New Millennial Leadership with Jim Fortin the NeuroPersuasion Expert
This is an interview with Jim Fortin a speaker and NeuroPersuassion specialist in the DFW area. I think you will enjoy and get a great deal of information from Jim. Listen and enjoy.
Patrick: And welcome to The New Millennium Leadership radio show. I am so excited about this show because what I’m going to be doing is interviewing leaders throughout America that are really out to change this generation.
I’m Patrick Dougher and I have a passion to raise up new millennial leaders in this generation that will stop living in the followership and begin to walk into the leadership of this generation.
I’m so thankful for my guest today. His name is Jim Fortin. Jim and I have known each other for a couple of years now. He’s one of the guys that when he came on the scene, for me in my life, I was blown away because here’s a guy who’s a neuro persuasion expert. He is a speaker and author.
He’s worked with some of the very brightest minds in the country and is one of the brightest minds in the country, in my opinion. I’ve had him other events that I’ve put together with Ron White, and Howard Berg and some of these other great guys; memory leader and the fastest reader in the world.
And I’m always amazed at what he brings to the table because Jim has a unique understanding of how to get past our logical brain and right into our emotional brain. Now, where would that be useful? Well, any kind of persuasion.
For a lot of us, we don’t realize that as we move forward, we need to get better at selling, but not in the way that is the historical view of mechanical selling. We need to use an almost ninja-style selling technique that is interactive, is relation-based, is coming straight from the heart, but is reaching into the heart of somebody else to help them make the best decisions that they could make for their life – not abusive, but a real usefulness of being a servant to lead other people into greater success in their life.
I know that’s the origin of the world salesman. I stick with it; that the origin of the word salesman is servant and we’re always out to serve each other. Jim, thanks for being on the show. I really appreciate you being here.
Jim: Hey Patrick, it’s a pleasure to be here today.
Patrick: You know, Jim, I’m always curious about your story. How did you get started in this? Tell me your story.
Jim: Okay, I would love to. And before we do that, I want to pack up here a second. The introduction – great introduction and I appreciate it. You talk about a new way to sell and a new way to get into the mind of the prospect and the client.
This was announced about three weeks ago. Did you know that Campbell Soup is changing their label for the first time in decades? Have you heard about this yet?
Patrick: Not yet, no. Go ahead.
Jim: Campbell did what’s called neural research in that they had a focus group – a large focus group – and they hooked them up to breathing monitors. They measured their pupil dilation when they were looking at soup can labels.
And what they discovered through massive amounts of very scientific research is that their old soup can label that they’ve had for many, many years – it was designed almost 100 years ago. The soup can label that they currently have is not affecting people emotionally and unconsciously enough to get them to buy to the degree that they want them to buy.
So, this year – actually, you can Google it and find it online – they are changing their soup can label. They’re actually taking the spoon out of the bowl, they’re updating the bowl, they’re moving the red – which actually sits behind the world ‘Campbells’ – they’re moving the red from the top of the can to the bottom of the can, which has been there for 100 years, and they’re putting steam over the bowl.
And what they know is, by doing this, they’re going to begin affecting their consumers in a significantly deeper way. As a matter of fact, the Vice President, I believe, of marketing at Campbell’s said, “We’re making these changes because we want to affect our consumers at a deeper level.” So, what he’s saying is they want to affect buyers at an unconscious level and unconsciously prompt them to buy.
Really interesting because Google is looking into this now, and Frito-Lay, and Microsoft and other companies are looking into it to discover ways that they can more pervasively unconsciously – not analytically left brain mind – but unconsciously affect their customers and their prospects to buy more.
So, I thought that was an interesting story that I didn’t know if you had heard it or not and I wanted to share that with you.
Patrick: No. It just goes to show you see this stuff and most of the rest of us just are affected by it.
Jim: Yeah, absolutely – and not even knowing. About my story, you asked. I’m a clinical hypnotherapist and I haven’t done hypnosis in years, meaning the individual hypnosis sessions. And back in 1998, when I lived in New York City, I had a guy come into my office for smoking cessation.
And were a couple of streets from Wall Street and I constantly saw smokers. That was my biggest clientele was smokers. They’re traders, or brokers, or worked at Wall Street firms.
And a guy came in. He stopped smoking, and he called me a few days later and said, “Jim, I stopped smoking.” He was a high net worth account manager at Goldman Sachs. And he says, “I’m in sales. What did you do to me? How did you just talk to me and get me to stop smoking?”
And I said, “Well, there’s different things that we use as a hypnotist and, mainly, it’s taking you in a trance and then using what we call conversational hypnosis which are language patterns, meaning I talk to you in a particular way and I lay unconscious suggestions for behavioral change.”
