This is a book which everybody should own. It serves as a good reminder to all sales professional. It is easy to follow and understand. An excellent book for those new to NLP. Heidi Chow, Sales Manager, Walton International Have you ever gotten an over abundance of value in return for the small investment you had made? Well this book is just that! Jacky and Elgin has compiled and written such an excellent piece that as a fervent NLP Practitioner myself, I dare say this is the only NLP guide anyone will ever need. Clear, concise and straight to the point. As an extremely slow reader myself, I can grasp the concepts instantly without having to do a second or third read. A real time-saver! I sincerely recommend this book to anyone who is truly serious about learning NLP Desmond Aw, Business Analyst, OMRON Asia Pacific This book open my eyes to a whole new strategy in winning customers in today’s business world. It teaches step by step approach to understanding NLP and applying it on your work and businesses.Don’t miss this excellent guide for securing sales and maintaining victory in your business! Sharon Tan, Project Director, Crown Leadership International Group
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Jacky explores in depth the science behind NLP while providing a practical guide for even beginners to start on a self-actualisation journey. This book is a good starting point for all. Wayne Soo, Managing Partner, Fiducia LLP, Chartered Accountants of Singapore Increase your sales with NLP is a book that provides you with a blueprint to master your emotions and prime yourself for success. A great read! Junsheng Chen, Public Officer Dr Elgin is a multi-talented entrepreneur and intellectual academic. He has a very strong knowledge in NLP. Anyone who has met him or read his writing will benefit tremendously in getting insights and leaps in sales. William Kang, Managing Director, Lucid Werkz Pte Ltd This is a brilliant book about NLP and psychology selling! The content is clear, concise and highly valuable. This book is a MUST HAVE for every salespeople. I strongly recommend this book to everyone. Two thumbs up! Aervin Tan, Managing Director, MediaOne Business Group Pte Ltd
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INCREASE SALES WITH NLP Secrets of Psychology Selling
By Jacky Lim Dr Elgin Ong
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Published by Acme Achievers LLP ISBN 978-981-07-9755-3 Copyright © : Copyright Jacky Lim & Elgin Ong 2014 All Rights Reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or copied in any form or by any means - graphic, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or information retrieval systems — without written permission of the Author/s. Conditions of Sale: this book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser. While every reasonable care is taken to ensure the accuracy of information printed, no responsibility can be accepted for any loss or inconvenience caused by any error or omission. Disclaimer: This book contains information that is intended only to educate and entertain, and does not comprise all information available on the topic/subject. This book is not created and designed to be specific to any organization’s or individual’s needs or situation. Every effort has been made to make this book as accurate as possible. Nonetheless, there may be typographical and/or content errors in this book. Neither the publisher/s nor the author/s can guarantee the accuracy of the information contained herein. Therefore, this book should serve only as a general guide and not to be considered as the ultimate source of information for this topic/ subject. The author/s and publisher/s shall have no liability or responsibility to any person or entity regarding any loss or damage incurred, or alleged to have incurred, directly or indirectly, by the information contained in this book. Printed in Singapore
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Acknowledgement “As the old saying goes, “A journey of a thousand miles always begins with one small step”. As we begin to reflect on the magnitude of this project, it never ceases to amaze us how our chance encounter and simple thought of writing our own book together just a few years ago have eventually become a reality. We are grateful to our wonderful God for being a constant source of wisdom and inspiration throughout this entire journey, leading us to discover a lot more about ourselves and understanding the people around us, improving our own selling abilities along the way. Special thanks to the creators of Neuro-Linguistic Programming Richard Bandler and John Grinder. We would also like to show appreciation to Robert Dilts and Tad James. Here’s our heartfelt gratitude towards our mentors, professors, teachers and those who have brought us up to who we are today. At the same time, we’d like to acknowledge our very good friend, Desmond Ng, for taking his time off and accepting our interview. Thank you for sharing such wonderful and incredible tips on selling with us, and we strongly believe that many readers will stand to gain deeply from them. Rarely have we seen a man like you with such great humility. Being such an inspiration to countless around you, we have faith in your abilities to lead your team to a whole new level. Wishing you success!
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From Jacky I would like to thank the following: My parents Patrick and Doris for their guidance, love, morale support and all the sacrifices for me. My sister Shuwen for her care and encouragement.
