How to Sell Anything by Tony Robbins *rare video

So all you have to do to persuade someone is do two simple things. One, you have to identify, and ideally that first step you're going to do is you're going to identify the buying state. One, and two, is you're going to anchor it—anchor that state to your product.

Now ideally, right, I wouldn't just push it that fast, right? Because their strategy may have more information. But once I've identified that state and can set it off consistently, can I get this person to attend the seminar? Yes or no? It was absolutely about doubt. It's just like I've impoverished in the dogs.

It's a lot of people go on; they teach sales persuasion. They go say this and do that and say there's some do that and say do this. Hey, that's all garbage. Here's what you do to be able to do this, these two pieces. Now, if you want to see it in the context shape, here's how you persuade.

First part of this football field called persuasion is to identify or develop what rapport. You got to develop a pool. You don't walk up and go, "Hey babies, you ever feel like you have pure ecstasy, and you ever want to do that again? Come fill out this ticket." That won't work real well, right? They're going to go, "What are you?" You go ecstatic! Now, I don't know. They'll just... That'll get their attention. I don't know if it'll have the effect you want.

The point is you gotta have rapport. How many of you can get developed before by matching, mirroring? Tonality, breathing patterns, gestures, eye movements, anything? Raise your hand. Aha! So the first part down, rapport. Simple. You want people here to say, "Me too, me too," not "So what?" Right? If you go around and you say, "Hey, this is the most incredible thing," that's like when I did it. It's like I met God right in the center of the coals, and like I just wanted to just like, you know, feel like I was going on my surfboard down this incredible wave in Maui.

And what are they gonna be saying? "So what?" Because is that what they would do? No. So do you want to tell them all about your experience until you first find out what their experience would be? So you need to find out what their needs are. First thing I do is rapport on "Me too." You gotta be like them.

See, then when you start to share something, they're going to go, "God, if she really believed she really had that experience," and "Hey, I probably would have the same kind of experience." Here's the problem—in most persuasion, a person goes out and they're all like this: "Hey, this is really great! You gotta go! This thing is so fabulous!" Right? And the other person is in kinesthetic, right? And they can't figure out why the guy won't go. The guy goes home, "Maybe next time."

Mary, is that going to be... Are you going to be effective in your persuasion there? No way! Because you blew it right up front. You're not putting them in the state before you put them in state. When? First thing you need to do is have rapport. So when you're talking to that person, you don't want to be overly giddy and come by and kick them in the face and go, "God, it's such a fabulous seminar! You can do anything you want in it!" That doesn't work.

What you've got to be able to do is enter the world. And in entering the world, say, "You know, if there's anything at all you could have in your life right now, what would that be?" The person goes, "I don't know." "If you didn't know, what would it be?" "Oh, God, if I could just... If I could just feel like, you know, my relationship with my wife could work." You know, people will tell you that kind of stuff when you have rapport, won't they?

And people discover that; they'll tell you stuff they won't tell anybody else. I was in Jerry West's office the other day. I was really excited. He's my hero, a basketball player. So you know, probably the greatest guard that ever played. And I spent two hours with him, and Rickering was with me, and we were both kind of laughing and looking at each other back and forth because he kept saying, "God, I never didn't tell anybody this stuff!"

But you know, I mean, tell us more stuff. Why do you do that? Because we rapport, right? We have total rapport. My point is, you say something like that, and someone said, "Well, you know, I don't know. I just wish that my self-image would change." See, once they tell you all those things, what have you identified? Their needs!

Now do you have enough information? You know, a general idea about how these seminar principles like anchoring and rapport and knowing what you want and turning resistance into assistance and love strategies? Do you have enough information there to affect just about anything any human being wants? You better believe it! So all you've got to do is find out what that is.

And then find out what would it be like if that relationship totally did work. "Well, it would be fabulous." I mean, would it be really fabulous? "Think, oh yeah." Or you can give them a certain look. You don't have to make the sound, right? As long as you duplicate it exactly.

Or if you're friends, right? You're sitting here, would it really be fabulous? If you're sitting next to them, you don't have to reach across, you just touch them, right? Some people get really carried away with their anchors; they think they have to go up and go... You don't have to do that to anchor somebody, right? All you've got to do is just go, "What would really be it?"

