Secrets of Hypnotic Influence and Persuasion Virtual Classroom Series

Welcome back to our secrets of hypnotic influence and persuasion virtual classroom. In the last class we talked about eliciting our clients CEO’s and I gave you the example of going and talking to people about the new cars that they had purchased. And diving back four levels deep, to understand what was it that really compelled them to move forward. What we are doing there, that is an example of diving in and really understanding the answers behind the answers.

One of the big mistakes that many sales people make is to have an existing frame of what is the correct answer is very certain set of problems better prospect comes to us with. For example a real estate agent may hear that somebody wants to have a small, comfortable house that is not going to require a lot of work to take care of. And they may instantly think to themselves townhouse or condo! Which may or may not be a hit for that particular prospect. A financial adviser might hear that somebody wants a higher rate of return than they can get from CDs or money market accounts but still with a high degree of safety. And might immediately be pulling a fixed annuity brochure out of their briefcase. And again that may or may not be a good fit.

Here is the thing but your experiment with the car buyers should have demonstrated very clearly for you. First of all, if you ask a dozen different people what are they looking for in cars? Unless they all happen two be driving the exact same make and model of cars. Odds are good you may have found 6 or 8 or 10 different presenting outcomes that they were looking for.

A presenting outcome would be something like

– safety, sportiness, fuel efficiency, performance, comfort.

But as you start to dive a little bit deeper, you quickly find out the way that people define each of those presenting outcomes can start to be very different. Six different people all, who want comfort, could easily have six different definitions of what it takes in order for a car to be comfortable. So if we ask that they are presenting outcome and then ask how they define it, and then take whatever definition that they give us and say, “What is important about those buzzwords to you?” We very quickly get to the point where we may have hundreds of different answers. And the problem is if we try to satisfy what they’re looking for when we only have their presenting outcome, it’s like only having one bullet in our gun. Once we have shot that, we have literally shot our load.

When we start talking about answering objections, you will see that getting to the answers behind the answers is also a crucial ingredient to being able to answer objections effectively. But from the point of view of hypnotic communication in the real goal of learning the answers behind the answers is being able to see the world through your client’s eyes. He able to hear the world through their ears is able to feel the world through their feelings. Once we are able to do this, we are at a much more heightened level of communication.

And we are at a much better place to be able to properly, elegantly and eloquently explain to them just how our particular offering is going to fit into the overall puzzle that they are looking to solve. It is also going to give us the most important building blocks that we are going to need to be able to construct a sales presentation that is absolutely irresistible in the only place that it really matters, the mind of your client and prospect!

So your homework from this particular virtual classroom is:

just to continue practicing getting the answers behind the answers. When people give you a presenting outcome or presenting objection or any buzzword that is a personal buzzword that they are using. Dive at couple of layers deep, you can say, “I hear that a lot but it’s interesting a lot of people define what safety (or whatever X) means to them. What does it mean to you?” Another way of phrasing that is, “blank means a lot of different things to a lot of different people. What does it mean to you?” Occasionally you will get an answer that catches you by surprise and just state the fact, “really! That kind of surprises me that, that is important to you. Why do you have that ranked so high?”

Genuine curiosity about what makes a person take is one of the most flattering things that you can offer them. Because you are offering them your undivided attention. And it is also an excellent way to deepen the level of rapport that you have with your client or prospect.