Leaking Body Parts You Can’t Stop . . .
The one body part you can’t stop from leaking sweat is something
I learned in my not so recent interview with body language
expert, Kevin Hogan.
I recently re-listened to this interview while exersizing on
Tuesday morning.
And I was reminded what a valuble interview this is for anyone
doing face to face selling and or consulting at any level.
You’ve got the full text transcrips to this interview below.
If you want to listen to the full interview or download the mp3
files go to
http://www.hardtofindseminars.com/Kevin_Hogan_Interview.htm
PS. Kevin also reveals solid proof if the oppisite sex is
interested in your romanticly.
Print this e-mail out.
The title of this interview is called . .
The Business of Body Language
Whether you’re conscious of it or not, your body language says more
about you than your words ever will. So in this interview you’ll
meet Kevin Hogan, a psychologist regarded as the nation’s leading
expert on body language. In this Kevin Hogan Interview he’s going
to teach us how to make sure our body language communicates all the
right messages during important business meetings. And he’s also
going to show us how to decipher the body language of others so
that we know what they’re really saying to us.
According to Kevin, people decide if they’re going to like you
within the first four seconds. And they decide if they’re going to
buy from you within the first 30. So, it’s absolutely crucial that
you give off a strong first impression that conveys confidence,
trust and friendliness. And in this audio, you’ll learn exactly how
to do that.
Kevin Hogan also talks about a few simple gestures you can make to
boost credibility and build relationships. And by the end of the
call, you’ll know exactly how to improve your body language during
face-to-face meetings – and close more deals! you’ll also hear…
√ Ways to know if someone is lying to you – and how to make sure
your body language isn’t saying you’re lying
√ Where to put your hands during a meeting so that you seem
confident and friendly
√ Why it’s important to show vulnerability with prospects and ways
to appropriately do that with body language
√ How to tell if someone is really attracted to you – or if it’s
all in your head
√ Ways you can frame your pricing so that clients will know it’s
the right price for them
√ How to seat yourself across the table from your prospect so that
you maximize your potential for a sale
√ Simple ways to look, act, dress and smell that will give you an
extra edge in your business and personal life
Like it or not, we subconsciously judge people all the time based
on their body language and appearance. By being aware of the
nonverbal signals you’re sending out to others, you can make sure
you’re putting your best foot forward every day. This hour-long
interview is packed with useful information.
Michael: How did you first become interested in persuasion?
Kevin: Back when I was a kid, I grew up in Chicago; we grew up
pretty poor. Life was not great; my dad had left when I was 4 or 5
years old and so I didn’t really have any money. So from a very
young age, I learned to start little teeny businesses like I sold
greeting cards, Christmas cards; I’d shovel people’s driveways; I
would cut people’s lawns; I would pick people’s weeds, all
depending on how old I was and what skills I had or developed. But
when I was selling things I found I was making more money and it
was really strange, even as a kid, like 11, 12, 13 years old, I
realized that, hmm, some of these people should have bought these
greeting cards because everybody needs greeting cards. So why are
only half the people buying from me? So I started to think about
that and actually as an 11, 12 year old kid started to read like
Napoleon Hill and “Success Through a Positive Mental Attitude” with
Clement Stone and so I started reading all this stuff as a little
kid. I even read a couple of books on hypnosis as a kid, and one
by Ormond McGill and it became fascination. And then I stayed in
sales related stuff through college; college is where I picked up
the real fascination in non-verbal communication, which turns out
to be the most crucial piece of persuasion. It’s not necessarily
all the words on the web site; it’s the nuances on the web sites
that sell. It’s not necessarily the words you say to your
prospect, it’s the nuances, the environment; the waitresses where
you sit, all that stuff and so everything became fascinating when I
started taking these non-verbal communication classes and I
actually took part in research projects. That was a blast. I was
like, oh my gosh, just like what you dress like and what you look
like and how attractive you are or aren’t; all that stuff
influences. It changes everything; for attractive people, they
live in one world; unattractive live in another. Wealthy people
live in one world, poor people live in another one. But the
perceptions that people have are formed so instantaneously whether
it’s your web site, or whether it’s an ad on TV, or whatever;
things influence people without them even being aware of it. And
so it just became fascinating to me from being a little kid and it
never stops. Every day I see stuff that’s like, oh my gosh, does
that really work? Back in the late 70′s through the late 80′s,
there were some basic non-verbal communication and human
interaction-type classes; there were social attitude classes, the
formation of social attitude, persuasion in groups. At the time
there had been a really powerful study done by Philip Zimbardo out
in California with the famous prison experiment where half the kids
were guards and half the kids were inmates. And this experiment
was done right after Viet Nam and it was a very protest time. It
was really a pretty interesting time and so people started to go,
hmm, that stuff’s really interesting. So it caught on and a lot of
the stuff that people didn’t want to talk about that was sort of
like the hidden persuaders, the Vance Packard and the true believe
of Hoffer and all that kind of stuff; they actually started
studying and putting it into college curriculum. Now today you
won’t see a lot of the stuff that I read about in psychology but
you’ll see it in neuron-psychology or you’ll see it in consumer
behavior classes. A lot of the research that I do is in medical.
