NLPhilia Blog

I used to sell cars. I didn’t do it for very long, and I didn’t do very well. One of the reasons I did poorly, my sales manager told me, is that I didn’t “control the conversation”. When I asked him how to do it, he couldn’t really tell me. He “just knew”.

Now, though, I’ve spent some time learning and applying NLP, and I know how it’s done. But author Alex Shalman over at Lifehack.org taught me something new:

Let’s take a look at some of the benefits that manipulating or controlling a conversation can provide for us by tapping into the power of compliments.

I never considered leading someone in that way, but it seems brilliant to me. We just have to keep in mind the major point: “The key to being successful with compliment techniques is to be sincere.”

Follow this link to read the article!

By way of Seth Godin’s Blog comes the article from Slant Six Creative, Saying More by Saying Less:

Whether we like it or not, we’re in a world where the transparent, open-source nature of online activity has fundamentally changed the way people and businesses have conversations. In thinking about how it works and trying to figure out how best to participate, this is the most difficult yet important lesson I’ve learned:

Always let a fool have the last word.

This is a lesson I took a while to learn, but once I got it I found it immensely useful. And consider the idea that if comedian Michael Richards had taken this idea to heart, he might still have a career.

By way of Lifehacker today comes Darren Barefoot’s interesting article, Everything I Know About Presentations, I Learned in Theatre School

Plenty of excellent high-level pointers on how to make your presentations more compelling and coherent, how to keep people awake and engaged, and how to have your audience leave the room with more than they came in with.

Jonathan Altfeld’s presentation skills are beyond compare, and one of the best things about them is that he’s willing to teach them to you. From March 27 through March 31, 2008, Jonathan will be holding his Holographic Communication training in Tampa, Florida, USA.

If Your Livelihood Depends on Giving Compelling Presentations… or Even if You Just WANT People Hanging on your Every Word, in Business, in Public, or in Platform Sales… We’ve got a Pain-Free, Risk-Free, Fun-to-Learn Process… that can turn ANY Ugly Duckling into a Swan… & we’ve published video case-studies [on the Web site] to prove it.

Among many of those who understand that they themselves are responsible for their mental states, there seems to be a dogma that pain is bad and pleasure is good. I’ve never subscribed to that idea. Consider the facts that we evolved with pain (you have to be at least a bony fish in order to feel anxious) and that those who are incapable of feeling pain (such as those afflicted with leprosy) tend to live shorter and unhappier lives.

In a Thanksgiving post from Seth Godin’s blog, he talks a bit about the “Black Friday” ritual:

Why? In an always-on internet world, why force people to do something they would ordinarily avoid?

Because they like it. It feels special. They are somehow earning the discount. The store creates discomfort and then profits from it. And the customers save money…

It’s an interesting idea, and I think it might be a useful one when working with clients (or with oneself). Make them work for it, even hurt for it, and it’ll matter more to them.

Thoughts?

Some recent conversations led me to do some Web browsing, and I found a couple of very interesting sites I want to share.

Eyes for Lies: The Human Lie Detector Blog:

Scientists have identified only 50 individuals who are able to spot deception with great accuracy after testing more than 15,000 people over several decades. Eyes for Lies is one of the 50 people.

This lady is able to detect lies 80% of the time, and she does a pretty good job of explaining how she does it. What she sees, hears, and feels, internal strategies she uses, and so on.

Truth About Deception: An Honest Look at Deception, Love and Romance

Discovering infidelity, or deception by a loved one, creates a lot of uncertainty. We try to help people work through their questions and concerns by providing a detailed look at deception, love and romance.

This site is slanted heavily toward deception within romantic relationships, but the information I’ve read there is applicable outside those as well. I particularly appreciate their article on how to get people to tell you the truth.

InfoWorld Magazine, in their TechWatch section, takes humorous issue with the same sort of gobbledygook despised by David Scott (see a recent post of mine). Read author Matt Hines’ article about security analyst Nick Selby’s“BullsIT Awards”, Poking Fun at Tech PR:

Our friends in the PR community can probably say the same thing about some of the stories we in the IT media produce on our side of the business, but, it is intensely fun from time-to-time to examine some of the worst examples of marketing lingo that get hurled at us on a regular basis.

I loved Selby’s reference to Lisa Simpson of The Simpsons: “This reminds me of Lisa Simpson visiting Australia and, on seeing on a cinema a sign reading, ‘Yahoo Serious Festival,’ she said, ‘I know those words, but that sign makes no sense.'”

Master copywriter Harlan Kilstein made an exciting discovery recently: a videorecording of Doug O’Brien teaching his acclaimed Sleight of Mouth training to a group of salespeople. He’s mastered the video to DVD and has released it for sale.

Check out what Harlan has to say about the conversion process:

I decided on the spot to convert these VHS tapes into DVDs and encountered a glitch. The guy I hired liked the DVDs so much he kept inviting his friends over to watch them. What should have taken a week ended up taking months.

Now check out what he has to say about the content:

Most salespeople are happy if they close at a 20 to 40% rate. Most copywriters are thrilled if their copy converts 1% of the lookers into buyers. Even at these numbers, money can be made.

But what if your sales closed at an 80-90% rate? Or your copy converted 17% or more? You know what that would do for your bottom line?

These DVDs are a must-have for anyone who wants to be more persuasive in any every context.

Order the DVDs here.

By way of this post on the Freakonomics Blog, here’s some interesting research on people’s tendency to prefer things that have the same initial as their own name:

People like their names so much that they unconsciously opt for things that begin with their initials. Tom is more likely to buy a Toyota, move to Totowa and marry Tessa than is Joe, who is more likely to buy a Jeep, move to Jonestown and marry Jill—and Susie sells seashells by the seashore. Even weirder, they gravitate toward things that begin with their initials even when those things are undesirable, like bad grades or a baseball strikeout.

This might be useful if you’re wanting to persuade someone to your way of thinking. Maybe we should be asking Karen to sign the contract and Donna to sign the document and Paul to OK the paperwork. What do you think?

When we’re interacting with someone, we may often think we’re just trying to let them know some important piece of information. I recently learned something, though: facts are not interesting. People only pay attention to facts if they’re attached to values. Dean Brenner wrote a pertinent manifesto for ChangeThis back in October:

Brenner believes there is a critical flaw in how we communicate. We naturally divide our communications in two approaches: to inform or to persuade. When, according to Brenner, every communication is an opportunity to persuade. Next time you hear someone say, “I just wanted to give you an update…” you’ll know an opportunity to shape opinion was missed.

Link to Dean Brenner’s “To Inform or Persuade?” ChangeThis Manifesto