NLP Archives | Page 10 of 12

STOP selling on your terms. START selling on theirs.

Stacey was talking about her ‘failure’ to land a client…

“I must be charging too much or else I said something to turn him away. I thought Jon was ready to sign the contract, but it’s been three days and he hasn’t contacted me yet.

“Wait a minute, Stacey. You can’t just assume that things have fallen through like that. There are lots of reasons why he might not have got back to you. Have you tried calling him?

“No.” Stacey’s voice was glum. “This is what happens all the time. I think prospects are excited to work with me, but then they disappear.”

Stacey was making a common assumption that was killing her results… and her enthusiasm. Maybe you have caught yourself thinking the same thing:

She assumed that her prospects were as preoccupied with this one problem and its solution as she was.

What is Goal Setting?

The truth is that whatever problem you solve for clients is just one aspect of their business. They are busy fulfilling their responsibilities and solving a range of problems so even if the problem you solve is urgent, it’s not the only thing they are thinking about.

How to Handle This Reality and Make Everyone Happy…

Follow up consistently. If necessary use more than one mode of communication. Your desire not to be a pest may be holding both you and your prospect back from achieving your desired outcomes. Presumably you have already had a conversation during which your prospect demonstrated their need of a solution and you explained your expertise in that area. Therefore, you already have a clear invitation to be involved. Don’t back away until they tell you to do so. Silence does not equal rejection.
Ask questions and discover exactly what your prospect needs to make a decision. The chances are that their decision making strategy is different from your own and it’s your job to discover what it is and tailor your communication to meet their style.

These two simple techniques can transform your business results because suddenly you discover that the problem was never your solution or your price, it was ‘just’ a communication problem.

The Importance of Communication in Business… Not Just in Sales

I coach a lot of management and project teams, as well as sales teams because effective internal and external communication lies at the heart of business success… and is responsible for many failures as well.

Here are some of the key elements required for successful communication:

Understanding your own preferred communication styles and strategies;
Identify others’ preferred communication styles and strategies;
Effectively use a variety of communication styles and speak to different strategies;
Ask questions so you discover what people are really thinking rather than assume you know that;

When I asked Stacey how she responded when people seemed to ‘disappear’ and whether she followed them up and asked questions like ‘What do you still need to help you make a decision?’ Stacey’s expression said everything I needed to know.

She was judging her prospects by herself. Since she made decisions quickly after one discussion and hated saying ‘no’ she assumed that silence meant, “I’m definitely not interested but I don’t want to hurt your feelings.”

Things might not have changed, but she was facing a real shortfall so she decided to call Jon and ask him if he was still interested in her proposal.

“You were right. He wasn’t trying to shut me off!” was Stacey’s text to me that afternoon.

Communication is just as important in teams… and it’s even more important to know what it takes to get your team members on board since you’ll probably be working on many new ideas and projects over time.

Maybe you only need to hear an idea once before you evaluate it and make a decision, but Sally needs to hear it at least three times… and Jim will need to be reassured constantly that it’s the right move. Once you understand the dynamics you’re dealing with you can build your communication around them and you’ll find it easier to get the support and resources you need.

Communication Makes Good Things Happen

You won’t win every deal, and you won’t get support for every idea, but if you know how to identify other people’s communication styles and strategies, ask good questions that enable others to express their opinions and needs, and have a variety of tools to help you communicate effectively you’ll soon discover that more exciting things happen around you than ever before.

You Are Much More Than You Think You Are…

but maybe you’re choosing to live as though you were even less!

Our words shape our beliefs, and our beliefs affect our behaviours. If you believe that you are:

‘Just a mum’
‘Not good with money’
‘Bad at communicating your desires’
‘No good at selling’
‘Unable to sustain a successful relationship’
‘Just another…’ [accountant, photographer, business coach, web developer, surgeon…]

… then that becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy in terms of how you see yourself, and how you project yourself to others. The words you use to describe yourself reinforce that projection every time you speak them.

It’s a chicken and egg relationship. Your beliefs affect your outcomes and your outcomes influence your beliefs and you can either let yourself get trapped in that cycle or you can choose to step out of the cycle and evolve into your best self.

Defining Who and What You Aspire to be

You are in the process of becoming what you aspire to be and that raises two questions:

Are your aspirations challenging you to be, do, and have more than you currently are? and
Is there more that you could aspire to?

This is not about creating discontent and dissatisfaction with your life per se. It’s about challenging yourself to lift your vision and live into your potential rather than being trapped by your current circumstances and beliefs. It’s about the reality that whatever you think you are in this moment, you are more than that.

You’ve heard the stories about the amazing feats of endurance, strength, and heroism people perform in moments of urgency. These are all feats that they would never have imagined themselves capable of, but which emerged under pressure. Equally inspiring are the parents and carers who watch the suffering of a child and tirelessly minister to their needs beyond the point of physical or emotional endurance. If asked in advance, most of them would say, “I could never do that.” Yet they do because in the moment they expand their image of themselves.

