The Ultimate Selling Secret: Essential Strategies for Mastering The Art of Business Influence!

Dedication

This book is dedicated to Jordon M. Mills, a fellow adventurer, fellow traveler, my old flying partner, an outstanding father, and my best friend! You are an exciting pleasure to be with and an inspiration to everyone that has the good fortune to know you.

Richard Carswell

In Gratitude

This book has been long time coming! First of all and most importantly I’d like to thank from the bottom of my heart my personal assistants Rany and Rainbow whose diligence, desire and dedication not only in the facilitation of this book but in the continued support of my goals keeps me focused!

I’d like to show my appreciation to Steve Oniki for teaching me the Styles way back in the early eighties and letting me attend so many of his seminars for free. Your generosity inspired me! I am eternally grateful to Mark Victor Hanson for encouraging me to enter the speaking, writing, and seminar business in the first place. Your priceless support, unyielding enthusiasm, and personal example of success continue to motivate me as to what is possible and to set even hire goals for myself.

We are grateful and thankful for our readers who continually encourage us with their valuable feedback on our books.

Richard Carswell

Guangzhou, China

Introduction

Over 25 years ago I took a personality course by a Japanese/American man named Steve Oniki who called himself the Happy Jappy. Since then in the early 1980’s I’ve attended over hundred seminars, workshops and classes on everything from spirituality and healing to rebirthing and prosperity, relationships salesmanship, real estate, wealth creation, and investing by some of the greatest thinkers and seminar presenters on the planet. I’ve listened to over 3,000 audio tapes on all these subjects and more. In short, learning about success and being a success was my passion. I have written 5 books on various aspects of self-development success that have been translated into 8 languages.

After more than 25 years of utilizing the best of the most advanced strategies, tools and game plans that the most sophisticated business leaders, wealth creators, speakers and authors have come up with I am certain of one thing. More convinced than ever I believe that the 4 temperament theory that originated with Hippocrates some four hundred years before Christ was born is the absolute best explanation of human behavior there is. It has stood the test of time. For me it is the one essential skill that was the easiest and most fun to learn that I use almost everyday for nearly 20 years.

We were all born with our own unique set of strengths and weaknesses and no magic formula works wonders for us all. This book looks at each one of us as an individualized blend of the 4 basic social styles. Personality differences are make life rich and interesting and often so frustrating as well.

The mass of humanity never figure people out, they just ricochet through life, like snooker balls on a billiard table. We get along great with some people, are annoyed by others and often simply refuse to deal with ones we don’t get along with. Why? Because, they’re different from us. How much easier life would be if you know the secret of these differences what if it’s a simple but proven way to build rapport with anyone? To eliminate or reduce personality conflicts? To use adaptability and versatility to make business mutually beneficial instead of a contest of wills and wits?

There are no accidents in the Universe. Since you desire to reach your full potential as a human being this knowledge is of the utmost importance for you to assimilate. You literally hold the key to this knowledge in your hands. A product of decades of psychological research and scientific study THE ULTIMATE SELLING SECRET which describes the 4 social styles in depth is a proven and practical method for reading anyone like a book and how to use that skill to build instant rapport and compatibility. It is an indispensable guide to anyone who is curious about discovering what makes themselves and everyone in their world tick.

People have been both frustrated and fascinated with each other’s personality differences for thousands of years. The earliest astrologers and philosophers sought to identify these social styles. In ancient Greece the great Hippocrates outlined four temperaments – Sanguine, Phlegmatic, Melancholic, and Choleric – and in 1921, famed psychologist Carl Jung, the first to study personal styles scientifically, described them as Intuitor, Thinker, Feeler, and Sensor.

In the last hundred years psychologists have produced more than a dozen models of behavioral differences, some with as many sixteen or more possible personality blends. They have been named after birds, animals, or even colors. However the common thread that runs through the centuries is the grouping of social styles into four categories.

My desire is for THE ULTIMATE SELLING SECRET to be both practical and accurate. I want you to be able to use these principles easily. So I’m using a simple 4–style system that spans all cultures and has been validated with millions of people around the planet. We’ll focus on patterns of observable, external clues that will give you an accurate sense of what’s going on inside of someone else’s head. Once you know this, you can decide the best way to respond to this person. Remember this truth your main aim when trying to influence or sell someone is to get your buyer or prospect to like you and trust you! … and you can’t do this if you don’t establish some commonality and aren’t social-style savvy.

