So some of the things I’m going to go over in this blog are going to be just some of the things I’m interested in. For example, most people don’t know that I am absolutely obsessed with how the mind works. I love to look into things like hypnosis, sales psychology, nlp, and motivation strategies. One of the things that really gets me going is finding out HOW other people get going. Not necessarily the things they are passionate about but the things that they do on the inside to make up how they feel about the things they are passionate about and the things that they do on the inside that helps them take action.

It might be cliche but people really are as unique as snowflakes. I don’t mean that in a woo woo feel good sense but I mean that in a way that people’s unconscious thought strategies are so different. Realizing this was really an eye-opener for me. Most people tend to think that people tend to think like them and they have a hard time realizing that people just think differently. Sure we can share ideals, ideas, and values but if we were to really pull back the hood we would realize that absolutely everyone thinks in a way that is different from our own.

Once you wrap your head around that then you can start to cut other people and yourself some slack. NLP has a good way to approach this subject in that it states that everyone is only responding to their own map of reality and not reality itself because the brain distorts, generalizes, and deletes information all the time. This actually ties into an article I read the other day about how every time we think of a memory we actually change that memory. So in essence we can never experience the memory the same way ever again. Sad but true. But if you want a silver lining in all of this here it is.

I happen to use this strategy in a way that helps me to get more of what I want. For example in my work, I have a certain amount of sales I have to do. Well I struggled for years trying to learn all sorts of different sales techniques and scripts etc. All of that is valid don’t get me wrong but it wasn’t until I really understood that each and every person I talk to thinks differently than not only myself but from everyone else. Sure there are similarities but the combinations are infinite. So, if each person is different then that must mean how they reach the decision to ‘buy with me’ is most likely unique to them. So, if I really wanted to increase my sales all I had to do was uncover ‘how they decide to buy’ and give them the exact criteria that they are looking for. Of course within reason, I don’t want to have to do something I can’t or promise something I can’t deliver. But and trust me on this, if you start to approach your sales in this way, heck even just your conversations, you’ll get waaaay more out of it then what you thought. It’s like literally hacking into someone’s brain and having all the passwords.

Let’s take a quick look at an example of how one might use this type of strategy.

Let’s say you’re a car salesman and someone walks onto your lot. Instead of just going into your pitch and trying to sell them right away like most people do, you instead engage them in conversation with an aim to elicit their exact buying criteria. So you might say something like this.  You: So what brings you in today? Them: Oh just looking. You: Great, so what catches your eye? Them: Well I’m not sure yet. You: Well then let me ask you, when a car has caught your eye in the past what is it about that car that makes you want to buy it? Some people like good interior, the way the car handles, it looks good, it’s practical, etc. What is it for you?

So if you notice what I did there is I’m starting to ask about what types of cars catch his/her eyes. This will give me a good indication as to the type of car they like. Now of course we’re not done because someone can easily like a car that is out of his/her price range but at least you can start to get a sense of how they think. If they happen to answer the last part then you are well on your way to figuring out what they decide to buy which is part of knowing how they decide to buy.

Think about that and I’ll expand more on it in the next post.

-Jones