Hi Persuader,

You've probably noticed by now the newly focused path of MAXpersuasion. We've had this new focus for months now and we're seeing enormous changes in our clients and their feedback has been nothing but praise for this new focus.

The message isn't changing, it's simply evolving. Persuasion is a vast field of study and we will continue to explore all of persuasion, only now we're focusing with laser-like precision on the defined goal of selling to the affluent and activating within ourselves affluent mindsets.

When we define our goals, our targets, our specific & particular paths - we set our intention.

In recent weeks and months, we have set out to define affluence. The dictionary's definition is not expansive enough for our purposes because of how individualized our perspectives are, but it's a good place to start.

Affluence: 1. A plentiful supply of material goods; wealth. 2. A great quantity; an abundance. 3. A flowing to or toward point.

So affluence is a 'great quantity' in relation to what? A 'plentiful supply' compared to what? Compared to our own perspective? Or compared to what our neighbor has? Or compared to what we expected we might have?

When we get down to it, affluence is a combination of these three factors:

1. net worth

2. cash flow

3. disposable income

Of course that's going to vary wildly from audience to audience so we have to define affluence for ourselves.

For you, what you consider affluent today - if you raised your own level of wealth in any or all of those three areas - you might not find affluence tomorrow.

So the goal is to constantly raise your own game, constantly raise your own level of being affluent yourself because that way you're constantly progressing.

If you're an advisor and today you have people that have a million dollar net worth... Well, maybe a year from now you're selling people that have a million dollars in cash that they can put into your program.

Three years from then you're selling people that have $20 million net worth and two or three or four million dollars that they can put into whatever you're suggesting. That's the degree of change that these skills will make for you.

This is all about the evolution of your business, your personal development, and the development of your ability to provide wealth for yourself and your family in any situation you find yourself in.

This is the power of persuasion.

For myself, when I was first starting out, my clients were college kids who could barely afford to pay attention, let alone pay for my courses.

I grew, and honed my skills and realized my value. I adjusted my relationship to affluence accordingly and began attracting you, my current clients, who are worth a considerable amount. It's a different ball game and it's entirely related to how much I feel I'm worth.

Similarly, the evolution of your own wealth is related to how much you feel you are worth. I can vouch for that.

Here's an exercise for you:

Examine your relationship with affluence. Chart out an affluence map from the perspective of you 15 years ago, 10 years ago, 5 years ago, and prior to enrolling in MAXpersuasion.

Once that's mapped out, look at that piece of paper and see past the edge of the sheet to the vast territory of your future. Our affluence mindsets are about to jump off the charts.

Until Next Time,

Kenrick E. Cleveland

Hi Persuader,

Under the heading of 'human nature' comes lying. Humans lie. Period. Big lies, small lies, lies to spare feelings, lies to spare trouble.

Part of deconstructing human nature so that we can slip into the skin of our prospects and clients is understanding this plain and simple fact of life and detecting when it’s happening to us.

Learning to detect the truth is an enjoyable pursuit that can open doors where they were previously closed. Unfortunately, you may regret that the door has been opened.

This is why I'm going to reveal to you in this article one of the reasons why I will not allow prosecuting attorneys or police officers or detectives or law enforcement of any kind into my trainings.

On one hand, knowing that a person is telling you the truth could be very reassuring. On the other, it’s scary to know exactly how much lying goes on.

This was once the province of police detectives and murder mysteries. The information, in the hands of someone who knows how to use it, can help choose the more honorable person to hire, detect trouble in the family early on, sort out an office dispute or give you a leg up if you find yourself in the wrong end of an interview.

Expert interrogators use these types of tactics to determine whether a suspect is telling the truth or not. You can see examples of it on television all the time—Law & Order, NYPD Blue—and in literature from Sherlock Holmes to John Grisham.

A highly trained person with these skills is a formidable opponent even if they do not have persuasion abilities. And what I can tell you right now is the following:

You’re about to learn one of the reasons why I will not allow prosecuting attorneys or police officers or detectives or law enforcement of any kind into my trainings.

Because this is such powerful information and can really be used to manipulate if put in the wrong hands, I’m only able to give a glimpse into these skills in this article and will only go into this in more depth in my seminars and on Elite Coaching Club calls.

Here’s an exercise that can be used to ascertain whether a person is lying...