As you will soon see there are many natural allies and enemies that abound in the various styles. Here is the bottom line: your influence is only as effective as your understanding of the person you’re communicating with.

This book will teach you how to be a human personality expert. Someone who truly understands personality differences and you can use this to your advantage.

I’d like to get one issue out of the way right from the get-go. As I teach the concept of the behavioral styles over the last 2 plus decades occasionally someone will comment. Oh is this where you categorize us into little boxes? They infer that the individual human with all her talents, emotions, life experiences and innate gifts are far too complex and intricate to evaluate in this manner. And my answer is this … Einstein one of the greatest thinkers and scientists of all time said The more I study and understand about the universe the more I realize how little I understand. Putting people in boxes is not really the way to get to know one another. But understanding someone’s social style isn’t in opposition to genuinely getting to know them. Far from it. In fact the opposite is true. Using THE ULTIMATE SELLING SECRET can vastly accelerate this process. Only when you are capable of quickly picking up on another’s innate need’s based cues and then adapting your own behavior will you learn how to value and understand others in an authentic fashion. You see all of us are already living in a little box; our own little box of how we perceive reality. What the understanding and application of the 4 basic styles does is simply and profoundly expand the box you are already living in. ALOT! So please don’t tell me I’m putting you into a box, since you probably are already in one!

John D. Rockefeller (the Bill Gates of an earlier era) said that the ability to handle people well is more valuable than all other leadership and management traits put together and that’s exactly what this book will teach you! Mastering the Art of Human Influence looks at each one of us as an individual blend of the four basic temperaments and encourages us to get acquainted with the real me underneath before trying to change what shows on the surface.

THE ULTIMATE SELLING SECRET urges you to improve your listening skills. Good listening is essential to good relationships. Psychiatrists readily admit that if each of us listened genuinely to others there would be no need for their profession. Simply put meeting the needs and desires of others will facilitate deeper relationships.

THE ULTIMATE SELLING SECRET is not about manipulating people. Rather it is about learning to speak there language. It’s not considered manipulative to speak a few words of Chinese when in Beijing. It’s just something you do when on Chinese soil so you can be more understood, be more compatible.

Build a little rapport. When in a foreign country you don’t alter your basic nature, you don’t change your ideas but how you present those ideas does change!

Remember the Greek philosopher Socrates who was put to death for simply being wise said Know Thyself and also for saying the unexamined life is not worth living. By using the strategies in this book you will be able to speak and listen in a language they will understand and be empowered by. This is a marvelous resource that you can use to resolve differences, maximize strengths, and enjoy a more prosperous life by better knowing yourself and knowing the people around you.

With more clarity than ever before you will understand and know what you’re made of. Know who we really are. Know why we react as we do. Know our strengths and how to amplify and exploit them. Know our weaknesses and how to compensate for them.

Compatibility

When we have that very positive interaction with someone, when we experience an immediate compatibility what’s happening is that we are experiencing people who are in the some quadrant of social style which we are in. When this happens there’s an immediate prediction of compatibility.

Now when we have a negative interaction with someone when we experience an immediate incompatibility what is often happening is that we are interacting with someone who is our behavioral style opposite. This is what is called a personality clash and potentially toxic relationship especially if the parties concerned are not Behavior Style Savvy. How many of you reading these rights now, realize you could be in a personality incompatible marriage or relationship.

Benefits of the Ultimate Selling Secret

The benefits to mastering THE ULTIMATE SELLING SECRET are too numerous to mention here. In the following pages you will learn how to placate the irate customer who not only has a complaint but a bad attitude to go with it. You will learn what motivates the overly cautious employee, and work with the executive who has trouble making a decision. You will learn to handle the domineering boss, the gregarious co-worker, who spends more time chatting with co-workers than dealing with customers and the leader who has a million ideas but lacks follow-thru.

You will learn simple strategies that will enable you to build bridges to each style in any work situation whether it’s closing a sale, asking for money, planning a large project, providing better service or building a strong team. As a direct result of THE ULTIMATE SELLING SECRET you will

Have greater career prospects.

Have fewer conflicts & less tension in both your personal & business relationships.

Achieve more & experience greater productivity.

Vastly improved customer relations.

Increase in bottom-line profit.

We All Live in Glass Houses!

