Category Archives: Behavior

What Gets Buyers to Say “Yes, I’ll Buy?”

When we agree to an idea or proposal, it’s because there’s something in it for us. It’s hard to influence people who can’t see what’s in it for them. Sounds one-sided, but it is true. Call it self-interest, selfishness or whatever. It is only human nature to ask, “What am I getting from this?”

People will say yes to your ideas if they meet their needs or match their view of life in the following areas:

Principles and values
Beliefs and opinions
Needs and wants

So Give People What They Want & Need

People agree to ideas and suggestions that match their needs or views of life. Underpinning all our lives are certain principles and values that we hold to be true. These become guidance for how we conduct our lives. They influence and mould our behavior. They can differ greatly from person to person and successful influencers always take principles and values into account.

But how?

Notice what principles and values drive other people

Ask questions and invite comment and reaction

Check with those who know them well

Some examples of principles:

Integrity and fairness are an integral part of business dealings.’
I think that older people deserve courtesy and consideration.’
Moral behavior is part of the fabric of daily life.’

It would be unproductive to spend time attempting to dislodge these deep-seated principles. Instead, harness them to add leverage to your suggestions

Beliefs & Opinions

Beliefs and opinions can be transient or short-term. Remember when you used to believe in Father Christmas, the Tooth Fairy, giants, and witches? Proof can easily dislodge a belief. So too can time.

An early step on the road to influencing others may include having to change lingering beliefs or convictions before you can proceed further.

I think that BubbleClean washing machines break down more often than the Tumbling system range.’
I think that all politicians are corrupt.’
I never make decisions on the 13th.’

Each of these beliefs can be dealt with by logical questioning or providing proof or data.

Needs & Necessities

These are fundamental requirements they have to be met if you are to influence others. Typical needs include: reliability, security, achieving a deadline, meeting a budget, keeping up to date.

Because of increasing competition, it is essential that we maintain an image and at the same time keep up to date.’
My team members are under great pressure, so it important to maintain their morale.’
The system must not only be reliable but secure, as well.’

Having uncovered needs, you may have to mould or reshape your ideas to dovetail with the requirements of others. Often, people have a hierarchy of needs, so it may be important to discover and use this:

Which is most important to you reliability or security?

Wants & Wishes

Wants and wishes are not essentials, just a wish list: Wouldn’t it be lovely … if only’. But their fulfillment can be the cherry on your influencing trifle, placed on top with a flourish, after the other person has agreed to your proposal.

Depends What’s on Offer

Question: How will your suggestions benefit the other person?

The person or people you are influencing will interpret the benefits of your suggestions in different ways. Some will be interested in the features the fine details, the nitty gritty of ideas. Others will say how will I benefit?’ Others will seek out the advantages of proposals how the benefits are different.

Features, Benefits & Advantages

No doubt you are familiar with the differences between features, benefits and advantages, but it is worth re-iterating.

Features

These are built-in aspects of your idea or suggestion timing, costs, resources etc. They will remain locked up in your idea whether the other person agrees or not.

Benefits

These are far more important than the features of your proposal. They translate boring old features into exciting statements which show clearly how others will gain.

This new hardware is made in Germany (feature) which means that we will save time and money on spare parts (benefit).’

Advantages

These are comparative benefits e.g. Increased revenue, greater savings, and faster turn-around.

In Summary: The Benefit Balance Sheet

Most people do not agree whole-heartedly to an idea. There is usually something that niggles, however well you’ve addressed their concerns.

In the end, when we finally say yes to a proposal, it is because the benefits outweigh any disadvantages.

As you plan and prepare your influencing case, list all the benefits and advantages of your suggestions. Use them to tip the balance in favor of yes.