Step one: Sit across from a partner to practice.

Step two: Ask him/her three questions that you know will be “yes” answers. Then ask three questions that you know will be “no” answers. Observe their behavior.

Step three: Then ask questions you don’t know the answer to. Instruct your partner not to tell you the answers.

Since they will not reply, you’ll need to read their nonverbal responses. Once you’ve done a few and noted what you think their answers will be, ask them to confirm or deny them.

To take this a step further, have your partner answer you verbally and you can use their nonverbal responses to determine whether they’re telling the truth or not.

Step four: Switch roles after and have them try this with you.

How could this be used with clients and prospects? How about the old line, ‘I can’t afford it right now.’ Is it true? False?

How could the knowledge that they absolutely can afford it help you to push past the resistance and make the sale, despite their feeble objection?

Until Next Time,

Kenrick E. Cleveland

Hi Persuader,

Language, like persuasion, is an art. It’s an art that can be mangled, yes. (Check out a previous post, Knowing When To Keep Your Mouth Shut).

And as with any art, (unless you’re a prodigy as Mozart was with music, as H.P. Lovecraft was with poetry, as Pablo Picasso was with painting), most likely you will have to practice to be good at the art of language, and subsequently the art of persuasion.

As we gear ourselves toward persuading the affluent, using language and speaking powerfully will serve us well.

It’s likely that the more you read, the bigger your vocabulary (unless you’re only reading, say, People Magazine or one very precise genre with limited language specific to that type). One of the most valuable things you can do to increase your vocabulary is read.

Having a huge vocabulary doesn’t mean that you’re going to be a great speaker. The art of oratory is an entirely different beast.

First you have the fear of public speaking to get over (if you’re inflicted with this, the most common of fears) and then of course you have to have something to say.

And once you get over the fear of speaking and have something to say of importance or interest, then there’s the next obstacle. . . the delivery.

My transcriptionist tells me I say ‘In other words’ a lot. I believe I do this for two reasons.

One is that I’m always trying to deliver information in as many ways as I can so that I am able to gain the understanding of as many people as possible.

The second reason. . .I don’t use the word ‘um’ and I think ‘in other words’ is taking the place of ‘um’ in my language patterns.

There’s a great new book out called Um. . . Slips, Stumbles and Verbal Blunders and What They Mean by Michael Erard. One of the most interesting things I’ve read so far in ‘Um. . .’ is that this is a universal. All languages have their own version of ‘um’ (in Spain it’s ‘eh’, in France ‘euh’) and the use of this filler has been around since at least as far back as the Ancient Egyptians and Greeks.

It’s only been since the twentieth century that ‘um. . .’ has become unpopular with academics and teachers, most likely coinciding with television and radio.

‘Um. . .’ (the book) starts out with the transcriptionists of the Federal News Service (FNS). They’re the ones that do the closed captions for the hearing impaired.

The style guidelines of the FNS state that all of the ‘umms’ and ‘uhs’ and ‘ahs’ and ‘ers’ are left out, false starts of one or two words are left out, and partial words are left out. The one exception is: policymakers. . .everything a policymaker says is typed out verbatim.

I couldn’t help myself. I skipped ahead and read the chapter on George W. Bush. And while it’s not as funny as ‘Bushisms’ it is quite an interesting take on perception and how people view him as a result of his “disfluencies”.

Some consider George W. ‘down home’ and ‘one of the people’ with his speech patterns and gaffes making him more accessible and affable. While others consider his blunders to be an indication of his ‘lack of preparedness’ and/or intelligence and a dangerous indication of a ‘disconnect with reality’.

Either way, whichever side you’re on, some of his more memorable malapropisms are really amusing.

My suggestion this week: pay attention to the way you talk. See how many ums, uhs, false starts, stumbles, gaffes and blunders you make verbally.

And pay attention to the way other people talk. Is there a secretary in your office who uses ‘like’ every other word, or an associate who constantly stumbles? How do you perceive them?

Language is a critical part of persuasion and the ums, uhs, and other fillers 'say something' to your prospect when you verbalize them. Keep that in mind when you are persuading the affluent.

