Every business and business person struggles with making sales. Reaching a business goal, launching new products, negotiating deals and representing the company positively are all additional challenges facing the thought leaders of every business. Needless to say, every business could use help overcoming these challenges. Hypnosis could be a tool use to open up new roads to success.
Recently I sat down with Valerie Grimes, Clinical Hypnotist at The Flow Center in Dallas, Texas, to review with her a few outstanding points she made in her recent blog, HYPNOSIS IS THE SECRET WEAPON WHEN IT COMES TO SALES SUCCESS. Here is Part 1 of my review.
Dealing with Both Halves of the Brain
“The conscious mind’s job is to analyze, rationalize, contemplate and think. I call it the THINKER. The subconscious mind’s job is to store information—huge libraries of information.”
For example, one type of “…information the brain holds is how to ride a bicycle. Most people can ride a bicycle without having to focus their conscious mind on steering and pedaling. Their subconscious mind does all that, leaving their conscious minds free to carry on a conversation with a fellow cyclist, think about what they’ll eat when they get home—things like that. I call the sub-conscious mind the DOER.”
“….the conscious mind is the thinker. The subconscious mind is the doer. One thinks, the other does. Sounds like it should work well—but the fact is, the subconscious mind does more than store information.”
The subconscious part of the mind “…also stores beliefs, opinions, feelings and habits. It even operates your body’s involuntary functions such as breathing and blood flow. And two of the most interesting things the subconscious mind does is—it avoids pain—and it seeks out pleasure.”
“Performing those functions isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but sometimes they can be. Sometimes a person’s opinions can be wrong. Sometimes habits such as smoking can be detrimental to one’s health. And sometimes the feelings carried in a person’s subconscious can stop him from doing what his conscious mind wants to do. More often than most people realize, feelings carried in the sub-conscious mind can sabotage the conscious mind’s intent.”
Facts About the Mind and How We Operate in Life
We all attach feelings to experiences we have in life. “If you hit the winning home run to help your high school team win the state championship, you have the emotion of joy attached to that memory. You’ll probably always enjoy watching baseball, even when you’re too old to play. On the other hand, if you were attacked by a pit bull when you were five years old, I’m sure you would have feelings of fear and pain attached to that memory.”
“What the mind tends to do is project a feeling from the past onto the present moment when there is something in the present moment that reflects upon a past experience.”
“I knew a girl who was attacked by a pit bull when she was five, and from then on, every time she saw a dog, she would go into a panic and try to get away. Even today, as an adult, she tenses up—even if she simply hears a dog bark. Now her conscious mind knows that not all dogs are mean and likely to attack, but that feeling attached to her attack is so strongly held in her subconscious, she won’t even go near a small dog.”
Subconscious Controls Behavior
In Valerie’s article she tells the follow story which gives examples of some of the blocks people deal with in the present that are created from the past.
“Suppose we have two sales reps intending to sell their respective products to the same customer, the most difficult customer in the county, we’ll call him Melvin.
The products the men are selling are equal in performance and all other important criteria. Both know their products inside and out. They both offer the same warranty, the similar financing, etc.—and they both have their eyes on buying new boat with the commissions from the sale. Both of their conscious minds are focused on selling their products.
Now here’s the difference between them. Sales rep Tom has a subconscious mind that supports his ideas. He wakes up thinking “today is the day I sell that product to the most difficult customer in the county, and I’ll be fishing by this weekend”. Why is he so certain he’ll sell? Because in the subconscious part of his mind, he has childhood memories of selling all of the school carnival tickets he was given to sell and being told he could sell a bottle of sand to nomads in the Sahara desert. He also has memories of selling a lot of cars in his first job as an auto salesman. He remembers being congratulated by the Sales Manager. And piled on top of that over the years were more memories of making sales and receiving high commission checks from other companies he worked for. And now, he sells high-priced equipment, and as he heads out the door, he has only positive thoughts and feelings about making the sale.
Unfortunately, the other sales rep, Arnold, doesn’t have a subconscious mind that supports his ideas. The customer, Melvin, reminds him of his grandfather who was always negative and disapproving of whatever he did. And the feelings of shame, pain and anger he felt that were associated with his grandfather and has carried in his sub-conscious mind for decades get triggered—and Arnold experiences them once again as he awakes. He’s not conscious of those feelings—because they are in his sub-conscious mind—but they are there in the present moment and they affect what he feels, thus his reactions. As he brushes his teeth, he thinks, “I really don’t want to go call on that old guy today.” Still, he has no conscious awareness of why he doesn’t want to—and when he notices he has a pain in his neck he doesn’t make the connection to the fact that he has often referred to Melvin as a pain in the neck. Nor is he aware that those old sub-conscious feelings are what’s behind not being able to find his keys. Or missing the exit and being so late which causes him to miss Melvin who already left, and thus, miss the sale. It’s all cause and effect, but, of course, Arnold has no awareness of what has transpired. In his mind, he has merely added another memory with a feeling of defeat attached.
I told you this little tale to demonstrate what happens to people all the time—to show you how old beliefs, feelings and habits may be affecting your sales. Hopefully, you can also see in these illustrations how important it is for your subconscious mind to support your objectives.”
I’ll be back in Part 2 of my visit with Valeri Grimes.
For more information on how Hypnosis can help you contact The Flow Center to schedule your appointment with Valerie Grimes 972 974-2094