About the Author: Jonathan Farrington is Chairman of The Sales Corporation, CEO of Top Sales Associates, and Senior Partner at The JF Consultancy, based in London and Paris. He is also the Chairman of the Executive Board over at Top Sales Experts. His popular daily blog is read by thousand of dedicated business professionals

The Art of Spinning a Conversation

14 Replies

One of the most challenging professions you can get into is the industry of Public Relations. The challenge isn’t necessarily a physical difficulty, but a psychological one. PR people, sometimes referred to as “Spin Doctors”, are responsible for preventing any type of damage to their client’s reputation. They possess the linguistical talent to sway you to believe whether something is right or wrong, powerful isn’t it.

For example, if a celebrity was arrested for drinking and driving, then it would be up to the spin doctor to persuade the public that it wasn’t the celebrity’s fault, it was because of all the pressure from the paparazzi that influenced this celebrity to alcohol addiction. The celebrity goes to a rehabilitation center and the blame is now turned around to the paparazzi, even though it was the celebrity who was drinking and driving in the first place. Just recently, after Kanye West’s little blunder, his “Spin Doctors” probably advised him to put the blame on his mother’s passing. It didn’t do that well, but it did take some heat off of his stupidity. Wait a few months and everyone will love him again.

Another great example is from the movie Thank You for Smoking. This is an awesome movie about a guy whose job is to defend the tobacco company’s reputation. Not an easy task, but he manages to do it.

Most of you reading this have no use to hire your own Spin Doctor, but learning how they do it can take you out of the most difficult of scenarios.

Never Directly Disagree

People will challenge your ideas, concepts, products, beliefs etc, but you should never directly tell them that they’re wrong. Here are some phrases to use when someone says something to you before you shift the conversation:

That’s a valid concern
That’s right
I agree
That’s true
I can appreciate that
you’re right
I understand
you’re absolutely right

Example 1:

Them: You have too little experience for me to give this job.
You: That’s a valid concern

So whatever it is the person is accusing you of, acknowledge it, repeat and then continue.

Starting your Spin

Here are phrases you need to use after you acknowledge them for what they said. These phrases will allow you to make a smooth transition from something pointed at you to persuading them to believe what you say is actually right:

So what I hear you saying is…
What I sense…
So if I understand correctly, you’re saying…
What I think your feeling is…
What I’m noticing you say is…
What it sounds like your saying is…
What it looks like your saying is…
I believe that you’re really trying to say…
Sounds like to me that you’re…
What I think you’re saying…

Example 2:

Them: You have too little experience for you to get this job.
You: That’s a valid concern and it sounds like to me that you’re looking for someone who will get the job done in the time you want it, aren’t you? Most of my clients feel that way too before they CHOOSE ME and give me the chance. If I can get this job done for you in X days, would that work for you?

In this example, you spun the conversation from them talking about you having little experience to getting the job they want done, faster.

Example 3:

Them: I’ve never heard of your company before
You: I understand and what I think your saying is that you’re looking to find the best deals possible right? As we talk about making this happen, I’m sure you starting to feel comfortable knowing that I’ll save you more money and the get the job done in less time, does that work for you?

In this example, you spun the conversation from them feeling insecure about your company’s reputation to feeling comfortable knowing that they will be saving money by choosing you.

Final Thoughts

You can’t control what other people say about you, your products, services, or company, but you can persuade them to change their mind.

Has there ever been a time when you needed to use this technique?

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.Â 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 shouldÂ 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?

The Difference Between Being Influenced and Brainwashed

4 Replies

Ever feel like you’re being brainwashed? And by the way I’m not suggesting that you totally agree with everything in this article because I’m a nice guy and have your best interests at heart. It’s just that you know there are times when you find yourself suddenly craving a big Mac or salivating about that new GM muscle car or the new Ford mustang or just absolutely have to have those special tooth whitening strips so you’ll be more attractive… And moments before you watched the commercial or read the ad, you weren’t even thinking about it. The question is… are you being brainwashed?

Or just influenced?

According to my secret sources in the US Military, for brainwashing to be present all 5 of the following conditions must be met. So ask yourself now

Have you been removed from your normal environment of influence or confined to the compound and not allowed to leave no contact with outside?
Have you been deprived of sleep getting less than 6 hours per night? (psst are your children brainwashing you?)
Are you given emotional, physical or psychological pain or punishment if you disagree?
Do you get pleasure or rewards if you agree to get with the program?
Has your bio-chemistry been forcibly changed through diet or drugs?