And he said, “Well, Jim, is it possible that you could teach me some of this stuff so that I could use it with my clients so that I could influence them to be more responsive, to act quicker, to be more respectful and to get them to do things that would help me facilitate the sales process?” And I said, “Well, Rob, absolutely.”
And really, Rob, when he said that, a light bulb went off in my head and I started thinking what if I could take all the tools that a hypnotist uses, all the things that a hypnotist uses to get people to be compliant, all the things that a hypnotist uses to drop suggestions, all the things that a hypnotist uses to get people to change their behavior – what if I could take these things, map them over into just everyday words keeping the integrity of the hypnotic language pattern, all the things that a hypnotist would use, all the tools, but mapping them over into mainstream use?
And that’s what I did many years ago and I started getting amazing results. When I would teach people how to use the skills, they would start using them in just everyday business interactions and they were saying, “Jim, I’m getting my clients to say yes a whole lot quicker or even to say no a whole lot quicker. I’m getting compliance. I’m getting people to follow me. I’m getting people to call me back.”
So, that’s basically my story in a nutshell is that I was a hypnotist and I took all these patterns that are used in clinical hypnotherapy and just mapped them over into the everyday world and applied them to the business situation.
Patrick: Now, with doing this, you’ve been able to speak in front of groups all over the country. What were some of the things that you’ve been sharing along the way?
Jim: Two or three things in particular relative to the program. First is – and research demonstrates this just like the Campbell’s label that I was just talking about – is that people first make their decisions unconsciously before they ever make the decision analytically.
Now, analytical is left brain. Analytical is what everyone’s been taught to sell; features and benefits. And I’ve heard many people in IT say, “We have a very technical sale with a lot of steps and a lot of information and it’s an information based sale.” Well, that may be true and that’s all left brain, yet that almost be processed unconsciously first. So, that’s one of the things.
Secondly, research demonstrates that we don’t know why we make decisions. Literally, as human beings, we do not know why we make decisions which means we do not know why we buy. We think we do, yet we don’t.
It’s because the left brain has to analyze and the right side of the brain, which is the seed of the unconscious, is actually the side of the brain that buys.
Doing hypnosis, taking it back to a very human thing, when I did weight loss sessions many years ago, women would say, “I overeat and I eat a lot because I’m bored, or I’m lonely, or I’m depressed,” or whatever it is. Well, that’s not true. They eat because they eat, because all people get bored, or lonely, or depressed, or whatever and they don’t eat.
So, what happens is people do things and then they have to analyze and rationalize their behavior. So, what makes my program different is this. Almost everyone goes out in the world and sells features and benefits and if they don’t sell features and benefits, they’re selling reasons.
And they’re talking to the left side of the brain, which is the linear side of the brain, which is 5% of mental function which does not the side of the brain that buys. So, basically, they’re selling to the wrong side of the brain and then wondering why they can’t sell more.
Go back to the Campbell Soup label. They knew that soup label, they now know that the old one appealed to the wrong side of the brain. They want to appeal to the right side of the brain which we now know is the side of the brain that makes all buying decisions.
Patrick: Wow. Well, I’ve always been taught. I used to teach sales training and stuff like that. And you always teach people buy emotionally, and then they rationalize their decision which is what it sounds like you’re saying.
One of the things I know about your program is that you really walk people through the rest of the story because there are so many things that go into that emotional or subconscious decision. It’s everything from the way you shake your hand all the way up. I know it might sound like basic sales training, but that’s not.
What you do is you create – well, you create a story from what I can understand. And then you create a way of reaching out. So, I’m really curious as to what really are you doing to create the success you’re having, Jim?
Jim: Okay. What I’m doing is I’ve taken three disciplines; neurolinguistics which is NLP, social science which has been done for 30 years, University of Research which has looked into what drives people to buy, what drives human behavior, then unconscious language patterns.
[11:36 inaudible] were created back in the 50s by Milton Erickson. And the thing is even though a person may know hypnosis or have hypnotic training, they don’t know how to take the pattern and apply it into business application.
So, what I’ve done – and you talk about taking people through steps – have taken all three of these disciplines, these modalities, I’ve combined them in different ways.
For example, people who study just social science; they never talk about neurolinguistics. People who talk about NLP; I’ve never really seen anybody take and merge that into the social sciences. And then people, for example, who do hypnosis probably also never look over at the social sciences and behavioral research to understand what six things unconsciously derive from the behavior.
So, I’ve taken these three disciplines and I’ve crafted them and created patterns and paradigms people can use so they can better understand step-by-step how to move people to action. I’ve taken all three of these disciplines and literally created a formula, meaning when you’re talking to someone, how are they communicating back with you unconsciously? And it’s very simple things.
And I want to say something here. It’s very simple in that is a person auditory, visual, or predominantly kinesthetic? Everybody runs a predominant system; auditory, visual, or kinesthetic.
