*And Wise If you Buy Into This Attitude By the Time You Finish This Article

by L. Michael Hall. Ph.D.

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Does this not elevate the description that "NLP is an attitude, backed up by a methodology, and which leaves a trail of techniques"? This suggests, does it not, that perhaps we need to model the attitude of Perls, Satir, and Erickson as well as their strategies? Perhaps it was more than just their linguistic patterns, their tricks, and their processes. Perhaps the attitude that they brought to bear upon their therapy and the way they related played a significant part in the process.

Does this hold for sales? Does attitude count there? What about customer service? Does attitude count there? You bet.

If it does, then what attitude (or attitudes) in sales makes the difference between wealth and success and the lack of both? What attitude do we need to establish as our metaframe (Meta–State) that will secure our ability to win the minds and hearts of people, win sales, negotiations, influence, persuade, and create loyal customers?

Before suggesting some such attitudes, let me tell you about a current book in the field of sales.

So what attitude most powerfully drives selling excellence?

To answer this question we have to swish our brains to the structure and process of selling itself. And doing that takes us to the process of assisting a potential buyer to understand how a particular product or service could satisfy a need. If there is a need, we would then facilitate a decision for it. Selling, like communication, therefore involves entering into the buyer's world to understand things from his or her point of view. Doing that then empowers us to facilitate their strategies for understanding, motivation, and decision–making.

With this in mind, what attitudes most effectively enable us to work with a buyer?

In this simple and entertaining book, Gitomer highlights several most excellent attitudes that can make a salesperson healthy and wealthy. It first presents the structure of the subjective experience of being a customer. After that, he describes the structure of the subjective experience of how to transform that person into a loyal customer.

And, how does this work?

It all begins with the seller's attitude (or the one who provides customer service). He or she has to begin with a cheerful, positive, friendly, and helpful attitude that truly understands how to satisfy, and then to exceed, the needs, wants, and expectations of the buyer or customer. In doing this, one needs to understand what a buyer/customer wants and does not want. Without question, the buyer does not want excuses, reasons, problems, or a lecture about "Company Policy." Conversely, the buyer does want solutions and resolutions. Instead of hearing the words "Can't" and "No," the customer wants to hear a solution orientation: "Yes," "The solution is" and "Let me see how I can help you." Does that fit for you when you are in the role of a buyer?

The only word customers want to hear is "Yes!" "Let's fix that!" and "The solution is" They do not want excuses about why you can't or presentations of your company's Policy. Customers want their problems and needs resolved, they don't want to hear about your problems.

This basic orientation and attitude defines what we do in sales. Namely, we help people find solutions to difficulties and problems. We fulfill needs and wants. We serve the customer in fulfilling the requirements of the things that make things work more efficiently. And as we actually do this, the customer pays our wage. If we work at a company, it may seem that we work for that company. Yet we do not. We work for the customer. No customerno company. The customer is our pay-check. Gitomer repeatedly reminds us of this essential orientation. When we lose a customer our kids eat less!

So, with the attitude that this orientation creates, we become highly focused on seeking to first satisfy the customer, and then to go a second mile to give the buyer a positive, memorable, and appreciatively warm experience. Merely satisfying a customer will not create loyalty, says Gitomer. It takes a lot more than that. A satisfied customer has no particular feeling of attraction or loyalty, and so can buy anywhere. But when you create a loyal customerhe or she will fight before they switch. And when you have a large base of loyal customers, you have a strong and growing business. You have a force of people who will do more for your Public Relations and Marketing than 10% of your profit put into Advertising or Marketing.

Going Way Beyond Satisfaction to Loyalty

So how do we do it? What is the strategy for creating loyalty in people?

It obviously involves attitude. In selling, as in educating, training, therapy, marketing, consulting, parenting, friendliness, having fun, and most things that involve other peopleattitude governs. Start off with a poor attitude, and you just will not get far. And this pretty much holds even if you have credentials, degrees, intelligence, skill, valuable knowledge, etc. Enter into the process with "stinkin' thinkin'" and you'll marvelously undermine any and all efforts at success.

A long time ago, in Magic in Action, Richard Bandler (1984) said,

"NLP is an attitude and a methodology. Having an attitude and methodology, you can make up a technique like that (fingers snap)." (p. 140)

I picked that up from him from the start and attempted to highlight that in The Spirit of NLP (1996). In more recent times, I have ended every Master Practitioner Training by installing a Propulsion System in the practitioners with the very spirit or attitude of NLP.

Why? Because, as Richard says, if you don't powerfully use this powerful model and technology, you won't get the same kind of results. NLP therefore involves not only a methodology and a trail of techniques, but first and foremost an incredibly bold, outrageous, and passionate attitude of curiosity, appreciation, wonder, etc. As noted earlier, the attitude that enables us to carry on the modeling of excellence that initiated this domain is the very attitude that emerged in John and Richard from their encounter with the tapes and writings of Perls and the person and writings of Satir (Anchor Point, Sept. 1997).

The one over–arching attitude that governs all of these other attitudes that make up selling excellence is the attitude of abundance. This means adopting the point of view that we live in a world of plenty, that there's plenty for all, that we can opt for cooperation and friendly competition rather than negative competition, and that extending ourselves to, and for, others typically elicits the same, creates trust, and enables people to feel safe with us. Such abundance thinking and feeling also facilitates the same in ourselves. It gives us a sense of safety about selling, and the lack of desperation. We don't have to push, pressure, manipulate, force, etc. Instead, we can trust the best in othersand that their best will come out when they feel validated, cared for, understood, and safe.

