This article is particularly focused at dentists and helping them improve performance in their dental practice using an understanding of NLP and communication techniques.

What’s your CHUNK SIZE?

Chunk size… Horrible name I know, but that’s what this ‘filter’ is called. We all have filters in our brain that filter the world around us so we can make sense of it.

This filter looks at the size of the chunk of information that we can process at any given time.

There are two discernible chunk sizes:

1. Big picture. This is the largest chunk of information that it’s possible to give anyone about a specific topic. It gives the overall plan, the big picture, where are we going, what’s the point? A good example is a full mouth treatment plan where the big picture might be to restore function to the patient’s bite, ease TMJ pain and improve the smile line.
2. Detail. This is the smallest chunk of information that it’s possible to give anyone about a specific topic. It is essentially the contents of the big picture. In our treatment plan example the detail could be crowning the upper anteriors with zirconia crowns, & opening the bite with a dahl appliance.

Most of us will want all of the information, but it’s in which order we like to receive it – that’s the real key to understand.

1. Some people like the big picture first. They like to know the overall plan of where they are going and can’t cope with the detail until they know where all of that detail fits in with the big picture.
2. Some people like the detail first. They like to know the fine detail and can’t conceive of the big picture until they know what the detail is, they can then work out how it all fits together.

Neither is wrong, and it’s important to understand that different people like to perceive and receive information differently.

Some patients might prefer a big picture first treatment plan, which leads gently into the detail.

Some patients might prefer a detail first treatment plan, which gently leads into the big picture.

So ask them, “When I present this treatment plan to you, would you like the big picture or the detail first?”

THE PSYCHOLOGY OF A DENTIST

This is where I think it gets interesting. Dentists are often brilliant at going from BIG PICTURE to MICRO DETAIL in the blink of an eye.

“Hello Mrs Jones, I haven’t seen you for 6 months, what’s been happening in your life?” (Big picture) – “Now let’s look at the mesio-buccal cusp of your LL6” ( micro-detail)

You do this everyday – Big picture > Micro-detail really fast.

It’s what you do.

But not everyone thinks the same way.

So be aware – dentists have a tendency to think big picture down to micro-detail incredibly fast!

We can now understand this in a clinical setting, but it also works when communicating with your team and thinking about your business, it’s easy for dentists to miss out a whole load of incredibly useful information that sits in the middle of the big picture and micro detail – and when we are communicating with others or thinking about managing our business, that information in the middle can be vital to our success!

If you’d like to help with your thinking, achieve more in life and business and restructure the way you communicate then book a discovery call to talk about Elite Breakthrough Coaching, it comes at no cost and no obligation!

In NLP we have a range of ‘Linguistic presuppositions’, these are words that many of us use and they give an insight into the assumptions that we all make about the world around us.

Very often those assumptions can be very disabling and unhelpful to us.

Whilst there are a range of these linguistic presuppositions, the one I want to focus on today is ‘makes’.

When someone uses the word ‘makes’ in a sentence like “You make me feel undervalued” then what we are actually saying is that we have no agency over our ability to feel valued… And that the other person MAKES us feel valued. The problem then arises, what if this other person isn’t around and we need to feel valued? Where do we look at then?

Taking back agency over our thoughts and behaviours can be incredibly empowering, and this very often starts with us understanding the small linguistic assumptions we make, usually without thinking!

In this podcast I talk about the different ways that ‘makes’ gets used, and how we might think differently if we catch ourselves using this incredibly unhelpful word!

This article is primarily focused at healthcare professionals, particularly dentists although the content is relevant to anyone in business.

Did you know there are four primary ways that we make sense of the world around us:

1. Visually
2. Kinaestheticly
3. Auditory
4. Auditory digital (logical structured)

When you understand which one you are primarily it makes it far easier to recognise why you think in certain ways, it also will help you communicate with people which represent the world around them differently to you, but when you think the plans patients or dealing with other team members.

Visual

People that represent the world around them visually think primarily in pictures. Most of us do this to a certain degree although some people do it far more than others. Visual people will often be artists, designers, photographers or anything to do with visuals.

When these people think in pictures they will literally create a picture in their mind’s eye… Even a visual speller will visually see the letters of the word in their mind (by the way, this is the strategy to use if you are not a great speller, visualise the letters in the word rather than try to use simple memory).

A visual person will often say things like:

• “do you see what I mean?”
• “do you get the picture?”

The words they use literally explain how they represent their world.

Top Tip: if you are presenting a treatment plan to a visual person then use plenty of photographs and diagrams to explain what you mean

Kinaesthetic

People that represent the world around them in a kinaesthetic way are more connected to feeling. This is both emotional feeling and physical feeling. Kinaesthetic people will often have touch related jobs e.g. massage, reflexology or even something like a potter. They may also be counsellors and connect with feelings and emotions in their job.

A kinaesthetic person will often say things like:

• “does that feel OK?”
• “What do you feel about that?”