For example, like what does a doctor do in a specific situation;
how does he present options to a patient? And how the patient will
decide or the doctor will decide what to do based upon how the
information was presented. So the stuff is not quite as secret as
you might think but I will say that it’s not easy to get because
it’s extremely expensive to get this kind of information. You
either have to be in that University learning from that professor
or you have to be able to afford to subscribe to the academic
journals, which are really spendy. So I do have a nice edge over
the competition who might be talking about NLP or hypnosis or old
fashioned selling techniques because I don’t even think in those
terms any more. And for me everything is about all of the new
information that’s come out in the last 20 years and I have to
actually think back to how to sell; the old models of selling.
Because they’re not that relevant to me anymore. And actually they
shouldn’t be for most people because there’s so much better stuff
out there.
Michael: Let’s say you’re at a party and someone comes up to you
and says, nice to meet you, Kevin, so what do you do? What do you
say?
Kevin: If you’re at a party, then literally this is potential
clientele here. I’m Kevin Hogan; I’m an author. I wrote the book
“The Psychology of Persuasion”. What’s your name? John Smith.
John, nice to meet you, Kevin Hogan. I wrote “The Psychology of
Persuasion”. You haven’t seen it probably; have you? You know
that’s the great way you drill his name into your head and you’ve
introduced the fact that you are author. And by the way, if this
is going to be listened to by consultants, every single consultant
out there should be a writer, too, because unless you’re a TV star,
which most of us aren’t, or a radio star, which most of us aren’t,
people love to talk with authors, whether it’s the author of
magazine articles or whether it’s the author of a book. And the
perception of credibility for consulting goes way high when you can
say, author of this book. One of the great things you have an
opportunity to do when you say that is, have you read it yet? And
they’ll say no. You say, oh it just came out. What’s your
address? I’ll send you a copy in the morning, autographed and
everything. And then you just have built a relationship in a way
that nobody ever thinks. Basically what you’ve just done is you’ve
created a relationship; you’re giving the person a gift, and the
person is going to respond with thank you. And you’re going to
drop them a note back, follow up on it and literally you’ll build
relationships like that which nobody does this kind of stuff.
Michael: Have you done that quite a bit?
Kevin: No, because that’s not my world. I have people who do it
with my work that I license my work to that are consultants. For
example, my book, “The Psychology of Persuasion” has done pretty
well around the world, and so I have licensees around the world.
And what they’ll do is, for example, they will send a copy of my
book, because they’re licensed to teach my material and train it to
companies or to individuals. So they’ll take Federal Express,
they’ll put a copy of my book into it and they will send it to John
Smith, CEO of Smith Corporation and then 2 days later, they’ll
say, hey did you get a copy of “The Psychology of Persuasion”? And
the guy will say yes, and they get appointments for whatever
business they’re in, whether they’re going to be consulting or
training or doing a seminar for the company. They get an
appointment to go in and work with the person. I literally do
almost no networking in real life. I’m sort of like Elvis where
they bring you in behind the kitchen, you go out there, you do your
thing, and you’re gone in 2 hours and you’re off on the plane to
the next place.
You’re listening to an exclusive interview found on Michael
Senoff’s www.hardtofindseminars.com.
Michael: How do you have your consulting business set up?
Kevin: Well first of all you should sort of understand that I do a
lot of things; I write, I create CD programs which are pretty cool,
I do consulting with about 2 dozen people around the world on a
regular basis (some are company owners and some are people who are
sales people; other people they just want to have a better life)
but I prefer to be in helping people how to build money because
that’s really my preference right now. But influence in selling
techniques is certainly really relevant, too. But I’m not actively
pursuing business right now and if I do, it’s through Internet.
70% of income that I personally take in is probably through the
e-zine, “Coffee with Kevin Hogan” and our web site combined.
Michael: You’re saying through your Internet web sit and your
e-zine would you consider this one of your most effective ways of
getting new clients?