So we know there are four distinct behavioral styles. We all are a blend of the 4 styles, but only one slips on as comfortably, as naturally, as well customer suit. Every one of us are blends of styles, yet we still have a dominant one, and we can’t hide it. Whether we’ re rich or poor, young or old, an unskilled worker or white collar executive, your personality style is obvious to others. Whether you are from a western culture or eastern culture it has been said that we all live in glass houses, which simply means you can’t hide your style. Everyone can see with ease as if through glass exactly what’s going on inside your head. It shows!

Of course we don’t always act the same; your behavior varies when dealing with your friends than with your boss. You don’t act at the party the same way you do at a funeral. Your style has its own particular twist, but it’s still clearly one of the four basic styles. Just as a famous song maybe sang differently by different singers it can be clearly recognized as the same tune.

There are numerous signals we send that reveal our styles, we do this by the words we choose, out body language, and the speed and rhythm of our speech. Whether you dress modestly or fashionable flashy, how fast you talk and walk to decorate your office or home. Strong signals are also sent out by how openly you share your thoughts and feelings, how quickly you make a decisions and how quick you are to embrace change. So these signs tell about you, but you must know how to spot them and interpret them. When you can do this you’ll instantly recognize other styles. Then you can:

Better understand and except yourself.

Adjust your behavior in a way that will reduce conflict, build rapport, and improve compatibility with anyone.

Improve your effectiveness to influence others to your way of thinking.

Adaptability and Versatility

From any of the four styles can come one who has mastered The Art of Human Influence if they develop the necessary skill of adaptability and being both adaptable and versatile is the most crucial skill since without them we cannot implement the Platinum Rule. Remember the Platinum Rule? Do unto others as they like to be done unto. Versatility means being readily adaptable or flexible to any given human interactions, being resourceful in adapting our own behavior style of communicating to the different other social styles of people. Yes being adaptable, versatile, and flexible in interacting with people will make all the difference in gaining influence and in achieving the desired outcome. We must adapt not only to our prospects style but his level of sophistication and understanding.

Adaptability is a learnable skill. High performance sales people and those who wield great influencer have mastered this skill. It’s a part of the great influencer’s integral process of dealing with others. They have internalized this skill. It’s a natural, spontaneous thing for most highly effective salespeople. But if you don’t learn this skill, you can’t use it, and will never be able to profit from it. Being adaptable and versatile is the ability to go to where you need to be in your behavioral mode to get on the same wave length as the other person, to get them to respond favorably in a positive manner because of your behavior that serves as the stimulus. Of course you’re familiar with the stimulus / response dynamic. You are the stimulus that will elicit the positive response in the event you are versatile and adaptable in you’re approach. Highly effective salespeople in their adaptable mode prove to be a positive stimulus to affirmative buy-in decisions being make. Salespeople and ineffective influencers who are not very adaptable are a negative stimulus and thus have a low buy-in or closing percentage. People in this world who are highly adaptable in the selling processes are those that know and adhere to be Platinum Rule which is to be used in addition to and not in replacement of the Golden Rule as we’ve said several times in this book so far. It’s worth repeating again. Do unto others as they would like to be done to.

This enables you to increase your closing percentage by intensifying and improving the relationship, by creating more commonality and rapport and consequently more trust, you thus became more consistent with the thinking process and goals of your prospective buyer.

It’s of paramount significance when formulating your game plan or strategy that you keep the Behavior Styles in mind. Sales people who try to sell every body the same way will simply suffer unnecessary stress and a less than optimal closing percentage.

Soon you will have an in-depth overview of the four basic behavior styles. I prefer the term social style over the term temperament. It’s the particular pattern of actions others observe and agree upon for describing a person’s usual behavior.

One of the things I like best about the social styles is that there is an underlying respect for individuality. We are all born with out own set of unique strengths and weaknesses. It doesn’t matter what your style is. A bigger issue here than your style is your ability to identify the style of your prospects then adapt and be versatile enough to develop the effective strategy that works best with each of them. In short, being adaptable and versatile means really understanding the other person’s perspective and then handling them in a way that’s best for them. It means being personality style savvy, taking the time to figure out the people around us and adjusting our behavior to reduce conflict and build rapport.

Three Significant Points

Soon you will meet the four styles but before you do its important that you understand the following key points.

Just because you become Personality-Style Savvy doesn’t mean that we are judging others. These insights are not judgments. A judgment is a notion or opinion that is unsubstantiated by facts. … And the way you routinely react, respond and think in different situations, circumstances and the pressures of life are hardly unsubstantiated. They simply are.