You don’t have to wait for a crisis to initiate this process of growth, you simply have to make the decision that you are ready to change. My mum demonstrated this possibility thinking once she realised how her language and beliefs were keeping her trapped in her reality.

She used to frame her defeat in words like, “I worked so hard, and look at what I’ve ended up with! I’m just no good with [whatever the specific area of defeat might be].”

Once she realised what she was doing to herself she changed both her words and her thinking to reflect the possibilities in her life.

You Are Much More Than You Think You Are!

Mum had shut off the idea that she could be good at numbers and make enough money to do more than pay the bills in primary school and, of course, money has to do with numbers. Every time she talked to herself she cemented the belief that she “just wasn’t good with numbers.” That belief system was cemented into her behaviour and overflowed into her business and finances.

Maybe for you it isn’t numbers and money, but I’d be willing to bet that you have some beliefs about yourself that are stopping you from taking the actions needed to be the person you want to be and do the things you want to do. In my NLP Master Practitioner trainings we do an exercise based on the principle of “re-identification”. It’s a transformative exercise that helps students think about the:

Words they use to describe themselves and their abilities,
Way those words and phrases affect their actions and decisions,
New words and phrases that describe the person they want to be.

All the students who fully engage in this process notice changes almost immediately in their choices and behaviours which positively affect their results.

If you’ve decided that you’re not good at something or that you have limitations that keep you from achieving your goals, then that decision becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. At the same time, when you change those beliefs you open up new opportunities and outcomes.

By opening yourself up to the possibility that you could do or be something and change the language you use around that possibility you can make choices that will turn that possibility into living truth. The biggest difference between the prosperous business owner (successful parent, author, speaker, athlete, …) and the wannabe is not talent or luck. It’s the choices they made along the way about how they behaved and who they were.

Act as if...

Take a moment to think about WHO you want to be, WHAT you want to have, and HOW you want to behave then CHOOSE the words you use to describe this, words that focus on your aspirations, so that you are open to new possibilities.

My Mum worked hard to change the language she used from the constraint-focus of: “I’ll never be…” to the possibility-focused “I’m in the process of becoming…” or “I’m stepping into…” Using this principle, she would ‘act as if’ she were already the person she wanted to become.

The words you use when you speak to yourself matter as much as, or even more than, the words you use when you speak to other people because you spend much more time speaking to yourself than you do to others. Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP) acknowledges the reality of the connection between the wiring of our brain and the language that shapes that wiring.

No matter who you think you are, you are far more than you think… so let the words you use to describe the person you are reflect the truth that you are constantly becoming more and opening up new horizons of being and doing.

#TuesdayTips

Margie had a niche – she was quite confident about that, but I wasn’t quite so sure, so I asked her, “Who is your ideal target market?”

“Single women over 30” was her instant response.

“Great, so am I your target market? – I’m single and over 30.”

“Umm … I don’t think so.”

I probed further, “What problem are you solving? How are you solving it? What do you do for these women over 30?”

“Well, we take care of their to-do list:- source tradesmen, stay at home while they’re working, supervise the trades, plan parties etc. Does that help?”

Once we boiled it down to the real problem Margie’s business solved, her niche was actually quite a bit narrower than she had imagined – easier to define and to target. Margie also recognised that she was assuming that people would understand what she did from her business name and title – and that just wasn’t the case.

Rather than feeling angry because we hadn’t understood what she had to offer, Margie recognised that she needed to be a lot clearer when she described her services – whether that was verbally, or on her website, or in print. She realised that she needed to add more information and stop making assumptions about what people thought she did. Once she clarified this her business grew rapidly.

Are You Making Too Many Assumptions?

It’s so easy to make assumptions about people’s understanding of your business. Just because they know the terminology doesn’t mean they get the concept. It comes back to the whole idea that the meaning of the communication is the response you get. [Link to Blog #12] If you don’t get a response it may be because you haven’t communicated well enough or it may be that the person you are talking to is not in your target market.

If we incorrectly assume that people really know how our business can solve their problems we don’t get the opportunity to clarify and correct misconceptions. You can test that easily enough – if one person says “That’s interesting,” and starts describing what they do when you share your elevator pitch [Link to Blog #32] the problem might be them. If two or three people do it, then you need to take a long, hard look at what you’re saying and review your elevator pitch.

The purpose of an elevator pitch is always to attract attention and interest. Even if the person you are talking to isn’t personally interested in what you do, they probably know someone who does.

The More Specific You Are The More Interest You’ll Attract and the Higher Your Prices Can Rise

The more specifically you identify your target market, and the problem you solve for that market, the easier you will find it to attract clients. A lot of people think that they will narrow the pool of prospects if they target a specific niche. I don’t know anyone in business who has narrowed their niche and then had trouble finding clients … on the other hand, I know a large number of generalists who have a hard time finding clients, and when they find them, have an even harder time getting them to pay the price they want to charge.

