Hi Persuader,

A number of years ago, several of Milton Erickson's students decided to play
a trick on the master.

They knew that he had legendary powers of observation but they wanted to
know....

Just how good was he.

Erickson taught his week long seminars in his home.  All around the room
were little artifacts and souvenirs.

Along the back wall, out of the obvious line of sight, one of the students
took a small statue of an owl and lay it down on its side.

When Erickson was wheeled into class, he promptly began the class and
explain his theories through stories and inductions.

Hours later, his wife came in to wheel him out of the room.  The class was
disappointed. Erickson hadn't noticed.

Mrs. Erickson had nearly wheeled Erickson out of the room when Erickson put
up his hand to stop her.

You know that thing that you were concerned about?

Well, I don't give a hoot about it.

Erickson had known all along and turned the tables on the students.

Can you imagine how effective Erickson was as a persuader?

He could literally read the minds of the people in the room.

When you know what your clients are thinking, guess what happens to your
closing rate.

It soars.

So please check out http://www.unconsciouspersuasion.com

And let your sales soar.

Talk with you soon,

Kenrick Cleveland

Hi Persuader,

One of the first things I teach to new students is the process of eliciting criteria. This is a simple process, but not necessarily easy. I am of the opinion that the greatest truths in life are the simple ones, are the clear ones, the ones that make the most amount of sense.

If you haven't yet elevated the elicitation and utilization of criteria to one of the greatest truths in life, you soon will. For me, this ranks right up there with the law of gravity, the law of averages and the law of attraction.

Something came to me this week as I was creating a new lesson plan for my Elite Coaching Club. There was a change that happened in my life years ago that I've identified rather strongly now. I used to sell using SAD -- the standard American diet of poor sales. I used simply regurgitate features and benefits, cross my fingers, and pray that the person wanted to buy what I was selling.

Then came the big shift: I began using criteria and everything changed. I didn't have to cross my fingers anymore because I was selling, selling like crazy, selling like gravity, selling like averages, selling like magnetic attraction.

If you're in sales, odds are you were taught this SAD way of sales. Think back to when you first started this. Do you recall times when your prospect would identify with something that you were saying and they would say, 'Yes! I want what you have to offer.'

Do you recall the elation that you would feel? I hit on something they want!! I think we're going to have a deal here!!

This didn't happen as often as I wanted because this was before I understood the power of criteria and I would just get elated. I would think, I really figured it out this time.

The problem was that the elatedness I felt was transient because I didn't figure it out, I lucked into it.

The fact is that we had successes in the past, but they didn't happen with the regularity that we really wanted. So we began the process of working on developing ourselves. And if you're involved with me, then the process of criteria elicitation has changed the way you sell.

There's an assuredness that came over me which is something I wish for you too.

It's a shift, an emotional difference was one of having the tools and the ability, and it's a foregone conclusion that I would use them to the benefit of my clients and myself, to really ensure that I could do something to help them.

So to that end, I want you to begin to take on that emotional quality as you start to use the tools of criteria. It's a foregone conclusion that you know how and will use these tools to help your client and you come to an understanding of what can be done. And as you do that, you're setting in motion profound levels of rapport and belief in the mind of that client that will easily get them to give you all of the information you need to rapidly secure their criteria, and more importantly even, their high values.

Until Next Time,

Kenrick E. Cleveland

Hi Persuader,

There's an English idiom that goes, "The devil is in the details." I'm sure you've all heard it. It implies that the small things in plans or schemes are often the things that take the most time in the long term. Well, in criteria elicitation, we need to dig a little deeper than just the surface act and get a little dirty with the details.

Criteria is the cornerstone of all sales. It is, to use a sports metaphor, like getting the ball down the alley each and every time. When we further define the criteria, it's a strike dead on every time.
Here's how definitions work.

In my career I've done a lot of trainings and students come to see me for a myriad of reasons. For example, two people come into a training. Both of them, when you ask them their criteria, say that what's being taught in the training is important.

If you ask them, "Is this important to you? Do you really want to learn this?" Both of them will say yes.

Yet each one has different criteria when you elicit it.

When you ask the first person they say they're there because they want to learn new skills. And so your follow up question is to ask what that means and they say that they want to see a list of skills and they want to participate in exercises using the skills so they can learn them.