Top tip: If you are presenting a treatment plan to a kinaesthetic person have study models that they can hold and feel, have physical models of implants and crowns so they can touch and hold them.

Auditory

One of the least common representational systems. Auditory people will be very focused on the way the world around them sounds. They may be musicians or work in jobs relating to sound. An auditory person will also a very distracted by sounds around them and will often want to work in a quiet environment. If you’re talking to an auditory person they may find it difficult to hold a conversation with you if other people are also talking in the background.

An auditory person might say things like:

• “How does that sound?”
• “Do you hear what I’m saying?”

Top Tip: If you are presenting a treatment plan to an auditory person it will be absolutely fine to explain by voice alone what the treatment plan is. You could also record your explanation and send it to them as an auditory file.

Auditory digital

This relates to internal dialogue and logical thinking. Auditory digital people will often be engineers, scientists or people which think in very clear, logical straight lines. An auditory digital person needs order, flowcharts and processes.

I’ve run many courses looking at these different types of representational system and by far the greatest percentage of dentists are auditory digital. Auditory digital people like to think, plan and organise.

An auditory digital person might say:

• “there is logic in what I’m saying”
• “does that make sense?”

Top Tip: if you are presenting a treatment plan to an auditory digital person use statistics to back up your argument for example, success rates, number of treatments completed etc. Present your treatment plan logically using reason, systems and analysis to present it. And above all, if you are a dentist the chances are this will be your primary representational system, so be flexible in the way you communicate.

So how do you represent the world around you?

Which of the representational systems looks, sounds, feels or logically is more like you? (See what I did there!).

If you do some digging around online you should be able to find a representational system preference test (alternatively send me an e-mail and I can provide one for you), this will give you an idea of what your own representational system is.

And the biggest tip I can give… Just because something seems right to you, does not necessarily mean it is right or make sense to someone else… Remember, most dentists are logical auditory digital thinkers, and most people in the general population are visual. Remember to present your treatment plans in a way that makes sense to the person you’re communicating with.

In this podcast edition I talk in depth about how NLP works. NLP is primarily a system for understanding how we encode our subjective view of the world. When we encode our subjective view of the world we turn it into a program in our mind. NLP looks at that program and encoding and seeks to change the parts which are less helpful.

Join me as I walk you through some practical exercises  to experience how your encoding works for yourself. I know you will find it enlightening!

Show References:
Noam Chomsky – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Noam_Chomsky

Transcript

In this episode, I want to explain what NLP is and how NLP works. So how NLP works to affect such large changes in people and make such big differences in their lives often very quickly. And by very quickly, I can mean in a matter of minutes sometimes.

NLP is fundamentally a principle and a system for looking at the way you take your subjective view of the world and encode it. Once we understand how you encode the world around you, then we can break encoding down into a program. We can work out the effective parts of that program, and we can work out the non-effective parts or perhaps the unhelpful parts of that program. And then we can recreate that program in a way that serves you better.

So I’m going to give you some examples so you can experience this for yourself. So what I’d like you to do is to think about something good that happened to you in the past. I mean, something really good. It could be a particular birthday celebration. It could be a wedding. It could be a birth of a child. But anything that you would consider to be really, really good. And as you think of that, I would like you to picture it. Create a picture in your mind of that really good, happy, joyous, momentous event. So create that picture.

Now, we’re going to start to break down the program, this encoding that I’ve spoken about. So now I want to ask you is there sound with this picture? And if there isn’t sound, give it some sound. As you look at that picture, are you looking at that picture through your own eyes? Or can you see yourself in that picture? I want you to make sure that you can see through your own eyes, that you are looking through your own eyes.

Now is that picture static or is it moving? Is the picture very clear? Is it very focused and sharp or is it slightly de-focused? Are there any noticeable smells happening around you? So you can see that as we start to play with this picture, we can pick up things that we call submodalities and these submodalities can make a huge difference to the way we store and encode things that have happened to us in our life.

So if I were to say to you, if that picture is moving, make it still and make it silent, and make the picture now small. So move the picture away from yourself so that it seems small. And now see yourself in that picture rather than looking through your own eyes. Now, make that picture black and white.

We can immediately start to feel the way we represent that event in our mind can start to change. And we do this with all things in our brain. Every time we think about perhaps a habit, smoking, drinking, doing things that we enjoy going out, dancing, meeting friends, we have little programs that we run. We have memories that we run and we will encode that memory, and we can change how we feel about it by changing the encoding. And that’s what we call submodalities.

So that’s one way of changing these programs and changing the encoding. We can use NLP and a series of techniques to uncover some of these events that have happened in the past that may be affecting you or things that you view coming up in the future. We can change the way it’s encoded. We can literally change the way you view it in your mind by changing these submodalities. We can even do things like switching out submodalities.

