Michael Bolduc. How to sell yourself. [English Version]

Michael Bolduc How to sell yourself [English Version]

Michael Bolduc How to sell yourself? I had read his books for many years. People said he was a millionaire, living his dream life near to beach in a tropical country. I wanted to meet this man. I had watched him closely in his seminars on success. Observing him as he would coach people to success in the audience and changing their lives. He seemed such an incredibly happy man with a family he deeply loved. He coached many people around the world. When he completed his seminars and coaching, it was time to jet back to the tropical beach in Asia in his five-bedroom mansion. How is it possible that a man without a high school education could have accomplished all these amazing results in success and wealth? After all, only several years ago this same man was completely broke. He went from broke to self-made millionaire in just 3.5 years. It seems so incredible and the most incredible part of this story is that this person is me. This is my story. The point of that story is simple. One of the major skills of success that allowed me to make such drastic changes in my own life is selling myself. By applying the principles of selling, I was able to live my dream life and also to teach others the selling principles and see thousands of my students climb the ladder to success. The purpose of this recording today is to teach you the principles of selling yourself. Often we get caught up in a trap of seeing very successful people around us or around the world and thinking they got to be where they are, they got to be wealthy, they got to be successful, simply because they are lucky. Years ago, I went to a seminar by the name of Zig Ziglar. I remember going to that seminar thinking the same thing that most successful people were just lucky. But that day as Zig Ziglar said to me that successful people, they are not lucky. What he said is that while most people think that those around you they re rich and wealthy and all those things it s not people were not born successful, that success is a skill that you can learn. I remember hearing his voice. I remember him saying that that particular teaching that you can learn to be successful changed my life. I am going to say the same to you, right? If you look closer to successful people, you ll see Page 2 of 16

that they have an ability to sell themselves. How else could a person without a high school education become a millionaire? One of these skills that has allowed me to achieve all this success is because I ve learned the skill of selling myself. You always hear people say he is a natural born salesman. That certainly wasn t true for me. When I started in sales, I had three sales jobs and I was only earning $500 a month. That was less money than social services back in the old days in Canada. I couldn t pay my rent. And, with that kind of money, I lived in my car for 30 days. The fact is that I wasn t good at sales. Zig Ziglar said that winners are made not born. Selling is a skill you can learn. It s true that there are natural born sales people out there but I wasn t one of them. What is also true is that really excellent sales people are made, they are not born. The first principle of selling is you need to create a philosophy of selling. Jim Rohn said it best; if you want to be successful, study success; if you want to be good at selling, study sales. What makes the biggest difference between the top 3% of sales people who are more than the entire bottom 97% is their philosophy of selling. Years ago when I didn t know much about selling, I started by reading books. But in spite of all the sales book I had read, I still wasn t making much progress. My sales philosophy didn t change until one day I decided to attend a 3-day sales course. I attended the best sales course I could find about the psychology of selling. It was in those 3 days that I began to form my sales philosophy that shapes my life today. The same sales philosophy that I took to go from broke to self-made millionaire in just 3.5 years. I am not saying that just to impress you but I am saying that to impress upon you but what I will share with you, the sales principles I ll share with you can change your life. I am going to teach you that philosophy of selling through a series of principles that can guide your life and help you become very successful. Principle number 1: help enough people get what they want. Zig Ziglar said it best. If you help enough people get what they want then eventually you will get what you want. Remember everything you and I do is just to gain pleasure and avoid pain. Bottom line is this principle says that if you help enough people get what they want, eventually you will get whatever Page 3 of 16