With a specific niche you can identify where your prospective clients work, where they hang out, and you can also identify other people who are not your competition, but who service the same market to partner with – this is one of the easiest and most cost-effective ways of getting new clients! It is also a way of repaying the favour to your strategic partners by sharing your clients with them.

Think about it this way: in the medical field a General Practitioner might receive $65 per patient while a specialist visit which doesn’t last much longer costs $350 or more. The former is hopefully good at curing basic problems and referring patients to specialists where necessary, the latter solves a specific problem. The extra cost is the value of his specialist knowledge and training.

Are you a specialist or a generalist? I would encourage you to think about just how targeted you can get with your marketing and your elevator pitch. Suddenly you will find a whole new mine of fantastic prospects.

Meta Description: Clarifying your niche is often one of the most critical questions you can use to take your business to the next level

Book your complimentary 30-minute Discovery Session with Chandell.

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#TuesdayTips

Years ago when I was employed as a sales person, I attended a meeting with a gentleman. From the moment I walked into the board room of this big corporate organisation, I immediately got the impression that he wasn’t really tuned in to anything I had to say. As soon as I realised this, I started matching and mirroring his body language. We were sitting across the board room table from each other and he had his arms resting on the arms of the chair and was tapping his fingers. I subtly did exactly the same thing at the same rate. He didn’t pick up on it at all but within 5 minutes he seemed much more responsive and we went on to have a great working relationship that still exists today.

The value of non-verbal communication is still not fully appreciated in the business world, though many more executives and business people are learning and trusting that body language and simple actions can be the difference between a deal being made or broken.

Selling is really a process, not an action. The pressure comes when we start to see selling as purely transactional. This works okay in some situations (at a supermarket for example) – not so well in others (service businesses like hairdressing or coaching – or even choosing an accountant or financial planner).

So the first step in the process is to establish rapport – because mostly people choose to buy from those people whom they like.

Without rapport it’s harder to accomplish everything. Most people aim to build rapport by uncovering common experiences or finding common ground. This is fine if you have unlimited time to build rapport, or if you have a guarantee of further meetings, but it’s not so useful in a business context where you may only have a few seconds and no time for chit-chat. Matching and mirroring (done subtly) is an almost fail-safe way of building rapport in just a few minutes.

Building Rapport

Rapport in communication is made up of three things: words, physiology and tonality and most people think that the words we use are the most important. The secret is that they are only about 7% of the impact you make. Link to Blog on Building Rapport

Think back to a time you walked into a networking event, or a party, or some other function where you see someone that you don’t know – you have absolutely no idea who they are, you’ve never met them before, and you don’t know why but you get a funny feeling about that person, there’s just something about them that attracts you. How do we know that we like that person? How do we make that decision? It’s based on the instant decision of your unconscious mind. Link to Blog on Unconscious Mind

Again, this is an example of our unconscious driving our behaviour – so 93% of your decisions about others, and their decisions about you is an unconscious response to tonality and physiology. That puts tremendous pressure on you – but it also creates amazing opportunity because once you understand it, you can use this skill to create win-win outcomes with people.

What is a win-win outcome? Well, if you tap into what’s important to another person and can deliver them the service that they’re looking for that’s a great outcome for both of you. People don’t buy based on your experience or how long you’ve been doing what you’re doing or because your logo has pink and blue as opposed to yellow and green – at the end of the day the buying decision comes down to how it makes them feel.

Since all of this is going on inside our head, part of the art of the confident closer gets down into how you present your information so that your prospect sees the tiny fraction of the information they need to make a buying decision. It’s ensuring that the key bits of information they need to know about the outcome will get past their filters. Once you’ve accomplished that, their buying decision is made for them.

The art of influence is not just in the words, it’s not just in the tonality, it’s not just in the things that you choose to show them, it’s about whether you present all this in the way that they want to see it. A sales pitch that totally convinces one person might not work at all on someone else, because they’re two different people. The art and the skill of communication lies in the ability to find out what’s important to each particular person, and then give him the information that he desires. However, you actually have to observe, and focus on the person to do this – you can’t just go through the motions.

Matching and Mirroring to Build Rapport

Suddenly you find all these similarities, because you like each other – you’re in rapport. You might use the same words a lot of the time, or you might find yourself shaking your foot in the same way or talking at the same volume, or using the same tone of voice – and all those pieces of information play a role in how much you like each other. The reason you get along is because your body language is picking up on the fact that you’re actually the same. So in those 11 million bits of information that are flooding your neurological system every single second, you’re unconsciously picking up on bits and pieces that match you and unconsciously make you like that person. Most of the time this happens unconsciously, but what if you could do it intentionally?