So there’s a great technique called a like to dislike. It takes the submodalities of things that we like, but perhaps we know we shouldn’t eat like chocolate biscuits perhaps. We can change the submodalities of how we represent chocolate biscuits to change everything so that the submodalities are of something that we actually dislike. What that does in our brains is it starts to mess up how we encode eating chocolate biscuits.

And the result of that is when we encode eating chocolate biscuits and mix it up with something that we don’t like, the desire and drive to eat chocolate biscuits disappears. It’s incredible when we start to mess and change the encoding in our brains. We also have another series of this encoding called meta-programs. And meta-programs are little programs that we run all of the time. We have programs for pretty much everything that we do. We have programs for cleaning our teeth in the morning through the program to falling in love, through he programs to buying something.

So let’s just look at this at the moment. Let’s just look at buying something and think about how that gets encoded in our brain because lots of people struggle with continuously buying things they don’t need perhaps, or spending money that they don’t have. And that’s because there will be some unhelpful part of their buying or decision-making process and the way they’ve encoded that.

Let’s just think about buying something of value. So imagine that you’re going to buy something that has quite a bit of value and this could be different for every person. But I want you to think of something that you wouldn’t usually buy that would stretch you. So it’s an item that you wouldn’t buy just without thinking. I want you to think of an item that you’d buy that would actually stretch you financially that you’d really need to be sure that you were going to buy it.

So it could be a new item of clothing. It could be a new fancy watch. It could be a car. It could be anything.

So I want you to think of something that you would like to buy, but that item is going to stretch you so that it’s not just a very quick decision. You’ve really got to think about it. When you’ve got that item, I want you to close your eyes. So now I want to imagine that you have already walked into the shop where this item is located and you see the item there.

I want you to think now, what is the very first thing that causes you to notice that you want to purchase that item? Is it something that you see or something that you hear? And some people, it may just be seeing that item, seeing the item triggers, emotions in them, triggers thoughts in them, or sometimes people can hear. They might hear their own voice in their head. Say, wow, you’d look good in that. They might hear a voice in their head saying, just buy it. They may hear a voice in their head saying, “You would look really good in that.”

And it may not be their own voice. It may be the voice of their partner, of their mother, of their father. Something that they hear in their head. So we will all have an initial trigger that causes us the desire to want to buy something. And that trigger will form part of the program. I would then say, what is the next thing? So when you’ve decided, okay, I’m going to move a bit further forward, what’s the next thing that causes you to notice that you want to purchase this item?

Is it something that you see, something that you hear, or something that you feel? At that point we might say, “Oh yeah, once I see it, or once I hear that voice, I get a feeling. I kind of just know.” Then I would say, “Well, where is that feeling? If it is a feeling, where is that feeling? Is it in your head? Is it in your stomach? Is it lower down? Is it an arm? Is it in a leg? It could be anywhere? Where is that feeling?”

What we’re actually doing here is starting to work out the encoding process. What is the process that we go through when we make this purchase decision? We will all go through our own little process or process will be very different. Sometimes people will see, they will hear, they will feel, but there will be a little process, a little series of encodings that we go through when we make a purchase. Sometimes there is a loop. So sometimes we get a loop in that process where we end up getting looped back to the beginning.

When we get looped back to the beginning, as you could clearly see it, it becomes really difficult to make a decision. We go round and around and around not being able to make a decision. The opposite end of the spectrum, some people’s purchasing program is very, very short and has very few steps in it.

Their program might be, I look at it, I feel that I want it. I buy it. And a person like that may end up purchasing too many things.

So we might want to adjust either of those programs. We might want to adjust the program that has a loop in it to take the loop out. So this person can make a decision better. Or if the decision happens too quickly to buy something of high value, then we might want to look at extending that program to put in some additional checks so that we can prevent this over purchasing, this behavior which is unhelpful. So you can see even making a purchase decision, we have encoded in our brains and all of this is linked to our emotions and the emotions it triggers within us and the memories because the memories that we have again are just encodings.

Noam Chomsky talks in great detail about deletions, distortions and generalizations. And I’ll put a link to him in the comments of this podcast. So deletions, distortions, and generalizations. We delete the world around us. We delete things we don’t need like the sound of a computer buzzing in the background, like the sound of birds tweeting outside, like any other extraneous sounds that are going on around us, that we don’t need to be aware of all of the time, because we’d go into overdrive if we were aware of them all of the time. So we delete things.

We distort things around us. Distortions, deletions, and we generalize as well. We generalize things that people say. We generalize emotions and we generalize if someone says, “I don’t like that.” We generalize it. So why would I think that? I don’t like that means. And we turn their emotions into our emotions by comparing it with ourself.

So we delete, distort, and generalize all of these things around us. So as we creating our memories, our memories become encoded in our brain and actually are not true.

They are just our encoding of what happened. They are not the reality. They are not the truth. All of this encoding, all of these programs, this is what we work on with NLP. This is what we work with a client to identify which programs are helpful, which programs are unhelpful. And then we break that program down and we rebuild it in a helpful manner, which works better for that client.

