[Tony Robbins] Mastering Influence Day 6:How to Qualify and Discover Your Client’s Buying Strategies

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Well, welcome back! It's session number six. Can you believe it? Can you believe we've gotten this far? I'm so excited because here's where we're in the home stretch, and this is where, if you thought the other stuff was great, you ain't seen nothing yet. So, congratulations! And I want you to know that you're more than halfway through now.

Think about it. Think about how much you've learned so far, and also think about how much value you've already added to your life. If you've been doing the exercises, then you're probably starting to notice some changes in you, maybe how you speak, or how you view things, and how you approach things, and how you talk to people. But I'm curious, what is the value to you of what you learned so far? Answer that question for yourself. What has it been worth for you emotionally so far? And economically? And for your career? Have you noticed that it makes a difference already in your sales? And not only in your sales, but your ability to create influence in any context?

Now that we've completed phase one of the 10 in steps to increasing your sales, entitled "Engage," it's time to move into phase number two. There are two steps in this phase: number six, "Qualify Them," and that's the subject of this session, and number seven, "Create Conviction and Test Close," which we'll cover on the next session.

So, to qualify them, have you ever been in a selling situation where you really created interest? You spent time with that person, maybe spent quite a bit of time with that person, only to find out at the end of your presentation that your product did not fit their needs, or they weren't the decision-maker, or they weren't qualified financially to purchase your product? I know I have. It kind of feels like a waste of time, or a waste of energy. Or on a personal side, that it was actually your son who tore apart the kitchen and not your daughter, or that your boss doesn't actually have the authority to give you a raise, or even more personal, your spouse doesn't even want the new dress that you were going to talk her out of anyway.

This step, "Qualifying Them," is about discovering some basic information about your customer. So, here's Tony.

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Now, so we've completed the first phase of the selling process. We've been able to engage the customer or client, and we went through five steps. And let's think about what they were. We started out in preparation, before we ever got out on the field. We sat, sat down, and we did the preparation by talking to some referrals, by maybe going to the library, talking to some key people. We want to find out everything we possibly could about our prospect in advance. And then also want to make sure we're really up to date on our own product. If you're a real estate agent, you went out and you're checking out properties on an ongoing basis. If you're a stockbroker, you know exactly where the key stocks are right now. In other words, you really know your product, you know all the advantages and benefits, and you're ready to share them with someone. Thirdly, you remember, you did your preparation from the standpoint of knowing every objection that could come up, and you got a way to handle all of them confidently. Not where you have just a bunch of closes, but where you, in your gut, know there's no problem, you can handle anything they bring up, and you know the kinds of things that a person's going to bring up, and you had a plan on how to really manage your time and make things work out there.

So, basically, you were prepared. From the preparation stage, you went out of that and decided, "Hey, I'm going to turn myself on." And that was getting yourself to level 10. That was putting yourself in a peak state. And you recall the things we did so that you have all of your ability and skill available to you. And once you're turned on, now you can really tap your real ability.

The third thing we talked about was making sure that now that you're all turned on, you're prepared, you got to go do something. So you got to reach out and make contact. You got to make sure that you don't just hang back there and be all excited, but you do something with that excitement called "find a human being and talk to them." And often times, salespeople say, "Well, gosh, you know, I really don't know where to start to make contact." Well, go outside, pick up a rock, throw it high in the air, and wherever it drops, start there. Next person walks by, go, "You're the first person after the rock." That'll get somebody's attention. You can begin to speak to somebody about something. What I would tell is, you might want to create for yourself a prospecting library or a prospecting book where all you do is build up possible prospects, so that what you've got really is this tool chest of ideas and people that communicate with, so you never feel like, "Oh, I'm going to run out of prospects." You go right back to that place where you're building up this giant file of potential prospects. I would give you that as another additional piece.

And then, while you're making contact, what you need to do is make sure you think of all the ways to get attention, because it's not just about making contact, but getting their attention as well. We talked about screaming pigs and doing some other unique things to make sure you got a hold of that person's attention, not just being in front of them for the moment.

We talked about how you could really connect with the person. That now that you got their attention, you got to make sure that they trust you, and that they really fully appreciate that you're there with their interest in mind, and not just your interest in mind. We talked about how to do that by deep caring, and really caring about strangers, becoming their friend, how to do it through compliments, not just flattery, but real compliments, sincere compliments, and how to build those up and prepare for them, and also through the process of matching and mirroring.

And then finally, we said, "Okay, to have them fully engaged, we got to not only be in a situation where we're prepared, and we're turned on, and we've made contact, and got their attention, and we're their friend, but we also got to have their interest, and we got to make them hungry so they really want to hear our presentation." It's not until they're really hungry to hear it that we got enough interest that anything you're going to say is going to have any impact anyway. And we talked about how to do that with something we called "units of interest," the ability to make a big fat claim, and right behind that, state, "Because," and give them a fact. What that'll mean to you is, and give them a benefit. And what that really means to you is, and give them even stronger emotional reason to buy right now, some deep thing, you know, is linked to what they really, really want. And then backing all these things up with giving them some evidence, but making the evidence real brief, or alluding to it, because all you're trying to do right now is get interest. You're not trying to convince them in that stage called "creating interest," step five.

And then finally, getting permission to probe for problems, so you can now leave the engaging mode, but can now move into the actual process of enrolling them to purchase. Now, what's what we've done so far? We've engaged somebody. Now, all we got to do is, we've got to enroll them. Now, how do you enroll somebody? The way you enroll them is, you got to know who this person is and what their needs really are. And so that's exactly what we're going to do.

So, let's now move on to step number six. And step number six is "Probe for Problems and Magnify the Hurt." Now, I know again, that may not sound real attractive, but knowing how to be able to take something that somebody wants and get them associated to the fact that they're not having it now, and the pain that comes from that, is quite motivational. But you've got to know who you're dealing with. The biggest challenge that 99% of the sales people that I talk to who are having challenges have is they're trying to sell somebody blind. That is, they've got a little bit of information about the customer, and they're trying to be able to market to them, or they have no information. They've been going out there and just giving their presentation without first finding out who they're dealing with. That's why I didn't just go from getting them interested to showing them my product. I want to first find out who the heck is this person? What are their real deep wants and needs? What's inside of them?

And so, we basically are going to look for three ways to qualify people, to really find out. When we're qualifying, we don't want to just know, "Do they have the money?" We want to know that too. But we want to know, what are their real problems? What's inside of them that we can help them to solve? What's a problem there? What's an emotional feeling it's not being fulfilled, really deep down inside their heart? They wish it was. That's our job. And then we want to magnify it so they're motivated again. Much like somebody who might be overweight, they may need to lose weight, but they won't. Motivation requires that they get enough desire, and the desire means plenty of reasons too, like all these benefits they'll get, and plenty of reasons that if they don't do it, it's going to hurt, and get them to feel that and be associated to it.

So, the way we're going to do that is, we're going to start with the first aspect of qualifying, which is very simple. And the first aspect is remembering a real simple phrase or frame, and that is called "Noam." N-W-A-M. Noam. It stands for basically the five things that you're going to want to know upfront, as quickly as possible, when you're in the stage of qualifying the prospect. And Noam stands for: N for Needs. You want to know what somebody's needs are. Now, I should mention to you that as I mentioned earlier, people usually buy their wants, not their needs. But if you have their needs, and you can show them how by fulfilling a want, they can also support a need, then it gives them more justification to follow through. For example, the difference between a need and a want would be: you might want a car because it is the most beautiful car you've ever seen in your life, or you may want a car because your best friend has one, or your competition has one, or you've heard it's the best in the world. You may need a car that'll get you from here to there consistently without breaking down. So your needs may not be met by a Ferrari, but the bottom line is, your wants may be fulfilled by a Ferrari, and you're going to buy wants, probably most people, not all. It depends on where they are and what their values are. But most people are going to buy their wants before their needs. You'll want to know both, so you have enough leverage to know how to persuade someone.

So, N is for Needs. W, I've already clarified, it's for Wants. You're going to want to find out what are the customer's wants. And these are questions that should be going through your mind, and questions you're going to want to be asking them, and you're going to design a couple of questions under each one of these to be able to find out the person's needs. It's going to be part of your assignment here.