Kevin: There’s nothing even close. The ability to develop that
relationship when people get something as massive quality, I just
dressed up on the e-zines. Most of them are really not very good
because they miss the point of what an e-zine is. An e-zine should
sort of be a personalized conversation with a singular person and
in my e-zine every week, I tell them what I watched on TV that week
or I’ll tell them that I was in Vegas if I was in Vegas, or
wherever I was. And just a couple lines, I saw this show, saw Love
at the Mirage with the Beatles, Cirq K de Soleil, it was really
cool and go there when you’re in town. If I ate at a really cool
restaurant, I’ll say I ate over at Emeril’s, man you’ve got to go
there, that was just really good. If I took my son somewhere else,
I’ll say we went to Treasure Island and watched the sirens. You
should bring your kids over there if you have the kids in town;
stuff like that. And then people get to know you, they get to know
your weaknesses, which is really important, and that you’re a real
person and that you’re not Superman and that you communicate like a
person who has challenges in life; that stuff goes wrong. The IRS
audited us, yuck, I hated that; or whatever. And then go in and
talk to people, give people valuable information, articles, but
some of the articles you’ll see on the Internet which are re-sale
articles, I mean really cool stuff that they couldn’t get anywhere
else if they tried. And then you set yourself apart. And you’re
always welcome to put a little commercial into your e-zine as well
at some point, usually towards the bottom is good. Let people get
through it; develop the relationship; don’t try to get rich fast.
Getting rich slow is the same.
Michael: So you said something really important. If the consultant
is out there prospecting, it’s important to let their target as you
would say, or their prospect know that you’ve got weaknesses and
that you’re only human. Will this better the consultant’s chance
of gaining trust and getting the person to like him and potentially
getting the client rather than acting other than you really are?
Kevin: The greatest concern that you and I have when somebody comes
to our door or we buy something; and by the way, this is probably
one of the most researched areas that are out there right now.
Doctor Erik Knowles down at the University of Arkansas has done a
lot of research into this specific area that you’re talking about
right now and it’s called an Omega Strategy. It’s a strategy that
has nothing to do with creating more value with your product or
your proposal. And what that means is, if I say Kevin Hogan,
author of “The Psychology of Persuasion”, a guy says I do something
which is something I know nothing about, cars, okay so he says, I
run a car dealership with special cars that nobody else buys
anywhere. So I don’t know anything about cars except for that they
run. So this is good and I can say that. I say you know I’m car
ignorant but I’m sales wise. Literally by telling people your
weaknesses or letting people know that you don’t have a perfect
success record; that you have been successful in these areas but
perhaps not that area. All the nuclear defense missiles go down,
the person realizes they’re talking to somebody who’s honest,
they’re talking to somebody who isn’t B.S.ing them, it’s like hey,
the guy just told me he’s not perfect. So I don’t have to go try
to find his imperfection. It goes a long way towards not only
building rapport but making sales. And yes, it’s documented, 2 to
3 times more money probably per person if you use that kind of a
concept.
Michael: How can one read the body language of the opposite sex and
know for absolute sure if they like you or are attracted to you?
Kevin: Absolute sure is a tough qualification but let’s just speak
with general, more broad terms like how can you have the best idea
possible. If you’re a man and you’re communicating with a woman,
there are a few things that are typically misunderstood because
there are such huge differences. So if you want to know if a woman
likes you and if she’s sort of leaning into your conversation with
her hand under her chin, she probably is actually just bored to
tears and this is the exact opposite of how men communicate with
men. Men, if we’re interested with each other, we might lean over
the table and bend into the conversation and say, oh yes that’s
really interesting. But women are the opposite; when they become
interested, they sit back and they say, huh! And then that’s real.
And women also tend to smile more than men but we tend to get the
wrong impression as men. We think, oh she’s in love with me. If
she accidentally touches you, we tend to think she’s in love.
These are the things that are true. Women do a lot of things to be
friendly on purpose or to be nice on purpose; they feel sorry for
us, it’s that maternal instinct. But when a woman moves into your
space and she actually comes closer to you after you have been
standing or sitting somewhere, or she gets up and goes to use the
restroom and comes back to the table and then she positions herself
in such a way that she’s closer to you sittedly, now you know
factually that this person likes you more. Women are very
space-oriented, territorial creatures. So can you be absolutely
positive? No, there are a few psycho’s left in the world, but
generally speaking, if a woman moves into your space, and she’s
significantly closer than she was before; especially if she comes
up, looks at you eye-to-eye 18 inches away or less, you can
virtually guarantee that person has a very strong interest and it’s
not in business.
Michael: Very good; how can one identify deception immediately?
Let’s say a consultant goes out and he’s meeting with a client and
he’s asking probing questions and he’s getting answers. Are there
some techniques that we can sense that the client is telling the
truth?