Now maybe one or two of these elements are present in your marriage, your job, your sports team, church, chamber of commerce, fraternity or sorority, etc.

But remember, all 5 elements must be present for more than a weekend. After all it may take a bit of time to be internalized into your unconscious mind.

Now, you don’t have to think about army basic training or boot camp unless of course you want to…But if you were to think about it, imagine this:

You are far from home and confined to some sweltering, mosquito infested base
You are woken up at the crack of dawn every day by scratchy recording of a bugle playing reveille. When you least expect it they wake you up in the middle of the night for drills.
If you don’t get with the program you are shouted at, made to do extreme physical penance (give me 50 push-ups worm) and are subject to other emotional and psychological punishment.
If you get along and follow orders and are a good little soldier you get praise, awards, medals, shore leave, extra dessert etc.
Think about the food in the military! Just eating S.O.S and mountains of potatoes every day will change your bio chemistry.

I don’t know why, but all of a sudden I’m thinking about this Christian summer camp I went to with my church youth group for a week the summer between 9^th and 10 grade.

Hmmm.

I wasn’t in my normal environment. It was way nicer. A beautiful camp on a pristine lake in the mountains.
They kept us up late singing songs and woke us up really early. Averaged about 5 hours a night.
They didn’t shout or use overt physical pain. But they made us feel guilty as hell about all the impure thoughts we were having about the opposite (or same) sex. And all the sin we were carrying around with us. It felt painful to me. Very painful. So very, very painful. Forgive me Father for I have SINNED.
If you gave your life to Jesus you got applause and that special feeling of getting with the program. Plus some of the cutes girls were serious bible thumpers and I wanted in with them for more SIN for which I must feel shame and guilt!
Damn! No drugs or bizarre food. The food was good. For some people it was better than home. Nobody was made to drink actual cool-aid or eat bugs.

So even though 4 out of 5 is pretty darn close, I managed to survive Christian summer camp with all my skepticism and doubts intact. Never underestimate the power of bad food or at least very different food to tip the brainwashing scales. It’s all in the details.

Now let’s talk about TV.

You are not isolated from your normal environment of influence. When you’re watching the tube you are most definitely in a zombie like trance but you are usually sitting on your own couch.
You’re sleep patterns are not interrupted. In fact many people prefer to fall asleep watching TV. There seem to be few reports of people sleep walking into a Hummer dealership with a bag of cash after falling asleep in front of the telly.
A really good commercial may remind you of the pain you are already in and may anchor pleasure to the idea that you can get out of pain by making a decision and taking action. Think about your hard earned dollars sneaking out your leaky, inefficient old windows pain
A master influencer will definitely link pleasure to his or her idea or outcome for you. now think about how wonderful the snug, tight, energy efficient thermal windows will be as they save you bushels of cash over the next 30 years…
An argument could be made that McDonalds food will change your body chemistry and get you hooked. Or all those pharmaceutical ads for the weight loss drug (with the rectal leakage side effect) could get you hooked and change your bio chemistry. But you’re still in your own home and they have yet to figure out how to get the TV to dispense their stuff. Plus, the other elements of brainwashing must also be present and you can always turn off the TV.

So in a nutshell, TV advertising, is not brainwashing. Ads may be powerful. They may be insidious. They may be persuasive. They get stuck like a sappy love song in your rostromedial pre-frontal cortex and play over and over again. They may be hugely influential. They may not always be a force for good in our lives.

But you can always hit the off button so it ain’t brainwashing.

Now I know you didn’t totally agree with everything I’ve said in the past or right now or in the future so if there are other things you agree with me on feel free to leave a comment below or just think of me as a genius for the next few moments… that’s right.