It’s quite easy to match and mirror so that you gain rapport intentionally.

For example, if I was meeting with Janine and she was playing with her pen, I might get my pen and play with it in the same way, or I might position my feet in the same way that she’s got them on the floor. Unconsciously she would pick up on the fact that we’re like each other. If you remember that physiology is a whopping 55% of communication, you’ll see why one of the quickest ways that you can build rapport with someone is to mirror their actions.

In matching and mirroring physiology, there are many differing things you could copy – I’ve mentioned habits like tapping fingers or pens, but you can also mirror their breathing rate, their posture, their gestures, and even their blinking. I know the idea of mirroring someone’s blinking sounds strange, but we all blink at different rates so one of the easiest ways to match and mirror someone without making them aware of it is to actually blink at the same pace as them.

Remember 90% of our lives is lived unconsciously, so our ability to perceive our space around us is controlled largely by our unconscious. We’re not aware of it, but our unconscious will pick up on it and decide that we actually like each other. Posture and gestures are other things that you can match and mirror. This is something that you can easily do while you’re sitting there talking to your prospect about your product and service and if you do it properly they will never even be aware of it.

Exercise Caution in Matching & Mirroring

Please exercise caution in this and use common sense. If somebody’s got a physical impairment or a speech impediment, don’t match and mirror that aspect of their behaviour. And that really goes without saying.

Just as important, don’t match and mirror unresourceful states like depression or anger. If someone’s depressed, you want to try and pace them into a nicer state, rather than sinking down into a depressed state with them.

This list of behaviours that you can match and mirror is not exhaustive. If you can think of more examples, please tell us about them in the comments.

Matching and mirroring behaviour is one of the fastest and easiest way of building rapport with just about anyone. Ready to elevate your communication through NLP Techniques? Check out our Free Training Here: https://3sales.me/effective-communication

Book your complimentary 30-minute Discovery Session with Chandell.

Interested in learning more about how NLP could help you to get what you want and understand others? Learn more at https://lifepuzzle.com.au/services/nlp-sales-training/

#TuesdayTips

Three of the hardest phrases for people to say are: “I love you;” “I’m sorry;” and “I need help.” It’s sad really, because I’m sure that if we could express our dependence on others, humble our pride, and admit our insufficiency they world would be a happier place. “I love you,” tells other people that they’re important, “I’m sorry,” lets people know that you know you’re not perfect (they already know it’s true), and “I need help,” makes it easier to get things done in a far more timely and effective way.

“I Need Help” Doesn’t Sound Needy, it Sounds Wise

Most people don’t like asking for help. Why is this? Well, it’s because they think they’re going to be a burden or they’re going to inconvenience people.

In a business situation people are afraid that if they ask for help their colleagues (or their boss) will think they are incompetent. But the reality is, that when you ask someone to help you understand a situation or complete a task you give them a chance to feel important – to feel good about themselves – and you often also complete your task sooner, and get a better result.

I had a situation a few years ago, when a team member really needed my help and they didn’t ask me for it. By the time I found out about the situation it was too late in the piece to change anything and I was really, really disappointed because I could have saved that person a great deal of trouble and anxiety with the situation. Had they come to me, I wouldn’t have felt superior – I would just have been really pleased to help, he would have been saved some stress, and we would all have ended up with a better result.

Everyone likes it when they can help or support someone else. It feels good – and it also means that you have what you need.

In a sales situation, you don’t want to sound needy – but you do need to communicate the fact that you recognise the expertise and knowledge they bring to the table. It doesn’t matter how much you know about your own product or service, or how much you know about the other person’s industry. No-one likes to feel unnecessary and unappreciated so one of the most effective things you can do when you are trying to build rapport is to make the other person feel important – after all, it is their business you are trying to attract.

Reframing to Build Rapport

Reframing is a method of changing the meaning of something, and therefore changing how people think about it. In a sales or business situation reframing is a very useful tool that you can use to check that you’ve understood the situation and ask for their help without sounding ignorant. Your client knows that you’ve been listening and that you are keen to understand exactly what he needs, but he also has a chance to correct any misunderstanding. They might even end up with some insights that help them to see your value in a new (even more positive) light.

As you reframe, you don’t just clarify the situation and cast a new light on it, you also have the opportunity to share your particular expertise in a way that will benefit the client and help them understand what you bring to the table. There are a lot of techniques for reframing, but saying “I need help,” is a very powerful one.

Think about it for a moment … you can say: –

I need help … understanding how this is a problem for you;
I need help … seeing your perspective on this;
I need help … knowing why you are dissatisfied with your current solution;
I need help … grasping what you are really want;

– and the list goes on. Your prospect will feel good because he is helping you, and you will be getting valuable information that helps you understand the prospect better, and ultimately deliver exactly what he wants. That’s a win-win situation

Meta Description: “I need help,” may be one of the hardest phrases to say, but it is a fantastic way of inspiring confidence and reframing situations.