it is you want, your goal. What the principle of this ultimate principle is that you have to make sure that people link pleasure to you. Basically, whenever you re around someone whatever emotion you are feeling will influence the other person. Think about it this way. If you are in a lousy state when you meet someone, if you are feeling a negative motion, then the other person will link pain to you. I remember going for a job interview as a salesman when I was in high school. I arrived for the interview and I started to talk to the manager for job selling used cars. But as I started talking, I felt very fearful and I started to stutter uncontrollably. The manager said in a nice way, thank you for coming. But, we don t need anyone right now. I knew that moment that he had linked pain to me. He had linked that I was the kind of person who was fearful. He didn t buy into me at all. So selling yourself means you are selling your emotions. You are selling how you look, how you sound, but ultimately you are selling how you feel. Because think about it aren t there some people in your life that you enjoy being around because they are so happy, aren t there some people you enjoy being around because they always make you laugh. You link pleasure to these people, don t you? The reason we like those kinds of people is because we feel good when we are around them. Giving people what they want means giving them a positive emotion, a positive experience. Principle number 2 is whenever two people meet whoever is most certain, whoever is most confident will influence the other person as long as there is a rapport. Imagine you meet someone who is very confident about everything they say, they are super confident about their ideas, their beliefs, their map of the world. They always believe that they are right. Haven t you met someone like that? There are two kinds of response to someone who is very confident. Event number 1, they will influence you or number 2, you are also confident about your ideals, your beliefs, and your map of the world. If two people meet and they are very confident about what they say or what they think then certainly what will happen is you ll start having a debate, an argument. Page 4 of 16

Have you ever experienced this? You have a conversation with a friend and your friend says something with both of you have opposite strong belief about perhaps abortion or money or divorce. Whatever it was, there is a strong chance that you had a big argument which your friend or someone from your family because both of you shared strong belief about it. It s not enough to have lots of confidence; you need more than confidence to influence people. You need a strong belief in yourself, your value as a human being but you also need rapport with the other person otherwise you will find yourself arguing about your beliefs. The ultimate principle of selling is that whenever two people meet, whenever you meet someone, whoever is most confident will influence the other person as long as there is rapport. Napoleon Hill shares this principle in his book Think and Grow Rich. He calls the secret a definite purpose with a strong desire for attaining it with an ongoing persistence. You must believe in your definite purpose so much that you re willing to do whatever it takes to attain your definite aim. Some people might say yes but even if you have more certainty than the company or than the person you are interviewing for a job, you are still not the boss. They might say you can go for an interview with lots of confidence but at the end of the day, it s the boss that makes the final decision. The principle of having confidence in your definite purpose works miracles even in getting the job you want and selling yourself. Napoleon Hill shares a story about how he applied for a job. When they replied with the answer no then he would send a letter the next day and still the answer was no. And then, he would send a letter once a week and they responded no after 2 weeks. Then, he started sending a letter every day rather for 7 days and still the answer was no. And then, he started to send a letter every hour for 2 days and then he received a reply and the answer was yes. He had the job. He was more certain than the company that he would get the job. Therefore, he never quit until he achieved the objective of his definite purpose backed up by strong desire with a definite plan, with an ongoing persistent until he succeeded. Years ago when I was jobless, I applied the same formula in my life. I went Page 5 of 16

for a job interview to sell luxury watches. But, as I applied for the job he never replied back to me. The next day I put a letter under his door but still he didn t reply back to me. Every day at 6 a.m. I would slip letter into his door and I did that for an entire week. A week later, he replied me and said you ve got the job. Just like Napoleon Hill, I used number two of selling. I was more confident than the person that I would get the job. Remember, if you have lots of confidence and a definite purpose, you re going get the job, you re going to get results, but you need to learn principle number 3. You need to have deep caring for those that you want to influence. You can be very confident but unless you know you have rapport, people will resist you unless they know that you truly care. You see, people who are always asking themselves a question, do you care, do you have my best interest in mind, can I trust you? When you want to sell yourself, it s a fact that people will ask those questions about you. The principle of selling yourself is that you generally care about people. If you really want to sell yourself to others then before you meet someone just do one thing, ask yourself a simple question and that question is why do I care? That question will make you focus on all the reasons you care about what the other person wants. And, by doing that you will build yourself closer to principle number 4: people buy from friends. Make a friend. Being confident as we said before is not enough. You need more than confidence. You need to be their friend to sell yourself to others successfully. It takes someone just a few seconds to make a decision about whether they like you or not. We call that first impressions, don t we? As soon as you meet someone that person is deciding your personality. They make a bunch of assumptions about you regarding let s say how you look, how you sound, how you feel, what kind of person you are, whether you are friendly or not, whether you are enjoyable or not. Ultimately, they make a decision whether they like you or don t like you. So, there is two principles you will learn to sell yourself successfully and make others like you. One will be matching and mirroring and two will be giving compliments. You might be wondering what is matching and mirroring. The answer is simple. You simply become like the other person. You sit the way they sit. You gesture the way they gesture. You talk the way they talk. You use similar words as they use. Page 6 of 16

