Dear Persuader,

I want you to think about the process of persuasion a little differently today.  I want you to think of it as a spark, a spark that creates fire, okay?

If you’ve ever used a magnifying glass and started a fire with a little piece of paper or wood, you know that you have to focus it.  You’ve got to have that so finely focused that it ignites from the heat.   If your focus is too broad, you may get that paper warm but it's certainly not going to ignite.

You need to focus the client so strongly on what they want that all of the sudden it’s going to burst into flames.   And, one of the things that will burst it into flames, that will take it to that next level so fast and so powerful is that level of rapport you can bring to the table, that spark of interest that you can get them to feel as a result of what you’re doing.

I want to speak about that spark of interest for a moment.  I want to speak about it in a way that you probably haven’t heard me talk about before.  I’m not going to talk about using their predicates and I’m not going to talk about using their tone of voice... I’m not going to talk about any of that.

What I want to talk about is you thinking about this in terms of a spark of interest, a spark of personality, a spark of rapport.  And I want you to put that image in your mind and if you put that image in your mind then here’s how it would look as I see it.

You start off by gauging the level of interest that the client has, you immediately apply your magnifying glass to begin to magnify that level of interest.

Now, who’s magnifying it?  You or them?

They are.  You’re providing the questions that cause them to go inside and focus more on where the spark hits, and that spark is a magnetic personality that makes the person feel good about what you’re doing and makes them turnaround and come your way.

It’s a spark that happens through belief.  You need to believe so much in what you do and in who you are and in what your products are, that you simply focus on that belief in light of what they’re there to do and magically you’ll feel that spark happen.  I say magically... you can break this into a million different strategies but I’m telling you, if you’ll put this one in your head and run with it for a little bit, you’re going to see that you start creating dramatic results and fanning big flames of desire, and that’s exactly what we want to do.

So focus on that magic.  There’s magic in imagining that you have a spark that will bridge the gap from their few questions to a burning desire and all you have to do is create the heat.  And the heat’s created by focusing them in on what it is that they want and need along with your spark of personality that can get them to start to see the value and the benefit that you’re bringing to the table.

And it happens more in your mind than anywhere else.   In your belief that you’re creating that spark, it exists... and now the flames of desire.  I want you to put in your mind and I want you to see with every client, and I want you to be able to tell me afterward, if I were to ask you, when did that spark hit?

You should be able to say, "Well, it hit when I said...", or "When he or she said...".  You can tell, you can feel it, you can hear it, you can see it, and if the sale didn’t happen, you’d probably respond by saying, "I never did feel that spark, Kenrick, it just didn’t seem to happen."

If that takes place, I want you to begin to analyze why. Was it because they didn’t have a real need or a real desire?  And be very careful not to jump to the conclusion of yes, because my next question is, were you able to sufficiently focus them through your magnifying glass and create the heat that comes when they think about their values and their beliefs as it relates to their questions and what they’re needing from your company?

For you advanced persuaders, I want you to focus on the image.  For those of you that are lesser advanced, I want you to focus on the strategy and the image and you may have to do it part by part which is absolutely fine.  Go at it part by part.

So, the first part is the interest and the interest comes by focusing them through the magnifying glass of their desire, which is another way of saying, their criteria and their values.

The rapport I want you to think of as a spark, a spark that happens as a result of you focusing in on just how madly in love you are with your products and your services, with your company’s values, with the way you are able to interpret and deliver those values and services, that get people to want to be with you.

In other words, you’re coming in with the magnifying glass of criteria, you’re focusing it through the questions that you’re asking, and then you’re making that magic leap through that nebulous something that you and your company possess and you need to focus on that nebulous something and feel it in your heart and feel it transfer to the client.

If you’ll use that strategy, I guarantee you that you’ll start to see things through different eyes in a short period of time.  You’ll start to imagine things happening differently and you’ll be able to focus on what your clients are doing in a very different way.

Kenrick

P.S. Don't forget to post your comments on the blog below.

Dear Persuader,

Have you ever gone into a supermarket or drugstore for a tube of toothpaste and found yourself confronted with forty different varieties?

It’s a simple enough substance—toothpaste—which we use every day (hopefully - don't get me started on Jessica Simpson), and yet there are dozens and dozens of choices.  There are toothpastes with whiteners and/or baking soda; toothpastes for sensitive gums; natural toothpastes; toothpastes of various flavors —cinnamon, spearmint, fennel, wintergreen; kids toothpastes--silly strawberry, bubble gum, berry. And once we figure out the brand, we have to figure out what size and then tube, pump, squeeze bottle etc...

