Neuro-linguistic Programming

Long-time readers may recall the blogs I wrote about how to read body language (Part One and Part Two) and micro-facial expressions. You can learn so much about what your prospect is thinking by noticing their subconscious physical movements and expressions.

Today, I’d like to introduce you to a concept called “Neuro-linguistic Programming (NLP).” Richard Bandler and John Grinder developed NLP in the 1970’s after noticing patterns between eye movements and specific cognitive processes. To boil this concept down to its core, if you ask someone a question, that person will likely unconsciously move his or her eyes in a certain direction based on the part of the brain he or she is accessing. Knowing the meaning of these eye movements gives you insight into your prospect’s thought process.


From: http://www.wisdom-square.com/eye-accessing-cues.html

The diagram above shows the different eye movements and their cognitive associations. Note that this diagram shows what you’d be seeing if you were looking at your prospect. Moreover, this diagram applies to a right-handed person. If your prospect is left-handed, switch the left/right sides.

So, how can you apply this information to an actual sales situation? Suppose you’re asking a prospect something like, “How many efficiency projects have you invested in that you’ve been happy with?” If they’re right-handed and they look to the upper right, you might wonder if they’re making up an answer. They may not be lying per se; however, they may be visualizing how to portray their past experience so that their answer would be more attractive.

I’ve been using NLP in sales settings for 20 years. I was recently giving a presentation to about a hundred people in Southern California that included a discussion of NLP and decided to do a little demo for the audience. I walked up to a gentleman in the front row and asked him, “Sir, do you remember exactly what you were you wearing at dinner last night?” His eyes looked up and to the right – the wrong visual field to be accessing his past visual experience! I asked him another question that would require him to tap his visual memory, and again, he seemed to be looking in the wrong visual field. I was somewhat surprised that this person would just fabricate answers to such straightforward questions – and then I looked down and realized that his pen was sitting on the left side of his desk. I said, “Sir, are you left-handed?” He said, “Yes.” I said, “Great. Now I know why you were looking in the ‘wrong’ visual field!” Of course, lefties gets teased all the time, so the audience had a good time with that one.

Try this out on your friends, spouses, and business colleagues. Ask them a question about some visual experience they had in the past and see where their eyes look (and make sure you know whether they’re right-handed or left-handed). You’ll start to see the pattern and will gradually become more adept at recognizing subtle eye movements. Doing so will provide plenty of additional insights into your prospect’s thought processes. It’s powerful stuff!

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