Selling Hypnotically- the Art of Suggestion

by Richard Barker

  5) Prayer:

  Though prayer is considered a religious ritual, it is actually “talk” with your subconscious mind. When you pray in a calm, quiet atmosphere with closed eyes and full concentration it is nothing but talking to or convincing your own subconscious mind.

  6) Hypnosis:

  The easiest and most powerful method to convince our subconscious minds is hypnosis. This occurs when we bring all levels of our mind (conscious and subconscious) together into alignment with our desires. It unlocks the tremendous power of our subconscious minds. Your subconscious mind power is responsible for all that happens to you. It is your ticket to unlimited riches and success in any area of life.

  Let us consider the example of stopping smoking. Let us say we have smoked since we were fifteen years old. It is pretty easy to make the decision to stop smoking at the conscious level. We can convince the conscious mind by saying it is a bad addiction and not good for our health, and it may cause severe diseases which may lead to death. So we make a rational, conscious decision to stop. Done deal, right? Our conscious mind has agreed 100% to quit this addiction. But the story never ends there; our resolve keeps on breaking and stalling; we get frustrated and delay stopping the habit day after day because it is too tough.

  The problem is that we have not yet convinced our subconscious mind that we really want to get rid of this addiction. So our subconscious mind carries out all of our habituated behaviors and does so automatically. It is not enough merely to say to our subconscious mind that we want to stop this bad habit, since for the last fifteen years we have conveyed the message to our subconscious that we enjoy smoking. It simply creates conflict between the conscious and subconscious minds. The subconscious mind is our emotional home and is not easily overruled by the rational conscious mind; therefore, we must bypass the conscious mind by using hypnosis.

  Chapter 7

  Rapport And Communication

  Despite its importance, building rapport has not received much attention in training and education in the arena of sales. It is among the best life skills you can possess and can make the difference between a fulfilled and an unfulfilled life. Rapport assists in winning the attention of your prospect or audience in order to deliver your message successfully. Influencing another person will definitely require good rapport.

  Persuasion is the ability to inspire others to accept the suggestion you give them, creating an action or sale. You must gain rapport and trust and make the other person feel at ease. You must have a supreme level of confidence, the absolute knowledge that the other person will say yes to your request. Have so much confidence and belief that it will become difficult to say “no.”

  The more confident you are, the more likely the other will think that you have a great deal for them. Learn to project a high level of confidence. Act as if you are unstoppable.

  My definition of rapport when selling hypnotically is the ability to get someone to trust you by making them feel secure. People tend to like people who similar to themselves, so get them talking and share commonalities as soon as you can. Create a level of mutual respect and common understanding; be on the same page.

  1. Matching and mirroring your listener’s behavior: You need to move in unison with the person to whom you are passing a suggestion. Maintaining harmony will help you sail smoothly in the conversation. This is achieved by mirroring and matching, behaviors that comes naturally when talking to someone we love but not so easy when talking to a prospect. This technique is important because not everyone who needs our services or products is likable to us. Assume their behavior styles in order to create rapport. Listen to your prospect with your body, giving them your complete presence and attention. You need to do the following in order to mirror and match successfully:

  i. Observe body gestures and postures – Look at the posture assumed by the other person as you talk. What is he or she doing with the hands and arms? Look at the leaning position; is it backward or forward? Make sure you match these gestures and postures.

  ii. Breathe in rhythm – Be keen to notice the breathing patterns of the person and match them too. This will help you become in sync with them.

  iii. Match the energy level – Your prospect may be exuberant, shy, extroverted or reserved. Go slow on a person who uses few words or demonstrates little expression. As a master hypnotic seller, though, you should generally have an upbeat, keen, enthusiastic presence.

  iv. Watch your tone – If your prospect is talking in a soft manner, you can build rapport by carefully listening to what he or she is saying. Pay attention regarding the pace at which they are talking.

  2. Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP) is a way of influencing the brain behavior of a person by using language and other communication to facilitate the “recoding” of their brain’s responses to stimuli. NLP usually includes self-hypnosis and hypnosis in general to help in the achievement of a desired change. You may be wondering how NLP creates rapport. Well, it is very useful in telling you whether the person you have met is the type you could do business with.

  NLP helps you to look for common signs that exist between you and your prospect in order to establish whether there is an opportunity to develop the rapport needed to kick off a successful conversation. NLP takes into account three basic concepts. First, the “neuro” aspect identifies the basic and most important notion that every person’s behavior begins from the neurological processes of hearing, tasting, feeling, smelling and seeing. In reality, people interact with the world through these fundamental senses. Secondly, they communicate their encounters in a verbal form through the use of language. Therefore, the “linguistic” aspect of NLP is about using language for the purposes of communicating thoughts. Thirdly, the “programming” aspect of NLP is the idea that people plan their actions and ideas for the purpose of producing results. Every individual also decides to organize each of these ideas in a particular way.