Kevin: There’s a few things; if you’re talking with somebody and
they have something to gain by deceiving you, when they start to
deceive you, their heart rate will increase, blood flow will go
into their face and it will go up by the nose and above the nose
between the eyebrows and it will also go into the ears and so
you’ll literally see visually their face redden. It’s really
pretty amazing. Another thing that happens when people deceive is
their pupils tend to get smaller as you’re looking and so that’s a
really pretty cool cue.
Michael: Why does that happen physiologically?
Kevin: Generally speaking when people are trying to take in the
environment, their pupils will get larger and generally speaking
when people like you, their pupils get larger; but when they’re
deceiving you there is a fear constriction. And when you’re
afraid, when you’re trying to think in straight lies, for some the
pupils get smaller and it does. And it’s something that you can
watch. And then if you notice that a person is taking their index
finger or their middle finger and kind of touching their nose or
their earlobe, those are the places that get the most itchy, if you
will, when people have a lot of blood flow to the head. And what’s
really interesting, by the way, just hearing about deception and
thinking about deception, actually causes these physiological
changes in people. So anybody who’s listening right now actually
probably feels their nose itching and their ear itching and will
probably scratch it and touch it with their middle or first finger.
It’s really an amazing phenomenon. And another is if you see that
somebody is using too much eye contact, they’re with you all the
time, that is a pretty good sign that something is wrong. Usually
people are concerned when they’re being evaluated or they’re judged
and so they tend to look away and they look down. But people who
are deceiving on purpose; somebody comes to your door, they look at
your with perfect eye contact for more than 75-85% of the time, you
can generally know that there’s some real good quality deception
going on there. You may not be able to figure out what it is, but
you can usually figure out that it’s there. There are other stuff
but those are some easy ones.
Michael: Are telling stories to clients a powerful tool to use
during a sales presentation?
Kevin: It can be. Most people tell crummy stories that they think
are really interesting. Let me give you a quick example both ways.
If you can remember that you told the story and the response was,
you know I had something like that happen to me except for I had
twice as much cars on the highway that were crashed, then your
story meant nothing and so that kind of story, the story that you
haven’t tested in front of somebody, trying to communicate, how you
communicate it. Usually people tell stories at a sale because
they’re not what is necessary for the sales presentation. On the
other hand, if you tell a story that is uniquely relevant to the
person and is often self-deprecating in humor, in other words it’s
picking on Kevin. I tell a story and if it picks on me; I’ve got
to confess, this is how I made a lot of sales when I was in
face-to-face sales for advertising. I did a lot of
self-deprecating stories, very short, tight, 2-minute stories that
were not possible to be bored in and had really cute, cool
finishes, all very true and very real.
For more exclusive interviews on business, marketing, advertising
and copywriting, go to Michael Senoff’s www.hardtofindseminars.com.
Michael: Have you had any success using PowerPoint presentations?
Kevin: This is a great question. It’s self-deprecating and this
one’s not on purpose. For years I have taught other speakers and
presenters and managers/trainers to not use PowerPoint. Then a few
years ago, my friend Jeffrey Giddemer, I watched him do a gig at
Caesar’s Palace where he used PowerPoint beautifully. And I
thought, gosh, maybe I’m wrong. Well, this year I took PowerPoint
and I did about 7 or 8 presentations with PowerPoint and I found
that I really shouldn’t have. For whatever reason, Jeffrey’s
approach is very special. But the best way for people to like you,
the best way for them to buy you, because they’re going to buy you
before they even think about what you’re selling; especially if
you’re a sales consultant; is probably not use PowerPoint. To look
the person in the eye, to talk with them, to get to know them and
to show your value as a person. Could you have PowerPoint with
you? Sure, if they want to see something on PowerPoint can you
then turn the computer on and show them? You bet. But to make it
a presentation every single time, I think is a big mistake because
it takes away the strength, if there’s any strength in your
presentation. It really is you as a person is the connection
that’s going to be made for the long term. I don’t regret totally
using the PowerPoint this year for experimental purposes but I
probably won’t for a long, long time. It’s not an easy thing to do
well and it takes away from almost everybody who uses it and it
takes away from the persona and the presence that you have and
makes you like everybody else; indiscernible from all the other
people who are competing for similar business. Be you. Sit in
front of the person; have weaknesses; show your strengths; show
your certainty; show your uncertainty; show who you are; show your
character and let the person pick you and not your PowerPoint
presentation. Always be prepared for other stuff, but stay away
from it. There’s rarely a reason that PowerPoint is necessary.
Michael: What did you notice Jeffrey Giddemer was doing that was
unique in his PowerPoint presentation?