Becoming Personality-Style Savvy gives you an incredible advantage when negotiating with others. Why? … Because you will have the skill to slip into the other person’s thinking mode and be able to see with the other person’s perspective. With this insight you will quickly build commonality, rapport and trust while reducing possible friction, tension and conflict.

Being Personality-Style Savvy will allow you to read others like an open book thus creating cohesive, harmonious relations but just as importantly this skill will also help you understand your own motivations and how they are interrupted by others.

So are you ready to find out about these four basic styles? It’s fascinating to learn their strengths, their weaknesses, and how they react to life’s challenges. You’ll learn their worst fears, biggest assets, greatest drawbacks and what excites and motivates them. You’ll even learn about their sex lives. Yes you can even identify and predict their personality styles by their innate sexual nature and desires or visa-versa.

PART I

*** OVERVIEW ***

Chapter 1

Overview of the Personality Styles

In your dealings with other have you ever had a personality conflict. Most people certainly have. A personality conflict is when two people just don’t see eye to eye. They just can’t seem to get on the same wave length. After just a few minutes, even though you didn’t know why, you just didn’t have a meeting of the minds. And on the other hand you’ve probably met people and in the first 2 or 3 minutes you’ve felt a strong rapport and connection and felt you’ve known them for 10 or 15 years. That’s called chemistry. I believe you can create chemistry or conflict with others in any relationship whether it’s personal, managerial, or sales depending on how well you practice the golden rule. People often misinterpret the golden rule. In real estate there is a saying he who has the gold rules and others have said do unto others and split. And others say do unto others before they do unto you. But this is not for you. The original Golden Rule that many especially in the west were raised with is Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. Morally, ethically it’s a great rule. It’s a wonderful guideline, an old and honorable sentiment since all people the world over respond well to courtesy, respect, kindness and compassion.

However and here is the golden key to selling, persuading and influencing others. The way you apply the Golden Rule needs to vary from one individual to the next based on there unique personality style. If you always practice the Golden Rule verbatim you oftentimes will create conflict and not rapport. This means Do unto others as YOU would have THEM do unto YOU. The Golden Rule assumes that you should treat others from your own perspective. That implies that everyone wants to be treated the same way as I do or at least respond in a favorable way as I would. That’s just not how reality is. People are different and as a result respond best when treated differently.

Instead it is better to honor the intent of The Golden Rule by modifying this classic of axioms. Enter the Platinum rule which incorporates the spirit or intent of the Golden Rule. The Platinum Rule goes like this Do unto others as they want to be done unto. Or Treat people the way they want to be treated. Communicate with people on their wave length, or their style. If you practice the GOLDEN RULE verbatim and you treat people from your prospective solely that will eventually cause conflict and tension; because you are not meeting that person’s needs or communicating in a way that that individual finds easy to listen to. In this situation tension happens and leads to conflict, a sense of incompatibility, less willingness to co-operate and the bottom line is less trust and a less than desirable outcome from that relationship. Now in contrast if you practice the spirit of the GOLDEN RULE the Platinum Rule treating people the way they would like to be treated, getting on their wave length so to speak the tension goes down, and trust, credibility and willingness to co-operate and the results you get with people all increase.

To practice the Platinum Rule you must be flexible in your dealings with others. Flexibility in human relations means an adjustment with the way you do things with one person vs. another. This does not mean that you change who you are, it doesn’t mean your putting on an act. It just means your being considerate. When some people move at a little faster or at a slower pace you move along at that pace. If others desire more facts and details you provide it for them. It is not being manipulative its simply being wise and considerate.

When using this skill the ideas you present don’t change; you just adapt your delivery style in which you present them. People will show you, indicate to you how they prefer to be dealt with if you’ll just learn what signals to listen to and watch for. It’s quiet easy and gets to be rather fun once you learn and familiar yourself with the 4 basic personality styles discovered by Hypocrites some 300 years before Christ. This book will teach you how to identify these signals.

The way people behave is the outgrowth of the way people think. When you have an idea and you want to communicate it to someone else what you do is encode the idea into words, gestures and phrases just like the computer and internet communicate messages into a series of ones and zeros arranged into a coded message is transmitted digitally. Except with your individual case you communicate according to your own life experience, your education, your emotions and numerous other factors however the most significant way in which you communicate is according to your own individual innate personality style on temperate. When you communicate, you’re attempting not only to convey the words pictures and gestures but rather to convey the meaning behind these. However once you deliver the message the other person has to receive the communication and decode and when they do this they must do this according to all those same factors and their own unique personality style. Now the message that may end up in the other person’s mind may not even be similar to the message you’re originally intended. Again, it all depends on whether your communication style as received by the other person, (the words and gestures), your behavior style) has the same meaning as it does to you. See why communicating with others is so complicated.