Until Next Time,

Kenrick E. Cleveland

Hi Persuader,

We are born explorers, empty vessels, curious and fascinated by the world around us. It is human nature. Once our basic needs (physiological needs, safety needs, our need for love, belonging, and esteem) are satisfied - we come to the need of self-actualization.

Learning. Curiosity. Creativity. Knowledge.

My bet is, if you're in my Elite Coaching Club or exploring persuasion through the Persuasion Factor, you've got most of your base needs met and you're working on this higher level where you constantly hunger for more. You desire to stretch and expand your intellectual boundaries and I'm here to tell you, you're in exactly the right place.

Persuasion is about much more than selling something and when you understand what I tell you next, you will find the good things in life - all you ever wanted - just fall into your lap.

If we're living right, we're using persuasion in all facets of life. We parent using persuasion. We build relationships using persuasion. We deal with setbacks using persuasion (possibly by reframing the 'setback' as a 'challenge').

We engage in the world using these tools to open doors, to free ourselves of previous limitations, to take control of our lives.

We are explorers of this exclusive body of knowledge; persuasion pioneers, if you will.

If you're already involved with me, you know exactly what I'm talking about. But if you're new to this world, it's difficult to explain the feeling you will get, the power surge you'll experience when your confidence level skyrockets and the opportunities in life that once seemed unattainable will begin to fall in your lap.

Scientists know all about DNA now. It's all mapped out. They understand its strains.

What does it tell us? It tells us that we are very, very predictable organisms. For my taste, it makes things a bit too predictable, too mathematical. All of us - our lives, drives, inner selves, dreams, even how successful we'll be - can be mapped out.

I don't particularly like the thought of that, personally, because I always thought I was more complex than that. But even that need of mine - the need to feel different, or special, or whatever it is - can be mapped out.

As persuasion pioneers, this information is invaluable. The predictability of human nature is absolute gold. It's the key to selling anything to anybody, anytime.

If we understand in terms of sales that the affluent, for example, have different triggers than others, (perhaps because of their heightened ability to acquire), then once we get their criteria we can combine it with predictable patterns of the affluent.

Then we can combine that with our agenda (product, service, etc.), resulting in an alchemy of persuasion that is almost impossible to resist.

Once I turned my attention to studying persuasion instead of just sales training, I discovered constantly unfolding insights everyday. These insights have been instrumental in helping me to find my life's purpose and to feel in control of my life instead of feeling like I'm just being swept along the river of life. You can have this enlightened feeling too.

It is my absolute joy and pleasure in life to lead this exploration into sometimes charted, sometimes uncharted, territory. Together we will map out the persuasion universe.

Until Next Time,

Kenrick E. Cleveland

Hi Persuader,

Wow! I understand stage fright, but I don't understand this... Odds are, if you're much of an internet surfer, you've seen this clip already:

http://youtube.com/watch?v=WALIARHHLII

It's a clip of Laura Caitlin Upton, the Miss Teen America contestant from South Carolina, giving her answer to a question about education and geography: "Recent polls have shown that a fifth of Americans can't locate the U.S. on a world map. Why do you think this is?"

Seeing it written out word for word is almost scarier:

"I personally believe that U.S. Americans are unable to do so because, uh, some people out there in our nation don't have maps. And I believe that our education, like, such as in South Africa and the Iraq, everywhere, like such as, and I believe that they should, our education over here in the U.S. should help the U.S. or should help South Africa and should help the Iraq and the Asian countries so we will be able to build up our future for our children."

Maybe she got left behind, if you know what I mean.

This story is a few weeks old, but I just thought the clip with the subtitles was hilarious and when I saw it, it made me (of course) want to relate it back to persuasion and sales. This comes under the title of "Why talking too much loses the sale".

We're not all on stage in front of thousands or hundreds of people and so, in all fairness, don't understand the pressure the girl was under. On the other hand, there are fifty states (I think, I'll have to send Laura an e-mail to verify this) and I don't see video clips all over the internet and television of the other forty-nine contestants blathering on nonsensically.

When we persuade, (as Ms. Upton was trying to do with the judges - persuade them to choose her above the others), it is not about filling the air with words. It is about aiming our messages straight at what the client or prospect needs.

Regardless of whether or not her physicality was pleasing enough to win is really the issue in this case and the fact that she came in third is truly an indication that this was not a brains contest, but a beauty contest. She appeared poised, at least. I'll say that for her. Also, she's not hard to look at, just hard to listen to.