The third, W, is for Wounds, not wants, but wounds. What I want to know when I'm dealing with someone is, what are some of their psychic wounds? I'm going to explain what that is. Most of national advertising, 99% of it, where we're talking Madison Avenue now, people that are spending $5, $10, $520 million a year on a particular account, very easily dropping a bucket. What they look for primarily in putting together a commercial are, "What are your wounds? What is it deep down inside of you that hurts that they can open up and show you how to heal that pain through their product or service?" And this is the exact way they describe it. It's where I got the initial idea in my head about relooking at my idea of selling and seeing that wounds or pain or hurt was very, very powerful, not to harm someone, but to open up feelings that are already there, get them associated, and get them motivated to change. So, we're going to find out a person's wounds.

A is to find out whether they have Authority. The authority to be able to make the purchase, which especially when you're selling in a corporate environment, but it's pretty critical. It's also important when you're in a home environment. If you're talking to the husband, you better make sure that his wife's going to be happy about this, or vice versa. So it's real important that you feel and find out before you go into your presentation in any depth, who's going to have to give authority to this. Maybe there's a third party. Maybe they're going to tell you that their accountant has to check it over before they can make a decision. The time to find that out is upfront, not after you've done a presentation. If I have somebody tell me their accountant's got to handle it, the first thing I do is say, "Well, let's schedule a time for all of us to sit down together," because I don't want to do a presentation, have them go back and try and explain what I told them to their accountant, or you and I both know what's going to happen. Or their attorney, for that matter. So, what I always want to do is find out, do they have the authority? And that's real simple and upfront and basic.

And the last one is M. Do they have the Money? Is the person in the frame of reference where financially, where they are qualified to be able to have your presentation? So you need to be able to find out, do they have the resources, or access to the resources, or could they qualify for the resources that would allow them to be able to make an investment in your product or service?

So, Noam: Needs, Wants, Wounds, Authority, and Money. Those five need to be answered upfront, and they're very, very critical. Because if you don't answer those, you can do the entire sales presentation and then find out the person wasn't qualified, or you're trying to sell them, but you're selling to somebody else's wants or needs, the person you studied in your sales class, or the person your trainer thought you were supposed to speak to, instead of the person who's right here in front of you. You've got to remember that every single person you meet, every person is unique. And so what you want to do is find out exactly who this person is in front of you, and of this person's needs.

So, I would say to you, really, that there are two things that you got to remember in terms of working with prospects and helping them to convert from just being prospects to really being customers. And I'd say the first one really is that you have got to realize that if a prospect is not aware of their problems, if they don't feel the problems they have them, but they're like not paying attention to them, they're going to have no motivation to buy. An undisturbed prospect will not buy. And when I say "disturbed," remember, there's lots of ways to be disturbed. If you notice all of a sudden that something new comes out on the market, that new thing may be the best computer. They just came out with this new Mac computer, and until you get it, you have a little bit of pain because you're thinking, "God, I keep using this computer and it's not as good." It was fine a couple days ago, but now you have this wound because you don't have something that you think is really important. Now, again, everyone's values are different, and I'm giving you metaphors that may not work for you at all, but we all have them. Every one of us. And so we want to find out. We want to figure out what do they want, and we want to disturb that prospect. They're not sufficiently disturbed, nothing's going to happen. So that's what this process is about. It's about probing for the problems, finding out some interests that aren't being met, or some real problems that they're even aware of that aren't being met, and then magnifying the hurt. Stir it up, disturb them, get them to pay attention, sell them back their hurt. Somebody tells you a problem, or they tell you a situation, and they say, "Well, gosh, you know, I'd really like to have that." You say, "Well, gosh, you know, not having that, that, that must, you know, create some challenges. What, since you don't have that, what is that mean to you? What do you miss out on because you don't have this situation?" "Well, don't you deserve to have that?" See, what you're beginning to do is stir up within that person some emotion, and that's what you need to do.

So, before we do anything else, I want you to stop right now, and I want you to design three questions for each of these five qualifying questions you need to have answered in your mind. That is, three questions to qualify what are their needs. I want you to design three questions that'll help you find out their real wants. I want you to design three questions that'll help them discover some of their wounds. What are some of the things inside that they really want that aren't being fulfilled, and you know, kind of hurts inside, especially if they start thinking about it? Number four, make sure you ask three questions that you can ask in any environment to find out if somebody has the authority to make a decision. And finally, five, three questions where you can elegantly find if they have the money, and where you don't insult somebody by the way you do it, where it's elegant and it's effective, and the person feels respected and supported.

So, let's do that right now, and then when we come back, we're going to talk about how to emotionally blueprint your customer, how to find out the exact emotions that drive them the most, and the emotions they'd like to avoid at almost any cost. So, let's do this exercise first.

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Now, did you enjoy that? I hope you did. Did you come up with three questions for each of the five steps? Things like, "I'm curious, what prompted you to be interested in this product or service?" This will tell you their needs and their wants. Or, "What will this product or service really give you?" Or, "Is there anyone else you'd like to have here to find out more and be part of this decision?" And to remember the five steps, that's right, you guessed it, Tony gave us yet another acronym: N-W-A-M. N-W-A-M. Unbelievable. It stands for Needs, Wants, Wounds, Authority, and Money. Practice them over and over again, just like screaming pigs and things like that, and it'll become part of who you are.

Now, the next part of this session is about discovering your clients's buying strategies. It's one of the more fun and practical parts of this program. Listen, as human beings, we're bombarded every day with input from the outside world. In fact, the average person will receive 3,000 advertising images per day. 70% of all email traffic is made up of spam. I don't know about you, I'm about sick of it. It's always there. In order to deal with all this information, we've developed a set of unconscious patterns that tell us what to pay attention to. These patterns are different with different people. People also have buying patterns that they develop to save time and energy. These patterns determine what they'll focus on in a presentation and how they sort information that they're given. If you discover somebody's buying patterns, you can present your information in a way that they like to receive it. That's very important. In a way that gets through their filters. If you don't know somebody's buying patterns, it's very possible that your input can be screened out because they're not looking for what you're giving. You have to know these patterns and then present your information in a way that fits them. This is also very useful in other contexts, such as hiring. If somebody has a way of sorting and presenting information that is radically different from what is required for the job, it's good to know that upfront. Some jobs require a very specific style, and some bosses can only work with certain styles.

Now, as you listen to the remainder of this session, look for other applications of how you can use this information with your kids, your spouse, your friends, your family, your job, community, anything. As Tony shows you how to discover people's buying strategies.

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Welcome back. Well, we've spent time now qualifying people, finding out what really motivates them, what really makes them do what they do. I want to give you 10 more quick distinctions. Distinctions about patterns that people have in buying. Literally, customer buying patterns. And what they are is, they're distinctions about what makes people focus on things a certain way, what motivates them as an individual. And I think you're going to like this a lot because it'll help you not only in understanding how to motivate individual buyers, but it'll help you to motivate your kids, maybe you motivate some of your friends, and maybe most importantly, motivate yourself and understand why sometimes you do things the way that you do. So, let's go through them very quickly. And they're also known as metaprograms. Buying patterns are metaprograms in that they are programmed ways that we go about making decisions, that we go about focusing on the world. In other words, at any moment in time, you and I have an unlimited number of things we could be paying attention to. But human beings are what I call deletion creatures. What I mean by that is, we tend to focus on a very small amount of what's actually going on in a room or in our life at any moment in time. And what we focus on is our experience right now. You could be totally happy just by focusing on some of the great things in your life, some of the great things you've learned, some of the great experiences you've had, or you could be real sad by focusing on some of the worst ones. At any moment in time, what we experience is based on what we focus on. And we have habitual patterns that teach us what to pay attention to in any given situation. In other words, when the world goes crazy and all these environmental things are happening around you, there's blood pulling through your right ear, your breath is happening, people are talking to you, music's in the background, you can feel the air conditioning go against your skin, there are all these millions of experiences, but you focus to a very small band, and that's because you have a pattern of what to focus on. I'd like to have you take a look at 10 focusing patterns that people tend to have, so that when you're talking to someone, you don't have to remember all of these, but some of them will stick in your mind and it'll help you, and you'll say, "Ah, that's how they focus on things. That's their pattern for buying." And when I talk about my product, I'm going to talk about it in the language that they would listen to. So, rather than explaining anymore, let's go through a few of them, and you'll get an idea.

You notice that I've said that people do things for one of two reasons, and we've said it over and over again: they do it to either avoid pain, or they do it to gain pleasure. The challenge here is, I've told you that people try to move away from pain. Of course, they try to move towards pleasure. And I told you that I've personally gone through a bit of a transformation in my own thinking, in that I have in my life primarily been focused and believed that people do things out of the desire to do good, be good, feel good. That is, I've always believed that people do things out of this desire to experience pleasure, the positive side of life, because that's really what motivates me. In reality, in my experience, everyone in life also moves away from. And if you get a value of yours that's threatened strongly enough, you won't be focused on what you can get, you'll be focused on how to hold things together. I think the example I gave you earlier is, you know, which would you work harder for? Would you work harder to save $10,000, or keep someone from stealing $10,000 from you? I think most people would work harder to keep from having it be lost than they would initially to even gain it. And I think that's a good metaphor for what happens in people's lives. We all move away from losing what's most important in our lives.