#TuesdayTips

Maybe you never make a buying decision on the basis of your personal response to the sales person. I’ve had people say that to me, “All my business decisions are purely logical – I don’t need any of that rapport stuff!”

And the next words out of the mouth are, “No, there’s just something about Jim that I don’t trust.”

I’m not prejudiced against any particular type of person, but a kinaesthetic person has some unique features that make them fantastically successful when dealing with other kinaesthetic people, and not so successful with other types. So let me tell you about Bob, the Photocopier man.

I was working at an Event Management Company selling $50k—$60k sponsorships and we had some really great marketing material – but we were printing the promotional brochures out on a bubble jet printer and I said, “Listen – this is not cost effective and it doesn’t look good. You spent all this money (about $20k) designing this marketing material, would you please let me get a proper printer?”

He told me to go ahead, signed off on the budget, and I called up a photocopier company and asked them to send someone out because we were ready to buy a unit. I’d had previous experience with this brand at another company and knew that they were really reliable, and produced great results, so the only reason that I asked them to send someone out is because there were two very similar models and I could not work out what was the difference between them.

So Bob was their representative and the morning he was coming in I had a bit of a crisis. Three of my sales staff were sick, we had a big sponsorship meeting prepared and I was having to divide different appointments between people, and shuffle things around to get everything done that day with three people missing.

When Bob walked in I said, “Bob, it’s so great to have you here, thanks for coming, I had a bit of a crisis this morning, as it turns out I don’t have an hour to spend with you, I could probably do 15 minutes. But it’s okay because I’ve already decided to go ahead, I’ve got the budget signed off, I just need you to tell me what’s the difference between this model and this one.”

And Bob launches into his sales spiel, “Oh yes, Chandell, thanks for having me. Our company started in 19…”

So he got through about three pages in his compendium and I said, “No, I’m sorry to interrupt but I don’t think you understand – I’m ready to buy, the boss has signed off on the budget. All I need is for you to tell me what’s the difference between this model and the model with the E, because we’re ready to buy.”

“Oh yes, and you know our toners are all recycled …” He just talked and talked and completely failed to listen.

After 45 minutes of their history and how they dispose of the cartridges and everything else, I’m about to kill him. There was no way I was going to buy this machine because when you buy a machine from them, the person that sells it to you is also your account manager, and I was not going to deal with Bob every time we had a problem with the machine. So I thanked him for his time and I sent him on his merry way, picked up the phone and I called their competitor.

Bob lost a sale that he already had because he didn’t listen, and he didn’t give me what I wanted. All he could see was what he had been taught, and how he wanted to be sold to.

Meta Description: The sad story of how lack of understanding of internal representation systems lost a deal.

#TuesdayTips

In my last post I talked about the importance of understanding how you see the world, and how other people see it in order to communicate with them effectively. Today I’m going to share some pointers which will help you identify what the internal representation system of another person is. If your offer is truly unique and compelling, or you have something that your prospect wants desperately enough then it won’t matter how you present it, but if there is any doubt in their mind then failing to pick up on their internal representation system, and to speak to it could be a deal-breaker.

As I mentioned, there are four primary internal representation systems: – Visual, Auditory, Kinaesthetic, and Auditory-digital.

Visual:

A visual person is concerned with how things look and appearance is an important part of what drives the decision making process. As I mentioned, I’m a visual person – if you don’t provide me with a visual prompt you can lose my interest, and lose the deal.

How do you recognise a visual person?

They talk rather quickly;
They usually stand or sit up straight;
They breathe up in their chest (because they’re talking too fast to breath deeply into their belly);
They care about how things look, and they want to see pictures;
Their speech is full of visual words like: – see, look, view, appear, show, clear, imagine.

A visual person will often use phrases like “Can you see what I’m saying?” or “It appears to me that …”, “That’s really brilliant, I can really see where you’re coming from.” “I just need to get some clarity on that.” because their visual senses are extremely active.

Auditory:

An auditory person is concerned with what they hear, and will make decisions based on that. They love music and they’re usually the kind of person who will hear something once and know all the words to the song, remember a tune, learn by ear. They’ll want to hear all about your program – and a written version won’t have the same impact.

How do you recognise an auditory person?

They talk at medium speed – slower than a visual person, but faster than a kinaesthetic person;
They breath about half-way down their chest – deeper than a visual person, not as deep as a kinaesthetic person;
They have flexible tonality in their voices and rarely talk in a monotone;
Their eyes will often move from side-to-side while they’re talking because they’re trying to construct what they’re saying and they’re recalling what they’ve said or heard;
They use auditory words like: hear, sound, listen, resonate, question.

Do you see how powerful understanding this is? If you know your own internal representation strategy, and can identify the ones that others are use, you’ll pick up on their cues much more readily. When you find someone who shares your own system, you can go ahead and sell as though you were selling to yourself, but if you find someone different you can modify your strategy. That way you’ll close many more sales.

