Methods of Successful Influence

How did I shift the beliefs of a woman with a death wish into one so excited about living she took up salsa lessons? How did I persuade a man who had been carrying the burden of guilt for over 40 years that it was time to forgive himself? How did I use the power of words to propel my coaching success to become the fastest promoted senior coach in the history of one of the largest training companies in Singapore?

In the Secrets of Changing Minds series I reveal step by step the key communication tips & strategies from NLP and indirect hypnosis you can use to change minds and transform beliefs.

He Couldn’t Persuade Anyone for Anything

There once was a young car salesman, who could never make his quota. He could never quite figure out why it was some people made selling look like clients were begging to buy, while others like him couldn’t seem to sell his way out of a wet paper bag.

Flustered, and at the end of his rope, he decided he had enough and that things must change. Through a series of introductions, he approached the most successful car salesperson in the country to ask her for the secret behind her success.

The Top Saleswoman In All The Land Reveals One And Only One Secret

She looked at him with a tiger’s stare, but was he mistaken? He thought he saw a playful gleam behind that frightful look. She paused for what seemed like eternity after his outrageous question, but eventually, she spoke:

I was like you once. They used to call me hopeless; forget about selling ice to the eskimos, they used to say, she couldn’t sell water to a dying crowd in the Sahara!

I thought to myself: maybe the ability to persuade someone was like blue eyes, you either had it or you didn’t. I was so dejected, I quit my job and went to stay with my grandparents back in my home country.

What I didn’t know I’d find was what changed my life.

One day, as I was feeling blue, my grandfather came and spoke to me. With a twinkle in his eye, he said:

There once was a man who, everyday of his life, went out into the mountains, and planted acorn seeds. When he was asked why he did this, he said it was because he wished to see the mountains full again of the beautiful trees he used to enjoy in his childhood.

When they heard this, they all scoffed at him. Yet at the end of his life, he left behind a forest full of trees.

I’m telling you this because…well, I’m sure your parents never told you, but the people here used to call my words ‘The Nectar of Heaven’, because I could lead the most stubborn horse to water and make him drink. But I never told anyone how. Now I am an old man, and who better to pass on the secrets behind my success than to my grand-daughter?

In case you haven’t noticed, my dear, telling a story is a wonderful and unsuspecting way to sell someone your point, especially if it’s someone who’s being as stubborn as a mule. Why?

1) Stories, told well, get your feelings and your reason. I suppose in your science they’d say a story speaks to both the left and right sides of the brain, to the conscious and unconscious minds. Why, hypnotists have been using stories for years! Just go to the greatest hypnotist of all, the movie theatre, and you’ll see what I mean.

2) Stories are non-confrontational. I’m not making a point, I’m just telling you a story. Wouldn’t you have been peeved if I had started a feel good speech on you just now?

3) People will form their own conclusions from a story. Instead of you telling them how it is directly, when you share a story people think they told themselves how it is (and they’d believe themselves more than they believe you). I never told you once to persevere, did I? You came up with that yourself after hearing the acorn story…didn’t you (mischievious wink)?

4) Tell them a story like themselves, and they’ll love to listen. Especially if the story has a problem like theirs, and a heroine that overcomes it…acorn seeds, my dear? And of course, the solution doesn’t have to be exactly what you’re selling (wink wink).

And with that, she asked the car salesman to leave. He went home in a daze, with the strangest of feelings, as if someone had taken him out of his body to another time and place, and now that he was back he wasn’t quite sure where, what or whom he was.

Nevertheless, he felt like someone had just given him a big pot of gold, he was confident he had just learnt something wonderful, even if he couldn’t quite put his finger on it yet. But he was quite sure he would dream about it that night, and every confusion would clear up in that dream, and come morning he would wake up a different man and things would change for the better.

And as his head hit the pillow, he did.