  Individuals think in various ways, corresponding to personal programming or systems of processing. Normally, human beings apply their senses in an outward manner in order to understand the world and also in an inward manner to re-present these experiences to themselves. For instance, if you can simply conform to the non-verbal tendency of a client through the use of language and their preferred system of representation (auditory, visual or kinesthetic), and by matching such things as the tone, volume and pace of speech, you can easily overcome their unwillingness to communicate. This is a way of establishing rapport for the realization of positive results in your engagement with them.

  Every thought contributes to a physical response in the body. Our brain is also split into two factors that are useful when building on rapport. The left side is logical—accessing a memory or past experience—and the right side is creative—creating something on the spot or something it has never seen before. When building rapport, check out the person’s eye movement to see if they are speaking from fact and experience or creating something on the spot. It takes more concentration to create something than to remember something. Smile with your eyes and learn to make more eye contact than prospect does.

  Learn to trust and be trustworthy. If you’re going to lie, why bother moving your mouth, since you’re going to say something that has no value anyway? If you’re going to lie and make the other person believe that you’re someone you’re not, you’ll never give them the opportunity to do business with you. Furthermore, if you aren’t going to believe someone else, why bother listening to them? Why bother even asking them a question if you think they’re going to lie? And when they tell you something, believe them. I mean, what choice do you really have? The truth sets you free. This will hold you in excellent stead in business.

  Realize that there are really only three kinds of people: people who say they don’t lie and do, people who admit they lie, and people who really belong in the first group. Everybody lies. Some people believe that they only tell little white lies. These people believe that their lies are little ones, and that th
e ones that other people tell are big lies. Everybody lies. Be quick to forgive people, and they’ll be more apt to tell you the truth.

  When someone else is talking, focus all of your attention on them. Be interested or honest enough to tell them if you can’t give them your full attention in the present moment.

  Create a win-win climate while building rapport. A great question to ask yourself continuously when you’re negotiating with another person is, can we find a way for both of us to get exactly what we want?

  Communication equals success in selling. The quality of your life is the quality of your communication, both with yourself and with the outside world.

  With communication and rapport building, you’ll always get back what you send out. If you’re having people tell you “no” too often, it’s because you’re asking questions or making requests that are fun to say “no” to. When you communicate to yourself things like, “I’m such a bad salesperson; I’m never going to make much money,” it’s no surprise your mind and your body are going to respond to this program in a way that makes you do what a loser does. In other words, what you communicate to yourself is what you get back.

  Effective communicators are willing to be responsible for both sides of the communication. They take responsibility for ensuring that they understand what the other person means, and that they are understood in return. They never take it for granted that someone has understood them, and they always double check that they have understood the other person. You’re not likely to hear an effective communicator say, “You just don’t understand me.” They realize it’s their responsibility to be understood.

  Everything you want that you don’t have, you get from other people. 95% of the population is led around by the other 5%, and the other 5% are allowed to lead because they have a vision. When you understand where you’re going, it’s easy to invite and inspire other people to come along. When you become very specific about where you’re going, it becomes extremely easy to motivate others to come on board.

  When negotiating with other people, it’s good to let them think you’re weak when you’re strong, and let them think you’re strong when you’re weak.

  People tend to like people that they are like, and people tend not to like people they are not like. That means we tend to be attracted to people who we have similarities to, and there is a certain amount of human resistance to people who are extremely different. The whole key to gaining rapport and persuading another person is to become like them—so much so that they want to talk to you because they feel they can relate to you. So the number one element in persuading another person is gaining rapport.

  One of the fastest ways to gain rapport is the process of mirroring and matching I explained at the beginning of the chapter. You take on the characteristics of another individual. We communicate primarily on three different levels: the words that we select, the tone that we use in delivering those words, and the way that we use our body or our physiology. Roughly 40% of your communication with another person is the words and tonality that you use, and roughly 60% is the physiology, or the way that you use your body.

  A great way to gain rapport with somebody is to get them talking about themselves and what’s important to them. Ask them questions about themselves and be a good listener. In addition to mirroring and matching them, it’s also important to find other things you might have in common. Do you both have large families? Did you both grow up in a specific place? Or do you both have similar interests outside of your work or the thing that you’re persuading them to do? Rapport is about finding commonality and finding ways to let them know that you’re just you and someone to be trusted.