But here's a point that I really want to hammer home, and I hope you'll hear me, because it may be one of the most important things I talk about. And that is, even though we all move away from things, there are a percentage of people in our population, I think a large percentage, that do not want to be threatened. That is, they do not want you to tell them, "If you don't do this, it will mean pain to you." In other words, if they feel like you're trying to motivate them by threatening, or by offering the possibility that they're going to have this pain, if they believe you're doing that directly, what happens is they turn on you. It does not motivate them, and it makes them very angry. And so I want you to be aware of that. And the distinction is, just how is your main brain focused? A lot of us have been trained to be focused in our life on what I call "moving towards motivation." That is, what motivates us most. And in other words, the way we'd prefer to be motivated, maybe that's the way I should suggest it, the way we'd prefer to be motivated is to have somebody come by and not threaten us, but say, "Hey, Tony, if you do this, we can all create this and this and this and this together. Look at all the possibilities." And promote all these things that we can move toward successfully. That motivates me. If you come to me and say, "Tony, if we don't do this, this, and this, this will happen," you will lose my motivation instantly.

Now, is this a contradiction to everything I've been saying to you thus far? Not at all. If you come to me and say, "Tony, let's do this and this and this because there's so many incredible possibilities," and I want to move towards pleasure, what you also need to know is I might kind of stall unless somewhere in the back of my brain, something stirs me up. And that stirring up is if I get the experience that I'm going to miss out on this thing I want to have happen in the future. So again, every one of us moves away from pain, but it's a style. If you threaten me, you got a problem. Now, I'm not like everybody. There are people in this country and all around the world who you can try and motivate them all the time by possibility, or rather by moving towards, to be more specific. Like, "If you do this, you'll get this pleasure." But it'll never work. They'll nod their head, they'll say, "Yeah, I can see that. If I did this, I'll get all this pleasure." But they still don't do anything. And the reason is, these people are what we call "moving away from people." In other words, their brain has a primary strategy that they have to be threatened in order to change. I'll give you a classic example. First of all, people have strong emotions about what's right. Moving towards people do not want to be threatened, and they get rather upset if you do. Moving away from people can be told all the great things all day long, but unless they get threatened, they won't move. So you got to basically use different strokes for different folks. You got to enter their world.

And a classic example would be something like, a friend of mine, Captain John, from the South Bronx. A couple years ago, I was down the South Bronx at Thanksgiving, and I wanted to go feed some people. That's one of the things that I do each Thanksgiving to pay back a debt, or something happened to me when I was really young. And we were in this hotel, and we were in New York City, and we didn't know anybody. And you know, we were there to do a seminar. And I said, "Hey, let's not decorate a tree, let's go decorate some lives. Let's go down into the South Bronx." Actually, originally I wanted to go to Harlem and feed some people. Long story short, we didn't have a way to get a car, we didn't have a way to get down there because all the rental car places we called were booked. I went and did a radio show, and I had three of my partners there, and I said, "Find a car." I came back, you know what they told me? "There's no way, that's impossible. We called everywhere, they don't have it." I said, "Look, there is always a way." One of the most important beliefs I live by. So I said, "Look, there are plenty of cars in the world, we just don't have one. Let's just go find one. Look down here, we're in a city with lots of cars, lots of vans. We need a van. We'll just go stop them and we'll keep stopping them and asking. If you ask enough people, anything, somebody's going to say yes." That's one of my key beliefs. So we went down there, and I thought I was going to stop cars. Sure enough, I walked out there, stuck my hand out, and found out that people in New York have a different idea or strategy for when they're going to stop. And one of them is not whether there's a human in front of them. And I got some learning experiences. And sure enough, I got rejected after rejected after rejected because I had a poor presentation. My presentation to try to enroll people was to come up and say, "Hi, you know, I don't, I'd like to help some people today. And, um, would you be willing to drive me to Harlem so I could feed some people?" It did not go over very well. Then it got better. I said, "Would you be willing to drive me to Harlem for $100?" Then I got better. "Would you be willing today to help me to help some people that don't have any food, because I'm doing well, I'll pay $100 to drive me there to an impoverished area?" And I did this over and over again. Total rejection. And pretty soon, my partners are saying, "Tony, when are you going to give this up?" And I said, "I'm not going to give up. I said, the bottom line is, we just got to keep asking. If you ask enough people, somebody's going to say yes. One out of 10 people say yes to almost anything. We're only at about 9, 10, or 11. We'll get it." And sure enough, about the 12th van that goes by, I walk up and explain my story, and this man says, "I don't need your $100. I'll be happy to drive you." And he lifts El onto the other seat, reaches down, picks up a hat, puts it on, and it says "Salvation Army," and his name is Captain John Rondon. And that started an incredible relationship. And Captain John wanted to know why I wanted to do this, and I told him what had happened in my life and why I wanted to repay the debt, and that I wanted to go there and help some people undercover, not like I was the giver, just being a delivery person, because I wanted to also appreciate where my life is. And I think Thanksgiving is about giving thanks, not eating turkey. And so that's been a, it's created an incredible relationship for us. And I learned so much on that trip about persuasion and influence, because Captain John is living in a community. He said, "Listen, you want to go to Harlem? I'll take you there. But," he said, "the South Bronx is where you really want to go, because it makes Harlem look like Beverly Hills." And it did. I mean, buildings that were three-quarters burned down, everything. It looked like a bomb had hit the area. Unbelievable. And he took me in there, and he taught me a lot about reciprocation. He taught me a lot about how to influence people that don't want to be influenced. And one of the most important lessons I got was the distinction between motivating people the way I had traditionally, which is moving towards. I'm a moving towards person. I love to be inspired. Tell me what we can accomplish together, and I'll go for it. I don't need to be threatened. Like, I don't want to be threatened. If you threaten me, I'll be upset. Now, if I get threatened by the environment, and you've set it up that way, and I don't know it, that may still motivate me, but I don't want to be threatened.

So, how do most people motivate other people? Using whose strategy or whose style would you guess? Their own. And that gets frustrating. I could never understand why certain people who worked for me, I'd be the nicest guy in the world, I'd paint them all these great pictures of what they could do, and they still wouldn't do it. And when I was with Captain John, I found out what the problem was, that I was thinking my strategy was for everybody, and that's just not true. And I got the lesson vividly. Captain John goes out every night while people are freezing to death, and finds them lying prone on the sidewalk in New York City. And what he does is, he picks them up. One night, he picks this guy up. The guy's almost frozen solid. He takes a coffee cup and he puts it directly in the man's hand. And he's so cold, you hear that? And when he takes it out, there's flesh all around the outside of the cup. Pretty intense. He's afraid there's no space at the Salvation Army for this man, and so he's trying to find a place to put this guy up so he doesn't freeze to death. So he goes and knocks on this particular church's door, bangs on the door, bangs on the door, nobody comes. Finally, this minister comes, and he says, "Excuse me, sir, but this man's freezing to death, and, you know, would you be willing to, you know, take him in just for the night so he can warm up?" The man says, "Listen, that's the Salvation Army's work, not this church's," and slams the door. Pretty exciting. And what he did is, he said a few interesting things to himself inside and went on. Said a prayer for the man and went on. And what he did next was, he got a lesson. And his lesson was, he knows all the guys in the air, he knows the runners, the guys who run numbers, rather. He knows a lot of the drug dealers. He knows the guys who steal, and they don't touch him, and they don't mess with him, because he really is out there making a difference, and they know it. So Captain John has got a unique rapport there. And one of these guys walks up to him and he says, "Captain John, what are you doing out here?" And he told him. He said, "You know, I'm trying to get a place for this guy to be able to stay, and I've tried. I've knocked on door after door, and nobody will help. He said, I've appealed to them as good Christians and everything else, and nothing's worked out." He said, "Captain John, you don't know how to talk to people. He said, you don't know how to motivate them." He said, "I'll handle it for you." He said, "If you talk to the guy at this house," he said, "yeah, and there's no way." He said, "I'll handle it for you." And Captain John waits outside. The guy goes up to this building. The door opens just a little bit, right? It's all chained up and so forth. He sees him have a little conversation, lasts maybe two or three minutes. All of a sudden, the chain comes off the door, the man comes and says, "The man can stay in my house." Pretty amazing. Captain John looks at this guy, he's blown away. He said, "How did you do that? I can't believe that I talked to the guy for five or 10, 15 minutes, you up there for two or three, motivated him just like that." He said, "You got to know how to talk to people." He said, "Well, what did you say?" He said, "I told him that I knew he was a good Christian, and I knew he cared about people, and I knew he didn't want a man to freeze to death. And I also know the kind of VCR he has, the kind of television, the kind of radio he's got, and I know they won't be there tomorrow night if this man doesn't stay here." He said, "You just got to learn how to talk to people." And I never thought about that. I never forgot about that, rather. I thought about it for a long time in terms of, you know, some people you just got to threaten. Now, you say, "Tony, I can't do that in selling." I don't mean physically threaten. I mean, threaten to see them losing out. They got to see themselves missing out, and you got to be direct. Some people you got to be direct. Some people you got to be subtle.

