I was on a sales appointment today that lasted just over an hour.  I spoke for less than 10 minutes of it.

I asked a few questions, commented on a couple of things, and asked more questions.

The prospect answered the questions, elaborated on the answers and talked, and talked and talked. During this talking I uncovered his pain points, his areas of need, the consequences he’s facing if he doesn’t use our serve, how he makes decisions and his motivation strategies. For our next appointment, I’ll know exactly what I need to present and focus on.

NLP teaches you how to listen with fresh ears, to hear sentence structure and pay attention to sequence – not just what they are saying (content).

If prospects are interested in buying your product or service, they will usually tell you what it will take to close them. All you have to do is get them talking about their needs, shut up and listen, and then explain how your product or service fills their need.

How many times have you read this? Yet, it’s been my experience most salespeople don’t do this because they don’t have any good questions prepared and they don’t shut up.  Salespeople get too anxious and excited to share their product and service that they jump into the presentation.

What (good) questions are you asking your client prospects to get them to talk? What’s your ratio of listening to talking? What could you do to improve this?

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).

I’ve gotten some feedback from those coming to my NLP blog to “learn NLP” and they question why every post isn’t directly about “Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP).”

I want to invite you to explore how every post is. Well almost every.

NLP isn’t about learning NLP. It’s about the modeling of excellence, the attitude of curiosity and discovery that comes from that and hopefully techniques that can stem from what you learn. This is why I refer books, videos to watch or people to model from time to time; so you can put your NLP to good use and model excellence. Then, hopefully, you can replicate it and help others create it for themselves.

Business strategist (and bestselling author) Tom Peters has written a new book called “The Little Big Things.” It’s a book on pursuing excellence, but it’s really a compilation of what Tom has learned (or picked up as useful) over the years as it relates to what excellence means in terms of concept, principles and corresponding behaviors.

If improving and excellence is important to you (or your company), please get in your car, drive to the bookstore and buy it. Don’t wait to order it online. I’m advising this and I’m not even finished reading all of it -- it’s a BIG book. On not so little things.

It’s easy to read, but will take up the ink of two highlighters and a pen that you’ll use to mark it up with notes and ideas it gives you.

Here’s a video to give you a sample of the attitude (and important things) in the book. Tom shares how implementing a strategy to “Be Extraordinary” is a whole lot better than a “ho-hum” strategy, which is actually worse than awful.

Visit Tom Peters at www.tompeters.com and read all of his books -- It’s been a (VERY) smart business decision for me (and countless others) over the years.

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.

Sam Harrison tells the story:

An old man witnessed a traffic accident, and in court the defense attorney tried to discredit his testimony.

“Mr. Johnson, I see you are wearing thick glasses,” said the lawyer.

“Yes sir, I do.”

“And you’re up in age, aren’t you?

“Yes sir, proudly, I’m 84 in May.”

“So exactly how far can you see, Mr. Smith?”

The old guy thought for a minute, “Well, sir, I can see the moon. How far is that?”

Don’t ever underestimate observation’s reach. What are you [not] noticing? What are you focused on, habitually when watching people? Honing your NLP skills starts with noticing more, focusing on what others aren’t and paying attention to people’s behaviors, patterns, and beliefs.

Each Friday I conduct two sales training classes, a basic “fast track” class followed by a more advanced “sales mastery” class on behalf of The Performance Group, a sales development company in Des Moines, IA.

What I’ve learned most, recently, is that salespeople have become really skilled at getting in their own way. Or perhaps letting their “thoughts” get in their way.

Luckily, Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP) has taught us some specific ways to use our brain.  That doesn’t mean we always “use” what we know.

Most people do not use their brains deliberately – if you stop and think about it. Instead your responses are automatic. If you have a sales presentation that ended up bad, do you walk away and find yourself re-living the experience? Five hours later and you are still in the same state, re-living it over and over. Beating yourself up over it, mentally. “If only I would have…” “I should have said this…” “I didn’t ask the right questions…” “This damn economy!” Whatever.

I invite students to listen to the voice inside their head. Notice the tonality, the volume (how loud are you talking to yourself!?), the pitch and rhythm. And then notice how you feel when you speak to yourself this way.

I had a salesperson say to me last week, “It’s hard to figure out what I did or what to do differently after I’ve done a bad presentation.” I responded, “No kidding. How could you expect to with all that you have going on inside you head afterwards. There is not room for resourcefulness when you are drowning everything else out.” Literally.

Once you understand, deliberately, how you are thinking, you can begin to do it differently.

It takes a conscious, deliberate effort to think of someone that has said something to you that was particularly pleasing. Then to take those sub-modalities and talk to yourself in that way, with the same critical ‘content.’ Noticing how differently you are able to respond to the same critical words is your test. If you aren’t getting the change of state you desire, change more sub-modalities until you get the results you are after. Perhaps you hear the critical voice in the voice of someone that makes you feel great when they talk to you. Why not?

But is this only for dealing with your “self-talk” after you have a sales call go bad?

No.

It’s for before you have a sales call go good.

So before you sell, “use your brain for a change.” (In the words of RB).

Neuro Linguistic Programming (NLP) arms us with the language tools to develop our skills at making our products and services (sound, feel or look) interesting. Unfortunately, it’s easy to get caught up in what do I say versus what do I ask so I can learn what they want most out of what I’m selling.

