I have a lot of sales professionals asking me: what is NLP (Neuro-linguistic programming) and what can they do with NLP and can it be applied to sales!?
The simple and short answer is: Programming the language of your brain and yes, it can be applied to sales!
Some might ask themselves what possible good that can be!? Even though the practical process is complex, the answer is simple: Outstanding results can be achieved by producing specific communication to and through the nervous system.
Which basically means that, NLP is an interpersonal communication model and an alternative approach to psychotherapy based on the subjective study of language, communication and personal change! Therefore it can only influence you, they way you communicate and thereby your sales process
It was co-created by Richard Bandler and linguist John Grinder in the 1970s. The initial focus was pragmatic, modeling three successful psychotherapists, Fritz Perls (Gestalt Therapy), Virginia Satir (Family Systems Therapy), and eventually Milton H. Erickson (Clinical Hypnosis), with the aim of discovering what made these individuals more successful than their peers.
In sales this is very relevant as in most companies, the salespeople receive the same basic training and learn the same sales method and techniques. These individuals are selling the same products or services at the same prices as their fellow sales professionals. They are usually working with similar demographics and more or less equal territories.
Given all of these similarities, how are some salespeople able to become great salespeople and help their companies gain market share, while so many other salespeople struggle just to make their minimum quota?
The conclusion has to be, that the success of a salesperson goes beyond having good products and services, knowledge of those products and services, and knowledge of sales methods and techniques.The success of sales superstars goes beyond having good products and services, knowledge of those products and services, and knowledge of sales techniques.
Sales superstars literally see the world differently.........they have a different mindset.
This is one of the reasons that today the predominant patterns of NLP, the application of those patterns, and many variants of NLP are found in many sales seminars, workshops, sales books and audio programs in the form of exercises and principles intended to influence change in self and others (for example a customer). Watch out when buying some of these offers, there is a great deal of difference between the depth and breadth of sales training and standards, and some disagreement between those in the field about which patterns are and are not "NLP" and how it applies to sales.
I know this sound scary, however while the field of NLP is loosely spread and resistant to a single comprehensive definition, there are some common principles and presuppositions shared by its proponents. Perhaps most generally, NLP aims to increase behavioral choice by the manipulation of personal state, belief and internal representation either by a practitioner/trainer, or by self-application. Therefore it is for the performance of the sales professional very important.
Some of the main ideas from NLP, imported from existing counseling or psychotherapy practice, include:
• Problems, desires, feelings, beliefs and outcomes are represented in visual, auditory and kinesthetic (and sometimes gustatory, olfactory) systems.
• When communicating with someone, rather than just listening to and responding to what a person said, NLP aims to also respond to the structure of verbal communication and non-verbal cues.
• Certain language patterns such as the meta model of NLP can help clarify what has been left out or distorted in communication, to specify thinking and outcomes, reframe beliefs, and set sensory specific goals. In contrast, the Milton model language patterns are intentionally non-specific and metaphoric to allow the listener to fill in the gaps and make their own meaning from what is being said and find their own inner resources and solutions for problems.
• The actual state someone is in when setting a goal or choosing a course of action is also considered important. A number of techniques in NLP aim to enhance states by anchoring resourceful states associated with personal experience or model states by imitating others.
So the real question and conclusion a NLP coach or practitioner should come to is:
1. How and what should you do to produce optimum sales results.
2. How can you duplicate sales excellence in a short period of time.
As already mentioned short, in NLP, modeling is the pathway to sales excellence. The very idea is that if you identify the traits and habits, and pay the price of time and effort of a successful athlete, friend, parent or sales professional, you will become a successful athlete, friend, parent or sales professional.
From business we all know that successful sales professionals make money by determining what is successful in one sales or customer and duplicating it in another. Take a proven system and duplicate it, and maybe improve upon it. It might sound too simplistic for you, but there is scientific proof that, people who do this are virtually guaranteed success.
NLP in its very basics believe that the difference between those who succeed and those who fail isn't what they have – it is what they choose to see and do with their resources and experience of life. I guess this why it has become so prominent the last 30 years. For NLP is a tool to develop your own insights and strategies and help you change what you need.
This might sound very complex and difficult, but let's look at it a little more simplistic: you can teach a dog patterns that will improve his behavior. From psychological as well as a behavioral science view, you can actually do the same with people (yourself). What is the message with that - as my brother who is a Doctor always puts it (and lives it): "seize excellence, and make it your own". Let's face it, isn't it true that building from the successes of others (seeing what works) is one of the fundamental aspects of most learning! Technology – every advance in technology is based on the foundation of earlier discoveries and breakthroughs.
This however doesn't change the fact that for many, NLP and its basic principles are really a way of thinking, an epistemology — the study of knowledge — of how we know what we know. As an Engineer, I however have to say that in considering NLP as a science, it is important to recognize that the epistemology of NLP is more 'subjective' and 'systematically' oriented than many 'hard' sciences, which tend to be more 'objective' and 'deterministic'. That is the patterns explored and identified by NLP are often necessarily contextual and influenced by the perceptual filters of the observer. As a scientific approach, then, NLP tends to be more 'qualitative' than 'quantitative' and more 'structuralist' than 'materialistic.......but since this is deep psychological and mindset approach, it is argued that this is scientifically speaking valid.
In most companies, the salespeople receive the same basic training and learn the same sales method and techniques. These individuals are selling the same products or services at the same prices as their fellow sales professionals. They are usually working with similar demographics and more or less equal territories.