Does that make sense? If you want to influence me towards, that'll get me excited. If you want to make sure I follow through, you also get me to be influenced to move away from pain. But you do it not by threatening, but by asking questions. "Well, if you don't do this, Tony, what would the impact be for you?" One of the closes that we use, for example, in our business is, we'll go into a company, we'll sit down with a manager, and we'll say, "Sir, listen, let us, you know, first of all, if we've got permission to probe, we'll say, 'Let me just ask you four questions.'" Question number one: "If you were going to do business with a company like ours, if you were going to put your people through a program that was going to make a major difference in your business, what would be three results you'd absolutely want to get out of a program like that that would make a huge difference?" And this makes the person think and set some goals that he wants to move towards, some things that would motivate him. Now, is it possible he can tell me three things he wants out of his business and still not buy my product? You bet. Unless he's got something to move towards and something to move away from. And so the second question we ask, after we find out what's most important, is we say, "What will happen in your business if you don't get those three results?" Now, that's an elegant way of giving them something to move away from without threatening. Do you follow the difference between that and saying, "You know, if you don't do this, here's what's going to happen to you?" And so I get this guy, and I say, "Well, what would that mean to you? What would that mean to your company? And how will that affect you?" And then, if the guy's a moving towards person, now I spend the rest of my time, and I keep focusing on what he can get. And I say, "Hey, if you were to get those three results, if we could produce those for you, tell me, what would your company be like in the next three to five years? How would it enhance your company? What else would be great?" And I spend most of my time. Here's the key difference: If a person is a moving towards person, you want to spend most of your focus on how they can move towards pleasure by making a decision. It does not mean you don't have any away from it, it just means that's not where you spend your time. You just have it there. If a person's a moving away from person, then I would spend all my time on what they got to move away from, and only a little bit about what to move towards. Does that make sense?

What I call these are primary ways of sorting out your world. Okay? So, a primary way is whether you move towards, or whether you move away from. And the way to find out which strategy a person has is to ask him a question. And the question is real simple. Ask him something like, "What do you want out of a job? What do you want in a car? Um, what do you want in relationships?" If they say, "What I want in a job is a situation where my boss leaves me alone. When I want a car is a thing that won't break down all the time. When I want a relationship, somebody who won't take advantage of me." Are they primarily focused on moving towards pleasure, or primarily focused in our life about moving away from pain? Which one? Moving away from pain. So, which way would you motivate them? Moving away.

Now, by the way, these are all generalizations, and they change based on context. Meaning, if you talk to this guy in another situation, his life later on, he may change. But so, what you want to know is, where is this person right now in their life, and see how things are, and do it that way. Don't try and sell them the way you think they should buy. Sell to them the way they do buy.

Here's a second distinction of the 10, and we'll do them a little more rapidly. The second one is called the "Frame of Reference Focus." What do I mean by frame of reference focus? What I mean is, where does a person focus their attention to know whether something is right or not, whether they should do it or not do it? Some people have what we call an internal frame of reference. What that means is that they go inside to decide whether something is right or wrong, good or bad. And that's the primary place they check. They go inside their gut and take a look around and say, "Okay, this is good, this is bad." Some people have an external frame of reference, which means their primary focus to decide what they should do, or whether something is good or not, their primary focus is usually on what other people think. Now, like all generalizations, this is a generalization. That is, these are extremes. There are people that are balanced somewhere in between, but most people lean towards being more focused on what the environment has to say externally to make a decision. And some people are more focused on what the internal environment, what they just feel when they, "God is right." You motivate people totally differently, and you sell to them totally differently if they're external versus internal people.

I'll give you an example. The question you would ask to find out whether somebody was internal or external would be something like, "Let me ask you a question: How do you know when you're really good at something? How do you know when you've really done a good job?" Now, invariably, when I ask that question, people give you one or two of one of basically two responses. They'll say something like, "Well, I just know. I just know when I've done a good job. I just feel it. I just know it inside." What kind of person is that? Internal or external? Clearly internal. Other people say things like, "Well, you know, if my boss tells me, or if my wife tells me, or my brother tells me, or if, you know, I get the paycheck." Or they have something on the outside. They're kind of person, external in their focus to decide what to use as a frame of reference to make a decision. Real critical here.

So, what do you think would happen if you went to somebody who has a strong internal frame of reference and you told them what they should do? You said, "You know, let me make this suggestion. I suggest you should do this and this and this and this in order to succeed." How do you think somebody with an internal frame of reference responds to that type of communication? Yeah, they shut down. They completely shut down. They will fight you because they don't feel respected by you. After all, they know it's right. But if you talk to somebody with an external frame of reference and say, "You know what? I think you should just decide on your own because I don't want to influence you." They freak out. They want to be influenced. They'll say, "What do you think? What do you think I should do?" So, what you want to do is see where people are and meet them in that place. If I see someone's got a

Internal frame of reference. I will say something like, "Listen, I don't know what's right for you. You're the only person who knows what's right for you. What was right for me is this and this."

"So, I don't know if that's right for you, but I'm sure you know. What do you think would be right? Do you think would you like to stop this now, or would you like to do something else now? Did you hear what I just did? I just did something we talked about earlier. Would you like to stop this now, or would you like to do something else?"

"What's that called? That's a double bind. It was the same thing. So, I give him the illusion of choice, and I give him a situation where he gets to make the decision, and he'll feel very good. And I'll be able to influence him in a very powerful way. Otherwise, he'll just shut down."

"Now, again, some people are more balanced. By the way, which one is right? Which one is the right one? Should you be a moving towards person or moving away? Should you be internal or external? Which one? Hey, there is no right or wrong in my mind. In life, striving for a balance is useful. That's just my belief system, but there is no right or wrong. There's just what it is. We all use different strategies, and we need to see what those are and treat people as individuals."

"Here's a third major distinction. Third one I give you is: are people focused on what's possible in a situation, or are they focused on necessity? Now, this may sound like it's very similar to towards and away from. It is, and it isn't. Listen for the distinction."

"Now, it's possible for somebody to move towards pleasure, meaning what motivates them is the desire for pleasure, but for them to only do it when they feel it's absolutely necessary. Does that make sense? Or, it's possible for somebody to be the kind of person who moves away from pain. That is, when they're thinking about motivation, what motivates them is the desire to avoid pain, but they avoid pain just because there's possible pain, like, 'God, if I do that, that might happen.' And so, what happens is, sure enough, they do anything to avoid it."

"So, do you see that this is different? Whether a person is motivated by possibility or necessity is very important because if they're a necessity person, and you try and sell them a product, but you don't show them why it's absolutely necessary, they will not buy. If a person is a possibility person, all you got to do is show them what's possible. A lot of people buy just 'cause it's possible, 'cause they can, and they love it. I'm a very strong possibility person. Makes me an easy sale, usually. I move towards. I've got a balanced frame of reference. I'm real internal about some things, and I'm external on others. I want to get some balance coming in. And I'm the kind of person that, God, possibility drives me crazy. Anything that's possible, let's go for it. That's where I come from. That's why I fly helicopters. That's why I break wood. That's why I do, you know, firewalking. That's why I skydive. All that stuff comes out of being a possibility person."

"So, you'd motivate me much differently than a necessity person. Can you see, see that? So, you've got to get them to see it's necessary, and you have to use words of necessity. If you told me, 'Tony, you have to do something.' If you tell me I have to, you will immediately see a shift in my physiology because I'm a possibility person. Show me what I can do, and you motivate me completely. Tell me what I have to do, instantly you're going to get a little bit of a fight."

