OK welcome back if you read the first installment of this series.

Now I’ve had some rather interesting experiences when it comes to selling…

Let me tell you this, I’m a massive fan of indirect hypnosis and I firmly believe in its effectiveness in business contexts and really any context.

So in hypnosis there are certain principles that if followed will cause trance in virtually anybody, I will be touching on a couple in this segment.

I really like to put things I learn into action and whenever I stumble across something marvelous I’m quick to take it for a test drive.

One day after a weekend of learning new skills and processes, I approached what was my first potential sale for the day and I decided to implement a few of the principles I’d discovered…

So there I was chatting away with this woman doing all these things that I thought she would surely notice, yet she never did, and as the conversation continued she became more and more compliant, more and more… Trance-y.

It’s funny how once you learn a set of skills that really work, how they can completely change the way you function in life.

I don’t know if you’ve ever experienced something like that? You know, something where you just went ” WOW”, something that caused you to excel.

I was running really late one day (those that know me will be nodding right now) and I made a decision to speed. Now I ride a motorbike and it is a very fast one at that.

So I was running late for this really important dinner and everybody was sitting there just waiting for me, and I felt so stressed, I was thinking that everybody was going to be so mad.

You’ve had that before, running late so you decide to put the foot down. Now I was flying down the highway at some unfathomable speed when I notice these irksome flashing red and blue lights speeding up from behind me.

“OH NO” (polite version) is what I was thinking as the police officer pulled up beside me and signaled me to stop.

As I pulled over and took my helmet off, I thought I’d do something tricky, I thought that if I could use these skills in sales and coaching with such success then I surely must be able to get out of this ticket…

So what I will cover here now is how to gain hypnotic rapport with your clients and how to put somebody in the yes room and lock the door.

Why rapport?

1. Being in rapport causes clients to uncritically accept your information
2. People buy from people they like.
3. Mastering rapport will cause all areas of your life to improve.

What is rapport?

The NLP definition is:

Rapport is the process of matching and mirroring so that others uncritically accept your suggestions.

The hypnosis definition is:

That magical state where the client accepts suggestions given.

What does that mean?

It means that people like people like themselves and the more you seem to be like them the greater the connection will be. Now by connection I mean a sort of mutual trust, a feeling of ‘this person won’t do wrong by me’. It’s commonly known in sales that people buy from people they like and trust and they don’t buy from people they dislike and don’t trust.

The other common bit of knowledge is that you should mirror the client, and I want you to ask yourself “what does this actually mean?” Think about it, perhaps when you first started the told you that you need break the ice and get in rapport with the client, so mirror them and get in rapport.

Now did you ever actually get a step by step process for building incredible rapport? Well I’ll assume that the answer is likely no and that’s why I will point it out now.

Before I get on to how to create rapport I’d like to talk about two concepts.

Deep Rapport VS Wide Rapport:

What is deep rapport?

So imagine this lets say that there are two men that have just met, now they start to do what most people do when they first meet and they try and find common ground in order to build rapport on shared experience, so after a bit they find that they both love sports cars and they as most people do when they meet new people just latch on to the first thing they find in common. So here these two men are talking for hours about cars, car shows, best modifications, race tracks and so forth.

Well they have had a great conversation and got great rapport when it comes to talking about cars but what happens is, if you change the context of their interaction then it will most likely be full of awkward silences and a feeling of discomfort.

The reason is that they built deep rapport, rapport around one subject, it’s like for example say there’s a kid at school and he has a really cool math teacher and they get on really well in class, now imagine that they cross paths outside of school, perhaps at the shops where the boy is with his friends and the teacher is with his wife…

The interaction would be awkward and out of place because the rapport is only in the context of in class. That is what deep rapports is and now let’s examine wide rapport.

What is wide rapport?

OK so wide rapport is where you meet somebody and you find many similar interests and associations and build the rapport on all of them not just getting stuck on one.

I would also suggest that if you have clients coming to see you at your office that maybe you switch it up sometimes, this is because the rapport you build with them is contained to the context of your office.

Talk about as many things and meet in as different places as you can, build a relationship that spans across many contexts, this will cause a wide rapport and a greater connection between you and whoever you choose to communicate with.

How do you do it?