And I’ll have some people that will say, “Jim, I had training in that years ago. I learned some of that from Tony Robbins – good stuff.” Yet, I watch them and they can’t demonstrate it. They talk about it, yet they can’t demonstrate it.
So, I’ve taken all this apart, broken it down step-by-step and then, in my training, I pull people into it and then walk them through every bit of it showing them how to use it any situation in life with any that persuade or any that influence someone to do something. And that’s what I hear more than anything else is that I’ve made it very easy for people to understand and use.
Patrick: Well, what kind of results have you been seeing, Jim, from others that have taken a class? I can vouch for you. I’ve taken a class. Years ago, I was a certified presenter with Zig Ziglar’s organization. I worked with Zig for about a year. It was amazing; great [13:50 inaudible], greatest salesman in the world.
And I know that Zig naturally does a lot of what you’re talking about just from his presence, the way that he operates in life. He really touches people.
But, when I saw what you were doing, I saw how I could open more doors than I ever thought possible just by using some of the tools you teach. I have not mastered your technique, but I sure use it a lot more than I ever thought possible and it has opened doors for me in massive ways. But, what have you heard from others?
Jim: First things first. Any time we do anything on the Internet these days, the FTC has changed the ruling the last couple of years about making claims, and testimonials, and this and that. First off, all of the testimonials on my website are all unpaid.
What I can say is this. I do not know what somebody will do with what I share with them. Some people could take it and never use it. Some people take it right away and they just go like gangbusters with it. So, I don’t know what a person will do with the material, yet I do know what the material will do for them when they use it.
Now, that being said, I’ve had people call me and say – I had somebody last week. He owns a landscaping company. I tried people from all different industries; national, national IT experts, and SEO and SEM experts, salespeople from large corporations and IBMers. So, I’ve got the entire gamut of selling professionals.
I had a guy last week call me and say, “I had eight appointments yesterday.” This was after the full-day training. He goes, “I had eight appointments booked. Of those eight, I closed seven. That’s my all-time one day closing ratio.”
I had another guy – he’s actually one of the testimonials that I’m using. His name is Brian Johnston. Brian said, “Your techniques are making me at least an additional $30,000 per quarter because it’s helping me move people through the sales process a whole lot quicker and getting them on board or getting them off board a whole lot quicker so they stop wasting my time.”
Now, I hear this a lot. I can’t tell you. I have pages and pages and stacks of people that have said, “I closed a $50,000 sale that I was about to lose because I wasn’t sure what to say. I went back to the office, I went through the training manual, I found a technique to use, I used it and the person went from we’re not sure to okay,” or, “I closed a $4,000 deal,” or, “I made $10,000,” or, “I cut down my selling cycle by 50%.”
These are things that are on my website. I’m hearing these things all the time. So, we’re getting significant results out there with people who apply the information. That’s for sure.
Patrick: Well, I know that’s a real key. Implementation is everything.
Jim: Sure.
Patrick: I know that when you’re talking about all these different people from the IT, to the IBMer, to basically almost the direct salesperson out there, who really is your ideal client?
Jim: That’s an interesting question. In business, you always want to know your target market. You’ve got to know who you’re selling to. You’ve got to know who you’re trying to reach.
The interesting thing about me is I’ve got a predominance in that I’m looking at the psyche of people that are sitting in my classrooms. First off, an intangible, my target market is people that are good at what they do and they want to be really good at what they do.
People that are already closing business may say, “I bet there are ways that I can become even a better closer,” because I teach people to close like, what I call, a velvet hammer; meaning you’re going to close that sale and a person doesn’t even know that it’s being closed.
If you want real demographics, I attract the 30 to 55-year-old age category, people that have had some sales training. My students will say, “Jim, I’ve been to Miller Heiman, Bosworth, Chandlers, spin selling, consultative selling, Brian Tracy, Zig Ziglar, Tony Robbins and every other sales training program under the sun. Yours is different.”
Well, yes. Mine is different. All those programs are about why people buy. My program is about how people buy unconsciously. When you know how they buy, you can then influence why they buy.
I attract a very heavy dose of IT. In particular SEO, search engine optimization and search engine marketing, and I attract a large dose of people that want to learn how to write better sales letters, better web copy, and online conversion.
The thing is, Pat, they come from all industries; everything from a flooring company to Wall Street. I’ve seen it all.
Patrick: I believe. Until you had said something about copy; ad copy or anything like that, that was something that I was real curious about is how well it converts into, literally, ad copy to letters.
But, what’s real funny is where I use it most is I use it on Facebook and some of these others just out there creating a story.
Jim: Absolutely. You’ve got it right – creating a story and that the unconscious mind thinks in stories. I teach people how to create, move people to positive stories, negative stories, associative stories, disassociative stories online.