Kinaesthetic:

A kinaesthetic person is mostly pre-occupied with how they feel. They will often take a long time to move through the sales process, and you may wonder if they’re just a tyre kicker after all. They are probably the group most likely to do business with other kinaesthetic communicators because they are operating on their ‘gut feeling’ and need to feel a strong sense of attraction to move forwards.

How do you recognise a kinaesthetic person?

They talk and move quite slowly;
They breathe deeply – right down in their belly;
They take their time over things and hate to be rushed;
They need time to ‘feel’ that something is right;
They use words like: feel, touch, catch on, solid, grasp.

Your kinaesthetic person hates to be rushed and will walk away from a deal that is otherwise perfect if they feel they are being pushed into it. If you are selling to a kinaesthetic person you need to be patient and persistent because it’s not that they’re uninterested, it’s just that it takes time for them to get comfortable with the concept or product you’re offering to them.

Auditory Digital:

People with Auditory-digital internal representation schemes usually have a strong secondary scheme, which is the thing you should be looking for. Auditory-digital people spend a lot of time in self talk – sometimes they communicate with themselves so clearly that they think they’ve actually already told you things, that they just said to themselves.

How do you recognise an auditory-digital person?

They will often have their eyes down because they are talking to themselves;
They are very analytical, if you’re lucky they’ll speak their analysis out loud even though they’re talking to themselves rather than to you;
They usually have a backup sense, which is what you should look for;
They use words like: experience, understand, think, process, consider, know.

Auditory-digital processors can sometimes be the hardest group to sell to because they need to convince themselves before they can accept your input.

The point of understanding both your own, and your customer’s internal representation systems is that it’s not about you! You need to focus on your customer and what they want to hear and what they want to know.

If you’re in the situation where you’re thinking. “This is not working for me right now and I feel like I’ve tried everything.” Ask yourself if you really have tried everything. Are you trying to communicate in the way you prefer, or the way they prefer? The difference between the person crying over there and the person having a crappy day is what you do with it – NLP gives you tool to do things differently.

Have you ever noticed this? When you look back on deals you might have lost could it be because you weren’t appealing to the right internal representation system?

Leave a comment below and let me know if you agree with this idea.

Meta Description: The four primary internal representation systems and how you can identify them and use your understanding to change your business outcomes.

#TuesdayTips

I’m naturally quite a visual person. A few years ago I met with someone who was going to do a social media strategy for me. She charges about $1200 a month and I’d heard wonderful things about her, so I thought it was all going to be really fantastic and I was ready to go ahead with the solution. We had a successful meeting and I was very happy with our discussion, so at the end of the meeting I said, “Look, if you can just send me a one page document, with three or four bullet points on everything that we just talked about, I can sign off on it and we’ll get started.”

She never did send me the document, so we never started the work. I couldn’t run my decision making strategy because I needed to see it there in front of me. It was a 12 month contract, so she cost herself quite a bit of money because she didn’t provide me with a one-page outline. I even made the point of saying, “It doesn’t need to be a fancy proposal, just three or four dot points outlining in writing what we discussed today so I can sign off on it.”

The woman that was selling me the social media strategy was an auditory person. From her perspective, she had told me all I needed to know to make a decision. I don’t know if went away and said, “I can’t understand why Chandell didn’t sign up, because she told me she had all of the things that she needed, but I’m going to be a victim about the fact that I didn’t get the sale.” A lot of sales people do respond that way when the sale doesn’t go through, when in actual fact she wasn’t listening hard enough – I told her what I needed from her to make the decision and really I wasn’t asking her for all that much. In the context of it, if I’m going to spend $1200 a month for 12 months it’s a fair bit of money to spend to get three dot points on a sheet of paper.

As far as she was concerned, we’d gone over the system verbally and I’d agreed, so there was no more to be done. Some people work like that. I don’t. It’s not wrong, it’s just different.

The point is we all see things differently because we have different Internal Representation Systems, and if you can get your head around this concept you won’t be leaving money on the table, just because you didn’t communicate in the way another person prefers (or requires).

Internal Representation Systems - A Powerful Tool

A number of workshop participants find that the insights they gain from this section are game-changers. In the Confident Closing workshops we have a short quiz that indicates your strongest internal representation system. The thing I always stress is that this system is not set in stone for anyone – it varies from day to day, and ideally as you increase your awareness you’ll be able to use all the internal representation systems fairly equally. This is part of becoming a more flexible communicator.

What I want to stress here, is that this is not a boxed system, and you shouldn’t put yourself (or anyone else) in a box. If you were to evaluate your answers to the quiz they’d change from day to day – this is simply a tool to help you understand yourself and others better, and to help you communicate more clearly.