So that is how NLP works. And all of the NLP techniques and ideas that you see out there, they all work on this basic principle of taking the encoding of the world around us, breaking the encoding down into a series of stages, understanding how we encode, and then re-encode in a more helpful manner.

And as ever, I would absolutely love to hear your feedback.
Thank you for listening. If you have liked what you have heard, please rate and review, and subscribe. If you’d like to ask any questions, please send an email to succeed@mysuccessfullife.co.uk. Or to find out more about the Performance Academy, what we offer with our online verifiable CPD courses, please visit mysuccessfullife.co.uk.

A Look at Neuro-linguistic programming

Neuro-linguistic programming (NLP) is a personal development technique that can be used to treat anxiety, depression, and a wide range of phobias. It can also be used to help people change their thought patterns and achieve greater success in their lives. NLP uses behavioral and communication methods to help people change their thoughts, actions, and emotions. 

If you’re a successful, ambitious health and wellness professional, you may be interested in joining My Successful Life’s NLP Academy. This article will look at the benefits NLP can bring to your life. 

What is NLP?

NLP is a technique that was developed in the ’70s by John Grinder and Richard Bandler. They studied people who excelled in their field, were amazing communicators, and effectively implemented personal development. They began to research why some people became successful, while others seemed to struggle and fail. NLP was created by discovering the belief systems, mindset, values, and strategies used by successful people. 

NLP allows people to implement personal and professional change in their life quickly. It’s a powerful behavioural science that enables people to change how they feel, communicate, and behave. 

If you’ve noticed that you keep repeating patterns in your life, whether at work or in your personal relationships, NLP will help you to change them. It will help to make you a more effective communicator with all types of people. 

Why is Noam Chomsky so important?

Noam Chomsky is a famouscognitive scientist who’s work inspired the research and development that was carried out to create NLP. He has a significant impact on the field of linguistics and was also a philosopher and socio-political critic. Chomsky studied at the University of Pennsylvania, where he developed his theory of transformational grammar, which later was instrumental in redeveloping language study. 

Noam Chomsky is important as he is often known as “the father of modern linguistics” and is one of the cognitive science founders. During his career, he taught at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and Columbia University. He founded a graduate program in linguistics in Massachusetts. 

Noam Chomsky studied various topics that are important to Neurolinguistics programming, including psychology, philosophy, neuroscience, and linguistics. Chomsky helped to change cognitive science ideas, particularly his ideas that disproved Skinner’s behaviourism theory. 

 Is non-verbal communication more honest?

It’s common for people not to say precisely what they mean or to hide how they feel. Non-verbal communication ismore honest as it’s unconscious and often shows people’s real reactions to situations. For example, if you see something that you like the look of, your pupils will dilate and your face my flush.

Many people unconsciously gesture with their hands while they speak. This type of non-verbal communication is automatic and more challenging to control than verbal communication. Research shows that your body communicates more non verbally then it does verbally. Scientists have often be quoted as saying that up to 93% of communication is non-verbal, however this is actually a myth!

Hand gestures, eye contact, and tone of voice are all examples of non-verbal communication. These are all very powerful in human interactions and often show people’s authentic feelings. 

 What is NLP good for?

NLP practitioners help people change their thoughts and behaviours to help them achieve the desired outcome. Nuro-linguistic programming can be used to treat phobias and common mental health problems such as anxiety disorders or PTSD. It can also be used to improve workplace performance, achieve greater success, improve productivity, and increase levels of happiness. NLP aims to help individuals change their thoughts and actions using a variety of behavioural and communication techniques to change how they perceive the world. NLP works on a diverse range of issues that people commonly face. 

NLP helps to identify and change thought patterns that are holding you back. It also looks at successful people’s behaviours and teaches personal development skills, such as confidence building, self-reflection, and communication skills. Professionals can use NLP for career advancement, as it helps people achieve work-orientated goals. 

The quality of your life is dependant on your emotional states and the quality of your relationships. If there are things in your life that scare you and stop you from doing things, NLP can help you change the situation. 

NLP can help you at work as it will help to further your success. If you fear presentations, NLP techniques can be used to allow you to excel at public speaking and be able to present information to groups effectively. If you work in the health care field, it’s important to deliver information clearly and concisely to your patients and colleagues. Whether you want to inspire or motivate NLP will help you become an influencer of others. 

Many people have internal conflicts and waste time and energy being in two-minds about situations. NLP allows you to change your thought patterns to help you make clearer decisions and find direction. If you’re sometimes able to achieve your goals, but sometimes don’t, you’ll be looking for more consistent results. 

If you’ve recently been feeling like you’re stuck in a rut and want to make changes in your life, but don’t know how to begin. NLP can help you make the changes you need and deserve and will help improve the quality of your life. You’ll be able to move away from negative emotions and can consciously choose how you want to feel instead. 