Kevin: A lot of things. He’s a friend of mine so I’ve watched him
actually build his PowerPoint presentations and he built new ones
all the time. And he does a few things that are really cool. He
only uses 1 or 2 words each slide, if he uses words. He will use a
lot of photos of baseball players or people who were first. Like
he’ll have a photo of Neil Armstrong, a photo of Marilyn Monroe, a
photo of people who were first or best at what they did. And
people who were winners at what they did; people that we all
identify with like Abraham Lincoln and Roosevelt. But he stays
away from current political figures and things like that. But his
photo’s all had a purpose. He never looked at his PowerPoint while
he was presenting. He was in front of the audience and he would
push the next frame button and then he knew the frame that was on
the PowerPoint but he continued to look at me in the audience.
Michael: He was putting people in _____, he knew exactly, creating
vision during his presentation.
Kevin: Exactly; the difference between what I did, because I
basically modeled how he did it except for the fact that I walk
around a lot when I talk verbally, mentally. I mean, I might go
off on a tangent but Jeffery never goes off on a tangent because he
has his PowerPoint and he can’t go off on a tangent. He has it
prepared; he knows what he’s going to do next and he has this down
like an actor. He knows exactly what is going to come next.
Whereas for me, I actually had to peek over my shoulder and look up
at the PowerPoint which means I’m subservient to what’s on the
wall. And that takes away from you. But if you want to do it
right, if you want to take a chance on PowerPoint then do it so you
don’t ever have to look at it, but that it gives you like the
backup band. You know, it’s the guitar and drummer; it’s back
there for backup. But Elvis is on the front of the stage; Elton
John is on the front of the stage; the orchestra is not visible or
is barely visible. That’s what you want to do. That’s what
Jeffery does real well with it and I don’t think I’ve ever seen
anybody, gosh I hope you’re not listening guys, but I don’t think
I’ve ever seen anybody else use it very well at all.
Michael: I did an interview with Glen Turner and I’m almost
positive, I just have to double check the transcripts, but I think
he said Jeffery was really inspired by Glen Turner. There was this
one video presentation that Glen Turner put out, this was many
years ago, that Jeffery Giddemer supposedly watched 200 times and
really helped him launch his whole career.
Kevin: You know, I think that’s true for a lot of people. I know
it’s true for me. My goodness, we all have our heroes and our
idols in our profession and I know that I drilled a half a dozen
different voices into my head for 10 years. I listened to the same
CDs over and over and over and over and over; and they become part
of you. I haven’t asked Jeffery about that, but it wouldn’t
surprise me. I know he loved Earl Nightingale, and I know he
listened to “The Strangest Secret” hundreds of times.
Michael: That’s probably it. Have you ever listened to Glen
Turner?
Kevin: No, I haven’t.
Michael: Do you know who he is?
Kevin: I’ve heard the name but I can’t identify him.
Michael: There was a book written about him called “Con Man or
Saint”. He started his own MLM company called Cost Dot. This was
back in the 60′s where they were selling mink oil. But he was just
a real rags to riches guy. He was the son of a sharecropper, just
a great story. And this guy was one amazing salesmen. They used
to call him a con man but the vision this guy talks and the
emotion; it would be a lesson even for you. It’s incredible.
Kevin: Where would you find it?
Michael: I’ve got some audio of his on my site. I’ve done
interviews with him and I’ve got a product that we kind of put
together from some of his old speeches. They’re incredible; I’ll
send you a link. I’d love your feedback on this guy’s speech.
There’s this one speech, and I forgot what it’s called; the Red
Suit Speech, he’s in this red suit. And I’ve got the audio of it,
but he said after he would do this speech and this is recruiting
people into his multi-level marketing company. He’d fly all across
the world and he’d do the same one over and over again. And he
said people would be running up to him with fistful of cash; it was
unbelievable.
Kevin: You know, I have not heard the name. I mean, I’ve heard the
name but I haven’t heard what he did and I can’t wait.
Michael: You’ll be into this. Okay, listening for the nuances and
the way he creates vision and emotion; it’s powerful stuff. Okay,
I did an interview with a guy named Jim Camp, have you ever heard
of him? He’s a negotiating expert and he’s got a firm where he
does negotiating and works with governments and such. And he’s got
a real different view on negotiating and in the interview he kind
of pooh-pooh’s tactics and he says all his negotiations are
principle-based. He says tactics can get you into trouble. Any
feedback on that?
Kevin: Yes, tactics; it’s just an interesting question. When
you’re working with principles like Stephen Covey’s Seven
Principles, as long as you’re working within those principles and
ethics and then you utilize tactics, there’s everything right about
that. My best friends know that unconsciously I’m doing this all
the time and they don’t even ask anymore, are you trying to
persuade me? I’m sure I am; I just don’t know how or what I’m
doing at the moment because it’s just so drilled into who I am. I
think when you think about it like this: my son, if he’s on his
bicycle and there’s a car coming at him, I’m going to use very
specific words and tactics that I know are effective in getting
people to instantaneously do what I tell them to do. And so I will
say, son, quickly come back here, instantly, now! That’s a tactic.
