Persuasion Selling NLP? Recommendations!

I would also recommend Richard Bandler's "Get the Life You Want"

That book has loads of value for all aspect's of your life. I'm sure selling could fit in there easily.

Peace,
Darren L Carter

Hi Keskillia, while I am not certain of the exact structure of the metaphor you are referring to, I can state with absolute certainty that the use of metaphors is extremely effective in selling. Why? Because they work just outside of the conscious awareness of the listener, bypassing resistance.

They also provide you with an excellent opportunity to incorporate embedded quotations, embedded commands, hypnotic language patterns, anchoring, elicit rapid state change and appeal to the buying patterns of the prospect.

The "ah ha" moment you seek will usually come when you dovetail ownership of the motorbike with the individual buying patterns, especially the values and criteria of your prospect.

In your situation, a really exquisite way to elicit buying patterns and criteria from a prospect (after you greet them) is to ask them: "What brings you in here today?" Their answer will usually be peppered with information that reveals where they are in the buying process, their preferred rep system, and their metaprogram "sorts."

But the real gems are revealed when you ask them the follow up question: "What brings you in here NOW?" This is the moment when they will reveal their immediate motivation to you. You can then elicit the criteria for ensuring that what is motivating them is met and present the ownership of the motorbike in such a way that it meets their criteria. Ah ha!

To those who sell on the phone, you can adopt this approach when receiving telephone inquiries and even when you receive call-backs from prospects. Example: "Hi John, wow, it seems like years since we last spoke, I've lefts lots of messages, what gets you to call me today? "Well, I just wanted to revisit your proposal." Sure, but why today? Why now? "To be honest Andy, we have to get this project done by the end of this month and we're running out of time..."

Can you find a way to adapt this approach so that you can use it in your business? BTW, I didn't invent this pattern, I think I heard it first from Kenrick Cleveland.

Back to metaphors:

When using metaphor to sell, there is almost always more taking place than meets the eye. However, there is a common misunderstanding regarding the use of metaphor in sales. That is that metaphors necessarily need to be complicated with lots of nested loops, etc.

This notion comes from the application of NLP in a therapeutic environment and nothing could be further from the truth when it comes to selling. Remember, selling is NOT therapy!

When a client comes to me for therapy. they are paying a lot of money listen to what I have to say. They are highly motivated to solve a problem or achieve a goal and so they listen intently to everything I say. They hang on to every word I utter with the full expectation that they will benefit from it.

But, like I said, therapy is not sales

In sales, especially in business to business sales, your stories will usually be shorter and to the point. Back in the day when I was first learning to sell door-to-door, I was taught the "feel, felt found" method of managing an objection. To this day, this method can be used as the basis to sell using metaphor.

For example, a prospect says "I want to shop around." The salesperson might respond with: "Sure. I appreciate how you feel. In fact, I was talking with Mr. Jones last week who felt the same way AND after I reminded him about our 30 day price match guarantee he found that he could get the best of both worlds. How? Well, he chose to decide to take the widget home now so he could enjoy it AND have the complete confidence and peace of mind of knowing that if he found it cheaper, he is covered by our price match guarantee. The very same guarantee that you get by shopping with us today."

A basic example, sure, but it reveals how simple a metaphor can be whilst being effective. Erickson himself used a similar process when he began a therapeutic metaphor with: "My friend John..."

A couple of great books on the topic of therapeutic metaphor are:

My Voice Will Go with You: The Teaching Tales of Milton H. Erickson by Sidney Rosen, ISBN: 0393301354. This is a great collection of metaphors Erickson used in his practice. Study the structure and replace characters/events/situations/lessons with your own.

Therapeutic Metaphors: Helping Others Through the Looking Glass by David Gordon, ISBN: 0916990044. This book will provide you with a college level course on metaphor. Highly recommended for serious students.

Good job on taking action and noticing what happens! Stay with it. As you do this more and more you will find that your mind wonders less and your results will speak for themselves. Excellent!

That is correct Loren. I must motivate them to become motivated to take action right now. They have to feel safe with the process and feel comfortable they are making a good decision. There is no way that any thought of 'buyers remorse' or the feeling of being conned should ever enter their mind.

My job is to sell enough bikes to keep the employer happy and earn a higher commission and to ensure the potential purchaser of each bike decides to buy it now and not browse forever or buy elsewhere after being motivated to buy.

It has been said that the profession called selling is the highest paid hard work and the lowest paid easy work. I don't agree because I have seen some sales people sell way above their quota 4 to 5 times higher and on the outside they look to be very calm and with a minimum amount of effort. I have also seen other sales people (myself included) put in huge hours and not have a lot to show for it. Andy H said he was able to double the effectiveness of sales reps in his doctorate dissertation project within seven weeks. I am sure those reps that doubled their sales did not work harder, they more than likely worked very easy with excellent skills new to them and that is why it took 7 weeks to build up the increase. They would have had a specific pattern and more or less replicated it with every prospect, fine tuning it to the individual.