Many professionals have an unhealthy relationship with money; NLP can change that. The techniques can also be used if you’re into sports and are looking to master techniques and improve your performance. 

 The meta model demystified

The meta model allows people to find distortions in their thinking patterns. We rely on communication to share experiences. However, we are often unconsciously limiting ourselves through the language we use. Distorted thought patterns change our perception of reality. The meta model helps people identify distortions in their thoughts and language to improve their relationships and have an improved internal dialogue. 

The meta model has three categories, known as distortion, deletion, and generalisation. This model helps people to challenge their verbal patterns to help change their situation. There are thirteen patterns that are present in everyday language.

NLP practitioners work with clients using the meta model patterns. Each pattern has a set of questions and associated challenges that allow the client to make changes to limitations that have been holding them back. Mental maps are used to indicate clients’ values, beliefs, and thought patterns, which helps clients access choices within themselves.

The meta model has three elements that help people to modify their language to create more positive outcomes. 

 Distortion 

Many people experience distorted thinking, which can come in many different forms and hold you back from achieving success. In the worst cases, distorted thinking can be destructive and contributes to mental health problems. 

Common distortions include ‘mind-reading,’ where you are imagining what another person is thinking or feeling with no basis in any form of logic or sensory observation. ‘Black and white thinking’ or ‘distorted assumptions.’ The meta model allows questions to be asked that will challenge these types of distortions. 

Generalisation 

Being too general and not looking at the bigger picture can be a problem for many people. You may find yourself going over a specific experience and generalising the situation, making it difficult to move on. Everyone sees the world and their place in society slightly differently; we create our own set of rules with which we live life by. Humans generalise their experiences so that when they come up against a similar experience in the future, they will know what to do. Working with generalisation and challenging thoughts can help people let go of phobias. 

Many people have unconsciously created rules and values that hold them back from achieving the success they deserve. NLP helps to create a code in the mind map, which can rid clients of language and thoughts that are no longer serving them.  

Deletion 

Thought or language patterns that include deletion will omit parts of the mental map, which won’t appear in verbal expression. If we delete information, we will hold ourselves back from achieving success as we will think of ourselves as having limited options. 

 Conclusion

If you could change anything in your life, what would it be? What if you were able to make this change? How would your life be then? The performance academy can help you make positive changes in your life. Using NLP techniques, you’ll be able to avoid procrastination, improve communication with clients and patients, and maintain your work-life balance. The performance academy will allow you to learn practical tools that are accessible and easy to implement in your day to day life. 

Interested? Find out more about what the Performance Academy, created by My Successful Life, can do for you!

NLP utilises the concept known as presuppositions, these are beliefs which, if adopted, can help improve our own mind set and enhance our communication skills.

In this episode of the podcast I take a look at 2 of these presuppositions which I recorded nearly 10 years ago… Things haven’t changed, they are still totally relevant today.

The first presupposition is called “There is no try” the second is called “All perception is projection“.

How much will you learn about yourself and communication after you have listened?

Music: https://www.purple-planet.com

a guest blog post by Joanna Taylor  MHS (Acc)

Joanna Taylor is a Clinical Hypnotherapist, Trainee Psychotherapist and Certified Trainer of NLP.  She provides courses and in-house training in hypnosis, communication skills and stress management, in addition to one-to-one coaching and therapy for clients suffering from stress, anxiety, phobias and low self-esteem.

How many of us find that, however much we love them, prolonged close proximity to visiting relatives can make us a little… well… fractious?  Perhaps an offer of help in the kitchen from Great Aunt Flo results in something being prepared not quite the way you would have liked it to be (“I like my vegetables so that they just melt in the mouth, dear!”), or a nephew wants to play a video game on the television when all you want is peace and quiet in front of the fire.  The fact is, we all have different ideas of what makes our leisure time perfect for us, and often fail to understand another’s behaviour (“…and he answered his mobile at the table during supper!”)  This is largely due to our own individual values, which are unique and personal to each of us.  I will never put anything down on the enamel top of my Aga, for example, in case I scratch it, but I have a close friend who slides pans off the hobs to keep warm on hers – and she doesn’t mind the scratches.

Our values are what is important to us; more than any other element in our personal and professional lives, values are the basis for, and have the most effect on, our behaviours and any changes that are made.  Our values drive our true purpose as human beings; they are those things in which we are willing to invest time, energy and resources to achieve or avoid.  Our values are, as the name suggests, an evaluation filter, operating differently in different contexts, and are used to provide motivation before we take action (“I’ve eaten far too much over the holiday; I need to go on a diet.”), and also for after-the-fact evaluation; judgements about our actions and those of other people (“Well, I wouldn’t let any child of mine behave like that!”).

