Hello Persuader,

Hey everyone, I've just emerged from my persuasion lab where I've created a new motivational recording for you.

It's called "The Intention Multiplier."

If you've studied my works or trained with me, you'll note that I talk often about setting your intention before your persuasion work.

To me, it's integral to my work and success as a persuader.

I don't just walk in and accept whatever happens.

The first step to success is setting your intention.

And since most people never set their intention, I thought I might help you ramp
up your persuasion skills by creating the "Intention Multiplier" recording.

You can't BUY this recording anywhere.

But I will GIFT it to you if you will do me (and you) a small favor.

I'd like to know what your persuasion needs are and I've constructed a short survey.

I'm interested in creating courses and seminars that fit your needs.

So here's the bribe -

I will give you the "Intention Multiplier" recording if you help me help you by
filling out the survey.

Just answer all of the questions and you'll be directed to a secure download page.

I look forward to serving you better and this will help me laser target your needs.

https://secure.maxpersuasion.com/survey/

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

Frankly, people doubted me.

They told me no one has strategies that can work at increasing sales in
today's economy.

They told me that even if they worked, they wouldn't work in THEIR
particular field.

You know what I did?

I gave all I had to the Persuasion 911 series.

And people responded.

I didn't even have room for all the testimonials I received.

These are people who took action on what I've been teaching.

They took action and immediately noted - these strategies work.

So if you think there isn't anything new to learn, you better get your butt
on the last two calls.

This is ALL NEW material I've been developing.

When you sign up, you'll get access to the calls you missed.

As long as you sign up during the series, you get the discount price.

WARNING: the price goes up by $200 next week.

No, I'm not kidding.

This call series will take your breathe (and your doubts) away.

Get with the program.

Pick up the phone and dial 911.

That's Persuasion911.

http://www.persuasion911.com

Go out and persuade someone,

Kenrick Cleveland

Hi Persuader,

I'm so excited to be beginning a new chapter with my students. In the last month we've embarked on an amazing, transformative, and very practical journey together that starts with a pen and piece of paper (or for those of you who don't know how to use a pen and piece of paper anymore in this world of iPhones and laptops -- all you need is a blank Word document to get started).

I am basing this teaching on a multitude of research I've done over the last 30 years and some of the luminaries in the power of story such as Joseph Campbell and his work on the Hero's Journey, and Dr. Jim Loehr (the chairman and CEO of The Human Performance Institute) in his book "The Power of Story".

Our stories are unique tools in which we can harness our power of to affect those around us. This can be in business, sales, with employees, in seduction or with our spouses, with our children, and even with people we come into contact with in life either on the phone or in person -- bank representatives, grocery store clerks, mechanics, police officers, our kid's teachers.

All great speakers use stories. One of the main differences in the last election was Barack Obama's ability to persuade (I've been saying for over a year that if the race were all about persuasion, Obama would win hands down). Another big difference was Obama's knack for storytelling and how he was able maintain a narrative that was compelling. It's a classic 'rags to riches' story and it resonated very deeply with many people who would not have otherwise voted for a democrat or who would not have otherwise been of the mind to vote for an African-American (for whatever reason).

Tony Robbins also has a 'rags to riches' story which he tells during his talks. (On a side note, when I entered 'rags to riches' into Wikipedia, I found a fascinating list of celebrities and politicians who have the same basis for their stories.)

But even if you grew up middle class and haven't struggled financially in life, you have a story and likely, a fascinating story. If you're not where you want to be in life, if there's something you haven't achieved, then there is work to be done on your story.

In "The Power of Story" Dr. Loehr talks about how the stories we tell ourselves and others are oftentimes flawed and keep us locked into situations that are unsatisfying. By simply rewriting our stories, we can transform our lives. It's a simple process, but by no means easy. It is deep work that has the potential to create a bit of upheaval in your life and the benefits will be immeasurable.

It's time to evolve that story. So take that pen and paper and start with "you" and ask yourself these questions: Where am I going? How did it come to this? What do I want? What's the meaning of my life?

This is the jumping off point. I'm right here with you. I've begun my journey and my students are beginning their journeys. If you have an interest in joining us in this learning, contact Kim at Maxpersuasion.

Until Next Time,

Kenrick E. Cleveland

Hi Persuader,

Lately I’ve been really exploring the power of stories in both my own learning and in my teaching. We all have a story with many story lines, interwoven throughout our lifetimes. This has been an incredible journey bringing up memories I thought were long gone. My story today has to do with setting little markers for yourself. When you have a goal, parsing off the route to this goal, helps make the steps manageable.

When I was a kid, my father and I went hiking on the Pacific Crest National Trail. We had big backpacks, food for two weeks, a topographical map (though we didn’t need it, but dad brought it for teaching purposes, I think), canteens, sleeping bags, a tent, and most importantly for me, blister pads. My dad carried with him a folding chair so that when we stopped at night, he’d have a comfortable place to sit. He dropped off our car quite some distance away and had somebody drive us to the trailhead and drop us off. We drove for half a day to be able to then hike this far over two weeks.

