By Dr. donald j. Moine
Back in 1981, Personal Selling Power became the first
business magazine in America to feature full length articles on the new science
of Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP) applied to sales and marketing. Many
people at that time said NLP was a fad and that it would soon be forgotten.
However, NLP has gone on to become one of the most popular new approaches in
the world to enhanced performance, and is being used in one form or another by
most modern sales and management training programs.
What many students of NLP do not know is that many of the
most powerful Neuro-Linguistic Programming techniques were actually derived
from the field of indirect or conversational hypnosis. This form of hypnosis
has nothing to do with tricking anyone or putting them to sleep. It is simply a
fascinating "mesmerizing" way of speaking. Conversational hypnosis
has the following three characteristics: 1. It grabs the listener's attention;
2. It focuses the listener's attention; 3. It greatly increases suggestibility.
These are three skills that are obviously important for any
salesperson to develop. While NLP uses some of the techniques of conversational
hypnosis, there are many more that still remain to be discovered. If you are
one of the first to master these techniques and strategies, you'll gain a major
competitive edge.
Conversational hypnosis is completely ethical. It is what
sales superstars have been doing for years, but they have not known how to
explain it or teach it to others. Here are ten of the most powerful hypnotic
sales techniques you can immediately put to use to increase your sales
effectiveness and your income.
One: Master Self-Hypnosis
Sales is a stressful profession and even the greatest
salespeople get a lot of rejection. When times are tough and sales are few and
far between, negative thinking and pessimism abound. Negative thoughts
("our prices are too high... we're in a recession") that are repeated
over and over become hypnotic and can drain your energy. The good news is that
if you learn self-hypnosis, you can easily replace negative self-destructive
thoughts with positive thoughts. I have telephone clients all over the United
States who buy an hour of my time each week. Many of my clients have
experienced dramatic increases in sales and significant reductions in their
level of stress by learning self-hypnosis.
Two: Sell Them On Their Dreams
Find out your prospect's innermost dreams and desires, and
piggyback whatever you are selling on those dreams. When people talk about
their dreams, they are going into an imaginary future world. They are leaving
the mundane here-and-now and are entering a hypnotic state. You don't have to
induce hypnosis when people talk about their dreams -- you only have to make
use of the hypnotic state they are already in.
Encourage people to talk about their dreams. If you show
them that they can achieve their dreams and their ideal state (or part of it)
through buying your product or service -- they are likely to buy it! This is a
technique used extensively by Tony Robbins, Charles Givens and almost every
other supersalesperson in the world today. Remember, people cannot resist their
own dreams.
Three: Paint Vivid Word Pictures
Much of hypnosis is based on mental imagery, which is essentially
vivid word pictures. If you go to see a clinical hypnotist, he might have you
imagine you are floating down a river on a warm afternoon, or that you are
sitting on a beach in Hawaii, or floating in the clouds. Such imagery gets
people to leave the present moment and present concerns and it frees up the
human imagination. It activates the creative, emotional part of the mind and
quiets down the critical part of your prospect. Our research on sales
superstars shows that they use much more imagery than do average salespeople.
Don't be afraid to use mental picture after picture after picture in your sales
presentation. To do so is positively mesmerizing and gives you a true
competitive edge.
Four: Learn The Instant Replay Technique
If you are selling cars, find out how your prospect bought
his last car. If you are selling houses, find out how he bought his last home.
Ask questions and listen to learn every mental step he or she went through, the
order of those mental steps, and who else was consulted during the
decision-making process. When people talk about how they have done things in
the past, they get mesmerized by their own stories. And, since we are all
creatures of habit, we are very likely to buy today in the same way we have
bought in the past. Sell him a suit today in the same way he bought his last
suit and the only way he can resist you is to resist himself. Most people find
it nearly impossible to resist their own thinking and their own values. He
won't know (continued on page 2)
why, but he will find it fascinating (and mesmerizing) to
buy from you. Your customer will find that the whole process is almost
effortless since it fits in so perfectly with the way he likes to buy.
Five: Use Hypnotic Affirmations
We all talk to ourselves all the time. Scientific research
has shown that many people talk to themselves at the rate of up to 500 words
per minute! Since you are going to be talking to yourself, why not say
something positive? Many of the old-fashioned approaches to positive thinking
neglected the all-important role of affirmations in self-programming.
What is your attitude towards selling? Whether you are aware
of it or not, you are talking to yourself every day about what selling means to
you. Are you saying, "Selling is a drag?" or "How did I get into
this field?"
I've taught many of the clients in my private practice to
use hypnotic affirmations to squeeze out almost all negative thoughts. Repeat
these affirmations 1,000 times over the next two weeks: "I love to
sell." "Selling is easy for me." "I love to meet new people."
"I represent a great company and a great line of products." The
constant use of these and other affirmations creates a positive mental state
and self-confidence that no competitor can shake.
Six: Utilize The Power of Repetition
Much of hypnosis is based on the power of repetition,
whether it is the repetitive swinging of a shiny gold watch or the repetitious
use of a word such as "sleep" or "relax." Sales superstars
are not afraid to repeat themselves, especially if they are making an important
point or a new point. To keep what you are saying fascinating, each time you
repeat it, say it a little differently. Use your hypnotic repetitive statement,
then talk about something else, then use the hypnotic repetitive statement,
then talk about something else, then use the hypnotic repetitive statement
again. I supported myself through ten years of university studies by working as
a salesman and I developed certain phrases which I repeated hypnotically to set
new sales records. Here is just one example: "You will love this
product." "You will absolutely love this." "You will
completely fall in love with this." "You will love this
forever."