Our values are the way we judge good and bad, right and wrong, and they remain for the most part unconscious; we don’t usually think about our values at all, until somebody else treads on them…

In our professional lives, too, we will all have our own, individual values.  What is important to you about your job?  When I ask this in a training session, I will receive a different list from everybody – working with people, making a difference, having fun, money, security and so on.  And your practice as a whole will have its own values; for example, at our practice we have certain values around time.  It’s really important to us that we spend plenty of time with our patients and that, as far as is possible, we run to time – we want our patients to know that we take time to listen to them and we appreciate that their time is just as important as our own.  It’s therefore important to us that our staff share those particular values – so if, for example, we were looking for an associate, we would not want somebody who took only five minutes to do a check-up and who constantly ran late.  When everyone’s values are aligned within a practice, you know you can move forward together to achieve your vision for the future, because what is important to you is also important to them.

One of the main reasons why people leave their existing job is because they don’t “feel valued”.  In other words, their own values are being violated by somebody else’s, or their values are not in alignment with those of their place of work.  Do you know what’s important to your staff or your colleagues about their work?  Have you ever asked them?

Just as in our personal life, a conflict of values at work can cause conflict between individuals.  In NLP (Neuro-Linguistic Programming) we adopt the philosophy that everybody lives in their own “Model of the World” – that is, they have their own beliefs, values and opinions that shape their view of reality.  We all have the right to hold our own personal beliefs and values, so it can help to diffuse conflict by accepting this philosophy and respecting another person’s “Model of the World”.  We might not agree with it, but we can have total respect for their right to believe differently from ourselves.

Do you know what is really important to your patients?  Sometimes their ideas might be radically different from yours because we all have our own opinion as to what is important to us.  How useful would it be if you could discover a patient’s values just through conversation?  When you understand what is important to your patient, it means that you know exactly how to satisfy their needs, and your patient knows you are really listening to them.  You may consider that a patient with discoloured teeth would certainly be interested in a whitening treatment, but is that their value, or your own?  Respect their “Model of the World” – and in order to do that, you first need to find out what that is…

Contact details:   joanna@joanna-taylor.co.uk

01723 859147

www.joanna-taylor.co.uk

Or how about this one, you’re being sold something (and we all know where we are) you are offered the trial close, then the salesman goes into objection handling mode until you’ve got no more excuses, and then wait for it… Wait for it… Here comes the final “close”!

Now of course we need to work to a system when we have a client with us, we need to explain features and benefits of our product or service in a way that the other person understands. We need to build rapport with our client and understand what their problem is, however the classic SPIN selling model is based on the concept of increasing pain. The SPIN model works to understand why the client wants to solve the problem, what their pain is and then increase the pain until they either commit suicide or hand over their credit card details!

If you want to find out more about the SPIN selling technique, here was a website I found. (I do not endorse this technique or this website, this resource is simply provided to you to find out more).

The SPIN model clearly works as it has been used around the world for many years now, however I believe there is a more elegant and eloquent way of engaging and allowing your customers to buy from you, rather than using techniques in order to sell to them.

One of the other problems I encounter with this type of sales technique is the insistence that the transaction or ‘close’  happens there and then. Either signing a contract, or agreeing to whatever is being sold. The principle is that you should never allow the other person to go away and think about your offering, as it gives them time to talk themselves out of it. This may or may not be true, however insisting that someone signs there and then misses an absolutely fundamental principle of how we think and convince ourselves of the right decisions.

We all run what is known as a ” Convincer Demonstration Filter” which in NLP is known as a ‘meta program’- if you do not understand your client’s convincer  demonstration filter and you attempt to close the sale using the wrong strategy for that client  then you will almost certainly lose the sale.

This is how the convincer a demonstration filter works.

When we are required to be convinced about something, that could be another person’s performance such as in a work setting, or it could be we are required to be convinced about a product or service before we purchase it – when we are in this situation we will have a little program that we run in our mind which allows us to become convinced, or not convinced as the case may be.

There are four types of strategy that people use to convince themselves:

1. Automatic.
2. Number of times.
3. Period of time.
4. Consistent.

Automatic Convincers

These are the type of people who have done the research, worked out what they want & made the decision ready to go. There are already convinced before you get to the ‘close’ part of the sales process and if you stick rigidly to asking lots of questions about whether they are ready to buy or  not, can become rather frustrated.

These people may have the pain in their hand ready to sign, and you don’t need to use any other technique on them other than to get them to book their appointment or sign a contract. In fact using any other technique on them may put them off as they might think you aren’t listening to what they say.

If you have an automatic convincer in front of you, just get on with it and stop faffing!

Number of Times Convincers

These people need to be convinced you are the right provider of your product and service a number of times. They may need to see proof over and over you are genuinely good and true to your word. If you say that you genuinely care about them, they might want to see this represented on your website, when they phone you, when they come in to visit you, during the consultation and finally during the decision-making process.

A number of times convincer will have a specific number of times they need to be convinced – the clues in the title! If you have a three times convincer in front of you then you’re going to have to convince them three times that you are the best person to provide your product or service. If you are smart with your marketing you will allow them to do this during the marketing process, as mentioned above on the website and phone calls etc.

