Monthly Archives: August 2009

Are You an Information Junkie?

13 Replies

I can take a guess and bet that most of you who read my blog and the other blogs out there on personal development get some sort of “high” with every new article. When I say “high”, I mean in the sense of empowerment. To go even further, you feel as if you are doing yourself a favor by learning about new ways to take your life to the next level. Now, the obvious question is, are you? After you read one of my powerful articles, do you really go back to “reality” and take action on this new information you just learned about? Has there even been a time when you read an article, then just forgot about it?

“Forget it about it”

Chances are that you’ve read dozens and dozens of articles on the web about how to do “this”, what to do with “that”, and 18 million steps to be “something”, etc. Do you ever get an empty void type of feeling that tells you, “I need more…”? The truth of the matter is that most of the stuff you read, whether it be online, in a book, or at a seminar, you will forget about within 1 hour to give or take a few days. You, like most other people, just have that feeling inside that tells you to keep reading, keep studying, and wait until you have everything single bit of information you need, before you take action. Why is that? The answer lies in the ‘fear department’. It could be you fear of failure, rejection, success or a number similar issues. So let me start by saying that the average person will usually forget almost 80% of the information they learn every day. Chances are by the end of this day, you will probably forget most of what you’re learning from this article. Well it’s wasn’t necessarily your fault in the past, but it will be after you finish reading this…

Take Action

The most successful people on the planet can take bits and pieces of information from a few pages in a book and implement it in their business right a way. Not only that, but these types of people are not afraid of failing. In fact, one must fail forward fast if your interest is in growing and moving forward.

Here are different ways we learn according to the William Glasser’s Institute.

  • 10% What we READ
  • 20% What we HEAR
  • 30% What we SEE
  • 50% What we SEE and HEAR
  • 70% What we DISCUSSED with OTHERS
  • 80% What we EXPERIENCED PERSONALLY
  • 95% What we TEACH TO SOMEONE ELSE

Obviously the best way for you to retain information is by teaching someone, but how can one teach someone something they haven’t done themselves. So what the statistics above should tell you is that the sooner you learn something new, the faster you better take action on it, since the quicker you do, the better you’ll understand it. As you begin to shift your mindset to this new style of thinking, I want you to go back to a time when someone told you to do something and you did it. What happened? Were you instantly satisfied with the results? Let’s take the time you learned to drive a car. You read about it, you took action and followed through with what you read and then you practiced it. Sooner or later after that moment, you practically mastered it or at least allowed yourself to do it as if it were second nature. Pretty powerful, isn’t it?

Since your beginning to understand the urgency of this issue, I need you trust me and pay attention to what I have to say. After you read this article, I want you to read one of my previous articles immediately take action. It’s very simple guys and gals, learn something new and do it right away. If you don’t, then consider yourself to be as useful as a computer, full of information, but you probably won’t make a dime off of it. I guarantee that if you do what I say, you’ll see better results than you would by reading 5 books back to back.

To recap, read an article of mine or even someone else’s for all it matters and figure out a way to apply it in your life seconds or even moments after your finish reading it. Write a comment and share your experiences with me below.

The Expressive Personality Type

15 Replies

Have you ever paid attention to how people interact with one another? I’m betting that most of you don’t.  After you increase your level of awareness, you’ll gain a better understanding of how people generally work. Increasing your awareness levels means that you are consciously paying attention to what is going on around you most of the time.

Having the ability to tell what type of personality someone is within only 30 seconds or so of conversation is probably one of the best communication tools you can learn. Having the know how to detect what a person is allows you to transform the way you should be interacting with that particular client. Since your first few minutes of interaction is the most vital, pay close attention to what they say and how they say it.

Personality Type: Expressive (Let’s do it!)

Now that you’re familiar with the quick and assertive Driver, we move on to the can you shut up already Expressive. Have you ever noticed that every time you go to a party, function, or gathering, there is always this one person who everyone swarms around (maybe it’s you)? Expressive people absolutely love being in the spotlight. Their workplaces are normally messy compared to a neat Analytical. Even though their workplaces, cars, or rooms tend to be messy, they would still be able to find what their looking for through their memory (they don’t necessarily lose everything). Expressive people love to talk, so let them.  They generally have very high emotion and make decisions rather quickly. There are generally excited to see what happens next.