The second person when you ask them what's important about what's being taught in the training, they say, it's to be recognized. That's a completely different criteria. When you ask what that means, they might say, they want to have the class participants recognize their skill and they want to be recognized by the instructor as skilled.

Both people willing to come to the training, both people willing to pay for the training, both people are in that training but in reality, if you think about it, you've really got two radically different subsections.

For any of you that have taught in front of a group, you'll know what I'm talking about here. In any group you're teaching, there will be a section of people that probably know your material and maybe reasonably well, or at least think they do. There will be a group of people that are star struck, thinking, wow, I'm really in the presence of a master.

Then there will be the majority of the people that are interested in really wanting to gain knowledge and see if there is something of value to them in what you're saying.

But it's important that you begin to understand that every time you think you know what someone wants, unless you ask, you don't. You're not on target. You're not on track. And until you both elicit the criteria and elicit the meaning, the definition, you're missing the boat.

Knowing criteria is a good start. If you want to bowl strike after strike, the key is to learn how to define their criteria.

Until Next Time,

Kenrick E. Cleveland

"Human subtlety will never devise an invention more beautiful, more simple, or more direct than does Nature, because in her inventions, nothing is lacking and nothing is superfluous."
--Leonardo da Vinci

Hi Persuader,

As a young man, I believed in raw ambition, brute force, and getting my way no matter what. I felt like in order to persuade, I had to really work hard, I had to conquer, I had to dominate. Well, thankfully, blessedly, we are not young forever. And we have the potential to mature, to learn, and to ripen.

I now understand that I don't have to be 'in domination' but 'in dominion'. My power doesn't rely on someone else being disempowered, but it relies on my inner sense of power, an assuredness that can only be obtained by being in dominion.

We've all tilted at windmills in our own ways, battling imaginary enemies in fights that are unwinnable (many times that enemy we are battling is ourselves). Why do we do this? Well, because we've got certain frames set in place that we either grew up with or which were engrained in us through schooling or society that say, 'work is hard' and 'achievement only comes through struggle'. Nothing could be farther from the truth.

For years I didn't get that 'struggling with my weight' was keeping me stuck. The languaging was setting up a brick wall. Even the term 'losing' weight is a metaphorical minefield if you think about it. Who likes to lose? Loss is something we strive to avoid.

What happens when we're in dominion is that we release the struggle and live in the now. There is absolutely nothing more powerful than being present. My mind isn't racing ahead thinking, 'I have to have my way' or 'I've just got to make this sale' or 'I can't wait for my date on Saturday night'. . . instead, you're experiencing exactly the moment, whatever that might be. And if that moment is about you selling your product or service to a potential prospect, the best way that moment can be used is in stopping, listening, eliciting, and getting to know exactly what it is that this prospect wants and needs on the deepest level.

It requires intention, attention, and patience. You might not 'get it' right away. You might struggle with your future thoughts sneaking back in or get stuck on thinking of times when you didn't make the sale. Let these thoughts come and go, take a deep breath, and then consciously focus again on exactly what the person you are persuading is telling you.

I will tell you that my life has changed incredibly for the better since I made the conscious decision to be present. Letting go of the struggle to control all possible outcomes and force things has allowed me an inner peace that is indescribable and something I highly recommend. It's the very essence of elegant self persuasion.

Until Next Time,

Kenrick E. Cleveland

"It is your work in life that is the ultimate seduction." -- Pablo Picasso

Hi Persuader,

Sometimes in persuasion, the thing to do is to get provocative. I'm not talking about being inappropriate or crass, I'm not talking about being overtly sexual, but I am suggesting that you access the core drives a little, those primal drives that link each and every one of us as human animals, and specifically I'm thinking of the drive to reproduce.

Seduction need not be limited to the realm of mating or luring someone away from accepted principles or proper conduct. Being seductive in all aspects of your life is really a very deeply persuasive attribute. Being seductive is to win over and attract, enticing someone into our desired mindset or position.

Someone once told me that they flirt with everyone -- men, women, all ages, all nationalities, all shapes and sizes, all the time. This struck me as deeply odd until I realized they were not flirting in the sense that they were looking to 'hook up' (as the kids put it) but to charm. Once I reframed it in my mind, I realized that this is a great way to be in the world. How fascinating it is to allow everyone you come into contact with the deeply charming version of you which is usually reserved for attractive person you're trying to "get closer to", so to speak.