We started off at the top of a summit. As I stared off into the distance, I couldn’t believe how long it was going to take us to get back to our car. I remember thinking to myself, there’s no way we’re ever going to reach it. No human has ever walked so much. (We hadn’t gotten to the Lewis and Clark part of school by that point.)

The first day, every step hurt, I was miserable and couldn’t experience the beauty. After that we got into a rhythm. We would make little markers for ourselves, when I make it up that hill or to that tree, I get a sip of water.

Before I knew it, I was standing at the summit of one of the major hills that I had seen from our trailhead starting point. As I looked back at all the ground we had covered and I thought, I can do this. I looked at the map and thought, hey, we’re more than half way there. I can most definitely do this.

Another thing I strongly remember from this very long hike with my dad was that he entertained and probably distracted me with the storylines and a little bit of dialogue from the James Bond movies that had come out over the past few years, the mid to late-60s, of which we were both fans. So really, when I think back, I’m reliving multiple stories within the story of this special time with my dad and the wonderful life experience he gave me for those many miles.

These kinds of realizations started to sink in. I continue to use this process to look at how I can see things that seem insurmountable as merely stepping stones instead of a brick walls, and I realized, at that moment, the brick wall had become a summit.

Until Next Time,

Kenrick E. Cleveland

Hi Persuader,

I want to just mention this basic truism of persuasion: the power is in the presentation. The power is not in the closing.

When I was a young man, I had been in sales for a couple of years and I was excelling quickly so they made me a closer. I would be the guy that when the sales person was missing his or her mark, I would come in and try to still get the sale.

I was good at it. I did really well. But after a couple of months of doing this, I began to see some patterns emerge. It was funny because each of the people that worked for me at the time, I could tell exactly where I would have to shore up their presentation in order to close the deal because I knew what they weren't doing well.

Further, it seemed like the same people had the same patterns and I always felt, back then, that if they would just do a better job in presenting, my job would be really easy. In fact, I probably wouldn't be needed nearly as much, if at all.

Most of the time I was able to turn it around; sometimes I couldn't. The bottom line is, that the power of every single sale is in the presentation, not in your ability to argue or close.

My Magical Objection Mastery series, the 24 doorways into a person's mind, enables you to persuade before the objections come with huge success in overcoming the objections that will inevitably come up in a person's mind. Knowing how to do that kind of framing and reframing is incredibly important and there's nothing finer in my opinion than the Magical Objection Mastery program.

There are some incredibly important characteristics of having really convinced someone. If you've done that, closing in the typical sense isn't really necessary anyway.

Imagine just for a moment that you bought something that you were really happy with and the product or service worked well for you. Identify this in your mind. One you have done this, I want you to go through this list. Did you feel trust towards the person? Are you aware now as you think back about it that you didn't have much doubt at least about the person? Did you feel an urgency to get what they were trying to sell you?

You probably had a desire for it. I'll bet you saw the value in the product and you were visualizing owning it and benefiting from it. Buying it was relatively easy.

Now imagine for a moment that you did that and then the person started doing some kind of old fashioned closing techniques. They said, "If I can show you a way to get this and save time, energy and money, I'm sure you would be interested in doing that now wouldn't you?"

As you hear that statement and you're contrasting it with the good feelings you had at that time, I'll bet you that kind of statement doesn't sit well with you. In fact, it'd feel pretty funny if someone tried to do it to you.

If you've been persuasive in what you've presented, if you've been careful to observe whether or not your prospect is with you the whole way, agreeing with you, if you've been continuously linking to their values and more then getting the sale will be really easy.

Until Next Time,

Kenrick E. Cleveland

"I've never tried to block out the memories of the past, even though some are painful. I don't understand people who hide from their past. Everything you live through helps to make you the person you are now." -- Sophia Loren

Hi Persuader,

I'm fascinated with the brain and especially the structure and functions of the brain. The limbic system is the seat of emotion, long term memory, hormones, behavior, and all the senses. It controls our heart rate, blood pressure, breathing, hunger, pleasure, thirst, sleeping and wakefulness -- things that we don't consciously ever think about but take place all the time and are responsible for keeping us alive. It is also where we make all of our decisions. It's a very primitive structure.

Why is knowing about decision making important for a persuader? Hmm. . . . that's a pretty obvious one, isn't it?

When we are persuading, we are asking people to make the decision we want them to make. We are working with a part of the brain that is older than the other parts. This is why I often go through the core drives -- fight or fight, hunger, reproduction, shelter -- these are all involved in the same process. It's responsible for something as grand and universal as our evolution and as well as something that's somewhat more mundane as the decision of whether or not we decide to purchase products or services from a sales professional.

Our analytic mind, the logical, mathematical, scientific, time-keeping, synthesizing, deductive part of our mind, is a lot younger. And while they compose a whole -- the limbic system is somewhat naïve of the analytic mind. What I mean by that is, say we smell a scent that brings us back to our childhood. For me, it's Old Spice. When I was a teenager I had a bottle of it. I didn't use it liberally, but very sparingly when I'd go on a date. When my olfactory sense comes into contact with Old Spice, it pulls me back to the 70s. I'm in my car, driving down Highway 84, the Columbia River Highway, on my way to my girlfriend's house.