About the Author: Mark Shepard, NLPT is a Master Practitioner and Trainer of NLP, Hypnosis & Time Line Therapy. Read his blog: Modernjedi.com

Introvert to Extrovert : 4 Ways to Take Control of Your Shyness

41 Replies

Have you ever been tongue tied at the thought of approaching an attractive woman and introducing yourself? What about feeling awkward and out of place at business or social gatherings? How about hesitating to raise your hand in class or pick up the phone to make a sales call?

Before we go any farther. Stop! Think for a moment about the cost of this shyness crap in your life. Seriously. What’s it costing you?

Imagine what it would be like to be able to approach any woman, any time and engage her in a relaxed funny, sexy, playful conversation that you both enjoy.
Imagine being able to speak up for your own needs and desires and getting them.
Imagine walking into a business networking meeting and people glowingly referring you to people who need and want your services.
Imagine people seeking you out for advice and guidance regarding the product or service you offer.
Imagine in a meeting or in a class raising your hand with a key question or comment that makes it easier for the trainer or teacher to teach and for the other students to understand
Imagine offering an idea that ends up saving your company thousands of dollars
Had an idea that you hesitated to share with your boss or colleagues.You might think you’re shy.

All well and good but first that thing that stops you from taking the risk.

Shyness. (It really does suck, doesn’t it?)

How To Stop Being Shy In Four Steps:

1. Realize you created it. Since you created it. You can change it.

Shyness is not a thing. It is something you do. It’s a process. It’s a habit. It’s a learned behavior. It is not a lifetime sentence. It is not genetic. It is not a disease, even though the shrinks love to diagnose it and call it Social Anxiety Disorder. At some point in your childhood you decided to be shy. You created it because it solved some problems and seemed to keep you out of bad feelings. Again, if you created it (and you really did, didn’t you?) you can change it.

2. Discover Your Program – Uncover your Unconscious process of doing shyness.

How do you do it? I get my clients to teach me how they do their problem. They don’t realize there are a set pattern of steps they go through to get that certain feeling. What triggers it? What do you do first? What do you do next? What comes after that? We care less about why you do it and more about how. Keep going through each step until you get to how you end the program. At some point you stop it don’t you? Write it out as if you are leaving instructions for your temporary worker to come in and do it for you so you can forget about the problem. What has to happen for you to start to not feel totally comfortable and confident? What’s the first thing? Do you see something or someone? What? Do you say something to yourself? What? Whose voice is it? Do you get a feeling in your body? Where? Does the feeling move? Does it have a shape? Does it have a color, a texture? Density? Write all this down so you can see it in black and white.

3. Jam Your Program – At any point if you change a significant element of how you do your shyness program, it will cause the program to jam.

For example let’s say in the past you’d see a hot babe and say to yourself. “oh my god she’s so hot I’ll never be able to get a woman like that,” in that sad hopeless wimpy little voice you hear in your head. Next you’d feel a sinking feeling in your stomach that was the size of a grapefruit with the density of a bowling ball.To Jam it you could do this instead: “Oh my gawd she’s so HOT! with An exaggerated lip licking smirk and then a playfully predatory YUUUUUM! And then shrink down the grapefruit sized feeling to a wiffle ball and push it out 3 feet in front of your body and smack that old crappy feeling with a baseball bat out of the park.Again for the sake of this example, I don’t know what you do specifically. But you know don’t you? Walk yourself through it and write it down. Then mess with it. Play with it. Run it backwards. Scramble it. Do the picture first and then the voice. Try different voices. Mickey Mouse, the Jolly green giant. Some really sexy babe. Repeat as needed.

4. Change your beliefs.

You probably believe you’re shy. How do you know? How do you know you’re not just pretending to be shy in order to get out of having to be successful in all areas of your life? I spend a lot more time on this in my Modern Jedi NLP Training but here’s the least you need to know.