Each person has a style or way of dealing with things that is very comfortable for them. One person always seems to be impatient and in a hurry to complete the present task and then quickly move on to another one while another individual may be highly inquisitive asking several questions and reluctant to make any kind of a buying decision or buy-in decision until he has investigated all the details.

We are all different and those differences yield some wonderful benefits in that the weaknesses in one behaviors style are the strengths of another. Yes these 4 basic personality styles complement each other individually and as a team or corporately as will be revealed to you in this book.

Hypocrites said the 4 temperaments were Choleric, Sanguine, Phlegmatic and Melancholy. In 1923 a landmark work was published by the famous psychologist Carl Jung entitled psychological types. Jung was the guy who gave us the terms introvert and extravert. He named his 4 types The Intuitor, The Feeler, the Sensor, and The Thinker. Today the psychological profiles and concepts regarding the differences in people are so abundant that studying them can sometimes yield more confusion that enlightenment.

The styles have been called the 4 dogs, Pit Bull, Poodle, Golden Retriever, and Dalmatian------- the 4 birds being the Eagle for the Driving-Director, the Peacock for the Influencing-Socializer, the Dove for the Amiable-Relater and the Owl for the Analytical-Thinker. And I’ve seem it as simple as the 1,2,3,4 method and the 4 colors.

In all the concepts and programs offered in the global market place today, there is definitely one common thread, one common ingredient that validates reality and that is this; the identification of 4 major patterns of behavior and there subsequent combinations. The most thoroughly developed instrument for measuring these behavioral differences is the D.I.S.C. Personality Behavioral Profile System developed by Dr. John Gyer. Dominance, Influence, Steadiness, Compliance. It validates what you are learning here by measuring four major behavioral patterns.

When I was the first introduced to this in 1983 I was literally astonished at how much a 15 minute little questionnaire revealed about my personal habits, nature and style of dealing with others, and ironically how others viewed me. This had such a profound influence on me. It was as if I was living with blinders on. What a revelation. For the first time, I could see and understand all my business and personal relationships, all the successful ones with such awesome clarity. The relationship I had with my mother, father and brother as well as friends came into significant and sharp focus. This understanding of the 4 basic P.S. has virtually influenced every single personal and business relationship I’ve been involved with for over 20 years.

Now the method or model you are about to learn is a condensation of the best of all these diverse theories into a simple, fun and quickly learned system. My emphasis is on helping you identify and deal effectively with each behavioral style in the fashion that not only brings about the least amount of conflict and tension but facilitates the maximum amount of co-operation and harmony.

In this book you’ll discover and become familiar with each of the 4 styles of behavior. You will hear of examples and listen to stories of people you already know that dramatically illustrate this teaching. You will learn how to identify each style and learn exactly what to do facilitate the results you seek with that type of person. Most significantly you will learn how to reduce tension, eliminate conflict and build trust and co-operation with that person. You will learn people’s hot buttons. What makes them tick? How they make buying decisions? What to expect from them in personal, intimate, social and business settings.

You will be introduced to the 4 social styles and shown exactly what happens when these styles interact with each other. You will also learn how to determine your style and how you really come across to other people.

That which is to be revealed to you in this book is not simply pleasant sounding philosophy; it is how humans are put together. It is how their hardwired and when you adapt this truth into your everyday lifestyle you will be able to read people easier that reading a book. Reading a book takes at least an hour or more than likely several hours. With the strategy your about to learn you can read people’s innate natural tendencies and predictable behavioral style in moments, oftentimes in less than a minute. I guarantee it! When I first leaned this truth, after just meeting people or observing them from afar I was able to deliver such an exact description of their style that people would gasp. They were amazed. How they ate, what kind of cars they preferred, were they talkative or introverted, quiet and shy or extraverted and outspoken. What they were thinking in various activities and their approach, even how they made love and if they were reliable or could be trusted.

You will learn who to hire and who not to and almost instantly you will be able to tell if a person is capable of a job or task and more importantly if they are naturally suited for a job or task, and more, much more. This knowledge of how people the world over function and their