Here are the characteristics of an Expressive:

  • Tends to run late, lots of commitments and rushed lifestyle.
  • Desires to be center of attention. Will attempt to draw focus of a group.
  • Can’t stand being bored, impatient. Will get stressed and fidget in lines, looks for distractions.
  • Generally have brightly colored clothing/cars/houses. Values ‘flash’.
  • They are animated and lively when they speak or tell stories. Sometimes seems ‘loud’.

As a special note, since many people misinterpret Expressives as people who talk a lot, avoid placing someone in 1 of the 4 personality types by the length in time they talk to you. Analyticals and Amiables also tend to talk a lot after they feel comfortable around someone, so the amount of time they take talking is irrelevant. You must use the other criteria I’ve listed above to determine if one is Expressive or something else.

How to Sell to an Expressive

When dealing with Expressives, all you need to do is let the them talk and slowly steer the conversation in the direction you want to take it by taking control and asking the right questions. Expressives tend to get off topic very quickly so be patient.

I’m not sure if I was always an expressive or that I recently just became one. I questioned which personality I was because it can be difficult to determine it at a young age. I’m certain, now that I’m 23, but I originally started thinking about this when I was 17-18 and I had no clue what I was, most people didn’t. Many times you’ll hear people saying that they’re Expressives because Expressive people usually get most of the attention. Also, since I’m in the sales industry, people like to say that they are Expressives because they are led to believe that all great sales people are Expressives. Obviously this is false and just a common misconception or excuse that people use because they can’t yet achieve the success they want.

Selling as an Expressive

Dealing with an Expressive person from the other personality type’s point of view is relativity easy, but as an Expressive, you need to learn how to tone it down. It’s important for you to realize and understand when your your stories go off on a tangent.

Are you an Expressive? If not, what experiences have you had with an expressive?

The Driver Personality Type

26 Replies

We can generally place the type of person you are in 4 personalities: Driver, Analytical, Expressive, and Amiable. Each of us falls under only one of the listed types. We hold to that type and live our lives within its bounds.

We do not change types except in times of great stress.  Over the next few days, I’ll cover one of the four types of personalities and explain to you exactly how they think and most importantly, make decisions.

Then, as you begin to understand how to tell the personalities apart, I’ll teach you the ability to allow yourself to become versatile in any selling situation, won’t that be great? Now I want you to focus on a guy like Simon Cowell as we talk about Drivers.

Personality Type: Driver (Let’s do it now)

People who fall into the Driver personality type tend to be very controlling and possibly demanding. They know what they want and they aren’t afraid to let you know.  They normally have little to no emotion and make decisions quickly and assertively.

To quickly sum up the characteristics of a driver:

  • Demands control or will take it when available. Looks for opportunity to be ‘in charge’.
  • Will get things done, likes goals and achieving them. Frames life as a sequence of I did this.
  • Straight to the point, looks for the bottom line. Dislikes complexity or ambiguity.
  • Little patience for the small details that aren’t clearly in line with goal seeking.
  • Doesn’t like situations where they have no say in what’s happening.
  • Appears to be arrogant and standoffish. Can seem overly aggressive, especially in the heat of a project. Will see people as ‘obstacles’ or ‘allies’.
  • Can appear as Alpha male/female type

Drivers may appear intimidating, however, you must remember to put your emotions aside and not take things personally. Since I would say that I’m an extreme expressive, I find myself to be a very emotional person. By emotional, I mean that I pretty much wear my mood on my shoulders. When I use to work for Mike Ferry, the best trainer and coach from the Real Estate industry, my team leader was a very arrogant driver. He always wanted things done his way or the highway. Our communication was so one sided that I would constantly get mad by just talking to him. However, later, as I began to understand the way people work and make decisions, I realized that it wasn’t his fault for being such a prick, it was mine. Since I wasn’t communicating the way he wants to be communicated to, our personalities clashed. Remember, it’s not about you, it’s about the person in front of you.