That's all great and good. But the problem is that my analytical mind doesn't pull me back out of that reverie and I can get into that nostalgic state which sometimes can incite sadness. Getting stuck in a feeling can be awesome and amazing and it can be paralyzing.

As persuaders, knowing this can help us make sales. Think about it -- if you link something as primordial and deep as the core drives, criteria, and your product or service, and if your client or prospect gets stuck in that feeling of attachment to that, then the decision can be made before logic gets involved at all.

So elicit the criteria, use a little rhythmic speaking or repetition in three -- prime the pump, so to speak -- and logically, analytically -- watch as your client's limbic system works to your advantage and theirs where your persuasion is concerned.

Until Next Time,

Kenrick E. Cleveland

Hi Persuader,

Here's a little fear factor just in time for Halloween and Dios de Los Muertos aka Day of the Dead (which is not a scary celebration, but a celebration of deceased loved ones).

A conversation with one of my students got me thinking about the use of 'fear' in sales. Really, what we were discussing had to do more with cold, hard reality than fear, per se.

I'll put this in the context of real estate just as an example. The cold, hard reality is that what was worth $1.5 million a year ago, may now only sell for $800 thousand. And the hard, cold reality is, this may possibly decrease even more in the coming year or two.

My student asked me, "Would you really emphasize the bleak outlook? Won't that scare the crap out of your potential client?

I told him, emphatically, "Yes and yes."

Why must you emphasize the hard, cold reality instead of attempting to focus on the sunny side of life? First off, you have to talk real to them or they're going to look at you like you're some guy from outer space. Selling yourself as the solution to their problem of selling their house isn't going to happen if you can't sell their house (seems obvious, right?). Reframing yourself as the solution to their problem through persuading them that if they need to sell, and sell now, then they're going to have to face up to that hard, cold reality. They're not going to get what they thought they were going to get based on last year's numbers.

If you sugar coat just to get a listing they don't need you because you can't understand the reality that they're faced with today. There isn't a person in the country, and probably the world over, that feels confident in anything and if you try to act otherwise, you're making a mistake.

This is how to sell in tough times. This is how to do it. This is worth its weight in gold. You need to have the attitude that you are a pro and they are so incredibly fortunate to be able to talk to you and that you can help them, but they've also got to face reality.

So get clear with them. Why did they invite you there? Why now?

And yes, I'm going to scare the stuffing out of them. I'm going to balance that with, yes, it's scary, but it can be done. I'm not saying it can't be done. I'm simply saying, we've got to be smart here, really smart.

Fear works both ways, and so a word of caution here. When you're afraid, you're unconsciously passing on to your fear prospects. You are the rock. You can't be afraid and moreover, you can't be afraid to tell it like it is. You have to just come out swinging.

Until Next Time,

Kenrick E. Cleveland

"Time stays long enough for anyone who will use it." --Leonardo Da Vinci

Hi Persuader,

Rapport is all about blending, becoming one with our prospect or client, blurring the lines between us and them. If it's 'us and them', we're seeing a difference. If it's right or wrong, black or white, up or down, there is a chasm that we need to overcome. We want to eliminate the difference between ourselves and our prospects. You want to blur those lines every which way such that they think they're you. Not so much you think that you are them, although you will, but that they think they are you.

How do we do that? Here's an example: if I were with you and I moved like you move, then what am I doing? I'm eliminating the differences and that's the goal of this whole thing.

The important thing to remember here is that you have to keep your intention intact. You have an outcome driven by your intention of getting the sale. Once that is set, then you go about eliminating the differences so you become like them.

Rapport is an altered state. In this altered state, time distorts and you can enter their reality and bring them to your desired outcome. And you can work with the person as one instead of in addition to them. In other words, you and the person become one.

From this altered state of rapport you can slow down the perceptions of your experience of time. In so doing, you can see more, you can hear more and experience more and this opens the persuasion field giving you more options and control.

Specifically, you can narrow your focus. Instead of taking in the world around you, narrow your focus to something like the rate and depth of their breathing or the colors in their face and how they change, you can also imagine that you are speeding up very considerably and they are slowing down. This is a mental thing so you just need to imagine it. Imagine that your vibration rate is speeding up and that they are slowing down. It's amazing.

Another way to do this is to imagine that time is distorting and giving you tons of time in which to make the sale.

You can look to baseball for an example. The batter imagines that they are so speeded up that when that ball comes, they just see it slowly arching towards them with all the time in the world to swing. They make the ball very big in their mind. They distort a number of visual characteristics so that they can do this.

You can watch and listen to them, to your prospect, far more intently than you are used to doing. All of these things will create this altered state, it will slow down the perception of the experience of time, and it will give you a ton more room in which to persuade.

Until Next Time,

Kenrick E. 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