If you have a number of times convincer in front of you, allow enough time and give them enough information to be convinced however many times is right for them.

Length of Time Convincers

These people need to be convinced over a period of time. They want to hear the information that you have to provide, wait a period of time, and then become convinced.

A length of time convincer will have a specific amount of time they need to be convinced over. If you have a length of time convincer and their length of time is one month then you are not going to get them to sign up or agree there and then. You need to make a note in your diary to contact them after one month, when they will be happy to go ahead.

If you have a length of time convincer in front of you do not push for the close of the sale there and then give them the amount of time they need to become convinced themselves.

Consistent Convincers

These people can be the bane of your life. They will never be convinced, they will come back over and over and over again always wanting more information and prove that you are the right person to deliver your product or service. If you have a consistent convincer in front of you and decide to do business together you had better be prepared to demonstrate every single time you interact with them that you are the best person. You cannot rest on your laurels and you can never stop allowing them to be convinced.

So how can you tell what type of convincer a person is?

As with much of NLP you ask a simple question, shut up and listen.

Ideally the question you need to ask these people is “How often does someone have to demonstrate competence before you are convinced?” If they say for a week etc, then they are a length of time convincer, if they say three times etc then they are a number of times convincer, if they respond saying they are never convinced them they are a consistent convincer and if they respond saying they don’t need to convince they just trust then they are an automatic convincer.

The ideal time to ask this type of question is during your rapport building process at the beginning drop, it into the conversation – however it could be difficult to ask this question exactly so you could say, “I’m interested… to make sure that we give you the best service  can you tell me about the last time that you bought the product similar to this” – and then listen for their response.

They may talk and mention things like “Well, I popped in to see what they were like, then I looked at their website, then I gave them a call, then I went in to see them directly and then I realised they were the right people” What type of convincer do you think this person would be?

Yep, they are a number of times convincer.

What about if they said this “Well, I popped in to see what they were like had a good look around and chatted to the people there, then I went back again a month later and booked my appointment” – what type of convincer are they?

They are a length of time convincer… do you see the pattern?

Summary

Using questioning and listening for specific words and phrases that people use to understand how they construct the world around them is a far more elegant and eloquent way of building rapport and closing a sale. It means you are totally customising your technique for the other person, this helps them to relax, trust you and know that you understand how to solve their problem.

If if you want to find out more about practising these techniques, and indeed building them into a complete process with many other similar techniques then please do take a look at our NLP Communication & Metasales Workshops where you will have plenty of time to learn, practice and perfect your listening skills!

However, for the purposes of this blog post I will go through a series of NLP techniques and provide links to resources where you can try out these techniques for yourself. I include links to other people’s websites in order to make this blog post as useful as possible, please note however I do not endorse nor recommend nor use any of the scripts to which I link, they are simply provided for your assistance.

NLP Techniques

Parts Integration techniques.

This technique is useful as many people exhibit parts in their lives. This typically comes to the fore when people say part of me wants to do this, and part of me wants to do that. Very often these parts of their personality or in conflict with one another, and so it makes achieving the person’s goal all but impossible.

Parts can also be around beliefs, part of me believes this, in part of me believes that. They can also be present at a values level, a person may have two values which are extremely important in their life, yet these values may conflict. An example of this could be if a person values freedom and security, for some people it may seem impossible to have both of these values.

Parts integration uses a light hypnotic trance to allow the client to find the highest positive intention of each of their parts. What will always happen is that the highest positive intervention will always be the same, and hypnotic script can then be used to bring these two parts together.

Here are a few links to various parts integration scripts.

Troy Bakes

transformation.net

Like to dislike.

This is an extremely useful technique in NLP and comes under the banner of sub modalities. They like to dislike is useful if a person wishes to give up a particular foodstuff, the example chocolate or crisps. It can also be used within more advanced therapies such as smoking… Wouldn’t it be good to find a cigarette abhorent and to dislike it?

The technique works by understanding how the client creates their representation in their mind off the thing they wish to dislike. We then need to understand how they create the representation of something that they currently dislike. What you will find is that the representation in their mind off things they like and dislike are normally:

• In a different location.
• A different sized picture.
• The picture could be framed panoramic.
• The picture could be close or far.
• They could see themselves in the picture, or they may be looking through their own eyes.
• The picture may have sound.

Chaining anchors.

Anchoring is a technique whereby we link a physical touch on a person (typically a knuckle) to them when they are in a heightened state. For example we could anchor the state of motivation. Anchoring is an NLP technique that is used outside of NLP also, most famously with Pavlov’s dogs who salivate at the sound of a ringing bell.

Training anchors is an NLP technique whereby we can move a client from an on resource full state towards a resource full state. A typical example is moving a client from procrastination to motivation.