Without proper training, you may be perceived as a bumbling idiot. If we take a lesson from Ms. Upton's "answer" to the question, it should be this:

Sometimes less is better. If we don't have answers, we need to keep our traps shut unless we are blessed with the gift of gab and can fake it until we come up with something passable, at the very, very least.

Until Next Time,

Kenrick E. Cleveland

"The real 'haves' are they who can acquire freedom, self-confidence, and even riches without depriving others of them. They acquire all of these by developing and applying their potentialities. On the other hand, the real 'have nots' are they who cannot have aught except by depriving others of it. They can feel free only by diminishing the freedom of others, self-confident by spreading fear and dependence among others, and rich by making others poor." - Eric Hoffer

Hi Persuader,

I love affluence. I love abundance. I love money. I love the energy of wealth. I love the influx and flow and supply and power of affluence.

How does it make you feel to read that?

Maybe you'd say, "Who doesn't love money? Everyone loves money."

But maybe my love of abundance and affluence makes you feel uncomfortable?

Perhaps you were taught that "it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God" (Matthew 19:24). And maybe you think loving wealth is greedy or that money is "dirty".

Plenty of people have complicated relationships with money, issues of "deserveability" if you will, and conflicting desires as they relate to wealth accumulation and affluence.

Americans have a love-hate relationship with the richness of our culture. We revel in our position of prosperity and at the same time, some feel incredible guilt at the images the media shows us of the less fortunate.

It's complex.

But if you're in my coaching group or looking to get involved with MAXpersuasion, your relationship to money is probably pretty much in the flow.

What we're doing is immersing ourselves in the energy of money.

By loving something you're going to bring more of it to you.

The universe hates a vacuum. What we want to do is literally expand our universes by creating vacuums in our lives in relation to money and wealth so that the universe can fill these vacuums with more of what we want and need.

Here's the deal with money:

Money is its own energy and it's a very specific, precise energy and you have to learn to get into the flow of money or else it will control you. I work all the time to stay in alignment with that and to make it even more prevalent in my life.

Keep in mind realistic goals as to what's going to happen. You'll begin to find ways and means of increasing your income, of money being more steady and/or bigger amounts when it comes. Generally, you'll be in the flow of money.

A good way to think of money is like an ocean. There's more of it than you can possibly ever take for yourself.

You could never take all the water in the ocean. Like the water in the ocean, there's no shortage of money; there's only a shortage in your ability to carry it home. And that's not a shortage either. You just have to learn how to do it.

If you go cup your hands and you fill them full of water and you try to get home with it.. well, by the time you get to the car most of it will be gone. You'll be lucky to end up with a drop or two when you get home.

If you put it in a barrel, maybe the barrel won't fit and you'll have to leave it behind. But if you've got bottles and you've bottled it up and you put the bottles in the trunk and filled your trunk with it, well you'd probably get it all home.

That's how much wealth there is. And all you have to do is create a specific strategy to extract what you want. And you can grow or diminish it at will. But if you don't do it at will, it's going to do it to you. It's going to tell you how much you can have and how much you need and what you can do. It's going to be in control of you all of the time.

In my opinion, we need to understand once and for all that we are in control of our destiny and we can manifest whatever we want. I hope this article helps you to do that. If you need more help, I can help you in organizing your thoughts about money and extracting from your mind the necessary energy you need to control your life.

It's a simple process and at the same time is so profound in what it can accomplish for you. It can literally change your life. If you think this is something that will help you, check out Persuasion Factor as this system is contained within that program.

I hope this information helps you. Please leave your comments and let me know.

Until Next Time,

Kenrick E. Cleveland

"The aim of marketing is to know and understand the customer so well the product or service fits him and sells itself." - Peter F. Drucker

Hi Persuader,

What is a pitch?

It's an attempt at a logical series of steps, to arrive at an outcome.

What is a script?

See: pitch. Same thing.

Two ways scripts/pitches can be useful - number one, a script can be useful to learn something new. Number two, it can be used to persuade the writer of that script, because that's who it's really designed to influence.

Otherwise, both are useless.

Now here's the alternative route that you will find a zillion times easier, more effective, and more efficient...

The ultimate alternative to scripts and pitches: Persuasion.