Beliefs filter our reality. What you believe becomes so. Change the belief. Change your reality. We represent our beliefs to ourselves internally through the pictures, self talk and feelings we run. For example, I hold my true beliefs directly in front of me on my mental screen. My old beliefs are down and to my left and slightly behind me. Beliefs I want to be true but don’t quite feel true yet are up and to my left.
Here’s how to change a belief. When I first stopped being shy. I noticed that the belief that I was shy was right smack in front of me. The belief that I wanted to have, namely that I was the guy with charisma and confidence in any social situation, the guy who could strike up a conversation anywhere at anytime with the most powerful CEO or the most Babe-A-Licious hottie was up and to my left. When I took the shyness belief and slammed it down and left and a bit behind me (to my old beliefs) and powerfully pulled in the desired belief into the very center of my mental screen making it bigger and brighter, I suddenly felt different. Shyness gone. Poof! Holy crap!
Results you can notice immediately. It totally changed my experience. Ten minutes later I found myself chatting with a gorgeous hottie as we both got our UPS delivery in the lobby of my apartment building. I did have to practice this occasionally. But so what? What was so cool about this was that I wasn’t forcing myself to talk with her. It was suddenly the most natural and comfortable thing to do. Want some?When you think of a belief that’s true for you notice where on your internal screen it shows up. Typically your limiting belief “I’m shy” will show up in your “true” spot.
When you think of a belief about yourself that’s no longer true, (like you are no longer 12) notice where on your mental screen that shows up.
Think about a belief you would like to have. Notice where that one shows up.
Now move the crappy belief about being shy to your old beliefs spot. Slam your desired belief about being charismatic and totally confident and comfortable in social situations into the place you hold your true beliefs.
How does that feel?

It’s like reprogramming the VCR.

What has shyness prevented you from doing?

About the Author: Mark Shepard, NLPT is a Master Practitioner and Trainer of NLP, Hypnosis & Time Line Therapy. Read his blog: Modernjedi.com

Understanding Facial Expressions and Microexpressions

40 Replies

You can go to a book store and find many books on body-language, communication and persuasion. Many of them seem to cover the same material though: posture, gestures, words that work, etc. Sometimes you can find a book or a blog like AJ’s that has unique insights and applications to help you get better at communicating and persuading.

So, where, besides AJ’s blog, can you get good information that not a lot of people have access to, which will help you understand what other people are thinking and experiencing? This information, of course, would help you become a better persuader. You can also use a system like the Mojo Dialer to increase your contacts when you’re trying to persuade people over the phone.

Thirty years ago, Paul Ekman did cross-cultural research and identified seven basic human emotions. He identified the seven basic emotions through facial expressions. No matter where in the world, what culture, class, race, gender, or lighting, these seven facial expressions were identified across the board. By learning to identify these seven basic human emotions, you will get insight into just what people are experiencing.

The Seven Basic Facial Expressions:

(Pictures are from FOX’s new show LIE TO ME)

These emotions are displayed based on how the muscles in your face move. While researching the face, Ekman created a coding system to identify all of the possible movements that each of you facial muscles can make called the Facial Action Coding System. You don’t have to become an expert in the FACS to read faces though. Ekman offers a nice set of tools to help you better identify people’s facial expressions in real-time.

On his website, you can view a few video interviews that he has done over the years analyzing and explaining his reading of faces. These videos are great both as training tools to understand the range and depth of information that faces present. They also give you a great insight into how you can use facial recognition to more accurately read a person’s emotional state, both the subtle emotions people experience and the emotions they don’t want you to see.

Training Yourself To Notice Facial Expressions

Mr. Ekman has created two training modules that can help you identify these seven basic facial expressions with more precision and ease. It is relatively easy to identify these facial expression when we are shown a picture, but people don’t usually wear their expressions for minutes at a time! On his website, you can use his training videos to identify what he call micro-expressions and subtle-expressions.

Subtle expressions

Subtle expressions happen when someone experiences an emotion very briefly or when the emotion is not as intense. The subtle expression training tool shows you how to recognize the subtle movements in a person’s facial muscles that correspond with various emotions.

Microexpressions

Micro expressions occur when a person is trying to suppress or repress an emotion. Have you ever tried to not smile, or not look angry? In the show Lie To Me, the main character deals with people who are constantly trying to hide their emotions. This training enables you to read a person’s emotional state, even when they don’t want you to!