Right? You know, they're sitting next to you like that, like that lady's anchoring her right now... in laughter. Right? Try it, try it again. Watch what happens! See, she still smiles, still laughs. My point very simply is this: that if you ask somebody like that, you can find out a human's needs, what they really want and they need, and they only tell you that at first.

You've got rapport! So here you're identifying, you're getting rapport, right? And you're finding out simultaneously. You want to find out what it is. Find out what it is that they need.

Find out if you could change anything in your life right now, and what would you change? "Oh, I like it all the way it is." Well, if you could make anything better, what would you make better? "Well, nothing." Oh, so you're just going to stay like you are now then forever? Well, no, I won't be like I am from now forever.

Well, if it could be better, how would it be better? Most people will tell you you don't have to go through all this stuff with them. They'll go, "Well, I don't know, I really like it!" Say, "Well, you know, if something could be a little bit better, what would it be?" I said, "Well, you know, I'd like to be able to earn more money."

Well, what would it take for you to be able to earn more money in your business? "Well, I don't know. If I could learn to persuade more or if I could learn to, you know, build rapport with my boss." You know, see, what have you identified? Real specific needs!

Say, "Let me ask you a question. If you could go spend a few hours with someone who was an absolute master in that area of human communication, relationships, business, whatever it could be. If you could spend that, and by the end of that time have the skill to be able to change that right away and the support to do it too, would it be worth taking some time and some energy and some capital to do? Would it be worth it? I mean, to get all that you want for the rest of your life or to get with this particular thing? Would that be worth it?"

So you've got to be able to what we call close someone, right? You've got to be able to get them to make a what decision and, more importantly, a commitment. Because see, people—the normal approach to human beings is they will just put things off. People put things off; that's a normal approach.

What you got to do is get them to commit. And some people, when they start to do that, if you... if all of a sudden you change your physiology and you go, "So what would it be worth if you were going to do that? And this and that." Are you going to be able to have this person be persuaded? No, because are you in rapport anymore?

The biggest problem in persuasion is guys got rapport the whole time, right? And then they go to ask for the money, and what happens? "Well, uh, um, I got this seminar, huh? Would you, uh, uh, maybe like to go?" Is that how you do it? No! You're just congruent. You're going, "You've got to go to this thing! It'll give you that answer, and it's well worth it! Here, fill this thing out!"

But I know the money—put on a nice charge or a visa, whatever it takes. You've got to go, right? You go, "But, but, but..." you just go, "What do you mean?" Bottom line is what you've got to do is you got to go to this thing.

Do you want to continue to live this way with this thing happening in your life? "Well, no." Do you want to change it? "Yes!" And you got to go, "Here, write a check!" Don't mount it too hard, whatever it takes. See, congruency will do it.

If you have that congruency, and if you fill their needs, you'll do it. But you got to have rapport, and you got to find out what they need. The next piece here is in this persuasion piece, sometimes you got to give people a certain amount of logic and reason.

But notice, if this was a football field, 40 yards of the football field is identification, rapport, getting reports of the same "me too," not "so what," finding out what their needs are, and having them like you personally and think you're like them. That way, when you say it's worth it, will they believe you?

But if you're in a different kind of person, will they believe you? No! They're going to go, "Well, they like it because they're different." But if you're like them and you like it, they're going to go, "Well, they like that. They're like me." Ah, okay!

So logic and reason is the second part—notice that's maybe 10 yards of the football field. Ten yards meaning that you're just going to give them a few details. You know, it's $125, well worth every piece. It'll be at this place. Get a pencil, write this down.

Write down so-and-so address. Do you ask him, "Do you want to go?" No, of course you don't want to ask him that! You assume the sale! If you found somebody's needs and you feel it, do you have the right to assume the sale? You better believe it!

In fact, if you don't, you're not showing any personal power or any respect for that individual. If they have a true need and you know you can fill it and you don't, then not only have you not had any value, but you've probably taken some away because you got them to remember the things they don't like in their life.

See, what you want to do is get them to be clear about what it is that they can improve in their life and then show them how to do it right away. So the bottom line is that you say, "Here's what it is."

