Using Negation Persuasively (Part 1)

NLP opens up people’s ears and eyes to listen differently to how their words affect other people. It was Herbert Spencer who said, “How often misused words generate misleading thoughts.”

Don’t think of your car. Whatever you do, don’t think of your car. Stop thinking of what your car looks like even.

By now, you are probably saying something like, “Well, stop saying the word ‘car’ and I’d stop thinking of it.”

Exactly.

Your mind MUST think of your car first in order to understand what NOT to think about. Just the mention of a word causes your mind to think and picture the word, first for understanding of the sentence.

The word “NOT” can be the most dangerous word you ever use, or one of the most powerful words you ever use in a selling situation.

Ask yourself, are you using your “NOT’s” constructively and persuasively instead of in a way that gets in your way of success?

How often have you overheard a salesperson (or yourself) saying, “You don’t have to worry about that with us.” Here are some other statements that hurt a salesperson’s success.

“You won’t have that problem with our customer service.”

In order for your customer just to understand that sentence, they have to imagine either 1) having that problem in the past with a past service provider and then they are linking that possibility to you or 2) having that problem with you in the future if they decide to buy from you. While they’ll do it very quickly and unconsciously, remember, you are determining what representations they have inside their minds.

“We aren’t one of those companies that are here today and gone tomorrow.”

This time your prospect may go into their past experience just to reference a company like that in order to understand that sentence. Then the prospect may say something like, “I dealt with a company like that before.” And then if you are really stumbling, you’d say something like, “Well, we’re not like that”, which is essentially saying you are.

So how can we use the power of negation with our sales prospects? Stay tuned for Part 2.

Share This Post