In advertising sales, they say that nothing sells like
repetition. In selling radio ad spots, for example, you never sell one or two
advertisements. No one ever buys a product after hearing about it in one radio
ad. Instead, you sell a company a set of 50 or 75 radio spots. Why is
repetition so important? Most people are terrible listeners. They miss much of
what you are saying, and within one hour they forget about 80 percent of the
little bit they did hear. If you don't use hypnotic repetition, you take the
risk that your client or prospect might not hear some of your most important
messages. Remember that hypnotic repetition works powerfully with both factual
and emotional messages.
Seven: Tell Hypnotic Stories
Some of the most powerful hypnotic techniques of all are
story and metaphor techniques. When people listen to a story, they tend to let
down their guard and become less critical. They "go see a movie" in
their mind. When you tell a hypnotic story, they think you "aren't
selling," yet you might be making the most powerful sales points in your
entire presentation. The subject of sales metaphors and sales stories is too
complex to cover in depth here. You can learn the most powerful sales stories
by reading Unlimited Selling Power by Donald Moine and Ken Lloyd
(Prentice-Hall, 1990). As a starting point, collect, write down and practice
the most effective sales stories that are told by the sales champions in your
company or industry. Simply mastering these stories could increase your sales
by 20 percent or even more.
Eight: Use Hypnotic Sales Scripts
Hypnotic scripts are organized collections of words that are
unforgettable: Here are just a few hypnotic scripts we are all familiar with:
"To be or not to be..." "Four score and seven years ago..."
"Ask not what your country can do for you..." The problem with many
salespeople is that they speak in a way that is boring and banal. It is no
wonder that they can't get appointments and that customers avoid them. Other
salespeople have a way of speaking that sparkles and is fascinating and
mesmerizing. The salespeople who mesmerize use powerful collections of words
(scripts) that are impossible to ignore.
I've recently done over 30 talk radio shows in cities all
across the United States. The reason I have been featured on more talk radio
shows in America than any other sales trainer is that I have figured out a way
of talking about selling that absolutely mesmerizes talk show hosts and big
audiences. I have scripts of powerful word combinations that I use that
positively open up people's minds to the world of selling. I use other proven
scripts when I give sales training seminars across the (continued on page 3)
United States, Canada and Australia.
Objections are predictable. You should be able to predict
every objection that a prospect might raise to buying your product or service.
Most important, you should have dozens of mesmerizing, heart-stopping,
mind-blowing scripts to use to totally take the power out of these predictable
objections. Hypnotic sales scripts are the best guaranteed way to eliminate
objections and successfully close sales.
Nine: Build Trust
All of the research on trust points to the fact that we
trust and like people who are like we are. The most rapid way of building trust
is through the use of pacing techniques, which are matching or mirroring
techniques. When you become like the other person by pacing him, you minimize
and dissolve differences. When you are like the customer, the only way the
customer cannot like you is by not liking himself -- which for most people is
difficult to do.
To build trust and rapport rapidly and to send the
subliminal message, "I am like you are," pace and mirror the following:
speech rate and speech volume, body language, moods and emotions, and opinions
and beliefs.
When you completely pace someone, the effect is positively
hypnotic. You can get to the place where you can almost predict what they will
say next, and that gives you tremendous power and self-confidence in selling.
Ten: Use Intraverbal Suggestions
Intraverbal suggestions come from intonations and voice
inflections. When a hypnotist uses the word "sleep," he usually
pronounces it in a soft deep voice and extends it out into
"sssllleeeeeeppp." The special intonations and voice inflections he
uses give the word extra power. In the same way, we have found that top sales
professionals turn certain words into action commands by changing their
intonations: "Think of how haaapyyy your wife will be when you give her
this new sports car!"
In this example, a long resonant intonation on the word
"happy" triggers strong positive feelings in the customer. He has an
immediate positive experience of his wife's happiness. If the salesman just
said the same words quickly and matter-of-factly, they would have little
effect. It is the intraverbal suggestion that gives them all their power. Your
voice inflection can actually trigger happiness in the listener in the instant
he hears such a suggestion!
I encourage clients in my private practice to bring in or
mail in tapes of their sales presentations or telemarketing calls. We then
identify key words that can be made more powerful through the use of
intraverbal suggestion. Finally, we practice using different forms of
intraverbal suggestion until we find absolutely the most powerful combination
of intonation and inflection.
I am often able to significantly increase a salesperson's
closing ratio simply by adding the proper form of intraverbal suggestion to the
words he or she is already using.
These ten techniques of hypnotic selling have helped
individuals and companies sell billions of dollars worth of products and
services. If you use them and practice them, they will work for you. The art
and science of hypnotic or mesmerizing selling, while little known today, will
soon become as well known as NLP in selling. If you are one of the first to
master these powerful persuasion techniques, you'll have a significant edge
over your competitors and you will be able to successfully close more sales
with less effort.
