In NLP, there’s this idea that you need to choose an intention before beginning a communication.
That way, you can achieve your outcome a lot easier.
Say, for example, you see a cute girl, and you go and talk to her.
If you don’t have a clear intention, you’ll get halfway through the conversation, and start to panic. Sure, it might start out OK, but then you’ll run out of things to say, and suddenly feel the pressure.
After all, you went over and talked to her, so she’s probably thinking you’ve got SOME kind of game plan, right?
The truth is that when most of us communicate, unless it’s giving a sales presentation, or asking for something specific, we DO have an intention, it’s just that it’s not only largely unconscious, but it’s also kind of fuzzy and vague.
Like to enjoy yourself and keep from getting bored. Believe it or not, that’s pretty much our automatic set point for ANY conversation.
(Unless you’re trying to get laid…)
And most of the time, that serves us well. One things start to get dicey, we eject and go somewhere else. Either physically or metaphorically by switching conversational topics.
You’d be surprised how many salespeople use this as their default sales strategy. Their whole game is to talk about the product in good terms, and hope the person buys it. They figure if they keep talking long enough, the person will eventually “see the light” and buy the product.
Is it any wonder that most of us (even those that are salespeople) hate salespeople?
The truth is that by having even a simple intention, you’ll do much better.
Why? Because most of us are operating on the same game plan. To have fun and avoid boredom.
The more charisma you’ve got, the easier this is.
So when you come in there with a simple game plan, and stick to it, the other person will usually follow along.
For example, consider the guy talking to that girl. Now, if he would only use that above mentioned strategy (or lack thereof) when talking to girls, he’d be creating a string of “failures” no matter what happens.
He’d go in with high hopes, and eject whenever things turned sour. He’d look back on the conversation as a failure, because it ended with him being “shut down.”
But what if he had a much simpler intention? Like to learn her name? Simply before walking over, he’d consciously choose that intention.
Once he got her name, everything after that would be pure gravy. Instead of creating a string of failures, he’d be creating a string of successes. Which would make it much easier choosing bigger and more “valuable” intentions, like getting her phone number, getting a date, etc.
How about sales?
If you’ve ever studied any kind of sales, there’s no shortage of “strategies” and techniques. When I used to sell cars, we had a ten step sales process.
This makes it easy to set your intention. Even if your goal is to make a sale, NLP teaches us that any goal can be achieved as long as it’s broken down into small enough “chunks.”
So if you’re selling a car, walking up to a person cold with the intention of selling them a $40,000 car could make even the most experienced salesperson nervous.
But breaking it down into small chunks?
Easy!
Instead of walking up to them with the intention of selling a car, what if your intention was to only learn their name?
After that, you’d switch to learning what kind of car they currently drove.
Then you’d switch your intention to finding out some good qualities of that car.
Then you’d switch your intention to learning what they were looking for in a new car.
This makes it easier.
Sure, you won’t sell everybody, but talking to customers would be a lot easier. You’d have a much better system for measuring your success, and seeing exactly what steps were holding you up.
You’d be more relaxed, your customers will be more relaxed, and you’ll make more sales.
Try this out, and see how it works.