From Elgin I would like to thank the following: My parents Sing Hiap and Doris who gave me roots, brought me up, and taught me the values of life. My brothers Alvin and Elson for their quality time and precious moments. My wife Ashley for always being there for me, and our lovely children Abbie and Eiffel for their love, smile and laughter.
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Preface Sales are the lifeblood of every business. As a sales professional, you have one of the most important jobs in society. Nothing happens for your company or business until you make a sale. Without any sales, there’s no reason for a business to exist. Everyone in the company, from the president down to the accountant, is completely dependent on you for their employment and income. Thus, your ability to sell is crucial in determining the success of any business. However, selling can be either an 8-5 job or a rewarding profession, depending on your attitude towards it. It can either be a way of making a meagre living from paycheck to paycheck, or a profession that offer you riches beyond your imagination. Although many salespeople earn only a little over $10,000 a year, a few earn over $1 million a year. Is this an accident? Have you ever wondered what it is that makes the difference? For several years, I was in the sales profession myself, and I met some incredible individuals who just seemed to be better able to sell than others. Many of these, who would later become my mentors, are people who just appear to naturally know how to influence and persuade others. They are people who just seem to be constantly full of the energy and motivation to go out there and sell. However, it may come as a bigger surprise to you that most of them are practitioners of NLP, whether they use it consciously or unconsciously. So, what is NLP, and why is NLP useful for selling?
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Contents Acknowledgement v Preface vii Chapter 1: Selling Through NLP
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Chapter 2: The Psychology of Selling
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Chapter 3: Begin With A Clear End In Mind
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Chapter 4: The Art Of Good Relationships
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Chapter 5: Leapfrog Your Communication And Presentation Skills
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Chapter 6: Overcome Obstacles And Understanding Customers’ Needs
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Chapter 7: Handling Objections And Closing Techniques
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Bonus Chapter : Exclusive Interview With A Top Sales Achiever
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About the Authors
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Chapter
1 Selling Through NLP
Do you ‘sell’? It is essential that everyone masters the art of selling, as selling is required in most situations. For example, management consultants ‘sell’ solutions to their clients, employees ‘sell’ themselves during interviews, business owners ‘sell’ their products to their customers, some entrepreneurs ‘sell’ their established business to investors during the acquisition negotiation process, inventors ‘sell’ their new ideas, researchers ‘sell’ their new theories, franchisors ‘sell’ their brand concept to franchisees and the list continues. In short, whether you like it or not, we are all sales people. The selling approach is ever-changing for a variety of reasons, such as alterations in the market, customer behaviour, lifestyle, technology and even social networking. Thus, this book has been specifically written to help you acquire tools to ‘sell’ more effectively in modern society. 1
Increase Sales With NLP
You see, gone are the days when ‘selling’ required you to be just a ‘sweet talker’. As consumers today are becoming increasingly wellinformed and educated, they are also spoilt for choice , since fastpaced technology has made many products and services more easily available and accessible than at any other time in history. People will also need to know if you truly have their interests at heart when selling your products. So, in this book, we will touch on various aspects of the selling process, including areas such as state management, goal-setting, negotiating, presenting and closing the deal. You will also learn about one of the most powerful and proven sets of tools that countless sales achievers have used over the last 30 years to improve their sales performance and influence their ability - Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP) Moreover, you also have the opportunity to learn from a sales achiever on how he managed to build his business from zero to millions in a highly competitive, yet rewarding, property market.