Basically there are four internal representation systems, and we all use all four of them to a greater or lesser extent. It really is important to understand that we don’t have just one Internal Representation System, and we can strengthen them all, because a few years ago this concept was taken into the classroom in the form of Learning Styles with the idea that every child was either one thing or another, and that you could blame their lack of progress on a teacher who didn’t teach to their particular style.

This is so very opposed to everything I believe that I have to stress the point here. Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP) is about growth, and about taking responsibility for your outcomes. You are not a victim of anyone as long as you are learning and growing.

The four internal representation systems are: – Visual, Auditory, Kinaesthetic, and Auditory-Digital. In the next post, I’ll outline how you can recognise the primary characteristics of these systems, but right now I really want to stress that as a business owner or sales person you need to be able to use all of these systems depending on the person you are talking to. Think about it as another skill you want to develop to make your relationships stronger and more successful.

Do you think that your communication style is fixed and inflexible? Or do you see this as yet another area in which you have potential to grow? Leave a comment below to let us know what you think.

Meta Description: How the way you see the world affects your communication with others – and how understanding the way this works can change your business outcomes.

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At this point in your conversation you want to reflect all the issues your prospect has highlighted as being important back to them. You also want to discuss how your product or service addresses these issues and resolves the problems they are facing in detail. This is not the time for a quick 5 point summary, but is a serious presentation of value. Your specific solution is what the prospect will buy, so you need to remind them of the value that each part of the solution will bring to their business.

Price will enter the discussion, but if you have stacked the value up for them then they price will be seen in the context of the return on investment they can expect – and that return could be in many forms – financial, time, peace-of-mind. Most quality buyers won’t make their decision on price alone. Clearly price is a factor – sometimes a business just can’t afford your solution – but more often then not, if the value is stacked high enough and there is enough convincing proof that it works, then your prospect will find the money needed to purchase.

Pricing and payment plans are just one more way you can customise your solution to fit your prospect’s needs without diminishing your profitability. You’d be surprised at just what people can afford when the payments are split over a few months or some other installment option.

In our Confident Closing Workshops we go over the importance of stacking the value when presenting your solution and helping your prospect to really experience the benefits your product offers. After doing this exercise many of our students go away feeling that they are seriously under-charging their clients once they have stacked up the benefits. Some of them have doubled or tripled their prices and found that they actually get more people taking up their offers.

Have you tried stacking up the value and tailoring your solution for your clients? Did it change their responsiveness to price and their interest in your product or service?

Let us know in the comments.

Meta Description: A tailored solution that solves my problem is almost irresistible for most people. Generic solutions are harder to sell at all, and certainly don’t attract premium prices.

Presenting a Customised Solution

Now that you have built rapport, asked questions, and established your prospect’s need for your product or service it is time to propose a solution before asking for the sale. This is where many businesses fall down and lose their way – they offer every client the exact same options and solutions. This often comes from the excellent idea that you should ‘package’ your services so people understand exactly what they are getting.

The difficulty with this is that your prospect gets the feeling that you are more interested in off-loading whatever you happen to have in your wheelbarrow, than you are in solving their problem – and that makes them defensive and hard to convince.

The Goal of Your Solution

When you actually propose your solution to a prospect your goal is to for them to feel that you have just suggested the exact piece they need to complete their puzzle. You want them to feel that you are proposing something that is tailor made for them, rather than a generic one-size-fits-all solution. When you propose a solution that really ticks all their boxes and meets the needs they have pointed out to you, you signal that you have heard their problems.

It is still your pre-defined package, but you have matched it exactly to your prospects needs, and described it in their language. Now they don’t feel that you have just grabbed a box out of your wheelbarrow and are trying to get them to buy whatever it is that you have too much of – now they feel it is designed exactly for them. Perhaps you have swapped out some coaching sessions for a top-notch presentation they can use, or made another slight tweak that meets their need. Maybe you haven’t changed anything, but by listening and learning have simply described the package accurately in their own language.

Whatever you have done, they have heard you describe the perfect solution to their problem. Do you think people will pay more for a tailored solution that exactly meets their needs, or for a generic solution with more features and benefits in it? I can tell you that the tailored solution always appears more valuable in people’s eyes – just like people are ready to pay more for a meal at a restaurant than they are at McDonalds.

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Building rapport is a key skill that makes our relationships run more smoothly in every area of our lives so it’s worth investing some time in thinking about some key techniques that help us establish rapport as quickly and easily as possible.

I’ve written about the entire 5-Step Selling process in another post [Link to #16] so this post just focuses on the first element of the strategy.

Why Do We Need Rapport?

Occasionally people will say something like, “Rapport isn’t important in business. I make decisions on the basis of facts, not relationships.” There’s no point arguing with this perspective so I don’t, but a few minutes later, that same person will say something about ‘just not getting on with’ another person and deciding not to do business with them.

