Hi Persuader,
Some of the most interesting conversations come out of working with my advanced students one-on-one. The conversations are never one sided and I ultimately learn nearly as much from them or from interacting with them on the level of their industry as they learn from me. It’s an amazing process.
Recently I was talking with a student/client/friend who’s an advisor and I got on a roll (as I am sometimes apt to do). What came out of this was a really fascinating take on problem solving. My suggestion is that you can never solve a problem on the same level that the problem was created. You have to move to a different level.
Ultimately, this is the basis for all professions in the world today. There are a lot of people who like to do it themselves, i.e. try to do their own taxes, try to sell their own houses, try to fix their own cars — but most of us go to an expert because we realize that there are things accountants, advisors, realtors, and mechanics know how to do with more expertise and more efficiency than us, non-experts, in the given field.
If you are capable of solving the problem yourself, and if you don’t mind getting your hands dirty or reading up on the tax code, you wouldn’t go to an expert. If you were capable of resolving the issues (and maybe liked tinkering or ciphering), you wouldn’t ask for someone who specializes in resolving these issues. You would have no need for it.
Take for example the chiropractor. Chiropractor’s have spent many years studying how the bones in the body work to give support to the back so that when the body is not properly supported and is thus in pain, they can make adjustments that will help eliminate the pain and put people back into order again.
Further, they know how to tell their clients how to strengthen certain areas, how to do specific exercises, so they won’t return to the problem again. If you were in pain right now and you laid down on the floor and tried to move and twist and maybe you decided sleeping on the floor would straighten you out and it didn’t work at all, what are you going to do? What is your next step? You can’t move, you can’t go to work, you’re in constant pain; what are you going to do?
If you’re like me, or like most people, you’re going to look for somebody that can see the big picture, someone who can look at the larger problem than you can, that can see from a greater perspective, someone who understands more than you and can go to a different level to bring a solution to you than you’re able to do. That’s the basis of all professions today.
For purposes of persuasion, this week, figure out the bigger picture on your profession and see if there’s a way to market and sell with that in mind.
Until Next Time,
Kenrick E. Cleveland
“The most important persuasion tool you have in your entire arsenal is integrity.” –Zig Ziglar
Hi Persuader,
I’m not a persuasion cop. I’m not any kind of cop. In fact, I actively dislike cops. My job and my passion in life is to teach you what I have learned about persuasion. Without attempting to monitor or pass judgment, part of that teaching is guiding you the in the ways in which this information can be misused for manipulation. I learned tough lessons the hard way when I was a young, eager, foolish man. As a result of those lessons learned, I know a thing or two about integrity and my hope is that you will learn from my heartache and trouble.
As we apply these social influence skills it is my sincere hope that we will go forward with an application towards ethics and integrity.
Ethics and integrity go hand in hand with congruity, and congruity forms a key component. Why? Congruity is like someone making a mistake and being genuinely sorry they made it. Whereas you can really tell the difference between that and someone who says I’m sorry but doesn’t necessarily mean it.
Ethics and integrity allow us to use these kinds of powerful skills and do so with a good clean conscience because we know that we’re using things on others that we’re comfortable having used on ourselves. And as you know, by participating in my program, the importance of integrity is something we constantly discuss. I encourage and promote good uses of ethics and integrity, however, I try to use good ethics and integrity in talking about ethics and integrity and not force them but bring them up, constantly showing why it’s helpful and useful to use them.
My belief is, that without ethics, integrity and congruity, a sales person will never rise above mediocrity.
Trustworthiness is one of the most valuable perceptions a client or prospect can have of us as people who sell for a living. Their perception needs to be in line with the reality for it to be truly powerful.
When I really started living my persuasion life with total integrity, I noticed amazing things start to happen for me and for my business. I began to draw more of what I wanted to me, I began to draw higher end clients and students who were also trustworthy whereas previously many of my clients were not people who I really wanted to do business with.
Having built up that aspect of my personality, having an abundance of integrity in the bank is like having built up my ‘f-you’ money. I could walk away from any situation that was not comfortable because I no longer “needed” to take on just anyone but could be very selective in my processes. Consider never compromising yourself again as the first step to never compromising yourself again. It’s an amazing feeling.
Until Next Time,
Kenrick E. Cleveland
“To sit patiently with a yearning that has not yet been fulfilled, and to trust that, that fulfillment will come, is quite possibly one of the most powerful “magic skills” that human beings are capable of. It has been noted by almost every ancient wisdom tradition.” — Elizabeth Gilbert
Hi Persuader,
I absolutely love this quote. It transcends fads and what’s popular in the moment, and connects to deeply rooted wisdom that has been inside of us all probably since the dawn of man.
How much of our powerful magic skills do we ignore? It’s really sad that the tip of the iceberg is spent on fairly mundane activities while we let the real power languish under the surface.
I once had a conversation with a man who called himself a healer. He told me that not all of us learn the lessons we need to learn in each lifetime. Not all of us become conscious or access our true essence. Sometimes we’re just here to rest. Sometimes we get a vacation life. Other times we have hard lessons to learn and are born into dire circumstances.
Now, whether or not you or I believe in the concept of reincarnation was irrelevant to this healer. He had a certainty about him that was compelling. His work was clear in this life — he knew he was alive to take care of people’s spirits and help them to find their paths. That sounds like an amazing calling.
