Effortless Rapport Part 3: Can Negatives Be Positive?

December 15, 2014 | By | Reply More

2014-12-15-260Hey hey, we’re back again with another dose of awesome in the world of negotiating and building rapport, which in case you don’t remember from previous blog posts – I believe is one of the most crucial skills you can learn as a real estate entrepreneur – and as a person…

The ability to build rapport easily and effortlessly will carry you so far in so many different areas of life.

I am a lifelong student and I think you should be too – if you missed the first two posts in this great series, make sure you check them out here and here.

So now, let’s pick up where we left off…

Today I want to talk about: Can a negative be a positive?

Well, first let’s talk about something that a lot of people don’t even realize – and that is that the mind can’t even process a negative. A good way to understand this is to think about the statement:

“The investment is not risky.”

When hearing this, you mentally visualize “investment” and “risky.” There isn’t any way for your mind to picture the word “not.” That’s what is meant when you hear that your mind cannot process a negative.

At face value, telling someone that the investment isn’t risky sounds like a good thing to say, but think about what you’re leading the prospect to imagine in their mind: Investment risky.

Not good!

That’s the last thing we want our private money prospects visualizing. We want them to visualize the benefits of our investment program.

So, instead of saying something like “private money loans aren’t risky” (which for one would probably violate some sort of SEC guidelines)… and even though you said they “aren’t risky”… people will automatically join the two words and associate private money loans with “risky.”

Understand?

So, here are some ways to use language that will give you an even better edge… and even a slightly better edge can mean the difference between a successful “private money getter” and a frustrated “private money getter.”

Examples of language patterns in sales

This is one of the most powerful negotiation strategies you can learn… to get people to lean toward doing what you want them to do. By using certain language, you’ll either repel or attract private money lenders.

Let’s looks at some examples of different language patterns:

Positive/Positive

“This investment opportunity is safe and secure.”

This is what the typical salesperson uses to describe their product or service. All they talk about are the wonderful features and benefits of their offering – only the positives aspects.

2014-12-15-rainbowFor our purposes, the prospect would be left to either believe them or not. And here’s the problem: We’ve been trained all our lives to be skeptical when dealing with salespeople that use nothing but this language pattern.

So, we have to be careful with this language pattern because if all you’re saying is butterflies dancing on rainbows, well, a prospect might not trust you because nothing is ever 100% positive/foolproof.

You have to transition someone from being an unmotivated skeptical to a motivated-buyer mindset.

Negative/Negative

“This investment opportunity is not risky.”

This is often used in conjunction with the first language pattern. This is the most destructive way to structure your language in sales. You are having the prospect imagine and associate risk with your investment opportunity.

Avoid using this at all times!

This approach is not very effective, but one that a lot of people make the mistake of using.

Negative/Positive

“This investment opportunity probably isn’t right for you.”

This is language VERY effective… and here’s why…

The Most Powerful Language Pattern in Sales

The negative/positive language pattern is the most powerful for two reasons:

1) It’s like the old switcheroo: In order to internalize the statement, “This investment opportunity probably isn’t right for you,” the prospect actually imagines the investment opportunity being right for them.

Again, this is important because people like to be included in things they “can’t” have. So, right off the bat, if you tell them that it’s “probably not right for them”… they’ll be wondering why and automatically will want to be included.

Make sense?

2) By phrasing things this way, you put yourself in the reluctant role. You take the “sales” out of salesman.

2014-12-15-languageThis is the ultimate take away… All pressure has been taken out of the situation because you are disqualifying the prospect and telling them that it’s “probably not right for them.”

By placing yourself in the reluctant role and setting them up into the role of wanting to be accepted into your program, you’ve done your job. Rather than trying to sell them into your program, the prospect doesn’t see you as a salesman and will actually want to learn more and find out why it’s “probably not right for them.”

The state of mind that you bring that prospect into is one of them imagining that the investment opportunity is right for them AND you’re not coming across as a salesperson, all of which is appealing. It’s all about powerful phrasing.

A few examples of the negative/positive language pattern in action…

• “This investment may not be a good fit for you.”

• “Our investment program isn’t right for everybody.”
(P.S. That’s a true statement. It’s not right for everybody. It’s my job to ask really good questions to find out if I think my program is right for a certain prospect. When I say this statement, I mean it AND it structures things in a very positive way to get the results you want.)

• “Not sure if we would be a good fit to work together or not.”

• “You’re probably not interested, it’s probably not right for you…I have a great opportunity for the right person.”

By the way, I use a combination of the negative/positive and positive/positive language patterns when meeting with prospects. This language pattern has been integrated in the various scripts I use when calling prospects and presenting to them.

Look, until you learn and use these language patterns correctly, you won’t be able to close as much. If you want to be an effective communicator and close better and faster, get to it!

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Category: Negotiating

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