the middle of a conversation with you? Would you notice if someone changed into another person, in the middle of a conversation with you? Are you sure? Enjoy, Joe

If you want to model successful people people in business, why not model some of the most successful?

NLP is a field built on modeling successful people in their respected fields.

How do you model model people you may never get to meet, interview or observe in person? Read everything you can by them, watch their videos and presentations, (subscribe to their youtube channels, youtube them), follow them on twitter, become a fan of their facebook pages, read their books, and basically study them. NLP gives you the structure to model, not just by asking the person you are modeling questions, but asking yourself questions that lead you to the answers.

Robert Dilts did this masterfully when he modeled geniuses who have since passed, and then wrote the Strategies of Genius book series which included, Strategies of Genius, Volume One, and his other two volumes followed. His book Modeling With NLP is a useful resource on Modeling (although a little academic and dry), and David Gordon has a great book, and different perspective, on Modeling (comes with a DVD) called Expanding Your World.

Meet Inc. Magazine’s Top 17 “Entrepreneurs of the Decade.”

It’s hard to disagree with this list, all of these people have achieved extraordinary things. Why not you?

Check out the article and discover who these 17 people are by clicking here.