"So, for example, if you want to get your kids to clean their room, and let's say your child has a strategy of, let's say, they move towards, okay, and they sort out of necessity. How are you going to get them to do that? Well, the way you're going to do it is you're going to show them, 'Hey, if you clean your room, you get to have all these things. And by the way, you don't have any other choice. That's the bottom line. But if you do it, you get to have this pleasure.' If your child is the kind of person, for example, who moves away from pain, and that's their major focus, and they move away from pain that's possible, all you have to say is, 'All you probably have to do is give them a look and say, 'That room will be clean.'' And their possibilities of having pain will motivate them. Are you following me?"

"I know there's unlimited connections here in terms of numbers, but are you starting to get an idea of how you could use these? Is this making sense? Okay, good. So, what I want you to do then is start thinking about how to motivate them. One child, you try to get to do their schoolwork, and the way you do it is you say to that child, 'Listen, you got to get your schoolwork done now because if you do a good job now, you get to go to the university of your choice.' That would be an example of using what kind of strategy? Moving what? Towards."

"For another child, you can tell them all day long, 'Do your work now so you get to have the college of your choice because I want you to have every possibility.' That's how I would motivate my kid. But one of them that won't do it, the only way he's going to motivate is you say, 'Look, if you don't do this, you're going to be stuck in a place you hate. You think you got it tough now? You wait till after four years of university and being in a place where you can't even get the job you really want.' And that sounds horrible to me, right? Because that's just not my strategy. That would bug me. But for somebody who moves away from, you know what it does? They get motivated right there before your eyes. They go, 'Okay, well, I guess I'll do it.' They actually feel good about it. Sounds weird to me, but maybe some of you can relate to it."

"Here's a fourth distinction. Fourth distinction is what we call a relationship sort. And a relationship sort is when you get a lot of input about things. Some people, when they get a lot of input, you know what they do? They immediately they link up that input and say, 'Oh, that's true. That's like something else.' In other words, we call these kinds of people matchers. Matchers are people who look for sameness. They look for how things are alike. And what they do is, and if I were to say, for example, 'Rapport is the ultimate key to success in selling,' they would go inside their mind and they would back up my theory by saying, 'Yeah, that's true because that's very much like a time when I had rapport, and that meant this.' In other words, in any situation, they try to see how things are alike in order to learn. Does that make sense?"

"There's a second kind of person, and that person is called a mismatch. And this kind of person is the kind of person that most salespeople have nightmares about. A mismatch is a person's whole focus in life, usually, is on seeing how things are different. I will tell you that most salespeople, studies show, are sameness or matching oriented, which is good because it allows you to get with somebody who's different than you and have them make them feel like you're like them. That's part of what allows you to build rapport. But you run into people sometimes, and tell me if this is true for you, who you go out and you give a presentation, and you tell them all about your product or service, and you're trying to explain how your product is very much like something they already understand, and they immediately come across and go, 'That's not true.' You go, 'What do you mean it's not true?' They go, 'That's just not true. That isn't true. They are not the same.' You go, 'Well, they're basically the same.' They go, 'They're completely different.' And all of a sudden, you feel a little taken back. How many have had to deal with somebody like this? A salesman's dream. Every time you say something, they say no. Anything you say, they do the opposite. They look at it completely differently. You keep trying to say, 'Well, it's kind of like this,' and they go, 'No, it's not. It's unlike anything else that's there, and I don't believe you.' Whatever you say, they do the opposite. Now, how many of you know the kind of person I'm talking about?"

"Okay, so there are four possible strategies. And by the way, if you're getting an overwhelming, 'Oh my God, how much data are you going to give me?' smile. You don't have to know all this. I'm offering you this information so that you have it available, and you can use as much or as little as you want. If all you do now is pay attention and notice what motivates somebody, or notice that you keep trying to show them how great it's going to be and they don't move, maybe it'll make you think to ask a question and start making them be motivated by moving away from. Or the next time somebody keeps arguing with you, every time you talk about something, they take the opposite view. I have a feeling, and I may be wrong, but I have a feeling that even though you think that I'm dumping all this data on your brain, some of you, your brain will go, 'Ah, mismatch her.' And I'm going to tell you right now how to deal with them, which could make you a large number of sales where you used to just get frustrated or give up. How many have just been so frustrated you just thought, 'I'm not even want to talk to this person anymore?' Yeah, quite a few of you."

"So, there are two kinds of matchers and two kinds of mismatches. Let's start with mismatches because those are the ones we have so much fun with. The first kind of mismatch is a person who looks for difference, but what they do is they do what we call a polarity response. And a polarity response person is the kind of person that what you say, they say the opposite. You also may have seen this in your child when they were approximately two years old. Whatever you said, it was no, and they did the opposite of what you told them, and they said the opposite back. Did your two-year-olds do what my two-year-olds did? So, I don't know if it was just my style, but that's what happened quite a bit at that time. And so, the bottom line is, what they do is they do the opposite. How do you deal with them? The same way you do with with a two-year-old. What do you do with a two-year-old once you see that whatever you do, they say the opposite? What do you do? Psychology. Reverse psychology. It's real simple. All you do is congruently, congruently say the opposite. For example, I did a program once for the University of Hawaii football team, and they had this one player. After I explained this, I did a training session for the coaches, and I was teaching them about how people think and how to manage their players by understanding their patterns of focus. And I said, 'You know, do you have any players like this?' And this one guy said, 'Yeah, we have this one guy on the team. He's a great kid, but whenever we call a play to go right, he goes left. We play a call to go left, he goes right. And he's a phenomenal back, but we're going crazy. And we thought he didn't know his right from his left, but he does. It's just he's like compelled to do the opposite of what we asked for for some reason. And if we don't tell him to do anything, then he's okay. He does what he wants to do.' I said, 'Simple. Next time you want him to go right, what do you do? Tell him the play is where left.' And I know this is simplistic, but you cannot believe how well it works if you do it congruently. Because, by the way, even with your two-year-old, if they tell you one thing, and you do the opposite with a smile, and they begin to know what you're doing, they switch the game on you, don't they? Same thing is obviously true with big kids called adults. So, it's important that you mismatch a little bit. And so, what I'll do with a mismatch is I'll say, 'You know, I don't really know if this is what's right for you.' Guess what? They immediately start telling me, 'Well, wait a second. It may very well be. No, I'm really not sure. I I think there's may be some benefits, but I I'm not so sure because, you know, this is kind of for people like this and this and this, and I don't know if you're that way.' 'Oh, yes I am. I'll tell you what I am. What do you mean you don't know who I am?' And they started selling himself like crazy. So, listen for the polarity mismatch, or they're very easy to deal with. In the past, they may have been hard for you."

"The other kind of mismatch is not quite so obnoxious in the minds of us matchers, 'cause I got to tell you, mismatches think think that we're obnoxious. We're a bunch of people that go around saying everything is the same. How stupid can't we see that things are different in the world? But for matchers, a person that's a little less abusive, as far as they're concerned, is somebody who mismatches by what we call counter example. And that person does not just do a polarity to anything you say, but like if you say, 'You know, if you were to do this, if you were to make an investment in this program, I can tell you that by our experience, what happens is XYZ happens within your corporation.' That person will say, 'Yeah, well, that may be true, but...' and they'll immediately give you a counter example. 'I've heard of other companies that have tried this, and they didn't get XYZ, they got ABC out of the situation.' And if you notice that every time you try and offer a possibility, they find a counter example, you now have a mismatch who works by counter example. How do you deal with them? You don't deal with them by putting on more examples and trying to convince them more. How do you deal with them? You give counter examples to why they shouldn't buy. You give counter examples to why you're not sure. You give counter examples to anything so they'll play the opposite. So, you, I would say it's something like, 'A lot of people that have dealt with us have gotten an XYZ result and we're thrilled. And I got to tell you, not everyone has.' Guess what happens immediately to a mismatch like that? They go, 'This guy is intelligent and he's telling me the truth.' Isn't that interesting? Even if I don't remember that exactly, even if I don't think somebody hasn't gotten the result, that person now thinks you're intelligent. They will listen to you. They will respond to you. They won't have to counter example 'cause you've done it for them. Does this make sense? This is a very, very powerful distinction to make about human beings because there are a large number of people that your traditional style of selling will never get through to. And the traditional style is, keep trying to give them benefits, right? Keep finding value for them, keep trying to put there in front of them. It won't work with a mismatch. The only way it's going to happen with a mismatch is if they believe that they're doing the opposite of what you believe, or they believe that you mismatch too. 'Cause if they believe you're a mismatch, then obviously you're smart like they are. And by the way, mismatches are critical to the success of a society. If everyone in our society was matchers, can you imagine where we'd be? We'd all be doing the exact same thing and no one would ever mismatch. Most breakthroughs in our society come from people who said, 'Wait a second, maybe the Earth is not the center of the universe.' Somebody you mismatched and then matched and said, 'Okay, well, what are the other possibilities? And how could that be like something else?' You want to have both skills."

