They Laughed when I told them that I was going to add Covert Hypnosis to my Influence and Persuasion Tool Box…

…that is until they saw the results!

A Massive Wave of Change is moving through The World of Influence and Persuasion at the Speed of Light.  You are about to Learn about cutting edge skills, strategies, and tactics that will allow you to Ride the Wave to New Heights while your Competition gets Crushed by it

If you are in the business of persuading and influencing others this might be the most important letter that you have ever read.

Dear Persuader:

I have a few questions I would like you to consider:

• What percentage of most buying decisions is controlled consciously and what percentage of the decision is controlled unconsciously?

• At the moment your clients or prospects make a purchasing decision, do you believe that decision is emotional or logical?

• What are three things that you can do with the next prospect you meet to significantly increase the level of trust they feel in you, before you ever open your mouth?

• What is the one missing ingredient (according to a major think tank that studies the way affluent and ultra-affluent consumers make purchasing decisions) missing in 87% of sales presentations that don’t result in a sale?

• What mistake taught by 95% of sales trainers today about answering objections is “accidentally” causing your prospect or client to feel more certain and more resolved about the statement they just made?

If you are not sure about the answers to these questions (or worse, you don’t have a clue of what I am talking about) you have come to the right place and I am convinced it was not an accident.

By the way, I answer a few of these questions in this letter and I have prepared an audio program that looks at these in detail that you can access by clicking here.

My name is Bob Cobb and I have been a life long student of the science and art of persuasion. I have had an insatiable appetite for anything that would give me an edge. In 2003, I retired from my first career as a Financial Advisor for a company that is now part of Merrill Lynch (I turned 44 that year) and began building a sales training and coaching company to work with some of the highest paid sales people on the planet. My first 8 clients were financial advisors who were my former coworkers who knew I could give them an edge. You can read some on their rave reviews (and many other coaching clients I have worked with since then) on this page.

I am telling you all of this, not to impress you, but to impress upon you, that I am not just another lame-brained, know-nothing huckster that has thrown up a website and is out selling products. I run real businesses, working with real people, delivering real results. You can check out my other businesses at www.BIPA.org and www.AdvisorBusinessInstitute.com you will only be able to access a little bit of that content (unless you want to become a subscriber to those sites, which if you are a financial advisor, you should).

Fifteen years ago, I discovered an amazing secret that has forever changed the way I teach sales people to communicate with their prospects:

• It deepens relationships

• It eliminates resistance

• It virtually removes objections from the process (and gives you an effortless way to reframe the core beliefs that are at the heart of the objection

• It increases the client’s sense of urgency making them move forward with the purchasing decision without you having to chase them for weeks or drop your prices to a point that the transaction isn’t all that profitable any more

• It speeds the trust and rapport process making it lightning fast

• It allows you to clearly understand exactly what is most important and why…and how they internally determine when this criteria is being met

• It allows you to deliver unique presentations on the fly that are both memorable and custom made for each prospect, so that you are hitting on their critical hot buttons with the strongest parts of your offering

• The result? You are able to create presentations that are irresistible in the only place they really matter…the mind of your client and prospect.

This is actually the Enigma Machine (the code breaking tool that won World War II for the Allies) for dealing with your clients and prospects.

At this point, you might be wondering, what is this secret weapon

and how do I learn more about it?

The secret weapon is a style of Conversational Hypnotic Influence and Persuasion that allows you to more easily and effortlessly communicate directly with your prospects’ entire mind (consciously and unconsciously).

Over the past several decades, hypnosis has been coming out of the closet after having been around for hundreds of years, Anton Mesmer (from where we get the phrase Mesmerism and Mesmerized) had a successful hypnotherapy practice in Paris in 1777.

In fact, it was so successful the Medical Doctors of the day banded together and convinced the king that it must be something evil and it doesn’t work (perhaps your conscious mind wonders how it can actually be both) because they couldn’t get the same good results.

The real problem was that Mesmer’s results were so powerful the doctors were losing all their patients, making their businesses suffer.