Using these two training programs will not only help you read ‘pure emotions’, but you will also learn to notice when someone displays conflicting emotions, as in where they’re not sure what to think or feel about something. Mixed emotions are displayed by people when they have two contrasting emotions. Because people can experience more than one emotion at a time, our faces sometimes give off mixed signals. For a brief instant, someone may smile with their mouth at a joke and at the same time display anger with their brow.

Lie to Me

The show Lie to Me on Fox is actually an application of Paul Ekman’s work. In the show, you will see Cal Lightman (the character of Paul Ekamn played by Tim Roth) help private individuals, companies and government investigators find out the truth behind a situation. By expertly reading the expressions of the people he interviews, he uncovers the story behind the story. The show serves as a great introduction to reading body-language and facial expressions.

If you watch the show (close) enough, you’ll start to recognize the richness of information that people present through their facial expressions. Even after gone through the training tools myself, I find myself watching Lie To Me reruns on Hulu to see more of the subtly in facial expressions.

5 Reasons Why People Suck at Public Speaking

32 Replies

“All you gotta do is picture everyone in their underwear…” One of the most commonly used solutions people have for public speaking. Are kidding me? This is your sick perverted advice? No wonder so many people are such terrible public speakers. It’s advice like this and more that set people up for failure when speaking in front of a group of people. Luckily, there are real solutions that work well. In this 2-part blog series, I’ll share with you the top 5 reasons why people suck at public speaking and then the top 5 reasons why people kick ass. First let’s talk about what people are doing wrong:

1. Tee-Off

For some reason, many people like to start off their speeches by explaining to everyone why they’re such terrible speakers. Why would someone do this? That’s setting yourself up for a terrible speech without even making one! The word tee-off is from golf where your objective is to start off each course by hitting the ball off the tee. Pretty simple concept. In public speaking, it means practically the same thing in the sense that your starting off your speech. Just like in golf, your first shot can vastly improve your score or hurt it, your opening line during a speech will affect you in the same way. Some of the lamest ways to start off a speech:

I’m not a good public speaker…
I’m so happy to be here today…
I’m sorry I didn’t have time to prepare…
I apologize, this is my first time speaking to an audience…
I hope I don’t come across too nervous tonight…

2. Telling Jokes

Now some people are great at telling jokes, but most people suck. So if you know that you’re a terrible joke teller, please refrain from starting your speech with a joke. Even comics know that sometimes their jokes aren’t funny until the audience warms up a bit. For amateur joke teller, telling a terrible joke will instantly make you believe that you suck, thereby ruining your mindset. After this feeling, a person might end up speeding through the rest of the speech and suck some more.

3. Mimicking Other Speakers

Your intentions might be in the right place, but if you mimic another speaker, you’re setting yourself up to become the short end of the stick. What I mean by that is that you’ll be viewed as the guy who acts like that other guy. Or if you suck at mimicking, you’ll be viewed as the guy who tries to act like that other guy. This eliminates your individuality and doesn’t set you aside far enough to be noticed. Yes there are a very few number of people who can mimic someone else and do a great job, but chances are it’s not you ;). Be unique.

4. Reading Verbatim

Reading verbatim has to me always been a surefire indicator of a very boring speech. When someone reads off of their notes verbatim, they kill the potential creativity, enthusiasm, and overall excitement. Now don’t get me wrong, it’s always a fantastic idea to have notes in front of you. Even take aÂ glimpse at your notes if you have to, but reading it word for word is one of the worst things you can do. If your focusing on what your going to say next, you won’t be able to read what your audience likes or dislikes. This ruins your chances in building rapport with the group.

5. Act as Stiff

Since so many people are self conscious about the way they’re dressed, the way they look, whether they’re too fat, too skinny, etc. It becomes a challenge to focus on anything else. One of the biggest mistakes you can do while public speaking is stand stiff. By not moving on stage, you are showing off signs of uncomfortableness and a lack of confidence. Remember, your body has the ability to amplify your energy and enthusiasm better than anything else.