And the way to give logic and reason is: "Go write this down! Grab a pencil! Come on!" You gotta have that kind of congruency, and if you have rapport, can you say, "Write this down"? Will people respond if you have rapport? Oh yes! If you don't have rapport, it won't work.

Rapport is the presupposition for all this effectiveness. So you say, "Write this down! It's okay. It's on March 22nd. Or that's right—March 22! Here's where it is! Write this down. It's this location."

And as they're writing it down, they're already beginning to unconsciously begin to commit to being there. So you give them the logic and reason.

The next piece is called attack and confess. Attack and confess! Part of the persuasive process, you must attack and confess. That is, there are a couple things that come up for human beings in any human transaction. That is, getting humans to do anything, buy things, go places, do things.

These are basically three major objections you'll hear in your lifetime. Number one: I don't have enough... what? Time! Right? In most cases, you're gonna hear, "I don't have enough time." Because people don't like to admit they don't have what? Money! So they go, "I'm busy! I don't have time!"

Right? So the bottom line is that's one. The second one here is, "I don't have enough money." And the real reason why people don't do things is they don't believe it's worth it, which simply means that you haven't tapped their strategy.

You haven't put—and tapping the strategy means you haven't put them in a state where they would feel how you'd want them to feel or how they'd want to feel in order to go.

See, if someone says, "I don't believe I should go to this thing. I don't think it's worthwhile." Well, if you did believe it was worthwhile, how would you feel? What would happen if you right now, all of a sudden, instantly changed, and instantly you started to think, "Hey, this is really worthwhile?"

If you were to do that right now, what would have changed? What are you talking about? Just think for a second; what if this thing was totally worthwhile? What if this thing was worth every ounce, every penny, every amount of energy that you would invest in it? And it would come back tenfold? Would you want to go then?

And they go, "Well, yeah, of course!" What have you done? Just now, by using that set of language patterns, in order to understand you, they had to process that, didn't they?

In order to process that, it's like saying, "Don't spill the milk." In order not to spill the milk, you gotta process what spilling them looks like. So if you say to them, "What would it be like if all of a sudden, instantly, you changed?"

What am I also doing? Embedded commands! I'm saying, "All of a sudden you changed, and you believed it was worthwhile. And all of a sudden you start to think about all the areas in your life that would be worthwhile."

What would be like then? What if you went to this thing, and as a result, your relationships are working perfectly? Would it be worth it then? "Well, yeah! Fill out the card!"

See, but you must do it while they're in state. If they're out of state, you're not going to have it. It's like the example I gave I think last week, right? If you go into a place to get some food and the waiter or waitress comes by, and they slam down their ticket, and say, "Here's your menu! What do you want?"

Is that person like that all the time? Is that the time to say to them, "I don't like the service here?" No, that’s absolutely not the time! Will that get your outcome at all? Absolutely not!

What you have to do in that case is realize that you need to put that person in a state if you want to get some good service, and that you're responsible because you're a professional communicator.

See, not only one of my staff came in and said, "You know, you blew up on me in this place." And I did! I blew up one time. I was in the state of just... And I apologized for it. I said, "I didn't apologize!" Right?

He goes, "Yeah," he said, "but you know, I feel like it happens a lot." I said, "Well, I'm in that state; sometimes you got to be ready for it." I said, "That's not the time to come in and ask me, 'Do you want to do this or you shouldn't do that?'" When I'm in a state of, "This is what's going to happen."

See, that's not the time! Right? You just watch my physiology, or you use a phrase to change my state. You go, "Robbins, you know, I like this thing about it," or "I think this is great," or "You go, remember that time when this happened?"

Or you changed my state. You changed my physiology by doing that. You're gonna have a chance to be able to communicate it to me, and I'm not gonna respond in a negative way. I'll respond in a positive way.

But you've got that sensory acuity. Same thing with a waitress, right? You want to change your physiology, change your state, and you can get great service. How do you change somebody's state? What are your choices?

Quickly, pattern interrupt. What else? Metaphor! You can mirror their state, take them out, you can change the physiology by doing anything. Changing physiology is the first key, right?

Or you can ask them something that makes them process differently. Or you can say something— instead of responding what most people do. You go, "God, they must be working your tail off here." You know, "Take your time with us."

