Contemporary sales training has taken a new direction as large companies look to retain staff, increase staff loyalty and increase sales to the end user.

Various trademarked methodologies like SPIN (Situation, Problem, Implication, Need – Payoff) and Helping Clients Succeed focus on creating value for the client as part of a strategic view of the organisation.  They involve mechanisms for qualifying opportunities, determining value and organisational assessments. Although these are simple questions to the customer and holding back for service rather than eating the menu too quickly, the corporate world is still learning the value of that rapport.

Where NLP leads the way in business interpersonal skills is this:

Rapport building as a fundamental sales skill. The ability to build bullet proof rapport is key to establishing a smooth link in exchange of critical information. Rapport can significantly reduce the time taken to build trust and credibility, which are key criteria when you are in a critical meeting with a new or perspective client.

So how do you do that? If NLP is being performed adequately, you will see the salesperson holding back, asking questions, getting to know the client before any kind of menu being offered. And the ‘getting to know’ part is more than talking about where you went to school and where you live etc. It’s about the physical and mental strength to be ‘with’ the client rather than looking for what to say.

If you are capable at what you do, you already have the tools and skills to succeed, so the only thing that would stop you – is you getting in your own way!

We (NLP World) recently went to tender for a contract with a large power company in the UK. Other sales teams had been in before, yet had failed to impress the management with the implementation of where the brief wanted to go.

What we discovered was the other sales teams had not listened nor understood the messages that were coming from around the briefing table. This relatively ‘simple’ task of being present to the meeting had somehow become lost in what the other sales teams had perceived or had not been brave enough to ask.

Inside the NLP toolkit, we have Rapport Skills, The NOW state (a technique to keep you ion the present tense during hot times), The Meta Model to chunk down the client to exactly what they want and MetaPrograms to find out the strategies and buying patterns (personality profiling) of the customer. We also have linguistic tools (chunking up tools) to provide a fantastic framework for negotiation, creating additional value and conflict resolution. Mastering the ability to chunk up differing positions in order to find common value provides you with an invaluable tool to close complex negotiations and find a deal.

These are just a small subset of tools NLP provides for the successful development of the sales force. Almost every technique that NLP teaches equips the sales person in clearly identifying , creating and selling a value proposition to a client.

NLP techniques do not generally conflict with any of the established sales methodologies, but provide a strong interpersonal compliment to them. Still NLP training as a part of the plethora of sales development programmes in existence has a very low subscription.

What we are finding is that corporations are finding the human element to training their staff is paying huge dividends – and that NLP is the training of choice to deliver these advanced human skills.

Written by Terry Elston & Prakash Mani

Written by Prakash Mani & Terry Elston

Over the years leadership development has become big business in the training industry with the big corporate schools preaching their own research based training to small establishments building on common theory and good facilitation skills. One of the notable absentees in the group has been the importance of the sub-conscious mind in the development of leadership skills.

A key part of most streams of leadership development is a series of self-assessment tests that identify key strengths and development areas in individuals in corporate leadership positions. There are psychometric tests like MBTI, Neo Belbin, etc. but to name a few, which help to identify facets of the individual and also of the team that form the leadership core. There is 360° feedback which also forms the core of the understanding of the qualities of the leader. A key output for most of the leadership development programs are increased self-awareness and an action plan for development of critical skills that are internalised.

NLP has gained some traction in the corporate world with many organisations wanting to inculcate it within their teams. Yet their take up forms a small fraction of the total investment made by corporations in leadership development. This is surprising considering the plethora of research that suggests that the sub-conscious mind is a key to building a deep awareness of oneself and also addressing significant areas in leadership development. Having an understanding of your own representational system (how you view yourself internally) along with those around you goes a long way to align goals, drive teams cohesively and also achieve increased motivation and satisfaction in employees.