It takes most of us seconds to choose because we don’t stray from what we’ve been using ‘forever’ or staying brand loyal to what our parents used. But when our parents were growing up, there weren’t nearly as many choices.

It’s a minor, run of the mill decision, but one that illustrates just how very many choices we make every single day, from our toothpaste, to cell phone provider, to the brands we eat, wear and use.

Barry Schwartz, professor of Social Theory and Social Action at Swarthmore College, has written a book called, ‘The Paradox of Choice: Why More is Less—How The Culture of Abundance Robs us of Satisfaction’.  It is a very interesting look at how the ever expanding amount of ‘choice’ we have in every dimension of our lives is eroding the simple pleasures that used to be omnipresent.

This is an important perspective especially as it relates to our professions, products, and services. How many of you are there out in the world? Are you one in a million or one of a million? And how can your existence simplify the life of your prospect or client?

The goal of choice has been to liberate us, to give us a degree of control over our lives, to give us autonomy and distinction. However, as Mr. Schwartz suggests, ‘. . .as the number of choices keeps growing, negative aspects of having a multitude of options begin to appear. As the number of choices grows further, the negatives escalate until we become overloaded.’

As people who sell a product or service, we need to keep in mind that there are a multitude of similar products or service providers out there and that what makes us special is that, as persuaders, we are able to reach into the core of our prospects and clients to discover their specific key, their unique combination of values and criteria. When we establish rapport, elicit criteria, and establish ourselves as ‘the answer’, there is no need for this unbearable overload to occur in the minds of our prospects.

Schwartz writes of the political philosopher Isaiah Berlin, who beautifully described the continuum of towards and away in his distinction between ‘negative liberty’ and ‘positive liberty’.  He says, “Negative liberty is ‘freedom from’—freedom from constraint, freedom from being told what to do by others. Positive liberty is ‘freedom to’—the availability of opportunities to be the author of your life and to make it meaningful and significant.”

Wow!  A better description of the ‘towards/away’ continuum doesn’t exist. Do we see in our prospects the desire to be free from constraints? How can we show them that our product or service is the answer to this? Do we have a towards person who wants to take in all the amazing opportunities our products and services have to offer? In what ways to do you see the paradox of choice at play in your business life?

Be sure and post your comments to the blog.

Kenrick

Dear Persuader,

"Our value is the sum of our values."   --Joe Batten

This is a great process that will help you in your persuasion skills. I think you’ll find it quite interesting.

I’ve always said that if you want to make advancements in your persuasion ability, you need to make advancements in yourself. This is advancement.

What we’re going to do is get our top values and put them in rank order. It’s pretty easy to do, and in future articles we’re going to take this on to new and interesting levels for you and then show you how you can use it to help persuade.

I’m just going to give you some examples of core values and please, feel free to add to the list.

• Honesty
• Freedom
• Security
• Passion
• Freedom
• Recognition
• Integrity
• Health
• Family
• Spouse
• Friends
• Spirituality
• Money
• Love
• Success
• Recognition
• Education
• Self improvement
• Adventure
• Fun
• Financial independence
• Variety
• Knowledge
• Self actualization
• Wisdom
• Accomplishment
• Power

Notice that happiness is missing... that’s because happiness is not a value but what will come if the core value is actualized.

Now, we’re going to put them in rank order. Take the top ten from the above list and with the ones you’ve added in and from there we’ll determine the top five in this way: Say your list, in no particular order is, health, love, money, passion, freedom, knowledge, wisdom, friends, accomplishment, recognition. These are your top ten core values.

We’ll start with health and move through the list. If you could have either perfect health and no love or you could have perfect love and no health, which would you choose? We’ll just randomly choose health for the sake of this example. So if you could have the best health or all the money you wanted, which would you choose? And we’ll choose health again. Okay, if you could have perfect health and no freedom or absolute freedom and poor health?

In this way, we go through the list to determine the top five.

What’s the value in this, you might ask. Well, if a sales professional had these top five values, (security, wealth, family), do you think they might be able to effectively interweave your security, wealth and family into the conversation about their product or service?

Of course, this isn’t information that we readily give out to everyone, nor do we elicit our prospect’s values, but what are we doing when we elicit criteria? We’re eliciting their specific values/criteria as they relate to the situation we’re asking about.

Eliciting criteria is one of the most effective ways to connect your prospect with what you’re selling.  It’s easy to do and once you really get the hang of it… it’s really fun!