Consider how this abundance attitude blesses and supports your own success in terms of health and wealth apart from whether "it is true or not." After all, from the beginning NLP has asserted that the mere "truthfulness" of a map does not really make all that much difference. The effect of the map in actual experience is rather what really makes the difference.

Have you ever had an experience where you step into the idea and the corresponding emotions of abundance? Think about a time when you felt full and satisfied, when it seemed to you that "everything was going your way." Recall that experience fully and completely so that you just step into that memory.

Or if you would like to get more affect, simply imagine fully what it would be like to have your needs satisfied so that you feel the abundance of the world or of the universe. Imagine what it would be like. See or hear someone who you could imagine thinking–and–feeling that way, and then step into that person's experience.

After you have done this, imagine moving out into the world from that state. From a state of fullness, abundance, and completenessdo you feel more or less resourceful? Do you feel you are more or less "at your best?" Do you experience yourself wanting to ake advantage of people and operate from a Win/Lose perspective? Or do you find yourself able to extend yourself, give, listen, care, and operate from a Win/Win perspective?

How does this abundance attitude effect your health and well–being? If you operated from this place, would you feel more or less tension and stress? Would your nervous system more or less activate your Fight/Flight responses?

When you step into this place of abundance, do you think more or less expansively? Do you think more or less creatively? Do you experience your mind and emotions as more or less playful, experimental, thoughtful, excited? Does it bring out the playful child in you or the judgmental parent?

What vibes do you put out to the world when you access this abundance state? What kind and quality of energy do you experience?

I've discovered in asking these kinds of questions of people that everybody experiences thinking and feeling, believing and valuing, representing and amplifying the ideas of abundance as activating health and wealth. I have found with everybody that it enables one to relax, to shift from defensive modes and to step into more creative and energetic states. As a map about the world, abundance does us well. It facilitates us to access other resources that create a much better attitude and orientation.

Richard Bandler (Using Your Brain For a Change, 1985) speaks about this attitude.

"The essence of being generative is to create a world in which everybody gains because there are ways of creating more, rather than having a limited amount to fight over and divide up." (p. 158)

More recently, Kathy Corsetty and Judith Pearson describe it in their soon to be published book, Healthy Habits (1999, in press).

"Develop an abundance mentality. An abundance mentality is the optimistic belief that your needs and desires will usually meet with satisfaction and fulfillment. The abundance mentality is the attitude that there is enough love, wealth, and happiness in the world so that everyone is entitled to an equal share, and that your problems are no worse than anyone else's problems." (p. 117)

"The magic of accomplishing your goals is to develop a mindset that allows you to see beyond daily survival requirements." (p. 128)

If we experience the very ideas, thoughts, and subsequent emotions of abundance as so resourceful for health, personal power, wealth, etc., then how can we facilitate the internal representations and physiology of abundance? In an earlier article (Anchor Point, Nov. 1998, "Modeling 'Abundance'") I presented a basic Abundance Pattern. That pattern began with the representations of abundance and then went to the higher level frames (beliefs, values, and decisions) that support thinking in terms of abundance.

I also included in that pattern a Meta–State of Self–Esteeming so that when we move into the very attitude of abundance, we do so out of our own personal sense of abundance, i.e., worth, value, love, significance, etc. Self–dislike, deficiency, and inadequacy make it almost impossible to truly and powerfully operate from abundance.

That pattern also included three concerns that addresses various higher frames that could sabotage the abundance attitude. For example, if we do not have permission within to think in terms of abundance, then that lack of permission, or some objection against it, can undermine that attitude. So also with having too strong of representations of scarcity. That can get in the way. Also, if we have not made a conscious decision to choose abundance, then we may simply default to the old program of scarcity.

Jeffery Gitomer describes this abundance in the biblical language of "going a second mile" in the way we provide our service and the quality that we built into our product. He suggests that when you set your attitude to give great service, you thereby create all kinds of abundance. You create the abundance of good will, customer loyalty, people happy to do business with you, memorable experiences that will be retold as free marketing and advertising for you, referred business, etc.

In this way, when we do something out of the ordinary, we create a memory for the person we seek to serve, and that thereby sets a standard. So do something extra. Ultimately, friendliness and willingness to help governs your everyday success.

"When competition stiffens, the only businesses that will survive are the ones who offer the best value, friendly memorable service, and meet their customers needs." (p. 185)

"Being better than the rest is Doing whatever it takes to excel at whatever you do" (p. 240)

"Give the best service they've ever had. Having a great service is at the heart of the loyalty process. Service that starts with yes, provides solutions and ends with WOW!" (p. 253)

If you let the attitude of abundance govern and guide your every step you take in communicating the value and richness of whatever product and service you sell, you have adopted an attitude that will make you wealthy. It will also make you healthy and wise. Over time, you will find that attitude enable enriching the selling experience for yourself and your customers. From that abundance frame, you will shift from having to make a sale to getting to discover if there is a match or fit between your product and service and the buyer's needs. With this attitude, you will become a discoverer and facilitator of the buyer's processes. You will come to operate in assisting buyers in running their own brain about representing your solution, identifying values and benefits, and making enhancing decisions.

References

Gitomer, Jeffrey. (1998). Customer satisfaction is worthless: Customer loyalty is priceless. Austin, TX: Bard Press.

Hall, L. Michael. (1999). Engineering the Secrets of Selling ExcellenceTraining Manual. Grand Jct. CO: E.T. Publications.