And there are hundreds of quality tactics to make business happen
now. But it’s very much like some of the seduction stuff that’s how
there. I like the seduction material because the seduction
material basically does one thing; it gets you the first date. But
seduction material doesn’t work the second time. Everything that’s
a tactic gets the first appointment; gets the first date. But
after that, it’s your character, it’s who you are, it’s something
about you that’s special or unique that makes you different from
everybody else, that gets you the second date, the second
appointment, the business in the future. So, no, I guess I would
have to disagree completely.
Michael: Okay, when you’re selling your consulting services or
maybe in the beginning of your career and you were selling
consulting services, were you specifically trying to close deals in
your consulting practice or are you actually persuading people to
ask you to do business with them? And what’s the difference?
Kevin: I never really thought that much about closing. You know, I
listen to Zig Zigler “Secrets to Closing the Sale” and I loved that
set; it was really cool, lots of cool stories and stuff to close
sales. But I think if people think in terms of closing sales, from
a tactical point, that’s probably an error. I walk into every
conversation with an assumption that is, if I’m talking to this
person, why would they do business with anybody else? It’s not
arrogance; it’s just that Kevin Hogan is going to work harder for
that person and give them more value and more information than
anybody. I mean, I really believe this is who I am. If Kendrick
comes out with a product and I think it’s awesome, I’ll come out
with a better one because I don’t want Kendrick to have the best
product out there. I’ll have the best one. That’s just how I am
and I think if people believe the same thing, it’s not even
believing in yourself. You are going to work harder for this
person than anybody else so why the heck would somebody do business
with anybody else? So it’s not even persuading; it’s almost like
an attitude. And so I always think about things happening fast.
In the sales presentation, I never talked for a long time, I just
said this is what I have, this is what it does, let’s do this right
now. And then talk about baseball. It never dawned on me to try
to force the close or anything like that. I would try to build
rapport, intentionally on purpose at first, and things like that.
Michael: Let’s talk about that. What would you recommend a
consultant do on a first time, face-to-face meeting to make a great
first impression and build rapport?
Kevin: Well, there are some things that we know from research that
work real well and there are some strategies that I’ve used over
the years that happen to have either been lucky, intuitive, or
whatever. One thing is, whenever I would meet people, especially
if I could meet them at a restaurant, I would always arrive early
and sit at the back of the restaurant, facing every other human
being in the restaurant so that the person who was coming to meet
me or if it was the manager of the store or whatever, they would be
obligated to sit directly across from me and the only thing that
they could see was me; that was it. They might be able to hear
their employees in the background or hear stuff happening in the
background but they couldn’t actually see anything; so I had 100%
of the attention and I had essentially a perception that I was
totally in control of the environment, which was real nice. So
that’s the first thing that I would recommend somebody would do.
The second thing is that, if you have a choice of where to take
people, there are some things that we factually know are more
likely to sell. If you take people to a restaurant that has dimly
lit lights, the probability of getting yes at the end of your
proposal, presentation, whatever it is, is significantly greater
than if you take a person to a restaurant that is well lit.
Michael: Why is that?
Kevin: Because when lighting is down, the pupils expand in size and
when I look at you, I see pupils that are large and unconsciously,
nobody necessarily tells us this in school, we just know this from
looking at babies that babies always have these big eyes, they’re
happy. And we literally have all these powerful, wonderful
associations to huge eyes. And when you look at a person in dim
lights, their eyes are really quite large. And there is a feeling
that people get inside, a sense that they’re comfortable, that
things are good, that this is okay, I like this person, they like
me. Talk about tactics, that’s one of my all time favorite
tactics, is that combination of dim lights and seating position in
a restaurant. That’s worth 50 dollars if people would just do
that.
Michael: How about this? How about seating arrangements for
man-to-man or man-to-woman and woman-to-woman?