Happy persuading,

Kenrick

Dear Persuader,

Americans love to talk.  Americans also love to be talked to -- listening to the TV or the stereo or talk radio -- anything so that there’s no silence.  Silence we seem to delegate to those few days a year when we get back to nature.

In conversations, especially, there’s a real fear of silence, an awkwardness that sort of permeates the in between spaces where there is no one talking and most people will do anything possible to fill up that silence with noise regardless of whether or not it’s going to damage their chances of selling their product or service.

Part of this filling in of the spaces, is the chatter.  We’re all familiar with the classic sales persona, looking at the photographs on the wall or desk of their prospect, asking how the wife and kids or husband and kids are, how the golf game is -- basically, chit chat.  And even more detrimental to sales, is the chit chat that happens after the sale is in the bag, but not signed off on.  This is the stuff that breaks the deal because maybe we’re excited about having made the sale and we begin to blather on and on. . .

Personally one of the biggest breakthroughs that happened for me in my career in sales is when I realized that I didn’t have to spend a tremendous amount of time in chit chat.  I can tell you I can’t even count, as I was growing up and starting out in sales, the number of times when chit chat derailed my objective.  It was a constant.  I would say something wrong or I would go on too long about a particular topic and next thing you know, I was derailed.

If a prospect or client was looking for a way out, I would give it to them eventually if I chattered on too long.  I kept wondering why they didn’t want to be more like my friend, why they didn’t want to talk about more personal, day-to-day stuff.   I can tell you the reason this is the case is because they weren’t getting the answer to a burning question within them.

Granted, I’ve been blessed with the gift of gab.  The shift in my thinking came when I realized I had to fashion what I was saying to focus intently on the prospect and their needs and not my own agenda.

So what is the burning question?  The question is, “What can you do for me, Kenrick?”  Our prospects are ultimately wanting to know, “What’s in this for me?  What is it that you’re going to do to help me?”   The only way to find the answers to these questions is to elicit their criteria and once you’ve elicited their criteria, then we have to get to the meaning.

Criteria and its meaning have got to be the foremost thing in your mind when making a sale, no ifs, ands or buts.  Remember this, and you won’t be derailed.

To your success,

Kenrick

Dear Persuaders,

While I’m thrilled that all my thirsty new students are so eager to learn that they’d work themselves into a frenzy to try to get it all at once, I don’t want that passion for persuasion to become stressful or overwhelming. As one person put it, “I kind of feel like I’m drinking from a fire hose.” I want you all to fear not.

Stop! Take a deep breath. . . now let it go.

Persuasion is a process, just as living is a process.

My programs are always intense with a tremendous amount of content. It’s perfectly natural to feel overwhelmed to some extent. However, keep in mind a few things that I think will help you.

The first thing I would suggest for those of you just starting out with my programs, those of you just opening your eyes to the vastness of the topics we explore, I would very much suggest you listen. Listen to each session and then do it again and again.  Even if you don’t think you’re getting it at first, be assured, you’re getting it.

This learning is ongoing because A, there’s so much of it, and B it’s ever evolving.

If you don’t get the opportunity of hearing something the first go around, you’ll hear it again the next time you listen, you’ll keep hearing things. Get it at whatever level you can and then start applying it. Then as you apply it, I’ll show you how to refine it and make it even more powerful.

What we are really studying here is human behavior. This is something you will hear me say over and over. We are studying human behavior, and since human behavior is not now nor will ever be entirely predictable, we keep improving our strategies to be able to interact persuasively.

This learning keeps us on the leading edge all the time compared to those that have typical sales training as a background. People are individuals with different criteria, with different ways of interacting, and as such, the keys to unlocking their particular patterns are all going to be different as well.

Some of my students have been working with me for four or five years. Some have just started recently.  There are always new people month to month, week to week, etc...

One expectation I’m finding many new students have is that there should be a level of mastery. But I’ll tell you what, I haven’t mastered this, none of my students have mastered this, and that’s because human nature is constantly evolving and with it we evolve and learn and reach and strive for more excellence, and that’s all that we need ask of ourselves.

Certainly, it wouldn’t hurt to do a lot of practicing either. I’m not suggesting in any way that you don’t need to practice, I’m just saying that learning is going to happen whether or not you pressure yourself. Wouldn’t it be more enjoyable not to pressure yourself?

This is what I explained to my new student who was worried that he wasn’t getting IT enough to satisfy his high degree of thirst. “If you step back and have perspective on this, imagine yourself able to catch the spray from the fire hose instead of having it aimed straight at your face.”

To your success,

Kenrick

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