How to deal with a Driver:

When presenting information to a Driver, avoid graphs, power point presentations, charts, and lists of data. Keep it short, simple, and sweet.

Expressive Personality Type:

Prevent yourself from going off on a tangent. If you absolutely must tell a story, give them the point of the story first. Otherwise, they’ll keep thinking about what your story is supposed to lead up to and quickly become annoyed by it.

Analytical Personality Type:

Drivers are general very annoyed by analytical people. An analytical should  obviously avoid stories, details, numbers, etc. If you must give them stats, give them the end results, not the entire formula that led you to that answer.

Amiable Personality Type:

Drivers usually love amiable people because amiable people aim to please and do whatever the driver tells them to do. Amiable people, just remember to stick to the point, and speak up!

Are you a Driver? If not, what experiences have you had when dealing you dealt with Drivers?

How To Handle Objections Using The “Future Pacing” Technique

1 Reply

Has there ever been a time you persuaded someone to do something or buy something? Then the person came back to you a couple hours, days, or weeks later and changed their mind? This is a very common occurrence, let me explain. When people are influenced to make decisions by some type of sales person, they almost always have some type of buyer’s remorse. This happens usually because people tend to buy on their emotion, rather than logic. This is usually because the salesman was able to do such an amazing job with getting that client excited about buying. However, excitement eventually runs out, and the sales person isn’t always there to re-sell them on whatever it was they sold them on to begin with. So how do you keep a person committed to the sale without actually having to be there?

How to keep people committed

There is a brilliant technique called Future Pacing that allows you to almost magically persuade someone to keep their commitment when objections come up after the sale has been completed. The idea, like most of the concepts I teach, is simple. What you’re doing is creating a scenario(s) in a person’s mind that may happen in the future. So after you close the deal, you’ll need to rehearse a practical scenario(s) that may occur to this person.

For example:

Let’s say that you are convincing a client to purchase a car. They are a bit hesitant to sign the contract because their wife might get upset. Right away, we know that even if your client decides to say yes, his wife might change his mind later. So what you’ll need to do is future pace the objection(s) the wife my bring up and teach your client how to handle them. That way, your client is working as your salesman, selling his wife on why he moved forward with the deal.

8 Steps to Future Pace Someone

  • Acknowledge their commitment to you
  • Reinforce the reasons they decided to say yes to you
    • Ask them ‘why’ questions. Why did you say yes? What made you agree with me?
  • Reiterate their response and intertwine them with benefits as to why they made the decision.
  • Add a couple more motives about why they made the right decision
  • Create a mental scenario of an event that might happen in the future
    • i.e. “If you talk to your wife and she isn’t as excited as you with the car, what reasons will you instantly remember and explain to her allowing her to understand why you said yes to me today?”
  • Reiterate and detail out their response. Use their response to create another compelling statement for their decision to say yes today.
  • Ask, “Can you think of any other reasons to use to influence your wife that you’ve made the right decision?”
  • If done correctly, your client is securely closed along with being rehearsed to handle the objection they might get from their wife who may object later.

Is this practical?

Yes, this is 100% practically and easy to integrate. In fact, here are some of the many scenarios you can use it in:

  • Buyer’s remorse – People regret what they bought most of the time. Sometimes they just forget about it, other times they decide to return it.
  • Significant other – When haven’t you seen a case of someone coming back to you saying that their husband/wife were unhappy with their purchase.
  • Family – Family can easily persuade you in and out of choices you’ve made
  • Friends – Like family, friends also have a big influence on what you buy. Their opinions determine whether keep or not.
  • Events – Sometimes evens conflict with each other and one event must be sacrificed.
  • Competitors – Competitors are almost guaranteed to try and sell your customer their products that are the same or similar for cheaper.
  • Writers/Bloggers- They sell products online and offer 100% money back guarantees. What is to say that you’re customer won’t come back and actually ask for it.