Please don’t tell me that you want to hypnotize my clients

Well, I am certainly not suggesting that you go out and buy a pendulum or a pocket watch, yet there are many skills that you can learn to significantly increase the effectiveness of communication. While many people are nervous about the idea of controlling other peoples’ minds (well, they are probably excited about that, but nervous thinking that other people might control their mind), you can quickly realize that trance is a very natural phenomenon. In fact, you are in and out of trance hundreds of times a day.

• Almost every time we get on an elevator we go into trance.

• Have you ever been reading a book and realized you have no clue of what you just read for the last 3 pages?

• Ever been driving to work, and before you know it, you find yourself at the office, literally with no memory of the trip that you just made, driving a lethal weapon, in heavy traffic, surrounded by people sending text messages and sipping lattes.

Teach a 16 year old how to do drive and it will clearly demonstrate how dangerous it is, but for you…No Problem, just turn it over to your unconscious mind as you easily and effortlessly slip into your driving trance.

So let’s talk about the conscious/unconscious balance

It has crept into our vernacular lately. If you ask someone that really had a good day, how did things go? They might likely respond, “It was beautiful, I was unconscious.” This means of course it was effortless and automatic.

The fact of the matter is most of life is actually this way.

Think about this, how many people do you know that would like to lose weight? Hundreds, right? Since the New York Times has been keeping a Non-fiction Bestseller list, I doubt there have been very many weeks without at least one diet book on the list. Tons of new diets come out every year, and they all work. Yet people still struggle with their weight.

Every year I take the first three weeks off from working out in the gym to which I belong. During that time a bunch of overweight people make a new commitment, buy a complete set of shiny new workout gear, go the gym for a few weeks, then thankfully break their New Year’s Resolution to make this the year they get in shape (Actually, last year I am told that most were done by the 10th, I am kind of a fan of the ones that break them New Year’s Day, cross that off your list and move on, but I digress).

A guy, who is big in the Infomercial Business, tells me that the most important feature of exercise equipment sold on TV is that it must collapse to fit completely under the bed. Why is this important? You want it out of sight and out of mind during the time that it can be returned for a full refund.

Consciously these folks are making decisions and unconsciously they are unmaking the decisions…what’s going on here and why should you care?

Here is what the latest research tells us about what is going on in your prospect’s head when they buy!

There are two parts of the brain involved in any new decision. The Behavioral Activation System and the Behavioral Inhibition System. You can think of these two parts of the brain as the accelerator and the brakes. BAS says go for it. BIS says, “Wait, is this the right thing?”

Think of them this way. You are dieting. You have been really good. The pounds are coming off. You are sitting at your desk and here comes the office social director. “Susan made some incredible fudge and brought some into the office, I saved you a piece. Would you like it with a fresh coffee?”

If you don’t like fudge it is an easy decision…but if you do “Not so Much”

You can think of the BAS/BIS balance as the encourager/discourager sitting on your shoulder like they show in the movies and cartoons. Represented here as E and D:

E: Dude, you so deserve that fudge. You have been an amazing rock. This will be a Positive Mental Attitude reward for everything that you have done!

D: Don’t fall for that. Do you recognize that represents 455 calories or 2 ½ hours on the elliptical machine?

E: Here’s the thing, if you don’t create some rewards for yourself along the way, this is going to seem like drudgery. Even Weight Watchers suggests a free day.

D: This is a choice and choices have consequences. E is weak but you don’t have to be. You have been good for 14 days; at 21 you have built a new habit. Be strong.

E: OMG, is he trying to help you live longer or just make it seem that way? If you don’t stop and smell the roses this whole process becomes stressful. Stress leads to heart disease…do you want to be the thinnest person in the graveyard?

D: Resist, be strong, you are better than this!

E: You know you want it, no one will no that you have taken it…go ahead you deserve it!