What about hypnotherapy, which can significantly help embed voluntary change in the subconscious mind? Too often, leadership coaching offers a direct mechanism that deals with the conscious mind to drive change. Incorporating advanced sub conscious mind techniques can increase effectiveness of the coaching and make a lasting impact. At the very least meditative techniques can help relax the individual, increase concentration and focus and get better nights sleep. Now that is not a bad starting point for a budding leader.

When we look at the hierarchy below, you can see that most corporates target the bottom three, yet, from studies carried out* the ONLY place that behavioural change can occur is the top three!

And NLP places itself to make a difference to those top three categories. You could call it ‘the control panel’. From the research into effective change techniques* it has shown that just focusing on strategies and skill sets will effect your top performers, yet not have much difference on your medium to low performers.

We aim to train people and arm them with capabilities and strategies – yet the main part of the training comes with the personal interactions/coaching that we provide. That’s why NLP & Leadership training comes with a package that includes coaching after training – because that’s what makes the difference in ‘the control panel’ of success of the people we are getting messages across to.

*From research via Trygve Roos – the book Mental Coaching

written by Prakash Mani (minor edits by Terry Elston)

The modern world of corporate learning and development has been undergoing dramatic change in the last decade. While the challenge for L&D departments to show return on investment has been there since inception, technology has made a paradigm shift in the industry. The pure classroom based learning has given way to blended learning. Blended Learning is an approach to learning and teaching which combines and aligns learning undertaken in face-to-face sessions with learning opportunities created online. This includes using webcasts, webinars and online coaching with the applicability of the training at the workplace

Technology is helping corporate training move up the levels in Kirkpatrick learning model, (level 3 at behavioural change and 4 with measurable business results) by bringing the trainer directly into the workplace environment and reducing training costs.

How does connecting into the subconscious mind fit into all this?

While blended learning has integrated classroom training, with online asynchronous learning and ‘live’ (linking training into practical business context) projects to the business world, there is a tremendous opportunity to link subconscious learning to focussed business outcome training.

Research has proven (Benjamin Libet) that the subconscious mind has an influence that precedes the conscious decisions that we think are the presiders in our corporate lives.

This is one of the guiding principles of NLP. Whether it is leadership development, improving sales teams, fostering innovation, strategy training or the other streams of corporate development, getting the workforce to link in closer to their subconscious competence can bring about a far more effective and impactful change.

Therefore any excellent training aimed at the subconscious mind will encourage deeper learning and sustainable changes. This can make the training intervention go much further.

Corporations and their training designers have a unique opportunity to bring a revolutionary change in the workplace by incorporating the training of the subconscious mind into the core training programs for better impact.

In the next few weeks we will look at how key corporate development themes can benefit tremendously from incorporating some of the principles of NLP and how connecting with the subconscious can significantly improve the reach of your training programs.

Hypnotherapy and weight loss are phrases that have had a long relationship over the last twenty years.

A constant barrage by the media constantly propagates the belief that people who weigh less are happier and possess a more positive outlook in life. However, if we look a little deeper than skin, perhaps we can find slightly negative motivation for these slim bodies in the first place.

I we want to get into the whole idea of reality, remember that most of what we consider to be true, is simply agreed upon philosophies.

In older times, for instance, having a ‘plump’ body was consider favourable – even showing abundance!

So our ideas about weight are usually imposed from the outside, not from the individual themselves. Knowing this, you have to first decide what is the figure for you – independent of what you feel others may think.

Some of those size 8 and 10 figures have only been sculpted as a defence, so you can’t take those as valuable statements. So find the right figure for you is the first step. Then it’s all about the food you feel most comfortable with that will supply you with sustenance and vitality over a long period.

do cabbage diets work?

These cabbage diets and having to restrain from eating have an elastic band effect. You’ve all done it – you know they work, but you also know that at some point that elastic band (no, not gastric band), gets pulled to it’s breaking point, then BLAM! you head for the fridge and it’s back again to where you were (and sometimes further), with less confidence for next time.