What is the purpose of doing all this? The reason why I do this is I understand that people like people that are like them. The more we have in common with other person with other people then the more rapport we have. So, when I go out and influence people, this is the very first thing I focus on. How I match people is most important skill of rapport right now. If I am going to influence someone, I am going to make sure that I smile. Smiling communicates that we like the other person we are meeting. Usually, people smile back, don t they? So, smiling is important because it tells a very important message, I like you. After I smile, my outcome is very clear. I want to build rapport with this person. So, in order to build rapport with that person, I ll start to match and mirror that person and do three major things. I will match to them visual, I will match to them auditory, and I ll match them kinesthetically. If you been to my science of achievement course before then you know that I give live demonstration about this. For example, you can match how someone sits. If they cross their legs then you cross your legs too. If they move their hands a lot when they communicate, then you can move your hands as well. When it s your turn to talk if they blink their eye a lot then you can blink your eyes also. If they touch their hair you touch your hair. Immediately, when you match and mirror the visual aspect of someone, it causes rapport. Why? Because people like those who are like them. That s usually why we try to find things in common with others. If someone says well I play guitar and the other person says hey I play guitar too then instant rapport is in there. The other aspect of matching and mirroring is the tone of voice they have. They talk loud then you match them and you talk loud too. They talk quietly then you talk quietly as well. If they talk really fast then you talk really fast as well. And, if they talk really slow then you talk really slow as well. You must match the auditory way that they communicate. And by doing this, you will create massive amount of rapport. If someone has a loud Mickey Mouse voice then you mirror their Mickey Mouse voice. I know that sounds odd and if somebody told me this 20 years ago, I might have not believed it. But, after practicing this for many years now, I can tell you that this is absolutely Page 7 of 16

true that people love people that are like them. We must remember that 55% of communication is physiology, 38% of communication is tonality and only 7% is word. So, if all we do is match and mirror words, we are missing out the 93% of our communication; visual and auditory. So, if they smile a lot then you smile a lot too. If they make eye contact then you make eye contact. The other way to create rapport is also to give compliments. The first point I want to make is that compliments must be sincere. If you give insincere compliments, it will be counterproductive to build a rapport and may in fact break rapport. So, what is the secret to giving sincere compliments? Glad you asked. Begin by asking why do I sincerely appreciate this person? What do I appreciate about them? The key here is to ask that question to find something you really like about them, what you really appreciate about them. Do that and you will first find something you really like about them. Then, all you need to do is communicate it to them. But, how you give compliments is equally important. Here is the exact procedure to give best compliments. Step 1: State what specifically you appreciate about them. Step 2: Tell them why you appreciate that. Step 3: Ask them a question. Here is an example. You the listener listening to me now, let me give you a sincere complement that I feel from my heart. I have already asked myself what do I sincerely appreciate about you, the listener listening to this how to sell yourself CD. The answer was number 1 you ve invested money into improving yourself. The reason I appreciate this about you is it shows that you re committed to living the better life, to turn your dreams into reality. If I will meet you in person then I would ask you this question; what kind of dreams and goals do you have for yourself? As you can see, I sincerely believe what I say that you are the kind of person who wants to improve themselves. I tell you why. I asked you a question. It s a procedure. It s a three-step process. There are strategies for creating rapport but there are also strategies for breaking rapport. One cardinal rule is to never make the other person wrong. The minute we make someone wrong, you immediately break rapport with them. You immediately lose all influence of selling yourself. You will not be Page 8 of 16