Also, when you future pace someone, you need to make sure you have some leverage with their motivation. Use pain and pleasure when discussing their motivation, so you know which direction you need to take them.

Future pacing is a very valuable technique that can help you retain more customers faster. The more customers who keep your product/service, the more likely they are to recommend to their friends and family. After a person has made the decision, and an outside influence can’t persuade them otherwise, they will automatically begin to convince themselves that they’ve made the right decision. This all begins with your ability to future pace them.

How to Use Someone’s Past Experience to Your Advantage

5 Replies

Most people make decisions based on their past experiences, cultural background, and beliefs. Ultimately, every experience a person has gone through, significant or not, will play a role in how a person makes a decision today, in present time. Now this concept can be used both in your favor, or against you, depending on your approach. Have you ever read something once and then decided to read it a few more times because you were so compelled to take action? This time will be like that time, let me explain…

Several years ago, I learned a technique that allows you to get a person to think about a feeling they had in the past and use it toward your advantage in present time. The phrase “has there ever been a time when you…blah blah blah” triggers your client to think of a time when they “blah blah blah”. After you authoritatively use that phrase and obviously replace the blah’s with what I teach you below, your prospect will begin to think of that time in their mind and have that particular feeling in present time. Keep reading, even if you’re a bit confused.

Phrases

There are actually several different variations to this phrase, lets go over a few of them:

  • Has there ever been a time when…
  • Have you ever…
  • Do you remember when…
  • If you think for second, you can probably remember…

Obviously you can change it, mix it, or do whatever you want, but you get the idea. Ultimately, you want a phrase that simply gets your prospect to think of a general incidence int the past. The key word is general. In fact, the more specific you are, the less chance you’ll have at this working. So be as vague as possible.

Instead of:

Has there ever been a time when you were talking to someone about xyz and they turned you down?

Use:

Has there ever been a time when you felt rejected?

The difference between the two is obviously the vagueness. It’s important to be vague because your prospects aren’t your friends. Unlike your friends, you have no clue what kind of life, incidents, situations, and scenarios your prospects gone through. Does that make sense?

Linking

So after you get the prospect to actually think of that time when they felt that particular way, you need to link that feeling to the current situation or scenario. To do this, you use the phrase:

This time is like that time, let me explain:

Then you simply explain to the prospect how their past experience is just like this current situation. After that, you want to amplify the pain of the mistake they made in the past so they won’t make the same one again in the future (present time).

Whether you are beginning to feel a bit confused or not, let’s go to the next section.

Objections

So ultimately, this technique is most commonly used to handle objections you get from prospects your trying to sell xyz to. Whether you’re selling a house, selling a car, or selling vacuum, this concept works in ANY selling situation.

Let’s give you an example of one of the most common objections that anyone selling anything has heard of: “I want to wait…”

Client: I want to wait

You: You want to wait, I completely understand. Let me ask you, has there ever been a time in your life when you wanted to do something, but waited, and then did it anyway. And then, you ended up spending more time or money then you originally wanted to? (SHUT UP and let them process this)

Client: well, yea sure, who hasn’t”

You: This time is like that time, let me explain…

You would typically use this technique toward the end of your presentation. Sometimes you can use it toward the beginning, but you just need to remember, being vague is key.

Do you understand what I mean?

See what I do is I take techniques like this one (has there ever been a time when) and combine it with other techniques, concepts, and strategies, and I use it to become persuasive communicator.

You need to understand that your communication is your biggest weapon. The people who have the ability to persuade someone to do something are the ones who are able to become successful at a faster pace. The saying, it’s not what you know, its who you know is the perfect example. Knowing how to sell myself to important people has gotten me further than just working on a particular skill/trait.

So I’m curious, now that you’ve been able to learn a technique that you can apply in your business right now, how will use it? Have you read something this compelling before, but  disregarded it, and continued to live the same average life you’ve always lived? This time, make the right decision and follow my advice, you will be glad you did.

In what type of scenarios will you use the (has there ever been a time…) technique?