Kevin: It matters a lot. This is so important. Let’s just talk
about probably the most important thing in seating first, which is
that if you have a right handed person that you’re working with as
opposed to a lefty, if you’re working with a right handed person,
you want to be off to their right. And the reason is that it
activates their left brain more when they’re looking at you. Their
left brain is a little more logical, it’s a little more linear,
it’s able to be convinced by logic and rational thinking. The
right brain is sort of the storehouse of emotional memory,
autobiography, feelings, all that kind of stuff. And all that’s
great but you don’t really want to be setting off all those
emotional feelings and all that when you’re meeting somebody in a
sales presentation because if you do, you’re probably going to set
off bad feelings and bad memories. Most people’s most powerful
emotions are negative and that is a shame but that’s the way it
really is. So the first thing you do no matter who it is, is you
try to be off to their right, if they’re right handed. I’m not
even talking about the left. You can go to my web site and there
are all kinds of stuff about that there. And then if you’re
dealing with men, you’re probably best to not be too close. Men
want to have about 6 feet between each other. So if you have a
choice between a little teeny table and a big booth, you should
choose the big booth. If you have the choice between a booth and a
table that’s about 4, 5, 6 feet where people are further apart from
each other, you want to do that. If you’re at a small table, men
are going to be very uncomfortable. Men are very adversarial and
so if you can make your presentation on a right angle, so in other
words, the man is in position A and you’re off to his right at
3:00, that’s ideal. So you’re on like a 90 degree angle and your
justification is so you can show him your portfolio or your
PowerPoint presentation or whatever it is you want to show him.
You don’t want to be too close to him but you don’t want to be
directly across the chessboard from him either, because men are
very confrontational. Women, on the other hand, women are like
relationship creatures. They want to be directly across from each
other and talking and looking at each other. They have huge long
eye contact; they like to be much closer than men. A woman can be
4 feet across from another woman or 3 ½ feet across from another
woman if she likes her and there is no problem with that at all.
Face-to-face works the best. Interestingly for women they can also
be side to side, very close, and successfully you can have a sale
made from a presentation side to side. You can’t do that with a
guy though; it’s not going to work. By the way, this is partially
contact dependence. If you’re at a sports arena, if you’re at a
baseball game and you’re seated next to a guy, you guys can talk
business and close the deal, no problem. But if where you have a
chance to be in a different location, like I could be further away
from this guy, I can’t do that at the baseball stadium. If I go to
the Cubs game, I’m sitting in the seat right next to him and we can
do business right there because we’re guys and we know that’s cool
and we didn’t purposely sit ourselves right next to each other.
We’re not too close to each other. But women can intentionally sit
next to each other and actually transact business like that, almost
as easily as they can face to face.
Michael: That’s great stuff. What does it mean to send appropriate
body language with your message?
Kevin: There are a lot of mistakes that people make with their body
language. Men are body language idiots. I’m actually going to do
this while I’m talking with you. If you think back to how men act
around other people, they’ll sit on a chair and the chair will have
the back of the chair but they’ll sit with their stomach facing the
back of the chair. Their legs will then be spread as far as they
possible can from each other. So I have a knee and a knee, and
there’s like 3 ½ feet between my knees.
Michael: You don’t want to do that in a meeting, huh?
Kevin: It’s not a good thing, but I’m telling you I’ve seen this
and I’ve seen other things. I’ve walked into offices where people
will do that, but I’ve seen where a man will put his feet up, his
shoes up on his desk or on a desk or meeting table, and then he’ll
lean back and everybody else will be sitting at the table. Now
this person is obviously the power person but it’s a major faux pas
because, there’s nothing wrong with that; I love to sit back and
lay down, too. People come to my house, I’ve got a couch, I’m
laying on my couch, that’s not unusual here. And it’s probably a
faux pas but I’m not trying to close a sale or to make a sale or to
build a business here in my house. You do that in business and
people might say yes to you if they have to, but they’re not going
to like you because you are intentionally putting them down.
Michael: Your job should be to more mirror them and be like them
rather than be different?
Kevin: That’s it. If you have a chance, the most respectful and
honorable thing that you can do for another person is to model
their body positioning and to make them feel comfortable, to let
them know that you’re not a threat; that you don’t look down on
them, you respect them, you care about them. And so you literally
want to be like them. And the great thing is, if somebody ever
says, hey are you doing that modeling, mirroring, synchronization,
matching, pacing, leading, whatever you want to call it, on me?
I’d always say yes, absolutely, I want you to feel good. Is it
working? And then they can either say yes or no and I’ll say what
do you want me to do?
Michael: Do you have people really pick up on your modeling and
mirroring them?
Kevin: No.
Michael: Okay, that would be funny. Do people really make snap
judgments about people within the first 4 seconds?