This see-saw process is really good for people writing books on weight loss, making diet books the best sellers of all time – because they don’t work over a long period and you have to find the next one.

That’s  why you need to find firstly the diet that you think will be good for a year or so – or even for six months, then be able to review consistently.

Your hypnotherapist should be working alongside these plans to help you instal new habits and projects that you choose for your size success.

In the first few sessions, you can be clearing up the past – looking to get some reality about where you are and where you can be. Clearing up the ‘garden’ of your past or if you like ‘spring cleaning’, is an essential part of making sure the foundations you are working with make the house you’ll be living in for a while to come.

Once you have done that, your hypnotherapist (or hypnotist) can start to work with your inner game with no weeds or clutter internally. Whilst there is no resistance to the new plan, the hypnosis will start to powerfully engage your motivation and embed the ideas that you want and wish for.

At NLP World, we have some products for weight loss with hypnotherapy as an MP3 product, yet I’d always encourage you to get with a live hypnotherapist to maximise your intentions.

In order to answer the question ‘how does hypnotherapy (or Hypnosis) work?’ –  we have to first understand what hypnotherapy is and what it is not. You can see another article on hypnosis and hypnotherapy to distinguish the art of hypnotherapy. When someone is hypnotised they are in a state of deep or very deep relaxation. The person who is being hypnotised is not asleep or unconscious (usually).

When someone is being hypnotised they are put into a state of deep relaxation so that the hypnotist can use suggestions to the subconscious mind. This is necessary because, if the suggestions were made to the conscious part of the mind, it might reject them. That is why the relaxed state is necessary for hypnotherapy to work.

The hypnotherapist then uses his/her skills with deep relaxation techniques and the conscious use of  elegantly powerful language to induce the unconscious mind to take on suggestions that it likes. The unconscious mind will not take on suggestions that are contrary to it’s values. People/clients may be surprised by what their unconscious mind will do, but that’s only because they haven’t been aware of their own inner world of values. That’s how Derren Brown and Paul McKenna can get people to do outrageous things; they have an idea of doing those things already programmed in!

The subconscious mind controls our feelings and emotions.

If you ever wondered why you felt/feel out of  control of your emotions, that’s because you aren’t (or very rarely). You have pre-conditioned reactions to each situation before you even know consciously how you’ll react. Benjamin Libet spent 15 years researching the time it takes for an unconscious signal to become conscious – and it’s about half a second. So your unconscious mind has already got the feelings ready before you even know!

His most famous experiment was meant to demonstrate that the unconscious electrical processes in the brain called Bereitschaftspotential (or readiness potential) discovered by Lüder Deecke and Hans Helmut Kornhuber in 1964 precede conscious decisions to perform volitional, spontaneous acts, implying that unconscious neuronal processes precede and potentially cause volitional acts which are retrospectively felt to be consciously motivated by the subject.

That’s why it’s a good idea to see an Hypnotherapist or NLP Practitioner if you know you have weeds in the garden. When you have cleared the weeds, rocks, barbed wire out of your inner world, you desires and intentions can manifest easily. That’s where The Law of Attraction comes into play.

Very often the reason for wanting to be hypnotised whether it is to lose weight, stop smoking, improve relationships and increase income. You and I may think that should be easy, yet these issues are often linked to a deeply rooted emotion or incident, that they have long forgotten about. And all the triggers, anchors and meanings are more than likely still buried in our subconscious mind

Now while in a state of deep relaxation during the hypnotherapy session, the hypnotist is able to communicate directly with our subconscious mind and work out those old issues and then lead onto implanting new feelings or emotions.

It has been scientifically proved that hypnotherapy does work and many people now see it as a suitable medical alternative to pharmaceutical medicines and other traditional forms of medicine. You can even get Hypnotherapy on the NHS.

So does Hypnotherapy work? Hopefully I’ve shown you in these articles why and how it does!