Will that change somebody's state? Now how do they respond to you differently? Oh absolutely! Because you've changed their internal feeling, and you change their internal feeling, whole new set of behaviors!

So the key to sales is put them in a state where they've bought before, and then while they're in that state, either anchor it or expose your product while you talk about, "Remember that thing you absolutely love? That's what this is!"

But if you go, "Here's what I love; this is what you should do." Will that work? No! You've got to make sure it's something they want, they need. Some of the time, when they knew it was right, remember a time when you made a decision you knew was absolutely right?

Remember a specific time? No, no. I mean a time when you were happy about your decision. "Yeah." What if you felt that way about this right now? What's happened?

You just attached those. You've at least got to start connecting. And say, "That's how you're going to feel." Once again, your congruency and your willingness to understand that "no" does not mean "no." It just means, "I need more information."

It means you have not put me in state. "No" is a different state than "yes," isn't it?

So all you have to do is put somebody in "yes" state; that's persuasion. Put them in a state, put them in behavior, an internal feeling where they want to say "yes," and then ask them to do something you want to do, and they'll respond that way.

I'll answer your question in a minute, okay? So attack and confess means you know you're going to hear money and time, right? You know you're going to hear those if someone's if they're going to object at all.

So the key here is not to allow them to happen, but to take care of them up front. The way to do that is you say, "You know what? Before I tell you more about this, I want to say something. I don't know if this is something you've ever experienced with other people, but I've experienced.

"I've got this thing I know is valuable—like, like you just told me you want to make your relationships better, don't you?" And what am I getting from her? Commitment that she does want to make her relationship better.

So you want to do that piece, and I know you're committed. Not everybody's committed. Some people tell me after I do all this stuff, and I show them exactly how they can make their relationship work.

Can you believe this? Some people tell me, "I don't have time to go." Can you believe that? Somebody said, "I don't have time to go to something that can absolutely change my relationships, make it work?"

Some people operate that way; can you believe that? She doesn't know. I can't believe that. What? What's your chance, by the way? I always can. Can you believe that somebody would... somebody's entire relationship, the most important thing in their life, and they go they don't have time for it? Can you believe something like that?

Somebody would do that. Can she ever come back and go, "Oh, by the way, I don't have time to go?" She could, but will she? No! She'd have to take everything that she believes in her own self-image and every way—there's no way!

I said, "You know, the one other one I hear is I don't have enough money. And you and I both know that if something is important enough, some way we can borrow, you know, beg, do whatever it takes, manage something here and I'll pay something there. I mean, I know I've done that. You've done that before, haven't you?

Yeah! I mean, the same thing has to be done here for people. Some people say, "Well, you know, I don't have enough money to fix my relationship." So that works the way I want anyway—I know that's not you.

So those are things I was just saying about that. You know, I want you to think about people you know. And then, if money or time is an objection, then what I want you to do, Mary, is I want you to help me to get them to come with you to the seminar because I know you'd like to share this with your friends.

Because she already what? She said that was important, didn't she? So what you and I got to do is figure out how to make sure that they overcome these fears and stuff. Can you help me to do that?

Now, what have I got her to do? Now she's agreeing! Right? But what she's going to do is help me to get other people to come to the seminar with me, with her, which means she's already, what? Going, "Okay!"

It's like getting a train on a track. You go "Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes." Right? If you get somebody going "yes, yes, yes" all the way through, I think all of a sudden this train is going 100 miles an hour one way; they're all set. At the end, it's going to go "jump in the middle there, turn around, and go the other direction." Not very likely because you get a thing called momentum!

So what you have to do is continually get commitments from the individual. So you set the stage by the way that you enter their world by developing this thing called rapport and finding out their needs. And people love to talk about themselves.

And if you really are sincere, which I believe all of you are here; you wouldn't be here if you really care, and you're really sincere, and you're developing rapport, and you're like them, and you're finding their needs, then you're going to already set somebody on the yes track, aren't you?

Because they're going to want to agree with you because you're like them. They know that you care about them. If you then, as you're doing that, and you begin to fill their needs by asking things, "You are committed to this, right?"

I say, "Yes, I am committed." You've got to wait till they say yes. You can go, "You're committed to this, right?" Then just go somewhere else.