I feel I have a calling too. I love to teach. I love to be a catalyst to help people improve their lives. And over the next few months as an addition to my work in the field of persuading the affluent, I will be starting another aspect of what I feel is my calling. I am strategizing and setting out the most powerful, life-changing, paradigm shifting, wealth creating systems that has ever been created.
I’m incredibly excited about this new addition because together we’re going to discover our ancient wisdom, excavating everything that’s under the surface, with the assistance of our other than conscious minds, through teleconferences, light and sound sessions, online tools, emotional freedom technique, interactively learning and gaining tools to access our own personal ancient knowledge.
Patience is not something I was born with but I was blessed with a very trusting nature. Yet over the years I have grown to understand the importance of patience and have finally come to realize what can happen when patience and trust combine. I’m eager, I’m excited, I’m enthusiastic, and raring to go. Stay tuned for some thrilling things to come.
Until Next Time,
Kenrick E. Cleveland
“I think it’s very important that whatever you’re trying to make or sell, or teach has to be basically good. A bad product and you know what? You won’t be here in ten years.” -Martha Stewart
Hi Persuader,
There’s a parody commercial, an older one, from Saturday Night Live where Sam Waterston represents ‘Old Glory Insurance’. The commercial sells supplemental ‘robot insurance’ for seniors. ‘I’m Sam Waterston of the popular TV series law and order. As a senior citizen, you’re probably aware of the threat robots pose. Robots are everywhere and they eat old people’s medicine for fuel.’
It’s hilarious but also poignant and, as with a lot of satire, cuts to the core of an issue in a way that only satire can.
Senior consumers and our elderly affluent clients and prospects control 70% of the country’s wealth and are obviously targeted, but not with as much or as savvy advertising as you would think. Just watch a show geared to an older demographic (Wheel of Fortune or any of the daytime soaps come to mind) and notice the advertisements-denture cream, supplemental insurance (maybe not robot insurance, but other kinds which may or may not be superfluous), pharmaceuticals, pain killers, adult diapers-it’s all very ageist if you think about it.
There’s a reason advertisers gear more toward emotions because studies have shown that as we age, we become less attuned to rational, persuasive arguments and more into visual, subjective appeals. You’ll notice the ‘Old Glory Insurance’ parody is not at all geared towards reason, but towards emotions and a ‘better safe than sorry’ mentality and to fear (something our government has taken to heart, or in my mind, to an all time low, in the ‘global war on terror’ with a constantly elevated terror ‘threat’ no matter what the reality is.)
So how can we utilize this information with integrity and honesty? How can we ensure our affluent senior prospects, through emotion and visual means, that we actually do have their best interests at heart especially in a world that seems to want to take advantage of them?
First things first, your way ahead of the competition.
Until Next Time,
Kenrick E. Cleveland
“Keep away from those who try to belittle your ambitions. Small people always do that, but the really great make you believe that you too can become great.” — Mark Twain
Hi Persuader,
My clients and students are at the top of their respective games. I know this, because I work primarily with very high end financial advisors, real estate agents, speakers, sales professionals, and the like, and they did not get to where they are by falling into it or because of luck. They got there because they have goals, they have work ethic, they have the intelligence, they have the education, and they have ambition.
Ambition is a very interesting force. Some people have it, others clearly don’t. What is the difference between the two camps? Is it an internal spark? Self confidence? Is it something you have to be born with or something you can acquire? If you think about some of our more recent presidents and the raw ambition it takes to become president, and then consider their brothers (just as an example — Bill Clinton/Roger Clinton, Jimmy Carter/Billy Carter), then we can sort of see where this isn’t much of an argument for the genetics of ambition.
The true mark of an ambitious person is being able to bounce back after a setback, not getting mired down in the ‘oh, woe is me, I didn’t achieve what I wanted to’, that many people succumb to after not at first succeeding. Real ambition lays in the ‘try, try again’ part.
This pulling yourself up by the bootstraps mindset was so well illustrated by Thomas Jefferson when he said, “Nothing can stop the man with the right mental attitude from achieving his goal; nothing on earth can help the man with the wrong mental attitude.”
So it’s all a matter of — do you want it or don’t you? If you want it, and you don’t have it, what are you doing or not doing that’s preventing you from having it? If you want it, and you don’t have it, that’s enough of a start, it’s a platform from which to make that jump.
Stop one: start with a simple list. I’m a HUGE fan of lists. Make a list of what your goals/ambitions. Get specific. These things don’t come to fruition if they’re vague and unformed in your own mind. Get down to the nitty gritty details. Flesh it all out and read over it every morning when you wake up and every night when you go to bed. This will speak to your sub/other than conscious mind and set it up to help you begin to form solid plans for how to achieve the goals you have in mind.
And if or when you cup up against some adversity, remember that the small defeats are not the end result. The end result is your goal, the small defeats are tiny speed bumps (or flat tires) along the way — both overcome-able and temporary.
My last bit of advice — start now. Do not pass Go!. Get to it.
Until Next Time,
Kenrick E. Cleveland
Page 1 / 3
When you join the maxpersuasion Community, you don't just get access to the webs best community and discussion about persuasion, but you'll also receive FREE Webinars, a FREE 28 Page Criteria Report, FREE Persuasion Training and Discounts on MaxPersuasion Products