The process is extremely easy…

Match and mirroring:

Matching means copying the client’s exact movements, so if you raised your left hand then I would too. Mirroring is like looking in a mirror, so if you had your left foot forward then I would stand with my right foot forward. Also I need to point this out, do it after them – give it around 3 seconds after they have moved before you do.

1. Physiology:

You want to match their posture and gestures, if they make large hand movements, then do the same (not at the same time of course), if they sit straight on a sit, then do the same, if they slouch, you slouch, if they have their arms folded then fold your arms.

2. Tonality/Tempo/Pitch of Voice:

Listen to how the customer speaks, do they speak with a high voice or do they speak with a low voice, do they speak fast or slow, do they have a rich voice or a monotone. However they speak then gently match it, avoid imitating accents though because that’s a little too overt.

3. Predicates:

Listen to the words they use, do they speak with visual predicates like “looks, view, show, clear, see, imagine, picture this, etc” maybe they mainly use auditory predicates like “Listen, discuss, talk, tune in, zone out, sounds right, etc” or perhaps its kinesthetic predicates like “feelings, feel, touch, solid, concrete, warm, grasp, etc” pick up on it and use similar words because the words people use allows you to understand how they process information internally and will allow you to feed your message back in their ‘language’ with more chance of being accepted.

4. Breathing:

This is a really great way of building fantastic rapport and the good thing is that it’s totally outside of awareness. Notice their breathing rate and match it with yours. Next you want to lead your client, so stop matching them and instead shift your posture and notice if they follow you into the same position, if they do then you’re in rapport and they will be very compliant.

We are compliance professionals are we not?

OK here are the 4 indicators of rapport:

1. Feeling of warmth inside yourself.
2. Colour change in clients face after about 1 minute.
3. May say something like “I feel like I’ve known you for ages” (optional)
4. Leading – This means they follow your actions.

This is a very simple process to follow and the great thing is that the more you do it the more unconscious and natural it will become, for example; I do all of these behaviours without thought now because through the process of repetition – my unconscious mind has created a habit.

Would you like to know how to create Instant Hypnotic Rapport?

The premise of this technique is this:

Whatever thoughts we hold in our mind, the pictures, the sounds, the feelings, the self talk, these are all intimately connected to our state, whether it be a happy state or a motivated state and so forth, and that’s intimately coupled to our physiology. So at any moment the things we think affect the way we feel and how we hold ourselves (physiology).

Now the problem occurs when you hold negative images in your mind, you’ve all heard of assuming the sale right?

What happens when you do that is you set a frame in your mind that if you believe it enough is going to directly influence your verbal and non-verbal communication, and that is massive because you can sub-communicate one of two things; 1 – I’m not confident enough to make this sale, I just don’t think they will buy, or 2 – I am totally confident in the product I’m selling and I know that you will benefit from using my services, totally and completely.

Now we as people unconsciously pick up on these little things and it influences us massively, can you recall a time when you met somebody and just from the tone of their voice, the way they moved and held themselves, you could tell they just weren’t confident in what they were doing, and this caused the interaction to be awkward right?

Where was the rapport?

It was hard to get I’m guessing. So back on track, the reason I mentioned that was to illustrate how you can sub-communicate tiny messages that influence people greatly outside of their awareness, just by the thoughts you hold in your mind.

Gaining Instant Hypnotic Rapport:

OK, first off before you interact with a potential client, allow yourself to recall somebody that you are really close with, somebody that you feel totally comfortable with.

Next let that feeling, the comfort and happy feelings consume your body.

Next allow yourself to imagine that feeling spanning out and consuming your client.

What this will do is it will cause you to sub-communicate warm and comfortable feelings towards your client and they will automatically feel safe and happy. This is because their unconscious mind will notice how you walk, talk, the softness of your eyes, it will notice all these tiny messages that are saying “I like you and I’m totally comfortable being here with you”.

Just go out and do these rapport exercises and what you will notice is that they will become second nature, it will cause your sales to increase, it will cause you to get more referrals because you’re such a ‘nice person’, it will make your clients more comfortable and happy – and in sales, it’s all about the customer.

The Power of YES!

If you’ve done sales for awhile then you understand the importance of the word ‘YES’ yet I wonder, have you ever considered why it’s important? I like this analogy; Our minds if you will can be separated into two rooms or two parts, the yes room and the no room. Now when somebody is in the yes room and have the yes part of their brains activated, what will happen is they will be trying to find reasons to agree with whatever is going on, for example; Say you see a shirt, and its a nice shirt, but it a little too small and a lot too expensive. If the yes room is open, you will be trying to find reasons to get it, saying stuff like “Oh it’s such a nice shirt though, I could lose a little weight, it’s not that expensive”.