The NLP technique simply involves getting the client to list for different states which move logically from the negative to positive. So for example state number one could be procrastination, the client may then identified boredom as a state which would move them out of procrastination, we would then ask which state would move them out of boredom… Perhaps excitement, we can then move from excitement to motivation.

Once the client identifies a logical progression through a series of linked states we can then start to anchor them. We simply start with the negative state, ask the client to close their eyes and think about the first state of procrastination, to float down into their body, look through their own eyes, see what they saw, hear what they heard and really feel that state of procrastination. When the state is at its highest we can trigger the anchor on the first knuckle.

The NLP technique is then to anchor subsequent states on the next knuckle, so in this example we would ask the client to vividly relive the state of boredom, we would anchor this to the next knuckle but ensure that we did it 2 to 3 times so that it was a stronger anchor than the one the procrastination. The NLP technique is to then repeat this for the subsequent states right through to motivation, each time ensuring that the states are anchored more times than the last to make them stronger.

The final step in the technique is simply to fire off the anchors starting on procrastination and moving along through all the techniques towards motivation.

personal development planet.com have a good run through of the technique.

Summary

This has been a simple summary of three of the most basic NLP techniques, why not read through this a few times, give the techniques a go and let me know what you think.

Let’s discuss shall we.

Now, first things first – and to put my discussion in context – yes I am an NLP Master Practitioner, however I also have a Master’s Degree in Business so I’m well used to the reductionist model of breaking everything down to measurable, repeatable and finite levels and the rigours of testing for scientific proof.

One of the main arguments against NLP is the fact that many of the techniques have no scientific proof, for example:

1. Eye patterns and their link to the representational systems of Visual, Auditory, Kinaesthetic and Internal Self talk (Auditory Digital). Many studies have failed to find any empirical link between eye patterns and  representational systems, including Beale (1981), Poffel and Cross (1985) & Cody (1983)
2. The link between the words and the representational system of the speaker. Again studies have failed to find any empirical link between what people say and the way they represent the world, including Faulkender (1985) and Lange (1981).

I could go on… but you get my point!

NLP Where’s The Evidence?

So how come NLP is so popular with seemingly little scientific evidence?

The reason (in my opinion) is the paradigm in which we live. We live in the paradigm of scientific reductionism, we want to reduce EVERYTHING around us to a set of scientific and repeatable experiments. And if you are thinking ‘Yeh, that’s right, that’s the only way’ then you are probably thinking that because you live in this paradigm too!

However, what this approach fails to do is to understand the reasoning behind NLP plus, and here’s the big one… they are researching the wrong thing!

NLP is not really interested in why things work… all it wants to do is to understand how the client does something and then fix it.

One way that NLP is used is in performance enhancement and success management in life and business. Now, one can look at this claim (that NLP helps in success) and decide to break it down for research, we could choose to research many things such as:

1. What is the link between NLP mental rehearsal visualisation and success. What is the process and is it scientifically verified?
2. When an NLP practitioner uses Strategies, do these exist, are they repeatable and scientific?
3. If a practitioner elicits a clients Values, can they really be re-sequenced and is the entire process repeatable and empirically verifiable?

Let me ask you a question. Have you ever bought a car, and then noticed that there are actually loads of other cars on the road that are the same make and colour as yours? Yep, I thought so! Why did this happen? Can it be broken down in to scientific steps? Do you care, or is the fact that this phenomenon works all that really matters – proving why it works is not really especially useful – interesting perhaps, but even if we can’t prove why it works the phenomenon still exists all the same.

NLP is the same. If a client is asked to focus on what they want, by using visualisation techniques – does it matter that it can’t be researched and proved? Or is the fact that the client is now able to go out and spot opportunities that were always there but missed before the really important thing? Much like the car, bringing it in to your awareness, no matter how this happened is what’s important… so it’s the result that validates the process, not the ability to scientifically prove it.

The same goes with values. Whether or not we can prove that we can move values around e.g. to make ‘money’ more important is irrelevant. What matters is that when we go through the process the client is more focused on ‘money’ or ‘fun’ or ‘love’ (or what ever other value has been moved) and so does more in their life to attain more of this.

For me the proof is in the pudding, using NLP with clients and on myself has proved massively valuable in helping us achieve success and other things in life. We’re able to spot opportunities to be happy, be successful or anything else that otherwise we would have missed. We’re able to understand another persons point of view and avoid arguments better, we’re able to negotiate better and we can now see a clear focus of what we are trying to achieve in life and business and can identify the paths we need to take to achieve it.

In these examples, NLP has absolutely worked and continues to work – why, or how, or can we prove it? Can we verify how we moved our values, can we verify how we have changed a strategy or the process for removing a limiting belief… Who cares, so long as the practitioner is able to assist the client in getting results then that’s all that really matters!

NLP is more than just a series of techniques, it’s an attitude of continual learning, creativity and of the use of mind’s natural ability to do amazing things… whether it can be studied or not!