  Chapter 8

  Suggestive Selling

  Marketing and selling involve a lot of communication and there are various tools available for use in the process. Among the most effective tools is the art of suggestion. Although it is at our disposal, we often make mistakes because we don’t know how to apply it properly in a sales context. “Suggestion” is a very powerful tool that requires a lot of skill to produce the desired effect. Information marketers and professional communicators need to perfectly understand how to “suggest” that customers buy products or adopt ideas directly.

  Most of the beliefs we hold come from the influence of our environment, both in the present day and from childhood. The decisions we make both consciously and subconsciously to a degree are influenced by our past experience or by the stories people tell us. We are also influenced heavily by our peers and society. The concept of human responsiveness to psychological suggestion has been studied for many years and many variables come into play, including socio-economical status and upbringing. People are highly receptive to suggestion when they trust the person delivering the suggestion. This could be a brand, group or person they trust and feel comfortable with.

  The psychological foundation of “suggestion” is merely a tendency in the nature of human beings to believe any statement that is said to them in a repetitive form while at a heightened level of suggestibility. It is true that if you tell enough people that something is true, eventually it becomes true. This works well on television and especially during the recent political debates. I watch as politicians suggest facts and ideas they believe to be true; if they say it enough, eventually the people watching will believe it to be true, too.

  Delivering suggestions is part of the game of selling. We can make subtle, hidden suggestions or absolute, loud, bold ones depending on the cycle of the sale we are in. We can give subliminal suggestions merely by use of body language. Some key suggestive methods can be:

  Non-verbal cues and gestures

  Verbal suggestions

  Physical reactions

  Use of a prop

  For example, I may merely point at a door indicating with a shift of my eyes and a gesture of the hand that you should actually go through it or open it. I make suggestions regularly during my stage shows that are completely non-verbal. Take a look at a mime act and see how they have mastered this art. Using the signals of your eyes or hands in conjunction with a verbal cue or prop could be enough to alert someone to a suggestion and subsequent action.

  In order for suggestions to be effective, your goal should be clear, and established before you start communicating directly. Think of your objective in terms of sales. A good salesperson knows what they expect from a client long before suggestions are made. They steer the conversation towards closing the deal only after following set principles and procedures. When you establish a clear outcome, you activate your subconscious mind to work towards it. Create a mental picture of your desired suggestion and subsequent outcome. After all, what tends to be visualized becomes actualized.

  There are two foundations of sales that directly correlate to your influence level during the interaction process of a sales cycle. One involves a high level of personal influence and the other involves a minimal amount. While both can lead to closing a deal, one depends heavily on you while the other depends heavily on external factors out of your control. The absolute most important part of any selling strategy is influencing your buyer, so if you want to influence someone to say “yes,” then you need to learn how to rely on yourself and grow and develop excellent sales skills and tactics from a deeper hypnotic standpoint.

  Knock on enough doors and eventually one will open.

  While eventually effective in principle, this foundation emphasizes a quantity-over-quality approach. This approach relies more heavily on timing and sheer luck. The salesperson relies less on their own capabilities and more on the moods and whims of the prospective buyers. The numbers game is very common online where marketers create funnels and attempt to pull as many people into the funnel as possible. If I have 100 emails in my sales funnel I can expect at least 3-5 sales without ever doing much more to persuade the buyers.

  If sales is similar to a big game of chess between a buyer and seller then the goal is always to have the upper hand. You always want to have a mental a
dvantage over your opponent. In order to truly influence someone you need to understand them.

  In order to influence someone you need to understand where they’re coming from. You need to understand their position and you need to focus on the word why.

  Why does the buyer want this item?

  What benefit does the buyer anticipate receiving from this item?

  What would happen to the buyer should they not receive this item?

  The last question is the most important one, and the root of your sales influence capabilities. Never forget that people are driven to purchase for a variety of reasons, and without that purchase they are not getting what they want. Forget price, forget all of the external factors playing into a purchase… Just focus on the customer’s inner desire to make a purchase. In order to influence someone, you need to understand what else is already influencing them.

  Qualify your targets immediately as “Quality Options.”

  Qualifying your targets immediately gives you much more control over the “influence” portion of a sales cycle. In order for you to influence someone, they need to feel a certain degree of trust towards you. They need to feel like they can depend on what you’re telling them. You’re going to need to use genuine personal skills during this process.

  People buy from someone that they trust. If you want to influence someone, you need to:

  Establish trust.

  Establish a connection. Build rapport with your prospective buyer. Whether this means small talk or sharing a bit of personal information about yourself, this stage is key for gaining the trust of your prospect.