You have to set the stage right from the beginning of getting commitments from people, getting rapport, and getting commitments. And then, through the continuity of your communication, meaning continuously coming back to the value and adding to that, and through your own enthusiasm and through your own personal congruency and commitment, the rest is just assuming the sale! That's all it takes!

That's the bottom line! Enthusiasm, by the way, comes from the word en theos, which means God-like, right? People are infected by that! So you have rapport, you know what they need, you have logic and reason, you attack and confess with enthusiasm!

That's how some people are! Can you believe that? And then what you do is—this is like the hell if you don't! Right? Which preachers have used for years, which by the way is very valuable because you know what? Some people will do things, they'll work harder to avoid something than they will to get something.

It's unfortunate, but that's the way our culture seems to be organized. I mean, out of what do you think most sales are organized on? They're not organized on benefit; they're organized on fear! I mean, if you talk to retailers' associations, you hear those managers; you figure out how they do it.

It's fear of loss, right? That's how it's organized. Last one though is called solution. Solution! And in the solution stage of what you're doing, what you're going to do in solution is you're going to show them the heaven if you do.

And by the way, let me just say on attack and confess, the way you attack is by either attacking the principle, not the person, right? You attack; some people actually do this, and they just don't understand.

Or an even better way is to confess that you've been guilty. You know what? I had a chance to go to this thing six months ago, and I didn't go until two months ago, and I swear I can't even imagine the amount of time I lost and everything else.

I mean, I... You know, that's why I'm here to share this with you because I'm not willing to let people do that anymore! I know you're going to go to this thing now because I'm going to let you, you know, be able to slough off like I did because I lost four months of my life!

See, is that pretty powerful? The person's going to come back and go, "Well, much harder solution!" That was the final piece—the heaven if you do! That’s saying, "By the way, by doing this, here's what's going to happen: Your relationship's going to work. This is going to happen.

All of a sudden when you come home, you're going to know how to set an anchor with your husband so he's absolutely in ecstasy! I mean, can you imagine the kind of life that you're going to have when every time you come home, and as soon as he hears your voice, he goes, 'Ah!'

Right? Can you imagine what would be like because every time he sees your face, it causes him to feel really powerful internal feelings? Those kinds of feelings that just that you guys had originally when you first met? And that's what that's going to be like!

That's what's going to happen! You're going to have skill to do that! Okay, and last second here is the close, and the close simply means, right? Closing just simply means to be able to bring things together. You know, bring different parts together.

That's what closing is! Bring the cards together to create a completion! And so what you're going to do is you're going to say, "So what I want to do is fill this thing out, and I'll set it up. And who else do you think would want to come?"

See, if she starts to answer who else will come, then she's already also once again... what she said—she's coming! So I'm giving you a bunch of crash stuff here all at one time, but the key here is put somebody in the state where they say yes!

Put someone in the state where they want something, and you can put them in state by asking them a time in the past when they wanted something and keep attaching it to your product. That's all persuasion needs!

And if you're clear in defining a person's need or outcome—something that they desire, and you keep pulling that in, it's pretty irresistible! If you continually go forward, and if you know that your congruency is that you don't accept the word "no."

All right? Because "no" just means that you haven't gotten me in state yet! "No" means I don't have enough information yet! You haven't taught my strategy effectively! So you need to do it again.

As I said last week, the insurance companies did a market... or did a market research study, and they found that the top salespeople in the United States were people—the top persuaders in the United States were people who got their sales after their fifth "no!"

I mean, people said "no" five different times before they did it, and they weren't hard closers because they had rapport, right? And they just reframed it, redirected it until they found the way!

That's what persuasion is all about! Throughout history, that's what persuasion's all about! John F. Kennedy, when he talked to Khrushchev about sending his missiles over, right? When Khrushchev just said "no," would he go, "Well, he said no, I wish I better find somebody else to talk to?"

He didn't do that, did he? Right? He understood that Khrushchev just didn't fully understand yet the level of congruency which John F. Kennedy was going to provide him with on a continuous basis until finally Khrushchev's internal state, his kinesthetic internal changed, right? And as a result, so did his behavior!

So you need to understand that that's all persuasion is all about! And it goes much higher than creating a ticket sale. It goes to your children, and it goes to your boss, and it goes to yourself as a persuader, as a manager, or anything else!