If you go back and look at the dialogue (or significantly more importantly, develop the ears to hear the ones going on in your head and in the minds of your clients, prospects, family, friends, kids, boss, employees, heck everyone that you come into contact with on a daily basis!!), you will notice that the BIS (the brakes) are mostly logical and are mostly things taking place in the conscious mind. The BAS (the accelerator) are mostly emotional, tend to be unconscious and are really habitual, integrated activities taking place outside the conscious mind.

So here is the answer to the first question that I asked you…

(aren’t quizzes so much more fun when you get the answers?)

What percentage of most buying decisions is being controlled consciously and what percentage of the decision is being controlled by the unconscious mind?

Of course, you can say that both minds are involved. Yet, since the unconscious mind is the realm of the emotional brain, and most buying decisions at the “go” point are emotional, you can say that most buying decisions are ruled by the unconscious.

In fact, if you look at the decisions to buy the exercise equipment or the new diet book that we talked about earlier; those are completely unconscious. To make them happen, the persuader had to access the emotional mind. They had to fire off some key emotional unconscious triggers, otherwise most of the buyers would logically conclude they are not going to use the machine and therefore eliminate the expense.

So the question then becomes, do you want to make a sale or begin a relationship?

The two outcomes and the paths that you follow to get there are very different. This is not only one of the most important questions that you should be asking yourself, this is also why Financial Advisors as a group are among the highest paid persuaders on the planet. For the most part, the good ones realize closing the sale doesn’t end the prospecting process…it begins the client process. The difference is not subtle; it is, in fact, the catalyst for a quantum leap.

Let me give you an example. Several years ago, a friend started prospecting me for property and casualty insurance business (automobile and homeowners). This guy is a highly trained, great salesman. He is persistent and enthusiastic. He can answer every objection. He doesn’t take “no” for an answer. He is resilient. He knows his product. If you go find the best selling book on sales from the 1970s and 1980s, this guy is the personification of all the virtues extolled in that book. What he never realized is that times have changed and those things don’t really work any more.

His problem was that he was just looking to make a sale (which he did) and not begin a relationship (which, not surprisingly, he did not).

Think about the next time that you sit across the desk from a prospect, will you be more concerned about making the sale or opening the relationship?

Rewind for a second and think about the exercise equipment. The infomercial can hit some general emotional triggers and get people to pick up the phone and make a purchase, but can they change behavior? If you buy one piece of exercise equipment (which on some level you know you need) but fold it up, slide it under the bed and keep eating ice cream, what are you likely to do when the next commercial comes on?

If you don’t recognize that there is no more space under the bed for an unused piece of exercise equipment, odds are good your spouse will point it out.

This is the difference between making a sale (a very shallow and easy to obtain outcome) and developing a relationship (also easy yet significantly more strategic).

Back to our Property and Causality guy, he used every tool in his belt to make the sale happen. Including making some promises that I don’t think he really knew whether or not he would be able to keep. He memorized the scripts that the firm had created for the “calling former friends and work associates” campaign. He executed the strategy in accordance with the manual. He got the results that most people get. I am no longer a client, we are no longer friends (and worse for him, I am using him as an example of what not to do in building your professional sales career (although, I never have and never would reveal his name or his firm).

Herein lays the problem with a lot of the training that is still taught and is generally available. It was designed years ago and is no longer effective. In fact, today much of the stuff that has been taught for eons has the exact opposite effect that it used to, just think of the last time a car salesperson asked you, “what would I have to do for you to drive this car home today?”

Does that bring you closer to, further away? Or simply have no effect? If I am selling cars, I am only interested in one of those three outcomes and the one that I care about is not the one that is happening most of the time.

What is the difference between getting the sale and beginning the relationship?

The difference is the same thing that affects everyone that buys that diet book and doesn’t crack the binding.

It is the same thing that affects every well-meaning weekend warrior that never straps on the running shoes other than to go to Starbucks for a cinnamon bun and a Spiced Pumpkin Latte.

It is the same thing that affects every businessman and persuader that attends a seminar, or visits a webpage, or reads something they know intuitively or intellectually will make a difference.