What is persuasion?

Persuasion is understanding the customer so well that the product or service fits him/her and sells itself. It's rapport, and it's giving someone exactly what they want.

What do you want the most? I'm going to give it to you. If you perceive that I'm going to give you what you want, and it is exactly what you want, and it makes you feel really good, and you are really excited about it, are you going to buy it?

Yes.

It's like stepping into you, and giving yourself the idea that this is what you want to do, and so since it came from you, you say "yes, of course, I want to do it".

Sometimes, pitches are useful to give you an overall series of points that you might want to cover, and so for that reason you might just want to make a list of things you want to touch on.

For example, if your prospect is going to sign an agreement, they need to know what's in the agreement, they need to know what they're agreeing to, so there are a few points that maybe you need to make sure to bring up.

And (now, here's where persuasion comes in) you're always going to bring those points up in light of what?

Your prospect's CRITERIA. Their highest values. What they want.

We use criteria elicitation so that we can marry their criteria to our product. That's our sole intention in life. If your criteria equals my product, are you going to own it?

Yes.

If I want a relationship with you and I equal every single desire you have, are you going to have a relationship with me?

Yes.

If what you want in life-- desires and goals--are identical to mine, are we going to be best friends? Are we going to really understand each other?

You bet.

Our job is to marry the person's values with our product/service, (or with ourselves, if that's what you're selling - and to some extent you are always selling yourself).

That's exactly what we're trying do. We do it with intention, rapport, intention, criteria, intention, marriage, bringing it all together.

Everything you say, everything you do, everything you are about when you're with that person is putting your stuff into their criteria, making them see how their criteria is exactly what you have, you are the only place where they can get that criteria met. That's it, that's all there is to this.

If you were using a pitch before reading this, fine. But now that you have even the tiniest most basic understanding of persuasion given this context, it's time to ditch the pitch.

Tell us about your successes in ditching the pitch! Post a comment to this post. And while you're at it, make sure you know exactly how to elicit your prospect's criteria.

If you don't know about criteria elicitation, or even if you think you know, you need to check out Persuasion Factor and become the very best at eliciting your prospect's criteria.

Until Next Time,

Kenrick E. Cleveland

Hi Persuader,

I had a flash of something as I watched Michael Vick apologize and it's the idea of redemption.

Vick says he takes full responsibility for his actions, which included killing pit bulls that didn't perform well and a dog fighting conspiracy charge. He apologized to the NFL and to the Atlanta Falcons and said he would redeem himself.

Then the owner of the team started discussing the situation and said basically the following:

"I can't stand in front of you today and tell you that Michael Vick will no longer be with our team. I don't think that would be in the best interest of our team, and certainly there are legal contracts and monetary situations that have to be dealt with. I believe that Michael needs to pay his debt to society. However, I am also a believer in redemption."

So is redemption a possibility? Can he truly redeem himself?

I got to thinking about the word redemption because when I heard that, the thought began to echo in my mind.

A huge part of persuasion is learning how to persuade ourselves. And in persuading ourselves, we begin the process of (and hopefully get to) the very core of forgiveness - forgiveness for ourselves and for anyone else who has really upset or hurt us.

Forgiveness is selfish. It's the right thing to do, but it will also free you up, free up your life. And that is ultimately in your self interest.

Beyond forgiveness is redemption.

How did redemption, redeem and redeeming, become popular in our lexicon? And how is it that human beings can focus on something like redemption?

It became clear to me that the human condition is one of constantly making corrections. Some of us take longer to learn from our mistakes than others, but we as persuaders who are hopefully tuning in to human nature and our own natures should begin to realize that as we have our ups and downs, we can absolutely lock on to what is working for us and abandon what is not.

From the time we are little children learning to walk, we start falling. As we fall forward we learn to catch ourselves by moving a leg forward. In fact, we get so good at it that we no longer consider it falling, we consider it walking. But if you think about it, you're really purposefully putting yourself into a position of needing to do something or landing on the floor.

We're redeeming our fall. We're redeeming ourselves and continuing our direction by putting out our foot into the direction that we want to go and thus keeping ourselves upright.

The human condition is one of constant correction.

Some believe this goes much deeper than an ongoing correction, clear to the root of spirituality. For Christians, we're born into a life of sin and it's only through the grace of God that we are able to have salvation.