able to sell yourself if you make the other person wrong. Immediately that person will now link pain to you. Remember when people link pain to you then you lose all influence or you lose influence over them. Do you remember the time in your life when someone said you are wrong? How did you feel? The rule is as follows: other people can say you are wrong but you must never tell other people that they are wrong. If someone says you are wrong then you need to agree with them in order to sustain rapport with them. The secret is always to align with people and never make them wrong. Whatever they say you always want to respond by saying you are right. You are right. Begin by creating the habit of saying these three words to whatever other people say. Always align with other people by using three phrases; I appreciate, I respect, I agree. You need to make those three phrases a habit in your life. Build it into the habit of communications that no matter what they say, you can always agree with them. Appreciate respect or agree with one of two things: one, how they feel. You can always appreciate someone s feeling or number two their intention. Everyone has positive intention. One of the most important beliefs I have learned is that all human beings have positive intention all the time. The secret to rapport is understanding the positive intention so that you can appreciate that intention in them no matter what that is. So, whatever they say you can always agree, and appreciate, or respect their intention and therefore create rapport with them. The keyword here to avoid is the word but. Do not use this word because the one word that breaks rapport is the word but and people hate to hear that word. Because but makes the other person wrong. You can use the word but on yourself but never use it on other people. Instantly, when you use the word but you break rapport. It s like you say to someone I like you but whatever you say after the word but it erases whatever you said before. Instead the keyword to replace but that is the magic word and because what word you use will determine how someone feels. So, always redirect them towards an outcome, the goal you want them to achieve, the win-win goal between them. The way you do that is by using the word and. These techniques mean that it s impossible for anyone to break rapport with you Page 9 of 16

because no matter what they say you always agree, always align with them, and never make them wrong. That s the key to sustaining rapport with someone. What breaks rapport, the only thing that breaks rapport is making the other person wrong. I mean criticizing the other person immediately breaks rapport obviously. So, you should never make the other person wrong or criticize them in anyway whatsoever. If you come to one of my seminar and you watch me and look at me work in a crowd as I do coaching live on stage, what you will see is that I never ever, ever make the other person wrong. You will see that I always agree, appreciate, or respect whatever the other person says. I am really, really good at doing that. Most of the time, I ll always agree, respect, appreciate either their intention or feelings. It s become part of my habit of communication. It works miracle in selling myself in the business world to my friends, with my family, whoever it is. This is the primary reason I keep rapport with everyone on the planet because I never make the other person wrong. And, if I do make them wrong then I make them wrong intentionally, strategically. So, sometimes you will do that as a joke. But, if you want to influence someone, if you want to sell yourself, then remember to never make the other person wrong and to always agree with them. You might be wondering why is it so important to build rapport with the other person you want to influence. The ultimate reason why rapport is so crucial is because you can now practice principle number 5: asking key questions that influence people. First, you got to make sure that you have a philosophy of selling. You make sure that the other person links pleasure to you, you are going to make them your friend, and once you have made them your friend then you must use the ultimate secret of selling which is questions. That s right. Questions is the ultimate secret of selling yourself. All the master sales people around the world understand that questions is the ultimate tool of influence period. The great thing about questions is that it is unconscious for most people. What that means is people are not aware that you re using the art of questions to direct their mental focus towards a win-win outcome. The less consciousness people will have towards the sales principles you re applying, the less resistance they will feel towards you. In Page 10 of 16