"Now, matchers, two types. Sameness matchers, people who just see everything the same. And by the way, that sometimes can work against you in selling. Someone, a sales person will say, 'You know, I I met a salesman once, and all salesmen are this way. Pure sameness people. Pure matchers often times will generalize on a very large scale. They make everything the same. And if they ever dealt with something that remotely resembled you, you're the same as that.' And you're going to have a hard time sometimes getting through. So, they only get through that person is say, 'You know, you're right. And you know what else is really true? And you got to find something in their experience. You got to be able to say something like, 'What else is really true is I bet you know know of a lot of companies that have gotten through this. I bet you know that there are situations in your life where maybe people around you didn't represent you very well either. It probably really bothered you, didn't it?' And go, 'Well, yeah.' 'Well, what did you do when somebody poorly represented you?' Say, 'Well, I did this and this and this.' He said, 'Well, that's exactly what we're doing now too. Oh, you're like me. You're handling the way I would handle it. Maybe you're not such a bad guy.' And the last type is the other kind of matcher is called a sameness with exception person. And that's the kind of person who looked up here, for example, and said, 'Well, these two are alike, but they did notice this is different.' So, that kind of person, you'd say, 'Our product is a lot like some other things you've experienced, but here's how it's unique,' and you'd mark it in that way."

"Now, you might say, 'Tony, well, how am I going to know which one this is? It seems complicated.' No, it's fun. All you got to do is reach in your pocket and take out three quarters. Sit down with a prospect, and it's a great way to get their attention. Put three quarters in front of them, two of them face up, one face down. Two of them parallel, one a little bit different. And say, 'Let me ask you a question. Your entire future depends on the answer.' And smile. It's a little pattern interrupt. 'Tell me, what is the relationship of these three quarters?' If they look at the three quarters and go, 'They're all quarters. They're all round. They're all made in the USA. They're all yours. They're all silver, right? They're all worth 25 cents each.' What kind of person is this person, at least in this moment? Clearly a matcher."

"What if they look at them and go, 'There is no relationship because they're all minted at different times. They're all sitting at different place on the table. They all are a little bit different in their coloration.' You know what if they say, 'There is no relationship'? Then which one are they? What if they say, 'Well, two of these I see this one is different. Those two are alike, but this one is different.' And they first notice difference, then the chances are they're a person who looks for difference, and then they see sameness. There's a good chance they're a person who looks for counter examples. What if they look at the quarters and go, 'Well, two of them are alike, but this one is different'? Then they're a person who's called sameness with what? Exception. So, by knowing this, and by the way, they'll want to know what it is. And you say, 'Well, what I'm doing is I'm studying. I study what helps people to make decisions.' And you got their pure interest now, and you've gotten some information that's valuable. You can have a lot of fun with this stuff. So, what you want to do is go play with it. Go play with it at a dinner party. Go play with it right now where it's outside the selling environment, so you're not feeling like, 'Oh my God, am I doing this right or not?' You don't have to go through all that. Go do it in a fun environment and watch the reaction you get. How entertained people are as you explain maybe some of these meta programs or buying patterns to them. And after you've done that enough, and you start getting good at it, you'll enjoy it. It'll become an automatic part of your selling where you don't have to do them all, but you'll be listening for them all because in a person's conversation, you can hear a lot of this stuff just coming out by the way they say things. So, listen for mismatches and know how to deal with them, and listen for matchers and know how to show them how they can get what they really want."

"Here's number five. Where is the person's attention focused? Are they a person who focuses on other people, or is their primary focus on how things affect themselves? Or is their primary focus based on data, everything, things about data and information and so forth? It's a pretty important distinction to make, and it's not one you make by asking questions. Let me make it more clear. Every one of us in life sorts by self. What I mean by sort is we pay attention to how things are going to affect us. We all do that. But some people, that is their single primary focus. They don't give a darn about how something's going to affect other people. All it matters is, 'How's it going to affect me?' And it's pretty important that you know who that person is because if you go to somebody whose primary focus is how it's going to affect them and not other people, and you want to sell them, let's say, a life insurance policy, and you're trying to sell them on the benefits that it would have because you know they want to take care of their family, even though they may have strong family values, that is not a major focus for them, and it's not going to be leveraged to get them to buy. You're trying to sell them your beliefs and your needs instead of theirs. Make sense?"

"This same thing is true as if you're selling to a corporation. You're talking about, 'God, if your corporation want to do this, think of the teamwork.' A person who sorts by self does not care a whole lot about that. An other sorting person, you can have an extreme other sorting person who just focuses on the effect of other people and forgets themselves. And that's called a martyr. But an average other sorting person is someone who's a little more balanced. That is, what they do is they look at certainly how it's going to affect them, but equally important is, 'If I make this decision, how will it affect other people that I care about as well?' And so, you appeal to them in terms of selling quite differently than a self-sorter. You would talk to them about, 'Hey, think of what a difference this will make for you and your family. What a difference this will make for your entire community, for your entire company.' And that really taps the motivational needs of this person because they're an other sorting person."

"Some people don't care about themselves or others. All that matters is details and data because their world is focused on this idea of logic. It's still an emotional base, but logic is the belief system that they have. And all they want to know is, 'What are the details? How does it work?' All those kinds of things. And it's important for you to notice where their focus is, otherwise you're going to be selling to a person who's not there. It's critical to notice where they are. I give you a couple of hints in body language. A person who sorts by others tends to do what I'm doing right now, which is I'm talking right now to you, but I'm not back on my heels like this. I'm forward. And the reason I'm forward is I'm into my conversation with you. I'm associated to you. If someone is talking to me, I'm not off looking over here. If I, if someone's sharing something with me, and I'm not 100% interested, for me, I still need to look and nod and at least appear interested and try and make myself interested 'cause I want, I care about how that person feels. Somebody who's a self-sorter will go inside, and they don't give a darn about how you feel. Maybe if you're a real good friend, but otherwise, if you're an average person, well, they'll go off in their world, wait till you're done and come back so you can tell by the way they use their body, by the way they put their potential focus."

"Give you a classic example in business. There were Southwest Airlines did a study at one point, and they found out that 95% of all of their complaints were about 5% of their employees. That's a pretty important distinction. Now, what one person said, 'Let's just fire them and start fresh.' But there was a smart man in the organization, and he said, 'Wait, before we fire them, let's find out what is it about their personalities that make them so obnoxious that we get so many complaints about them compared to anybody else?' And by doing research, they found that these people's primary focus was not on the customer, but on who themselves. And they get upset that people wanted something from them when they were supposed to be in a service business. That's why there were complaints. So, they did fire these people. But here's what's interesting. When they held new interviews, they decided what kind of people do they want in a service business? Clearly, they wanted people sorted by others. So, they ran these group interviews where they have people stand up and give a lecture as to why they wanted to come to work for Southwest Airlines. Now, most these people thought that they were being judged by the quality of their presentation, but that is not who was being judged. The person standing up lecturing or sharing why they wanted to join was not even being paid attention to by the judges. They were watching the audience to see which of these people were real supportive of their competition, which of these people were supporting others by, like, sitting forward in their chair and nodding and really being involved. And people are back off in their own little world, think about what they're going to say, are going off like this, 'Oh God.' Putting your eyes up. Soon as they saw that, whoa, they cut him from the list. What's interesting is they have now had the lowest complaint ratio in their history. They've dropped the figures. I've forgotten the exact figures, go quite honestly, but I think it was something like 75 or 80% by making this one distinction."

"Now, does that mean sorting by, uh, others is the only way to live? No. There are places where you got to sort myself, otherwise you become a martyr, and that's not your goal either. I hope it's not your goal. Anyway, I can't say what your goals are. But I think a balance is what's useful. And there are places where, like, if you're, if your accountant's going in to meet with the IRS, it probably be useful him sorting by self, meaning sorting for you, and not by others. It'd probably be good to have an accountant who has an internal frame of reference. Otherwise, IRS says, 'Well, I don't think we agree with you.' You go, 'Okay.' You need somebody who will sort by your interests, and somebody who has got a strong internal frame of reference if they're going to meet with the IRS. And somebody who's not fearful of moving away from things, but moves towards resolution. Somebody who does things because it's possible, not just because it's necessary. These are my criteria, anyway."

