YES! Sales expert Andy Preston presents his argument for NLP as an outdated concept for sales.

NLP is mostly outdated when it comes to sales, and is not as useful in the sales arena as most NLP trainers and supporters would have you believe.

You may be surprised to read that statement from someone who has trained in NLP and has many friends in the NLP community – a number of them trainers of NLP itself. But that’s precisely why I can offer an unbiased opinion on the ‘value’ of NLP to the average salesperson (or not).

I’ve been a professional buyer, then I became the top salesperson in my industry, and now travel all over the world helping people to sell more. Here are the reasons why I think that NLP isn’t as appropriate for sales as some people would have you believe:

Reason Number 1 – It was created nearly 40 years ago

NLP was ‘invented’ in the early 1970s at an American University. Nearly 40 years have passed since then, yet some people are still trying to tout NLP as the ‘latest’ technique! Have some things changed since the early 1970s? You bet they have! Buying patterns have changed, lifestyles have changed, people have changed, yet some people still claim that nearly 40 years later NLP is the panacea, the answer to everything! Very strange.

Reason Number 2 – The original concept had NOTHING to do with sales

When NLP was conceived, it was developed by studying therapy and psychotherapy, and a small number of individual therapists in particular. Nothing to do with sales! In fact, to this day, the majority of NLP courses focus on learning the skills and techniques of therapists – not what you would be expecting to learn if you’d booked on a course to improve your sales skills, is it?

Reason Number 3 – Your buyers are too ‘savvy’ to fall for the tricks

Buyers and decision-makers are getting smarter these days. Gone are the days when you could copy body language to get on better with people – the very people you’re talking to have been on those courses and often comment on what you’re trying to do – not the result you are looking for.

Reason Number 4 – Rather than helping, NLP ‘skills’ can often damage your chances of making a sale

Far too many people come off an NLP course and focus too much on what ‘type’ of person they’re sat in front of, trying to derive hidden meaning from every word, or watching for any sort of body movement. Do you think this could be counter-productive when trying to be ‘natural’ in front of a prospect? Of course it could! It’s likely to get you thrown out the door much faster than normal!

Reason Number 5 – Even the skills you do learn are difficult to apply in practice

Because NLP comes from an academic base, it’s very theoretical in nature. Plenty of NLP trainers will tell you how ‘useful’ it is for sales, yet often cannot sell themselves! I’ve met thousands of people trained in NLP (including many NLP trainers), yet only a few have any kind of sales ability, and most can’t even fill their courses with students. That’s not a great place to be teaching people how to sell more from, is it?

In conclusion, companies would get a much better ROI by focusing on the core skills their salespeople need (and working on them), than trying to get them to learn techniques that will hamper their chances of making the sales they’re meant to!

Andy Preston is a leading Sales Expert. You can see more about Andy and get his free sales tips at www.andy-preston.com

NO! NLP Master Practitioner Richard White explains why he feels NLP can still be a relevant sales technique.

Words are the tools of the trade for sales people. It’s not the words that count but how we use them. Neuro Linguistic Programming (NLP) provides a wealth of strategies that show us how to use words to effectively communicate, persuade, and influence. It’s fair to say that NLP has more than its fair share of jargon. A lot of NLP techniques were originally discovered by studying a number of top therapists. The aim was to teach the skills to other therapists and so there is an element of therapy-related jargon.

It is perfectly possible for sales people to learn and apply many of the strategies without the jargon. It does, however, require a bit of effort from the trainer and it is fair to say that many NLP trainers that work with companies still use the jargon.

It seems that top communicators in any discipline share similar language patterns. Indeed, I have since discovered that many of the advanced language patterns can be found in top sales people who have never even heard of NLP!

There are many areas of NLP that involve language skills that can have a positive impact on sales effectiveness. The following are some practical applications:

Selling stories

This is my favourite application. I have never met a top sales person that does not use stories and metaphor. It is very effective for developing trusted relationships. It is also invaluable when selling complex products and services where the benefits are not immediately obvious. Stories also have applications such as lead generation to make sales presentations persuasive and to pre-empt objections. Stories are more like anecdotes than fairy stories!

Advanced questioning techniques

NLP provides a deeper understanding of questions and a number of very powerful questioning techniques. It also provides an understanding of how to structure questions to influence someone’s point of view. They can be useful in any area of sales, but especially in qualifying, discovering needs, and overcoming objections.

Flexible communication

Top sales people are excellent at adapting their own language to match the way their clients and prospects prefer to communicate. They instinctively use the right kind of words to match how their prospects think.

NLP provides the ability for sales people to develop these skills and increase the range of people they can influence.

Advanced persuasion

NLP includes a number of strategies that are very subtle and can be used conversationally to put ideas across in a highly attractive way, but also to get prospects to see things differently. This has applications in all areas of sales and especially in overcoming objections and negotiating.

When sales people really ‘get’ NLP, it’s like a child in a sweet shop. Any one of the strategies can have a big impact once mastered. For some people it is a case of learning a new skill, for others, it’s a case of further developing an existing skill and understanding how else they can apply it.

Rather than learning all the NLP techniques together, another approach is to master one or two at a time. It is easy to understand a technique intellectually, but the real power comes when it becomes engrained so you do not have to even think about it.

There are a lot of areas where NLP can help a sales person to significantly increase sales effectiveness through improving their language skills. NLP at the basic level can be taught without the jargon, but even with the jargon the potential for greatly improved results makes it worth the effort.

Richard White is Managing Director of Pro-Excellence, a company providing inspirational business development coaching and mentoring for business owners, reluctant sales people, and nonsales staff. Richard uses NLP to help clients quickly achieve breakthroughs in their sales performance by eliminating fears and limiting beliefs. For more information visit www.pro-excellence.com