Here's another way to view this: it's rapport with a twist.

Now, this isn't for everyone. For example, for women, this can be a rather messy can of worms if not done with very clear boundaries. Men are highly susceptible to being flirted with or being charmed and the best bet is to be extremely obvious that this is how you interact with everyone, not just them.

Everyone loves to be given special attention and this form of rapport and criteria elicitation incites that very delightful feeling of being given that special attention.

Here's another way to access this powerful motivator. Insert into your conversation words of a titillating variety. This is a roundabout way of stimulating these drives that will give sometimes vague, sometimes intense triggers of that core drive.

Phew. . . sorry about that. I was just giving an example and got a little carried away, but now you get the idea.

Don't go too off the charts with this one or people might think you're creepy, but there is great benefit in turning on the lights and bringing these things out into the open to expose how they can turn us into better persuaders.

So while I may not exactly admit to being a flirt, I will say that I do enjoy the process of charming as a way to persuade and, in general, a way to make people feel good.

Until Next Time,

Kenrick E. Cleveland

Hi Persuader,

Try this: I'm sure you'll get it real quick but because you're all such good folks out there, I want you to spell the word 'folk' three times. Do it right now in your mind. Spell the word 'folk' three times as fast as you can.

Now what do you call the white part of an egg?

Did you say yolk? Really?

Are you asking your prospects the right questions to get to their deepest values and criteria? When we elicit criteria, if we're doing it right, our prospects don't understand what they are really giving us.

So how can we make the most of each question we ask? An extremely important thing to remember is that the questions cause the answer. What does that mean? It means that as we learn to better ask the question, we're going to be a lot better at making persuasion happen.

If I were to look at you as a brand new client, and you've never bought anything from me before and let's say I'm an advisor and I'm there to help you with wealth planning throughout your generations and I say, "Would you just tell me the two or three things that you need to hear me say today to make you buy? Just tell me so that we can get this part out of the way. Go ahead. I'm listening."

What would happen? That's right. Nothing. They'd probably either tell you to leave or they'd get up and walk out. Yet magically, when we elicit their criteria, they gladly give that very same information to us.

Why? Well, to an extent, it's disguised.

Your prospect does not understand what they're giving you when you ask this way. They don't get it. Once in a blue moon you'll find someone giving you resistance to this, but it doesn't happen often.

Even if they did understand what they were giving us, it is socially correct and absolutely acceptable to find out what they need prior to recommending a product or service. Doctors don't just prescribe medicine prior to finding out about your history, finding out if you have allergies or without finding out why you're there to see them. Neither do consultants, lawyers, or sales people. We simply cannot give people any recommendation if we don't know what they want or need.

Here's the point and this is important: we're setting people's minds up so that we can enter them and we can get them to do what we want them to do. We can set them going along a direction that when we interrupt that direction, we can cause them to immediately, as if it was always so, go along with what we're saying. (What's the white part of an egg called?)

When I ask you 'what's important about X?' or 'if I were a magician and I had a magic wand and I could wave it and get you anything in business you want, what would it be?' I'm listening very intently for where you have the strongest emotional reaction to one of the words that you're saying.

We're opening the people's minds. We're opening them to their own desires, to their own things.

Until Next Time,

Kenrick E. Cleveland

Hi Persuader,

You know what's overrated? Rationality. I know, I know, it's important to have your feet firmly planted on the ground in order to grow roots, in order to have a foundation, a base from which to work. But in business the idea of rationality has become supreme and I think we've lost something in the transition from 'mom and pop' business to faceless corporations that is an integral part of selling our products or services, especially when dealing with an affluent clientele.

Our viability as people who sell, is intrinsically linked to our client's and prospect's emotions and their other-than-conscious minds. In past posts/articles, I've gotten very detailed about 'how' to access these emotions (i.e. eliciting their criteria, creating rapport), and I'd like to discuss here more the 'why' of the process.

Our emotions drive us. Core emotions and our DNA are what make us take action. We are primitive beings ruled by the same things our ancient ancestors were ruled by. They didn't have to contend with a bombardment of products or services vying for their business. They worried about the very basics: food, shelter, sex, fight or flight and had no concept of choice, luxury or affluence.