"Let me give you three more real fast. Three more. Number one, or number whatever number I'm on now, I guess about seven. I'd say is this six. Thank you very much. Six would be this: whether or not a person is completion oriented or process oriented. This is real important. Some people in life are, for them, life is a process, and they just love it. And if they don't get things completed in a certain amount of time, they're okay about it. I mean, because after all, they're enjoying the process. And by the way, some of these people seem to be the most well-adjusted people in terms of their level of enjoyment. There's another type of person, which is very judgmental. Judgmental, not meaning negative judgmental, but they're judging all the time. They're judgers, and they're judging whether or not they've completed things. It's on their mind a lot. They want to do things and complete them, and it's almost a compulsion. It's good to know this about people because if you're going to motivate them, you need to know that some people you motivate will never get the job done, or they'll get the job done eventually because they kind of enjoy the process. Other people, if you want it done fast, you better get a judger in there."

"But how does this affect buying? Well, a judger needs completion so powerfully that if you can just start filling out an application, they almost have to complete it. It's absolutely amazing. It's like the word, because remember when we talked about that where it's like they go on to automatic pilot. So, if you can, if you've got an order blank, close, if you know what I mean by that, where you've qualified the person, you've presented your product, you know they want it, you don't ask, 'Do you want to go ahead?' You pull out the order blank and you say, 'Okay, so your address is 1108 East Walnut, and you live in Glandor, and your phone number is what?' And they go, '9631143.' You go, 'Great.' They go, 'Wait a second. I'm saying's buying.' And you say, 'Well, you did want this, and this, and this, and this, didn't you?' 'Well, yeah.' 'Okay, then your office number is...' and you start doing this, and what happens is they, they actually get caught up, and they have to let you complete. They literally let their completion strategy force them into the sale process. People may have you come out three or four times to talk to them before they get convinced because they love the process of buying. So, you might want to be aware of which one they are. And the way to do that is real simple. Ask them some questions. Say, 'I'm curious, in life, what do you enjoy most? Getting things done, or do you enjoy, like, you know, being involved in the process?' Ask them some questions like that, and you'll get some hints right away."

"Number seven. Here's a very, very powerful and important distinction. How a person gets convinced. In other words, what has to happen for this person to believe that something is true? This may be the most important distinction I'm going to give you out of these 10. We call it the person's convincer strategy. What does it take to convince someone? And this, if we think about the initial thing we talked about in terms of probing for problems, this is really understanding their buying pattern. There are two things that make somebody want to buy. The first thing that has to happen for somebody to believe that something is true, for them to get convinced, is they have to have some kind of input that starts to make them feel certain that they're going to get what they want. And what's interesting is, you and I have five senses, but but for most of us, we take input between one or another as being stronger or more important. So, some people get convinced by seeing. The old phrase, 'Seeing is believing.' That's not true for all people, but for some people, the primary thing that they have to experience to be convinced something is true, they got to see it. Some people are more auditorally oriented. You can show them all day long, but they need to hear from other people. They need to have some conversations about it. And if they hear enough, then they get convinced. Some people, what they got to do is have a kinesthetic experience or do it. They have to do something, utilize the product or service in order for that person to feel like something is really true. They got to actually do something with it or experience it kinesthetically. And some people are more digital, or they have to read it. They have to get all kinds of information, read up the details, have it in writing, and then they become convinced."

"Now, that's the first distinction. What kind of input do you need? And by the way, everyone's different. So, you know what most of us do? Again, we try and convince people the way we get convinced. And so, for example, I get convinced by things by seeing them and by hearing them. If I see and hear, I don't have to read about it. I don't have to do it. If I see and read it, excuse me, if I see or hear it, I pretty much start to get convinced. That's the kind of input I need. Now, other people are different. They can, you can tell them all day, you can show them, but unless they see it in print, forget it. How many have dealt with this kind of person? So, you know what I'm talking about."

"So, the way you find this out, you ask a person a simple question that I hope you'll remember from now on, because out of the 10 distinctions I've given you, I keep saying one is the most important, but they're all so important, but I'd say this is probably one of the most because it'll tell you how to finally present your product in a way that that person traditionally perceives it in order to feel certain they should buy. And the question you ask that person is, 'How do you know when somebody's really good at what they do? How do you know when a fellow worker, for example, is really good at what they do?' Now, some people, and then you ask them, 'Do you need to see them do it? Do you need to hear from other people how good they are? Do you need to have to work with them and do something with them? Or do you just need to read about their performance?' Now, think about your answer to that. What is has to happen for you to really believe a coworker is really good at what they do? Do you have to see them do it? Hear about their performance? Do it with them? Or read about it? But the bottom line is, what we've got here is you find out now. For some people, they need to have two of them. They need to see it and hear it. So, how are you going to present to that person when you sell your product? Are you going to show them a bunch of writing? Are you going to demonstrate the product over and over again to them? No, that may work for somebody else, but you're wasting your time with this person. You want to present in their strategy. Present things the way they buy."

"Hey, listen, if you lose your keys, don't you have a pattern for going back and looking for them? How many of you got a place you look first? Place you go look, and then there's a second place, and then there's a third place. Somebody got a pattern like that within yourself? You have the same patterns for buying, even if you're not aware of them."

"Here's the second aspect of the convincer strategy. The first one is what's the evidence you need? You need visual evidence, auditory evidence, feeling evidence, or reading evidence, digital evidence. The second thing is the amount of time. Meaning, do you, in order to be convinced, let's say you have to see it and hear it, how often do you have to see it and hear it before you get convinced? Because it's not most people, you, they don't just hear, see it and hear it once and become convinced. Some people need it happen two or three times. Some people need to see and hear something for six months, and then they believe. Some people need to see it and hear it every single time to believe it's there. So, there are four possibilities about the way you have to have time connected with your evidence to become convinced of something. And those four possibilities are: some people are what we call automatic convincers. Automatic convincers are people that once you meet their evidence procedure, you show them or tell them or whatever it is, all you got to do is that one time, and they're on automatic pilot. They now believe you. So, that's called an automatic. Some people need to have it happen a certain number of times. We call them number of times people. There, some of those people, let's say it's two or three times. They need to see something or hear something or read it before they're convinced. Some people are what we call period of time people. Period of time means that maybe they go for six months of seeing and hearing, and now they believe it. And then, of course, the fourth one is people that are what we call consistent. And those people never believe. The only way to believe is something is true is if you can show them again today. If they saw it yesterday, that's not enough. They got to see it today to believe that it's there. These are again, a salesman's nightmare."

"Now, the question you ask here is very simple. A classic example would be, 'How do you know when a coworker's really good at what they do?' And they tell you, 'That's great.' And then your response is, 'Great. Do you have to see it? Do you have to hear about the performance? Do you have to do it with them? Or read it?' They tell you, 'How often do you have to see them, hear them, or have them do that with you before you come convinced?' Just one time, and you know? Or is it two or three times? Or is it like two or three months? Or six months? Or is it every time they have to do it for you to know that they're good?' This is a darn important distinction because people who are automatic are the easiest people to sell, aren't they? You go in there, let's say you demonstrate your product, they see it works, and wham, they're ready to buy. Now, how many have gotten a deal with these people and enjoyed it? They're our favorite for salespeople."

"Second kind of person you see here, or do it for them, and you know they need to see it a few times. You got to keep prompting them to buy, don't you? And they're probably your second favorite. You know, they give you a no or two, but you keep at it, and they buy. Third one that people don't like so often are people you got to keep going after. Maybe you got to work on them for two or three sessions. You got to call them back. You got to follow up. You got to push, push, push, but eventually they buy because for them, they need to go through a period of time. And the most difficult one of all is the consistent person. That's the kind of person that maybe you have as a client, and you've had them as a client for maybe three or four or five years, and every month you come in to give them more of your product, and every month they go, 'Tell me why I should still use this stuff.' And you go, 'What do you mean, John? You've been doing this for four years.' And every month I come in, you say, 'Why should I use this stuff?' He says, 'Yeah, show me why.' Now, and the same thing, by the way, happens in relationships. Think about it. Some people become convinced that you love them by one time experience. You say, 'I love you,' and they need to hear it, and you said it one time. Wola, they know it's there. Some people need to happen, have something happen a number of times. So, maybe you've been with them, and let's say they need to hear it, and you say, 'I love you,' on five different occasions, and all a sudden, one day, 'Wow, now they feel certain you love them.' Some people need a period of time. You love them totally, but all of a sudden, one day, 12 months later, they go, 'You really do love me, don't you?' And you go, 'What? Of course I love you.' 'Yeah, but now I know.' 'What do you mean, now you know?' 'I've been with you a year.' 'That's right, because you've been here a year.' Now I know. How many know have had these kinds of relationships with people, or can see your own strategy? And some people are what we call consistent lovers, meaning they'll come in and go, 'You don't love me.' You go, 'Yes, I do.' And they go, 'Prove it. You haven't done anything with me today.' And they're the kind of person all the time you got to be reassuring them. How many you had a relationship with somebody like this in your lifetime?"