The unconscious triggers were fired off but the unconscious mind never engaged.

It is the difference between tapping into an Emotional Trigger (ET) and aligning with a Compelling Emotional Outcome (CEO). You might be wondering, what’s the difference?

It is the difference between a cherished treasure handed down from one generation to the next and what ends up on the bargain table at the next community yard sale.

• It is the difference between impulse and drive.

• It is the difference between a quick sale and a relationship that will last a lifetime.

• It is the difference between Tom Brady and every other quarterback drafted in the last several years that you can’t even remember what team they played on.

• It is the difference between being valued advisor or consultant and being a peddler or product pusher.

• It is the difference between spending years on the couch of a traditional Freudian Psychoanalyst and a Hypnotherapist that actually gets results that stick.

It is the difference between what you have learned and what you are about to learn… It is the difference between learning from someone that only reads books and studies theories and someone that is on the field of play. Someone that is not discussing theories from a classroom but comparing notes with a colleague that is living life on the field of battle every day.

Most importantly, if you made it this far, you already know all of this is true. Perhaps you are glad that someone is confirming what you have been feeling for a long time, and my guess is you are a lot more interested in solving the problem that you are in talking about it. You are a person of action. Me too…in fact, this whole website is a community of people that “get it”. This also means that part of your brain is wondering what you should do next.

We have created an audio that is our gift to you. It talks about the Quantum Change that is happening right now that is changing the way that we communicate on a very fundamental level.

I can tell you since you have stayed with me this long…this audio will answer many of the questions that have been gnawing at you.

If you are in the business of persuading and influencing others this might be the most important lesson that you ever learn.

In fact, here is just a little of what we cover on the audio

Learn Why:

October 13, 1994 was without a doubt one of the most significant days of your life, yet most people don’t have any idea why…

June 23rd, 2003 should have been one of the biggest wake up calls that you ever received, but most people missed it…

Why some of the tried and true methods that used to work are actually repelling your prospects and clients…

Learn the three things that happen anytime you try to persuade and why only one will actually help you…

The Most Important Question You Can Ask…

Learn the most important question you can ask before you ever engage in persuasion…

There is a massive wave of change under way, and if you are in the business of persuading and influencing others you will very quickly have to make a choice, you can choose to ride the wave, or you can choose to just stand there and get crushed by it.

In the Catalyst Audio Program we will unveil for you exactly what is driving this change. You will see that there is a fundamental shift occurring in the way that Clients and Prospects interact with Advisors, Consultants, Sales People and Entrepreneurs.

You will understand why many persuaders are not even aware that it is happening… even though it is completely obvious when you see the world from a slightly different perspective.

Perhaps The Most Amazing Aspect

Perhaps the most amazing thing will be – like a magic trick revealed – you’ll be stunned that you didn’t notice it, even though it has been there for a very long time.

• It won’t be a study that talks about how things have changed that will convince you (although we do reference some recent studies).

• It won’t be what others tell you about this that will make the difference (although we quote many recognized outside experts).

• It won’t be a common sense metaphor that makes you recognize as an undeniable truth (although there are several metaphors to help make these common sense ideas even clearer).

What Is Going To Change

What is going to change is the way that you look at the world of persuasion. It will change every interaction that you have with a client from this day forward. When they act in the role of a prospect (as in when you go buy something) it is plain to see right before your very eyes.

In fact, when you consider how you act as a prospect or consumer, you will see that this force is virtually irresistible.

Yet, just as when you watch your kids grow little by little they change imperceptibly, so slow, and because you are so close to the action, you barely notice that it is happening. Others (grandparents, aunts, uncles) who don’t see them everyday are stunned by the change.

Take a short journey with Catalyst as we reveal:

• The Quantum Change that is underway now

• How it will affect your sales and persuasion communication from this point forward

• And what you should do about it

Catalyst Free Audio Program

Catalyst is presented as a free audio program that you can download or listen to online. All you need to do is fill in the form below and we’ll get the program to you right away.