Given all of these similarities, how are some salespeople able to become great salespeople and help their companies gain market share, while so many other salespeople struggle just to make their minimum quota?
The conclusion has to be, that the success of a salesperson goes beyond having good products and services, knowledge of those products and services, and knowledge of sales methods and techniques.
It has been analyzed and proven that there were a few common traits expert sales communicators and successful sales professionals have – whether top executives or top salespeople – all seemed to share (study by Bandler and Grinder, 1979):
• Everything they did in their work, was pro-active (rather than reactive), directed moment to moment by well-formed outcomes rather than formalized fixed beliefs
• They were exceedingly flexible in approach and refused to be tied down to using their skills in any one fixed way of thinking or working.
• They were extremely aware moment by moment, of the non-verbal feedback (unconscious communication and metaphor) they were getting, and responded to it - usually in kind rather than by analyzing it.
• They enjoyed the challenges of difficult ("resistant") clients, seeing them as a chance to learn rather than an intractable "problem"
• They respected the client as someone doing the best they knew how (rather than judging them as "broken" or "working")
• They had certain common skills and things they were aware of and noticed, that were intuitively "wired in"
• They worked with precision, purpose, and skill
• They kept trying different approaches until they learned enough about the structure holding a problem in place to change it
They summarized their findings in the following ways:
You need only three things to be an absolutely exquisite sales communicator and change to be successful. We have found that there are three major patterns in the behavior of every sales professional we've talked to. The first one is to know what outcome you want. The second is that you need flexibility in your behavior. You need to be able to generate lots and lots of different behaviors to find out what responses you get. The third is you need to have enough sensory experience to notice when you get the responses that you want [...] (Bandler and Grinder, 1979)
This is very important for that is a scientific proof that sales excellence can and is made. The success of sales superstars goes beyond having good products and services, knowledge of those products and services, and knowledge of sales techniques.
Sales superstars literally see the world differently, because sales superstars have a different mindset.
The hard reality is that whenever your sales performance is below where you know it should be, examine your mindset.
Many salespeople underestimate the difficulty of developing a "salessuccess mindset". They confuse a mindset with the simplistic positive thinking movement ("Every day, in every way, I am getting better and better.")
So what is the right or the wrong "salessuccess mindset?
The answer is that we all act in accordance with the way we see ourselves to be.
– We always act as we see ourselves. People who see themselves as intelligent do the things that intelligent people do.
– People who see themselves as athletic do the things that athletic people do.
– What takes effort is acting contrary to your self-image—and it usually ends in defeat.
– If you think you do something good…..can or will you then improve?
Therefore if your self-image is not that of a salessuccess mindset, you will not engage in the sales behaviors that can make you and your company highly successful.
In NLP, here are the 3 very basic and fundamental ingredients that must be duplicated to form any form of human excellence and thereby sales excellence:
1. Belief System (read about how to change your belief system: www.xing.com/app/forum?op=showarticles;id=7371165)
2. Mental Syntax – organise thoughts, and understand how other people organise their thoughts. "Unlock the code"
3. Physiology – the way you breathe, hold your body, posture, your movements, determines what state you are in.
Now how this is done and put to everyday life, comes in slightly different versions of what coaches or practitioners consider to be the basic principles or presuppositions of NLP, but there is a fairly high degree of agreement on those most central to NLP. So here are some generalizations used as working guides (maybe it can help the one or the other).
• Behind every behavior there is a positive intention. Even a seemingly negative thought or behavior has a positive function at some level or in some other context. (presupposition)
• There is no failure, only feedback. (presupposition)
• The meaning of the communication is the response it produces, not the intended communication. (presupposition)
• One cannot not communicate: Every behavior is a kind of communication. Because behavior does not have a counterpart (there is no anti-behavior), it is not possible not to communicate.
• Choice is better than no choice. An idea from cybernetics that holds the most flexible element in a system will have the most influence or choice in that system.
• People already have all the internal resources they need to succeed. (presupposition)
• Multiple descriptions are better than one
Sorry for making this a long article, but this subject is deep and this is really just scratching the surface and in ending, here is my very practical advice: Your behavior and actions are a result of your state of mind. The ancestor of every action is a thought (which creates your mindset)......but this is nothing new, already in the teachings of Buddha, the Torah, the Qur'ān and in the Bible it is stated the same basic principle "beware of your thoughts, they are the gateway to your actions".
So, if one changes ones mindset/beliefs, one can achieve huge results. There is simply no power like the power of a resourceful state of mind, for the kind of behavior people produce is the result of the state they are in. How they respond to the state they are in is based on their models of the world (there believe system). Most salespeople take little conscious effort to direct their mindsets. Mindset change is what most salespeople are after, when they want success.
So let me end, in saying, if you want something real practical to start to work with NLP in sales, here is something you should start working with:
1. Control your thoughts they become your dreams/visions and thereby directions
2. Control your dreams/visions they become your actions
3. Control your actions they become your habits
4. Control your habits they become what you will be made of as a salesperson...............your destiny and hopefully your success
I know these are very psychological soft skills we are talking about and as you can read from my article I strongly believe that sales excellence is made, not born. That's why I actually wanted to create this forum and I'm dedicated to helping you grow and master practice this difficult task and am overwhelmed by the participation and thought and comments, I have read in the different discussions so far.
Regards your moderator Mark