Salvation and redemption are closely linked.

Let's apply this to persuading the affluent. We - the affluent, all of us - have as a root of our psychology the need to redeem ourselves and to allow others to be redeemed.

What does this all presuppose?

In order to have redemption, must there not first be a judgment of right or wrong? I believe there does.

So the word redemption presupposes a judgment. First and foremost, something went wrong. Then there was a judgment that it went wrong, and then a desire not to repeat it and to move forward.

So as the timeline progresses, the word redemption moves from a judgment to an action that allows us to repair what went wrong and caused the judgment of wrong to be applied.

The best part, and in this Michael Vick is very lucky, is that wherever there's redemption, there's opportunity. He may not have the same opportunities he had before, but there's certainly an opportunity for growth, a chance to excel and create a new paradigm. And wherever there is a new paradigm on the inside, there will truly be a shift of experience on the outside.

It's incredibly interesting and educational for us as persuaders to examine these current events, scandals, and the like to see just how much persuasion is involved in everyday life.

What are your thoughts about the Michael Vick story? What about other stories in the media? I enjoy hearing from you and I value the exchange of ideas on this blog. So, post your thoughts here, and remember to rate this article by clicking on the stars at the top below the title.

Until Next Time,

Kenrick E. Cleveland

Hi Persuader,

As you may have noticed, in the recent posts ("Linguistical Pitfalls") I told you there were EIGHT dangerous words that you should avoid in your persuasion situations. Then I proceeded to give you just four of those eight. (By the way, there really are eight, and I'll be writing about the other four in the very near future.)

Now, I did this to demonstrate a very clever point with you that you'll have great success with in your persuasion...

The point is to teach you a strategy called "Temporal Pattern Loops".

We're going to create loops in the mind of the listener. This is a favorite pattern of mine (as you now know, since I just used it on you Wednesday morning).

There are three really powerful things you need to know in order to understand how to use loops:

Number one, people need to have closure.

They can't stand to have balls up in the air. They need to have the balls land. They need closure, a yes or a no.

An example in sales of the prospect keeping an open loop with the sales person is that dreaded phrase, "I'll need to think it over."

You want to either end it or don't end it. Either say yes, or say no, but don't tell me you want to think about it.

Number two, when they don't get closure, their response potential is increased.

That's all you'll ever need to know about loops.

But wait a minute... didn't I say there were three things?

I did. I told you that there are three powerful things you need to know in order to understand loops and I only gave you two. Isn't that frustrating?

People need closure. And when they don't get it, their response potential is increased.

What's the third thing? Let me ask you, how much do you want to know what number three is? Do you really want to know?

Sorry. There is no number three. There are only two things you need to know about loops.

Why would I do that? Same reason I only gave you four of the eight most dangerous words in persuasion. Because by leaving a loop open, by purposefully leaving the third blank, I increased your response potential and piqued your interest.

Don't close all the loops. In fact, leave most of them open. Use loops all the time.

Think about something you know really well. Just as an example, let's say you're pretty sure you know all there is to know about the Civil War. Say you're a real history buff and there's nothing you don't know about that period of time in that section of the world.

What if someone was teaching a class about the Civil War and there was some new information? Well, how could there be? You know everything. All your loops regarding the Civil War are closed.

You can use loops when you want to increase response potential because if you leave a loop open, it makes people want to sit forward and try to figure out what it was that you didn't tell them.

In other words, they're missing something. Like when I wrote, "There are three powerful things you need to know to do these loop patterns" and I told you two of the three. For many of you, you just had to know, "Well, what's the third one?"

Now, if you were just skimming and weren't paying attention, it may not have had that effect on your conscious mind, but it did have it on your other-than-conscious mind.

When you open loops and don't close them, people begin to believe that they don't know all there is to know about the subject. And if people know all there is to know, they go away and don't come back. After all, there's no apparent reason for them to stay.

Until Next Time,

Kenrick E. Cleveland

Hi,

You'll notice under the title of each article a line of stars.

If you hover your mouse over the stars you can click to rate the article.

When you read an article, I'd love to have you rate it. It's quick and easy. And, you can also post comments about the article.

I want to hear from you. Tell me your thoughts, post comments and rate the articles. Go ahead and give it a shot and try it now.