One of my students owns a goal setting software. He said, “I do Google pay-per-click and I just used some of the persuasion words in your program,” which were the actual persuasion words that I told people to put into their web copy and their sales letters. And he goes, “My click-through rate went from 1.3% to 2.9% overnight.” Basically, what he told me was he’s doubled his click-through rate and I hear that all the time – all the time.
I hear that a lot and I’ve got people in my class that do SEO/SEM. They take all the information out and the first thing they think is and they ask me to help them, “How can I apply this to online conversion?”
The biggest thing is that by Google Analytics, in Google Algorithms, websites when it comes to webpage ranking, people create web pages to be read by the bots; by the robots, by machines. And the websites go to the top of Google, but they don’t convert because people make them for machine consumption so they’ll go to the top of Google, yet it’s the human that’s not being persuaded because the website is not written in the right format to persuade the human to ahead and buy on the website.
So, even in that industry, there’s a multitrillion dollar disconnect between what a machine can read and the way the unconscious mind reads and many students will take the information right away and start applying it to online marketing.
Patrick: Right. Well, one of the things that I’ve seen is that there are some tools. You can use tools to get a certain page ranking, and then you can actually go back in and start to add new content that is completely in the genre and the way that you’re talking. So, it’s a little bit of a progression. It’s get seen, then get heard.
Jim: Sure.
Patrick: Rather than a lot of people that started in Internet marketing, they want instant Internet copy. They want it right now, done. It starts cranking out $100 bills per hour. It just doesn’t happen. You grow a tree; it takes some time.
Jim: Absolutely. I agree.
Patrick: Well, Jim, one of the things I want to make sure is that people know how to connect with you. So, what would you like people to do?
Jim: Go to my website, MindAuthority.com. I’ve got an e-book on there The 10 Biggest Persuasion Mistakes that Most Selling Professionals Make which literally covers ten foundational things that I see every day.
Now, I know there’s a listing here on the call. I said that I track really smart people. The first thing that a lot of people do is think, “I’m doing okay. I’m doing good with sales. I don’t need anything else.” Well, that is actually backwards thinking.
The number one thing that keeps people in any industry at any level from creating more sales is information, education, and application. Actually, that’s three things – information, education, and application.
Go to the website. Download the e-book, The 10 Biggest Persuasion Mistakes that Most People Make. There’s also Closing Lines there. Actually, I’m going to give away NeuroPersuasion, which is brain persuasion, Closing Lines – lines that people can use right away out in their sales situations to start closing more business.
And then they can look at the blog. There’s videos on there. I’m going to put about a dozen more up in the next three to four weeks. Watch the videos where I take apart part of the e-book and I show people, actually visually talk about and auditorily show people how to become significantly more influential and more persuasive in their everyday activities and in their selling situations.
Patrick: That’s really good. Now, I know when you go to MindAuthority.com, you’re going to see his upcoming events and I know this is done in 2010, but I expect this recording will be on the Internet for some time.
Jim: Certainly.
Patrick: So, go to MindAuthority. Check Jim’s upcoming events. You do half-day, full-day seminars?
Jim: Full-day. We’ve got seminars here in Dallas. I enjoy not traveling as much as I used to. So, right now, I’m doing them only in Dallas. Yet, the demand is – I’m getting calls from all over the country.
So, what I’m going to do probably in the next three or four months is every quarter, I’m going to do maybe one in Atlanta, one in New York, one in Chicago, and one in San Francisco or something. For now, they’re only in Dallas.
Patrick: That’s great. Well, I know that while you’re here, anybody in the DFW area should connect right away. If you’re within 1,000 miles of Jim, you should go to his class because it will probably put more than you can imagine back in your pocket in sales and growth in your business just because if you understand the way that people buy, then you’ll affect them in every area. You will persuade them to do the right thing by them in every area.
And that’s what we really want. I really want to bring people into training that will affect the rest of their lives, that will place them as a leader and authority in their field and in their profession so that they can [24:32 inaudible] in a way that is massive. So, Jim, I really want to say thank you. I appreciate you being on the call today.
Jim: Thank you, Pat. I really appreciate you inviting me on the call today. I know that people, when they go to the website, they’re going to get great information and they’ll really start thinking – and I hear this all the time – they’ll really start thinking about selling in a whole new way and will start getting much better results in their selling activities. So, again, I appreciate you letting me reach out and help your listeners.
Patrick: Thank you so much, Jim. Again, go to MindAuthority.com, download Jim’s book. Do the right thing for yourself and for your family to begin to change this generation. I know that if you do, you’ll be blessed, you’ll be changed and I guarantee you’re going to see massive results in your life. Again, go to MindAuthority.com.
This is Pat Dougher, New Millennium Leadership. I’m so thankful for you being here. We’ll talk to you all next time.
Jim: Thank you.