fact, the moment the other person thinks that you are trying to sell them, they will start to resist every word that comes out of your mouth. Remember, people don t like to be sold but they always like to buy; whether they are buying a car, a house, or you, they love to buy but they hate to be sold. That s why whatever sales principles you use it must not be too direct or used without the permission otherwise they will resist everything that comes out of your mouth. Most people don t resist answering questions because they are natural part of having a conversation, isn t it? In fact, I define rapport with just one word responsiveness. What that means is they re willing to answer any questions you ask them. Once you get in that high level of cooperation from someone else, then the last secret is selling comes down to just knowing what are the best questions to ask them. So, the first question you want to ask them is simple. Would it be okay if I ask you some questions about XYZ? By asking permission to probe and ask questions, you induce reciprocation because you are showing them that you are respectful towards them. In my experience with thousands of people around the world, I can tell you that 100% of the time people always say yes to that question. All you need to do is that would it be okay if I got some answers to some of my questions. Ask permission because it shows that you respect them. Most people in my opinion are starving for more respect. Now once they say yes, you ve already begun to influence them because there is another law I teach in my sales training course is that it goes as follows: the law of commitment and consistency. What that means is that if someone makes a commitment to you then they will feel inner pressure to keep that commitment. In other words, now they feel pressured to answer whatever question you will ask them because they committed to answer your questions. By the way, this is all unconscious for most people because they are not paying attention to what commitments they re making. But unconsciously, whenever makes a commitment they feel inner pressure to keep that commitment. Because, think of it that way what kind of person would they be if they made a commitment and then they didn t follow that commitment. Won t that be the kind of person that is inconsistent? Don t we also call these kinds of people liars? So, most people link massive pain to not keeping their Page 11 of 16

commitments. Professional sales persons understand that in order to make a lasting influence in someone, the key is to have them make commitments and keep them consistent to those commitments. That has influence over other people. It s also the kind of pressure that gets people to take action but not pressure that comes external. Because the problem of most sales people is they try to use external pressure to motivate or influence people. But, my secret is I use inner pressure to motivate people and that is the most effective way to persuade someone. Remember, questions are natural way of communicating with other people. We use them all the time in our conversations, don t we? How are you doing today? Doing great. What did you do today? Doing fine. Where do you come from, right? They are part of our natural process but the key is to use the right questions and when we do that we become very, very influential in other people s lives. So, the way I sell myself is that I ask a lot of questions. The secret is to avoid making statements. Here is what I mean. Let me explain to you the difference between making a statement or saying a statement and asking a question. If I say I am the most smartest guy in the world then this is a statement, isn t it? It s a claim. The problem with any kind of statement or claims is the other person who is listening to you goes into their mind and they start asking questions such as is that true, are you really the smartest person in the world? When the customers are asking questions in their head, you must remember that they re not always asking the right questions. So, if you make a statement to someone or make a claim then that person can make two choices. They can agree with you or they can disagree. The real problem is if you make too many statements then eventually you re going to make a statement that the other person is going to disagree with you. If they disagree with you, with what you say, with your claims, with your statements, in that moment you ll begin to lose influence over them. If you lose influence you are not going to sell yourself. Making statements in my opinion, in my skill of success is a risky way to sell yourself. In my experience, it rarely works. Page 12 of 16

If you want to sell yourself, if you want to be more effective at influencing other people, then here is my advice, avoid making statements and claims about yourself. Instead, rather to making self-serving claims, start asking quality questions. If I make a claim that it is very strategically made so that the other person will agree with me rather than resent me. In other words, any time you make a claim remember that you must prove that claim and that the other person must see your proof as sufficient enough. They re to judge, not you. Instead of making claims, learn to ask a lot of questions which is what the principle of influencing or selling yourself is all about. This is what all master salesmen there are really good at. To sell yourself you must ask a lot of quality questions. One benefit of asking questions is that they take the focus away from you on to the other person because so many people worry way too much about how they stand or how they look or about what they were going to say, but that s not important. What s important is you ask quality questions. So, what that means is the process of selling yourself is more of a process of focusing on the other person first; what they want or what they feel. Eighty percent of the time the other person should be talking and only 20% of the time you are asking questions or talking. The point I want to emphasize the most here is that to sell yourself you don t need to talk too much, but you definitely need to ask a lot of quality questions. Selling yourself is a process of having people agree with whatever you say. You must hear people say yes, yes, yes. The more yes you hear the more influence you have. If people disagree with you too much then there isn t that much influence going on, is there? If people disagree with you too much, then they will not buy into you. They will not buy your product or service or they won t buy into selling yourself. The more people can agree with what you say, the more likely you will sell yourself. Does that make sense to you? Whatever you say must be strategically designed in a way where people can agree with you rather than disagree with you. That s a process of preparation before you try to influence someone, isn t it? And that s the secret. In fact, whoever is most prepared will influence the other person the most. The more people agree with you the more persuasion you have. This is why questions are so powerful because you can direct your questions so the person thinks Page 13 of 16