So what is NLP? NLP is a powerful human change technology that encompasses the three most influential components involved in producing human experience: neurology, language and programming. It is the study of human excellence and the language of our brain to understand how human beings make sense of their experience and interact with others. It all began in the early 1970s, when Richard Bandler, then a mathematics student at the University of California, Santa Cruz, met linguistics professor, John Grinder. Together, they were intrigued by the outstanding achievements that three therapists were enjoying; 2
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first Fritz Perls (psychology), then Virginia Satir (family therapy) and finally Milton Erickson (hypnotherapy). Each of these three therapists was extremely successful in their own particular method of helping their clients make dramatic, positive changes in their lives. Thus, the burning question that consumed Bandler and Grinder was ‘What is their secret recipe for success?’ As they began to intensively study the work of the three therapists, Bandler and Grinder generated ideas and insights, which they went on to share, and they then tested their techniques out on friends. In fact, many of these people, who included Robert Dilts, Judith DeLozier, Leslie Cameron Bandler, David Gordon etc. would later become codevelopers of NLP in their own right. However, it did not just end there. While it is usual to try to understand and study human excellence by getting practitioners to formulate their theories in many fields of endeavour, the developers of NLP decided to take a step further to elicit the strategies (how) that many other successful individuals use to achieve excellence. Both Bandler and Grinder were keen to study the performance, behaviour and quality that are achieved by impressive individuals, since they presupposed that these patterns of excellence can be replicated. Thus, this was how NLP later became termed, by many, the modelling of human excellence. Over recent decades, NLP has emerged as one of the world’s leading human change technologies, consisting of a set of principles and techniques that help people to rapidly overcome negative behaviours, take control of their emotional states, influence others 3
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with ease and essentially achieve remarkable results in every area of their lives. These tools often produce transformations that appear to happen quite dramatically from the perspective of efficiency and effectiveness.
NLP in selling Generally, there are three areas that NLP may render useful in selling. These include: a) Managing priorities. To be an effective worker and salesperson, it’s important for you to learn how to manage your priorities. If you have ever complained about the lack of time for anything you do in life, it can often be attributed to not managing your priorities effectively. For most people, the challenge is that they do not really know what they want in life. Thus, everything may seem ‘important’ to them, leading them to lose the much-needed focus to succeed in whatever they do. By understanding what you truly value in life and setting a clear goal, you have already won half the battle. In addition, many people do not seem able to distinguish between something that is important in their life and something that is urgent. You see, anything that we do in our life can either be classified as an important only, urgent only, both important and urgent, or neither important nor urgent, task. However, the majority of people tend to spend most of their time tackling only the urgent matters, which they mistake for things that are important.
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Chapter 1: Selling Through NLP
Ultimately, people who are adept at managing their priorities tend to be more productive at the workplace or in anything they do. They tend to be more capable of ‘managing their time’. b) Managing state. A world-renowned motivational speaker once said of state management, ‘It is rarely your capability but the state that you are in which determines the results you get in life.’ Nothing is further from the truth. It is your state (mental/emotional state) that ultimately drives your behaviour. When we are in a lousy state, our world just seems to fall apart and we may find it a challenge to get even some of the simplest things done. On the other hand, we tend to achieve our goals or complete our tasks with relative ease whenever we are in a positive, resourceful state. This may also be termed the physiology and psychology of excellence. Thus, state management may be defined as the ability to quickly move from a negative to a positive state. In fact, I would deem it the most important skill to master in NLP, since your state will profoundly affect the way you behave and the results you eventually obtain. Unless we first learn to manage our states effectively, we will not be able to influence others effectively. In this book, you will learn many powerful techniques to help you more effectively manage your state and develop a positive mental attitude towards your work, thereby improving your self-esteem. c) Managing people. Finally, the quality of our relationships with other people has a huge impact on the quality of our lives. We are living in an interconnected world, so it is impossible for people not 5
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to influence one another. In order to achieve our goals, there’s a need to get others to help us or to leverage other peoples’ skills, talents, networks etc. This will not be possible unless you first learn to effectively manage and influence others. In NLP, various tools are available for use in improving people management skills. These include rapport-building skills, which are the foundation for any meaningful interaction between two or more people. Rapport is established by showing other people that you accept that their experience is valid for them, through your behaviour and your communication. When you have a rapport with another person, you have the opportunity to enter their map of the world, understand their perspective, and, as a result, enhance the relationship. Nonetheless, if building a rapport was all that you did, there would be little you could achieve from the relationship. After you have established rapport with your prospects, you must also study their needs, so that you will be capable of providing them with what they require. In this book, you will pick up strategies to understand an individual’s needs and ‘hot buttons’. In addition, NLP has much to offer in terms of influencing others through the use of techniques such as metaphors and linguistic patterns, as well as via negotiation strategies to obtain the best deal and handle objections with ease.
So is NLP or this book for you? Regardless of whether you are in the selling profession, NLP is for you. NLP is for anyone who is keen to improve their interpersonal skills 6