"So, I used to get upset with people who had a consistency strategy because my strategy used to be automatic. Now it's a number of times, and in some situations, a period of time. No one is right. In fact, being on automatic or having a couple of times to be convinced can be dangerous. It got me in a lot of trouble where I believed people who weren't telling me the truth sometimes, just because I saw the good side of them a couple of times, and then I just decided they're a good person. I never looked again. So, there's danger in all these things. But when you find somebody's a convincer, instead of being upset or a consistent person, you just know that every month you go to see them, you're going to need to convince them again, and you just know that. You just know that's how they are, and you don't get upset about it anymore. It's giving you a way to understand how people buy."

"Last three very rapidly. Whether somebody has a focus on generalities or specificity. Somebody who focuses on the general, big picture, does not want you to tell them all the details. That will bore the heck out of them. And if your style of training or marketing is to tell them all the details, you've lost them. Somebody who is a specific person, however, if you tell them broad stroke ideas about your product, they'll be upset because they think you're going to conceal something, and they won't believe you, and you don't have any credibility with them. Uh, the person who's a general sorter, on Christmas day, they open up the bicycle they got for their kid, or the Santa brought, excuse me, and what happened is they don't look at the instructions. They just take the whole darn thing and start trying to say, 'Well, this probably goes here, and this probably goes there,' and they just go for it. A person who's detail oriented stops, lays everything out in order, pulls out the manual, reads it thoroughly, and systematically puts it together. And you sell these people rather differently. Can you see how you want to sell them differently? It's very, very, very important. And again, you can notice this by the kinds of questions they ask and what they respond to. And you can say, 'Do you want the big picture to start with, or do you want the details?' You can ask them directly."

"Last two is the person, do they become convinced? Is their buying pattern to make decisions based on past assurances or future possibilities? In other words, let's say somebody wants to buy, um, a particular fund, mutual fund. Do they look at, 'Well, how long has this thing been around? And if it's been around long enough, then they get convinced?' Or does it matter to them not how long it is, but how convinced they are of the possibilities that are there? It's very, very much like necessity versus possibility, but the difference is it's focused on time. So, then when you go to sell someone, you know whether to say, 'Well, we've been around 50 years,' or you say, 'Hey, listen, a lot of companies sell you on how long they've been around. That doesn't matter, does it?' Immediately you got rapport. What really matters is what's possible, and here's what we're going to create."

"And lastly, is there focus on cost or convenience? Most Americans, believe it or not, and probably will believe it, are focused on convenience and not cost, although they will tell you the cost is their focus. Now, it may be difference in some of your European countries. In fact, I've had friends come over, and I've had other people's friends come over who are European, and they're like blown away that we would spend so much more money to just do something fast. You know, why not take your time? But in this country, convenience is really highly valued. If, for example, you talk to car salesmen, what you're going to find out is that car salesmen will tell you the number one thing that a customer will tell them is most important to them in buying a car is cost. But almost always, there are certain elements of convenience or luxury that once they're added in, that'll overcome."

Their feeling about the cost, that that's more important to them than the cost itself. But you better know what somebody's focuses. If their whole focus is on cost, then stop trying to sell them all these other conveniences. It's not going to work. Pay attention to what's most important in somebody as you're dealing with them.

So these are 10 strategies. Do you need to know them all? Absolutely not. Do you have to use them all with every client? Absolutely not. Would they be empowerful for you to have in your head and be able to notice them when they pop up and utilize them? Absolutely yes. And that's your opportunity.

So again, here's your task. Play with them. Take them to a party and start discovering how people's minds work, including your own. Have some fun with them. And by having fun, you'll get good. And you know something, when you're good at something, you tend to do it a lot. And when you do it a lot, all of a sudden, it's easy and you get the power of it.

So don't go use this right now, but if you wanted to, I guess you could use as many or few as you want. But pay attention especially to people's convincer strategies. And especially, do they move towards or away from? And do they need to be convinced within themselves, or do you need to convince them?

Give you one final example. I had a person come to me in a seminar one time, or it was a guest event where I was marketing a seminar. And this person came up, and I heard them. Right behind two people were talking to me, and I was waiting to, they were waiting, this person was waiting to talk to me. And they said, "Yeah, well, I'm not going to go." "That you're not going to go to that program, are you? You don't have to. I mean, you don't have to do this. You don't have to. It's not necessary. Come on. Plus, I mean, what if you go and it's not as good as he says it is? Besides that, he says it's good, that doesn't mean it is. Lots of times people say it's good and it's not."

Now, what have you learned in that person's conversation? Quickly, they move towards or away from? Which one? Away. Are they possibility or necessity? Are they a matcher or a mismatch? Are they internal? Probably. Or external? They're probably internal because they're telling other people what they should feel. People are external don't usually tell you how to feel. They ask you what you think.

So I turn this person. When they came up, and this person said, "I'm not convinced. You're so great as a salesman. You convince me." And I turned to that person and said, "Sir, I said, I really appreciate your input, but there's absolutely no way I could convince you. You're the kind of person who could only convince themselves." What happened? Instant rapport. Because this guy went, "God, this guy's brighter than I thought." Because I complimented him by saying, "You're the only one to convince you." And he knows that's true. He couldn't fight me on that. And I said, "By the way, you're also the only person who knows who'll lose out if you didn't go to the program." I did not say, "If you don't go, you're going to lose." That would have made him mad. I said, "You're the only one who knows who'll lose if you don't go." And his brain went. And by the way, I said, "You know, you don't need to go." And since he's a mismatch, what do you think he went in his head? He needs to go. He turned around within about three minutes of conversation, turned around, went to the back, and signed up. Three of my staff were there. They couldn't believe it. They said, "What did you do with this guy?" I said, "All I did was motivate him in his style, instead of mine."

So pay attention. You can listen to these over and over again till you master them. See, it was worth it to learn how to drive a stick shift so you could have the pleasure that that brings. It'll be worth it to learn buying patterns. The rest of selling is easy. Let's just go to the next step and let's build up somebody to a point where they feel absolutely convinced, where they have that level of commitment to move on and let's wrap up this sale.

[Music]

Now, great. So before we go to the next step, let's take a minute to integrate what you've learned. To go over and really, really pay attention to what you've learned. Now, this is a session that you might want to go back and listen to a couple of times. It may take a little extra time to learn these strategies initially, but once you do it, you'll gain so much value. And not only professionally, but in your personal life as well. It's really, really worth the effort. I know it was for me.

In addition, let's get some practice using these strategies, or meta programs as they're called. When you go home tonight, or in the office, or any opportunity that you have to talk to people, what I want you to do is talk to your spouse, or your friends, or your co-workers, or anybody that you can talk to, and see how many of these distinctions you can get. If you're anything like me, you can probably already think of some without even talking to those people. For example, do you already know somebody, say like your boss, that is a moving toward possibility person? Or your spouse, perhaps, is a completion person who can't go to sleep until they've watched the last of the credits on the late movie at night? Or does your son's Boy Scout leader have a convincer strategy that is consistent for moving the boys into the next level? And does this explain why your son has been a Cub Scout for 14 years? Or for example, I know there are people in my life that are mismatches. They seem to be a bit more argumentative. If you tell them something, they're definitely going to come back and challenge you on it.

Have a conversation with someone close to you and see how many of their meta programs you can uncover. Remember, there are 10 strategies for sorting information, and here they are. Are they motivated towards or away from? Do they seem to have an internal or an external frame of reference? Are they possibility or necessity thinkers? Are they a match or mismatch? Do they sort by self, others, or details? Are they a processed person or a completion person? How do they get convinced? Are they visually oriented, auditory, kinesthetic? And how long does it take for them to get convinced? Do they want to know all of the details or the big picture first? Is it the future that draws them most or gives them certainty, or is it the past? Are they cost or convenience oriented?

So here we are. This is the close of this session. Great job. So go out now and do your assignment and have fun with it. And we'll join Tony again tomorrow for the next session entitled, Creating Conviction and Test.

[Music]

Closing.