Now if you’re in the no room, if that no part of your mind is activated, then you will be trying to find reasons to disagree with whatever is going on, example of the shirt again; “Oh I don’t like the pattern, the fabric doesn’t feel right, I just have too many shirts already”. It’s very important in sales that you put the client into the yes room and LOCK THE DOOR!

How do you do that?

Lets have a look at a couple of techniques…

1. Statements of truth:

If you make a statement that is totally true, the client’s unconscious mind is going to agree with you. Most sales people think they need a verbal ‘YES’ but the truth is that putting somebody in the yes room can be a much more subtle thing.

Using truisms are fantastic and cause the clients critical factor to switch off. (critical factor is the part of the mind that analyses everything and checks its validity and decides whether to accept or reject information) For example when I was selling first aid kits door to door I would knock on the door and say something like “Hi, how are you today? Wow its a nice day today, the suns up, and its Friday, which means it’s the perfect time to relax”, so what happened then was I gave 3 undeniable truths – 1. It’s today 2. The suns up 3. It’s Friday, then I piggy backed a suggestion on top of it – “which means it’s the perfect time to relax”. See you don’t need to verbally agree because you always answer questions and verify statements even if you don’t consciously notice.

Try this; what’s 2+2= … And you answered it in your head, it’s impossible not to.

So make statements of truth regarding anything really, things that cant be argued, president Obama does this all the time, he says stuff like “I’m standing here today, talking to you, the whole world is in turmoil, we need change, and that’s why I will am going to be your next president” Think about that statement by Obama – Its one big yes set followed by the command “I will be your next president. So use statements of truth to your advantage because they will put the client in the yes room and look the door.

2. Piggy back suggestions:

OK now this is a cool and fun skill to use, so the more yes answers you get the more compliant a person become, the more times you state things that get an agreement, the more likely your suggestions will be accepted as truth. So here’s how it works; Say three or more statements that will get a yes and add your suggestion as the fourth.

How does it work?

Well the mind works like this, if I say three things that the conscious mind verifies as true, then it assumes that the following statement is more likely to be true. So the yes sets course the critical factor to become lazy and then you piggy back your suggestion on top of the yes set, it causes it to avoid the attention of the critical factor and be accepted.

Layer your piggy backed suggestions multiple times don’t just do it once, when I did door to door my language would be full of yes sets followed by the suggestion I thought was appropriate.

For example; “I’m talking to you now, you’re listening to me, and thinking about things, which means you understand how important having a fully stocked first aid kit is for the safety of your family”, “Look, you have kids, kids love to play, kids are great at making a mess, and kids are always hurting themselves right? That means you need the right kit, your kit for your house here (point at house)”, “You’re a parent, you’ve got children, and like any parent you love your children, that’s why you want the proper supplies now” (final statement as a command).

That’s how piggy back suggestions work, have fun with them because you will really be surprised how easy it is to add this to your normal speech patterns and it will serve you not just in your job but in all areas of life.

3. Law of compound effect/ the hypnotic triple:

This is very simple, the more you repeat certain ideas, the deeper and more real the suggestion becomes.

My entire pitch used to be a massive yes set with piggy backed suggestions. As an average, you want to repeat an idea a minimum of three times in order for it to have the desired effect.

There’s no point going “Mr Jones, you’ve come here today from where you were, you’ve come into my office and now we’re talking, that’s because you’ve been searching for the best (gesture covertly at self) for your business” that’s a great pattern but doing it just once will have minimal effect.

Your mind learns through repetition, nothing changes when it comes to accepting suggestions presented to it. This is by far not the entire arsenal of tricks, it’s enough to up your game to new levels though.

A very important thing to remember is that there’s no point learning all this stuff, sitting there reading it thinking “That’s a cool idea” and doing nothing about it, knowledge without action is pointless, (I wonder if that’s a compounded idea?)

Go out and use these skills, the more you do it, the more natural and automatic is will become and when that happens you will truly be a God of Sales.

Next chapter will be around Hypnotic language patterns for sales success and Intro to strategies.