When we interact with a prospect, this should be a thought we hold foremost in our minds: appeal to the core. Gut instincts are far more powerful than the rational mind. Making the rational and the core emotions mesh, is our job.

Gut reactions happen instantly. In his book 'Blink', Malcolm Gladwell discusses rapid cognition, that which happens in the blink of an eye. He writes about thinking without thinking. Our emotional processes take only 1/5th of the time our rational brain takes to assimilate.

Think of this in terms of how sales used to be and how they are now. Despite the fact that at our cores we're like cavemen, we are incredibly sophisticated. If you consider even back to the fifties, sixties and seventies, the 'features and benefits' style of sales, the Dale Carnegie method, these were passable at the time, but as our choices have grown in the marketplace, so have our BS detectors. We know when someone's being slick with us and it doesn't feel good.

Now think of how good it feels to be understood, and at ease, and the fact that this response is absolutely duplicatable with the right training. Accessing our prospect's values, eliciting their criteria, and with sincerity, honesty and integrity, combining it with what our products or our services, all make for an emotional alchemy that is easy to feel good about.

In our advanced state of civilization (depending on your perspective) we are given amazing choices and opportunities. There are products and services available to us that even a generation ago, wouldn't have been dreamed up. In this ever expanding atmosphere it seems likely that those of us who know how to access the core and our prospect's emotions are going to be the ones capable of rising to the top in our given fields. By elevating emotions and partially bypassing rationality, we find ourselves with incredible persuasion power.

Until Next Time,

Kenrick E. Cleveland

Hi Persuader,

I'm curious. . .

Just so I'm absolutely clear. . .

Excellent. That makes perfect sense. And so that I'm understanding you. . .

Once we get past the basics of rapport and criteria elicitation, we can then feel free to put a little polish on our persuasion package.

Softening statements and questions are just that. When we elicit criteria, the basic structure is, 'What's important about X? What's important about Y? And ultimately, what's important about Z?' (If you're new to MAXpersuasion or haven't yet learned the basics of rapport building and criteria elicitation, stop now! And contact Kim for more information to get you started.)

Okay. So once we are comfortable with criteria elicitation, we can then add some softeners to sooth and encourage our prospect.

'So, I'm just curious, tell me, what's important to you about finding a new financial advisor?'

'Well,' says our prospect, 'I'm just not feeling comfortable with my current advisor and I'm looking for a change.'

'Excellent. Really good. That makes perfect sense. And so that I'm understanding you completely, what's important about feeling comfortable with your financial advisor?'

'Well, I just really want to feel secure in knowing that I'm taken care of and that my best interests are being looked after, and I'm just not finding that to be the case right now.'

'Absolutely. I completely agree. And just so that I'm absolutely clear, ultimately, when you find this secure feeling that you're being taken care of, what will that mean to you?'

'It will mean that I don't have to worry about my family or my family's financial future.'

Softening statements/questions put the prospect at ease. They show that we're really, truly understanding and in compliance with our client's needs and desires.

Like playing a musical instrument, persuasion can either be taken directly off the page as written, but its power is best utilized when we get the basics down and then do a little improvisation. Obviously, without the basics, we get a lot of nonsense, but when we combine a solid foundation with these flourishes, it can be a beautiful symphony.

Until Next Time,

Kenrick E. Cleveland

"People will teach you how to sell them if you'll pay attention to the messages they send you." Source Unknown

Dear Persuader,

There's an old wives' tale that suggests you can tell when dinner is ready by throwing a piece of spaghetti against the wall to see if it sticks. If it sticks, it's done. If not, keep cooking. Whenever I think of 'features and benefits' selling, I think of someone throwing a whole pot of spaghetti noodles against the wall and trying to see what sticks. Stupid, right? I think so.

Dale Carnegie would say that you have features and benefits, listing all the features and benefits of your product or service in the hopes that if you say enough you'll finally hit on something of importance to your prospect and they'll scream out, "Ooh! I want that one!"

Features and benefits is the quickest way to expose yourself as an old-fashioned sales person. Does it work? About as well as throwing a whole bunch of pasta against the wall. And as an added bonus, it makes you seem smarmy and outdated.