Don’t kid yourself. Rapport matters. It is rarely the only factor in your business decisions (or it shouldn’t be), but it is important. If you are selling to another person your ability to establish rapport will directly affect your success in closing the sale. However, let’s look at the bigger picture: your ability to establish rapport quickly and easily will also make every other negotiation or relationship in your life run more smoothly as well, whether it’s with your spouse, your children, family members, or friends. Rapport makes it possible to work through tense moments in any relationship and create win-win outcomes for everyone much of the time.

How Can We Build Rapport Quickly and Easily?

Most people recognise the importance of building rapport, but their strategy for doing so is rather hit or miss. In my early days, I depended mostly on verbal strategies – finding common interests, experiences and places. It worked reasonably well but it took time – sometimes a lot of time.

A while ago I was working for a company that managed events and I was selling major sponsorships and event space for a particular large project. I called on some existing relationships, pitched to the sponsorship team and my contact signed off on the pitch. He was the head-honcho marketing guy and he signed off on the deal, but the person I actually had to deal with was his Brand Manager, who was coordinating everything.

His Brand Manager wasn’t happy that $100,000 of her marketing budget had been spent without consulting her. So I went in to see her, and the atmosphere was frigid! I tried everything I knew to build rapport with this woman and nothing worked for about 20 minutes, until we eventually realised that we had gone to the same school. Suddenly, her entire face changed, the atmosphere warmed up, and we were able to move forward productively.

Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP) teaches some techniques that help you speed up the process of building rapport – and shorten that time of tension. You won’t always need them, because sometimes you will just ‘click’ with another person, but it’s good to have them in your toolkit for when you do. After all, even great relationships have some tense moments!

We build rapport through 3 main channels of communication: our words, our tonality, and our physiology or body language. Studies show that words account for about 7% of our effect on others; tonality, 38%; and physiology a whopping 55% of our impact. Obviously I can’t cover everything that Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP) teaches here, but I’d like to highlight some ways we can use this information to build rapport quickly and discreetly.

Words:

If you listen to the other person carefully you can work out whether their preferred internal representation system is visual, auditory, or kinaesthetic, and you can choose words that match and mirror theirs. Visual people highlight words that represent sight: ‘look’, ‘see’, ‘clarity’; auditory communicators will use phrases like: ‘listen’, ‘hear this’, ‘there’s too much noise’; and kinaesthetic communicators will say things like: ‘Have you grasped that?’, ‘imagine’, ‘it feels right’.

Once you’ve picked up on their preferred system you can choose those kinds of words yourself and mirror them back to your prospect.

Tonality:

Does your prospect speak slowly? Do they speak quickly? Is their voice deep, and produced in the chest or belly, or high, or mid-range? You can identify this and match it back to them (discreetly). You might want to slow your speech down, or speed it up a little to meet their preferred speed. You might also want to change pitch – please note, I’m not suggesting your speak in falsetto just because your prospect is a woman with a high-pitched voice. Always be subtle and discreet.

Physiology:

There’s a virtually endless list of things you can match in physiology. Mannerisms, gestures, posture, blinking rate, … these are just a few of the tools you can use. Once you realise that our physiology makes up around 55% of your communication you’ll probably want to be more conscious of it in yourself as well as in others.

I’ve spoken about matching the other person’s style of communication by carefully observing their words, tonality, and physiology but I want to highlight here that this is a subtle process – not a question of mimicry. You certainly wouldn’t copy everything they did – that would be uncomfortable and would break rapport. You are simply using it to open channels of communication and give your message a greater chance of being heard and considered.

In a sales situation, I might focus on one or two really subtle areas – and I would make sure that my matching tool place outside the other person’s awareness.

It’s one of those skills that is easy to learn, and that improves with time. In Confident Closing we spend one session on it, and many of our students find that they can implement it immediately – in NLP Practitioner Training we revisit it in more detail and the feedback is usually that they are doing it unconsciously most of the time, but that when people sense tension they can make a deliberate effort using matching and mirroring techniques. Generally, even the people who were concerned about the ‘manipulation’ aspect when we first discuss the techniques of building rapport come back to me and say that the thing it really helped them to do was become a better student of other people by listening and observing more carefully.

Meta Description: Rapport is sometimes called the glue that holds relationships together and makes them work. Building Rapport is a key skill for anyone in both their business or personal lives.

What is Goal Setting?

You Are Much More Than You Think You Are…

Defining Who and What You Aspire to be

You Are Much More Than You Think You Are!

Act as if...

#TuesdayTips

#TuesdayTips

#TuesdayTips

#TuesdayTips

#TuesdayTips

#TuesdayTips

Internal Representation Systems - A Powerful Tool

#TuesdayTips

Presenting a Customised Solution

#TuesdayTips

Why Do We Need Rapport?

How Can We Build Rapport Quickly and Easily?

Words:

Tonality:

Physiology:

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