Glenn Devey has over 300 post-diploma coaching hours spanning Directors, Managers, Business Owners and Sole Traders. Over the last three years he has designed, developed and delivered a suite of NLP, Leadership and Coaching and Mentoring training to clients such as: Argos, Starbucks, Jordans Cereals, Kimberley-Clark, West Midlands Police, Royal Mail and the National Grid. I sat down for a cup of tea with Glenn to ask him some questions about using NLP in sales and copywriting.
CJW: I’ll start off with a global question before moving onto specifics… What do you think are the ethical issues of using NLP’s language patterns to persuade people to do something that they weren’t planning on when they woke up?
GD: You really need to quantify the word persuade. Over the years I’ve come to the conclusion that people won’t do anything that they really don’t want to do, people will only do stuff which part of them wants. All the language patterns of NLP do is to frame conversation is a way which suits the other person’s communication style.
CJW: Ok so what you’re saying is that there needs to be a clear benefit for the person to begin with and NLP just improves your delivery of that benefit during communication.
GD: Yeah all you’re doing is changing the way you offer the suggestion so it fits in with the other person’s criteria. If they don’t want what you’re offering and your product has nothing desirable or beneficial to them then NLP won’t help.
CJW: It’s a central concept of NLP that the chat that we have with ourselves inside our heads shapes our lives. How far can positive thinking get you in life?
GD: To quote a well known phrase… positive thinking won’t get you everywhere but negative thinking won’t get you anywhere. Positive thinking is part of the bigger picture alongside planning, setting goals and being flexible.
CJW: It is repeated at every sales and copywriting seminar that the reasons people buy are emotional rather than practical. What are the key emotions which make people buy stuff they probably don’t really need?
GD: There’s no particular emotions which compel people to buy… it’s a very individual thing driven by each individual’s value set. If that person has a high value on adventure and you’re selling adventure programmes then you’re quids in. But it would be difficult to motivate someone to buy something which they weren’t emotionally connected to.
CJW: So thorough research of your target market is important then?
GD: Absolutely… You’re much better off with the sniper approach than the blunderbuss.
CJW: Do people have emotions as a result of thinking or do people think as a result of emotions?
GD: That’s a good one. I think people definitely have emotions as a result of thought patterns. And yeah it works the other way around as well.
CJW: So can you plant subconscious thoughts in people’s heads which will then trigger an emotion which will make them go out and do something?
GD: Watch Derren Brown. In a theatre full of people he will use embedded commands throughout the whole performance. Then at the end of the show a group of people will do something they can’t explain. From here he will rewind the video and show the audience where he made the suggestion. People weren’t consciously aware but the suggestion seeped into their subconscious.
CJW: Derren Brown is an anomaly…in terms of real world specifics how can you apply NLP to sales and marketing?
GD: NLP applies to lots of areas of life particularly when it comes to building rapport with the people in face to face selling situations or when you’re writing copy. You also need to be clear on your own outcomes as well from a sales meeting or from a marketing campaign and NLP is a very useful tool in goal setting. In face to face sales, NLP is a great tool for calibrating changes in body language in other people.
CJW: So in general NLP improves interpersonal schools which are useful in a sociable sales environment?
GD: Yeah I mean Richard Bandler said there were 3 steps to selling. Number 1 you elicit a state of desire in someone by asking questions, creating a vision and motivating a clients either away from their current state or towards something else. The second step is to put your product or service in front of them and the third step is to get the hell out of the way. Obviously there are other practicalities in business such as making sure you are talking to the decision maker. Essentially though eliciting a state of desire is at the core of sales and copywriting.
CJW: Have you got any examples of where NLP is used in copywriting?
GD: Written NLP is an interesting case study. When talking one to one with someone the pace, speed of delivery, tonality and their body language is very relevant and you can get away with ambiguity in speech more than you can in text. When your write something people can go back and reread it. In conversation, when time moves on and the moment shifts, you can get away with giving embedded commands and giving suggestions more than you can in text. Therefore if you’re going to use things like the Milton model in written sales copy you have to do it more sparingly than when using the spoken word.
CJW: You’re a successful freelancer. Have you used any of these techniques in your marketing literature?
GD: Yeah absolutely. I’ve just written a 7 part email course with the purpose being to get people motivated to come on a course. In the PS statement at the end of each email I’ve written “It’s going to be great and I may even write a book on that course one day” The embedded command “book on that course” is hidden inside a longer sentence.
CJW: Sneaky
GD: Yeah. I probably only do this once per email… you can’t overdo it when your copywriting because it just looks obvious but used sparingly it can be effective.
CJW: Are there any other techniques from the Milton model which you can use for copywriting?
GD: I think cause and effect from the Milton model is particularly good. If you’re reading [this] then chances are [that]… or if you’ve got [this] far on the website then it means you’re [that] sort of person… These really help to build rapport with the reader and to create an understanding. And complex equivalence is useful as well… action means results, investment means growth. And there are others which are getting a bit hackneyed such as double binds; people have just become wise to those.
CJW: OK final question… What is your opinion of the guys who use NLP techniques to try and have sex with women who are clearly out of their league?
GD: Good luck to them! You know NLP will stack the odds in you your favour in any interpersonal endeavor but it’s not a silver bullet.