What matters to your customers? Answer: Not what you are selling.

What matters to them is what your product or service will do for them. That’s it. What’s in it for them.

Does it matter how long your company has been in business? No. Unless you can tie it to a reason that is compelling enough for them to benefit from the company longevity (or brevity).

Does it matter if you are bigger or smaller (or more or less experienced) than your competitor? No. Unless you you can wrap it around how it impacts them in a way that contributes to why they’d buy your product.

In sales we sometimes mistake our primary role for presenting, packaging, and telling our story. This is only because we forgot to remember it’s about asking questions, the right questions to figure out which benefit is most important to your prospect.

The next time you are in front of your customer, remember to say something similar to: “One of the things my customers have found is really helpful in prioritizing what’s most important is to ask you to complete the following sentence regarding this product/service.” “All I really care about is _______________________.”

Another way to say it: “Let me ask you one more questions to help prioritize your needs. In terms of why you are buying this product/service, how would you complete this sentence: “All I really care about is _________________________.”

Your customers will thank you for it. And  you’ll know what to focus your presentation on.

The short answer is yes. Watching (and learning from) this video below, you will quickly see why he’s one of the most successful actors of our times. I invite all NLPer’s to listen to his language patterns, where his focus is, notice his physiology, and perhaps the most important thing to model is his attitude.

I state frequently in my blog, the gift that Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP) gives us, is the skills to model successful people and their patterns. That is where NLP got it’s roots. Too many people think NLP is just about using the techniques and forget that it’s more than that. It’s an attitude towards discovering and learning how to achieve excellence. From that will come the methods, the techniques.

While most people know that movies such as “I am Legend”, “Ali”, “Hancock”, “The Pursuit of Happyness”, and “Hitch” helped make him one of the highest movie grossing actors, Entertainment Weekly recently named him one of the “Top 15 Entertainers of the Decade.”

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.

Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP) gives us amazing linguistic ingredients for crafting our language with purpose in front of each customer we approach.

What type of language shifts submodalities and uses presuppositions of TIME?

from now on, then, when, while, endless, everlasting, prolong, past, yet, stop, still, in the meantime, in the future, long waiting, look back, before, after, once, anytime now, now, finally, presently, elapse, accelerate, and the list goes on.

Example: “After you see the results, you’ll look back feeling even more confidence then you did when when the decision was made.

What type of language shifts submodalities and uses presuppositions of SPACE?

in front of, along side of, in place of, above, aside from, in addition to, below, increase, instead of, disappear from, between, closer, behind, bring forward, against, beside, bigger, blow over, across, in back of, bring together, add more, inside of, and the list goes on.

Example: What if you could see along side of every problem is a solution, in fact many solutions?

Resource Book: An Insiders Guide to Sub Modalities

One of the foundational skills of NLP that you begin to hone in NLP Practitioner training (and beyond) is that of pattern detection. Once your sensory acuity sharpens, you can start to apply your new pattern detection skills in a variety of ways.

One of them is in identifying when someone is lying.

A person’s mouth is just one thing to watch when someone might be lying. Whether it’s a subtle covering of the mouth while making a statement, swallowing or gulping at a seemingly inappropriate time, or an inappropriate smile or facial express, all are used to calibrate against a lie.

These tiny physiological signals involving the mouth, often unperceived because they occur so quickly and seem natural, are at times what can be called unconscious “micro-signals.”

Throat clearing in response to a question or statement usually signified disagreement to something that is said or asked, or an uncomfortableness with an unprepared answer to follow.

Gulping is usually a sign of nervousness, which should lead you to question the reason or source for that nervousness.

One of the more obvious signals (but most often overlooked) is when someone tries to cover up their words. Literally. A person will cover their mouth with his or her hand as if scratching or yawning. If someone finds an excuse to rub their lips, scratch their mouth or nose, run an index finger under their nose, or in some other way cause their hand to come between lips and face, it’s typically an outright lie being spoken.

NLP places a lot of emphasis on values. Although the process of eliciting values is relatively simple, it does require some verbal dexterity to do it well, with rapport and grace.

When you are trying to uncover and reach people at deeper levels, rapport is required and maintaining rapport during “tough questions” is sometimes not the easiest art.

The process is simple and like many NLP patterns, are never only what they seem. There is alway more to it.

There’s really only one question to ask, but for variety you can create as many different versions of this question as possible.

So what’s the question?

Question to elicit values:  “What’s important to you about ________?”  or “What’s important to you in a ____________?”

When they answer, you can laterally chunk by asking “What else is important?” This will give you additional values.

You can also chunk down by asking, “What’s important to you about that?”

Another way to say it is, “What would that do for you?” or “What would you get out of that?”

This line of questioning will help you dig deeper, particularly when their answers are big chunks.

If the word chunks is grossing you out, chances are you haven’t studied a lot of NLP yet. Chunking refers to the level of detail (big chunks, little chunks).

I also like to end with the question, “Is there anything I’ve missed?” Customers will answer this, particularly when there has been something on their mind they haven’t got to tell you yet. This is when it’s unveiled.

On a future video, I’ll give examples of how this line of questioning sounds – because tone is everything in maintaining the rapport.