It brings to mind the character of Gil Gunderson on 'The Simpson's' who is a hapless and nervous salesman who uses old-fashioned techniques to no avail. He sweats, he begs, he lists all the reasons why you should buy the product he's selling or the house he has listed or any number of things (he's had dozens of jobs), and he always ends up failing because it's all about Gil. It's never about his prospect or their needs.

Features and benefits doesn't work, first and foremost, because it focuses on you. You're not the one you're trying to sell. Secondly, features and benefits puts you in the perspective of continuing to ask the wrong questions.

What's the antidote to features and benefits? One word: criteria. In whatever you're doing, whether it be sales, whether it be real estate, whether you're working this in terms of relationships, or whatever you're doing, if you throw enough stuff on the wall, the old theory goes, some of it will stick. Maybe. But using by using criteria, you're laser focusing on exactly what the prospect wants and thereby significantly improving your odds and the predictability of sales.

So my new theory says, if you throw enough stuff on the wall, you've got dirty walls. Features and benefits, for the most part, are baloney, they're not effective, and they simply mark you as someone who is unskilled and unprofessional.

The exception to the rule is when the prospect knows absolutely nothing about what it is that they're there to buy from you. They've hardly ever seen or heard of the service or product, and they've come to you to ask you about buying it. Under those conditions, you might use some features and benefits, to help them to learn about the product, but even then, I'll tell you, that would be the second step, not the first step.

The first step is giving yourself the ability to target straight into their heart. Straight into their emotions, into their deepest desires. If I can speak directly to you about what it is you want, if I can talk about persuasion, and about the benefit to you of being able to master it, all of the sudden I might start having a little bit more of your attention.

Until Next Time,

Kenrick E. Cleveland

Hi Persuader,

Sometimes it's hard to let go. We've all been there... not wanting to say goodbye to something that we've outgrown, not letting go of someone who wasn't good for us.

Think about a time you had to put a beloved pet to sleep because you knew it was the absolute best thing you could do to end their suffering.

As the things in our lives become outmoded, as we grow to learn and strive for more, we have to also learn to let go of ways that we existed in the past, ways that are no longer applicable to how we've advanced.

I'm about to reveal to you 1 of 2 things that I absolutely believe you should NOT be doing in persuasion. These things are NOT part of persuasion and will hinder your results when you carry them out (hint: the 2nd of the two is in the last sentence of this post)...

If you're in the Persuasion Factor or in my Elite Coaching Club, one thing that should have come to an end already, that you, by now, have buried or flushed, is the concept of cold calling.

I had a student ask me in a seminar recently how the process of criteria elicitation applies to cold calling. The hard, cold truth is: you cannot apply this to cold calling as a general rule.

Cold calls are not selling. Cold calls are marketing. For those of you that do cold calls, stop it. Learn how to market. Spend some money and actually market your product or service. Marketing works.

If you're in a business in which you must cold call, supplement it with real marketing.

Some businesses have to cold call. For example, realtors farm area, at least an awful lot of them do. There are other ways to do it, but some will choose to cold call. It does work in that profession.

Some stock brokers choose to prospect by telephone. It isn't easy, nor is it fun. But in some ways, the game is rigged. If they work for a company that has a compliance department, they may not allow them to do much else.

Nowadays, if you're an advisor of any kind, you probably aren't even allowed to send an email through the company's system to a customer, and if you did you probably can't say more than "hi" or compliance will stop it.

So in that instance, maybe all you have available to you is cold calling. Even if that's the case, don't confuse it with selling.

In sales, we are simply looking for someone with their hand raised. Cold calling is nothing more than getting someone to raise their hand. When they raise their hand you switch hats and move from marketing to sales. Now criteria becomes an issue, whereas in the 'marketing' side it was not.

The minute there's an interest, the context is present in which to do criteria. Before there's a context you can't elicit criteria. It won't do you any good. You won't get any answers and there's no rapport.

If you can, stop cold calling. Sell to current clients. Develop new clients from your current clients. Work with getting new clients through some systematic method of advertising that will create a steady stream of traffic.

It's time to let this one go. Sorry old pal, your time has come. As with 'features and benefits', our time together must come to an end.

Until Next Time,

Kenrick E. Cleveland