win-win. Here are a few questions in a conversation. You can discover what a person is thinking about. Simply ask the question what do you think about what I m saying? Questions allow you to discover what motivates someone. Simply ask what is the most important to you in XYZ or whatever it is that you are selling. Questions allow you to find people s beliefs. Questions allow you to direct the focus of the person you want to influence in the direction you want. When I do my sales training courses my entire course is designed at ask a series of questions. You literally question your way to making the sale. You question your way to success. The ultimate purpose of questions is to discover what people want and you do that by asking a lot of questions. Here is a very important question. What is the most important to you in XYZ? If you have a job interview and you ask that question. When you hire an employee what is the most important to you? That question will allow you to discover the values and beliefs of the employer of the company that you want to work for. By understanding their value or what they want this is step number one to influencing someone. When I met with my publisher over lunch, this was years ago, I asked that question. I remember eating and during our lunch I asked them this very important question. I said what is most important to you when you consider working with an author. I listened very carefully about their values. That was the most important question I asked during that lunch. The publisher spent a considerable amount of time sharing with me what their values were. Selling myself was easy simply because I needed to show them that I agreed with their value, number one, and secondly that I could deliver whatever it is they wanted the most. We were able to make an agreement together because I had aligned and agreed with their value and I showed them how I could deliver. All of that success began with a simple question, what is most important to you in whatever. If you re trying to sell a car to someone then wouldn t it be valuable to ask them the simple question? When buying a car what is the most important to you? Is it speed, is it the way it looks, is it the security of the car, is it the comfort, because people buy cars for different reasons. You see, when you learn to ask the right question, you will discover what other Page 14 of 16

people want, the secret. Knowing what others want is the real secret to selling yourself. Once you know what the other person wants, the secret is to give a promise to the other person that you can deliver what they want. That promise carries a lot of influence. Give others what they want and selling yourself is easy. Bottom line, instead of trying to sell myself, I spend more time understanding what other people want. That always makes it more easier for me to give what other people want or to show them how I can help them achieve what they want. It s so much easier to give the other person the exact desire they want when you know what it is that they are going after and what s most important or what it is their goal. My son just recently had a birthday and before his birthday party, I asked my son I brought this toy a book full of toys and I said I want you to circle all the toys you want and he circled 15 toys. Then, I asked him out of all these 15 toys, which is the most important to you. And he put number 1, number 2 he is only 6 years old and I helped him write that. On the day of his birthday, we had 25 people, it was a great party and he opened my gift. As he opened the gift he saw exactly that I had given the number one toy he wanted the most. He jumped in the air full of excitement because he had finally got what he wanted. Remember, the secret to influencing others is to finding out what they want and then simply giving it to them. The real question is can you give the other person what they want? If you can, then you can create and communicate to them that you will deliver a promise what they want that can lead to a win-win agreement. That is the secret of selling yourself. The secret of selling yourself begins: building rapport, making other people link pleasure to you, asking enough questions until you discover what the other person wants and then simply giving that exact desire to that person. I you have been exposed to enough information about influencing and selling yourself that you are willing to pursue this skill even further. Because remember, success is a skill you can learn, and selling is a skill that you can learn, influencing is a skill that you can learn. I hope that you re going to study that even more. I look forward to meet you in person, shake your hand, Page 15 of 16

and to hear the success story that you are going to achieve by selling yourself. This is Michael Bolduc signing off same to your success. Bye for now. END Page 16 of 16