There are obviously more than 5 mistakes someone can make while speaking in public, but I felt as if these 5 are the most critical indicators to make one suck. Now that your aware of what you shouldn’t do, stay tuned for the 2nd part of this 2 part series on what you should do.

What are some of the biggest mistakes you have seen during a speech?

How to Read Someone Like a Book

8 Replies

Body language can never lie; words and statements, however, can. Learning to calibrate increases your ability to know what a person is feeling. This becomes extremely potent when trying to eliminate confusion in communication and also to avoid getting deluded with words.

In NLP (Neuro-Linguistic Programming), State Calibration are just “indicators” of a person’s state. When the red light is on the oven, it mean it’s heating up. When you’ve calibrated a person, you can know that a specific person a brow furrowed, right eye squinted and hunched means they’re perplexed. Therefore the “brow furrowed, right eye squinted and hunched” state is like the red light on the oven; both the red oven light and the furrowed brow, squint, and hunch serve as indicators for what’s going on “inside”.

How Do You Calibrate a State?

When you see a person having a unique body posture, or movement, you ask them what they feel, and if they respond, you’ll know that that specific external body language, posture, breathing, and the like corresponds to their state! ANY time you see them with “brow furrowed, right eye squinted and hunched, ask them what they’re feeling. If they respond, you’ve just successfully calibrated their state! Now whenever you see that external body language, you will understand that for that person it calibrates to “perplexed”.

A green light on the oven could mean, “cleaning mode”, just as someone who’s in a state where their breathing is steady, chest out, and smiling, and you ask them what they feel they’ll say “happy” you’ve calibrated that “breathing is steady, chest out, and smiling” to mean happy for THEM. So to that specific person, just as the green light means “cleaning mode”, “breathing steady, chest out, and smiling” means “feeling happy”. Now, “breathing is steady, chest out, and smiling” does not mean happy for every person; just that specific person. To continue the analogy to now an absurd level of metaphor (LOL!) everyone’s “oven” is built different with different indicator lights. The oven lights are just a metaphor for “external indicator” that calibrates to an “internal state”.

So Why is This Useful?

State Calibration has millions of applications, but we can focus on two: dissolving confusion and persuasion. Having calibrated a state is obviously clarifying because it decreases confusion from ALL of these external states and configurations of body posture, breathing cadence, brow, voice tone, etc, because now you know, after calibrating, those are indicators of internal states. If you ask them what they’re feeling (so you don’t fall into the trap of mind reading) and they answer with a response of their internal state, you have just calibrated their external sensory indicators to their internal state! Congrats!! Successful calibration!

Persuasive Calibration

Now let’s examine the persuasive benefits of State Calibration. Let’s say you’ve calibrated a state when you notice a person has “dilated pupils, slumped shoulders, and tapping feet”. What state does that calibrate to? Well you ask them and they respond, “Interested. I feel interested right now.” Excellent! Now you know that whenever that person displays that “dilated pupils, slumped shoulders, and tapping feet” external behavior, then you know they’re interested. Why would knowing their internal state be so persuasively valuable? Let’s say you’re offering this person a sale and he suddenly pops into his “interested state” but SAYS “The price is too high; I don’t have my heart set on the product.” If you hadn’t calibrated, you might have sold the product to him for a lower price. However, the calibration master would demand the sale as is or even increase the price! Why? Because the person who has calibrated already knows that this person is clearly interested.

Additionally, you can know when you’ve successfully put someone into a state. What if you’ve calibrated a woman to “aroused” or a prospective client to “attentive and eager”. You know when your communication is successful because you have those calibration “lights” that flick on revealing to you that your communication is effective! All the best communicators and the most persuasive people utilize state calibration because everyone needs “checks and indicators” for if what they’re communicating is working or not! You need feedback for what and how you communicate and all the lights start flashing and you can learn to read a person “like an oven” 😉 with effective state calibration!

About the Author: John Thomas Kooz also blogs on Validate Life