Kevin: Yes, I mean you know who you’re going to marry in the first
4 seconds essentially. Yes, but before a person opens their mouth,
you’ve already decided whether you’re going to buy them for the
most part. When you walked in to the office or into the store or
the restaurant or wherever you’re at, and the person sees you, the
way that you walk, the presence that you have, the aura that
surrounds you, how you walk, how you carry your body; are you
carrying it really comfortably, are you carrying it like a military
colonel, are you carrying it like a guy from the hood? If that
fits with what the other person likes, then they are really likely
to do business with you. And if it doesn’t fit, your chances of
overcoming it are very, very, very difficult. PowerPoint’s not
going to cut it. So yes, and you know, it’s interesting; in 1999 I
ran a speed dating course, I did a couple of these, and I did them
here at the Learning Annex in Minneapolis and I called Pierce and I
said I want do a speed dating course. And she’s like, what? And
I’m like, I want to test to see how fast people know if they like
somebody or not. And she’s like, cool, because that will make them
money. And sure enough, we drew a ton of people. Speed dating
works like this. The woman actually sits down at her table and
then she’s going to have 15 dates in the next 60 minutes; 15 dates
with 15 different guys in the next 60 minutes. And so what happens
is the guy goes and he sits down and he starts talking to the girl
and they decide whether or not they’re going to like each other.
They don’t tell each other that but at the end of the date, they
have a comment card, like a customer comment card from McDonalds
and on the back of it, it just says do you want this person’s phone
number, yes or no. And then at the top it says the person’s name.
And what happens is that men want about 70% of the women’s phone
numbers. Women want about 10% of the men’s phone numbers. And
women almost as quickly as men decide whether they would ever want
to go out with this person again or not. And most women, when I
interviewed them after the class, told me that they didn’t need 4
minutes.
Michael: They didn’t need 4 minutes; they could tell instantly.
Kevin: Within 30 seconds most of them were telling me whether they
wanted to go on a date again. And dating is a lot more personal
than making a sale.
Michael: Now had you heard of this speed dating?
Kevin: Yes, because there was a Jewish web site that I was reading.
Michael: J-date?
Kevin: I don’t remember, this was 7 years ago and it’s old but it
could have been J-date. But anyway I was reading it and I thought
this is a cool idea. I’ve always been interested in Judaism, I was
doing some research on the Bible and I came across this page
because I was looking about women and Jewish and there it was. And
it was like, oh it’s cool. That was where I go the idea. It’s not
like I invented this or anything.
Michael: It’s a great technique because it could sure save the
people out in the dating marketing a lot of time.
Kevin: And you know, Doctor Knowles down in Arizona, I had
mentioned him earlier; he’s really one of my idols and sort of an
influence in the persuasion world, and he’s done some research on a
concept called oscillation that we sort of go back and forth in the
course of a minute several times as to whether or not we want to
say yes or no to a proposal. And really nothing changes after the
first minute that’s going to be different in the 7th minute or the
12th minute or the 16th minute except the probability of making the
sale. It can have more variables come into the situation. So what
I’m saying is that, all things being equal, you should get the name
on the piece of paper like in 3 minutes, 2 minutes, 1 minute, 4
minutes whatever, fast because variables will start to enter in to
the equation. Somebody will walk in the door, the telephone will
ring, the door bell will go off, the person will have to go to the
bathroom. And generally speaking, as a rule of thumb,
interruptions rarely are, hey John, you just won the lottery.
You’re seldom happier after an interruption happens so generally
speaking the first 4 seconds determine whether the person likes you
or not. In the first 30 seconds they decide whether they’re going
to buy from you or not. And then once they’ve decided to buy,
that’s fine, buy. And then talk about the Cubs afterwards.
Michael: I’ve got a question for you. You know we’ve got
consultants all over the world. I don’t know what they look like
but how can physical looks be hurting their chance in their
consulting practice? And you can be hard on them and give them
some tips on how they can increase their chances by changing any
kind of physical look or clothes they wear or anything like that.
Kevin: There are a lot of unfortunate things that happen to us poor
guys out there. One is we start to lose our hair. Balding men
make fewer sales than men with hair. That’s number one. Number
two is tall men make more money, about $3,000 annually per year for
every inch that they are taller than someone else. So a person
who’s 6’4″ on average is going to make $12,000 a year more than
somebody who’s 6′ tall. The same thing is true with women.
Shorter women, if you’re 5′ even, you’re going to make about
$10,000 less than a woman who’s 5’4″. So the first thing you have
do is recognize height and it’s always a really smart idea if
you’re going to wear shoes, wear a lift that’s going to buy you an
extra ½” or an 1″ in your shoes if you’re trying to make a sale.
And if you can actually walk on it. That’s number one. Number two
is the way that you’re dressed. Generally speaking, people want to
see you dressed as well as they are plus one. In other words, I
used to sell advertising to a lot of different places like gas
stations, so I’d walk into a gas station and I would not wear my
tie, I would not wear a coat into a gas station. I’d take my coat
and tie off, stick it in the car and I’d walk in with an open
shirt. I would look nice but I would not look too many notches
higher than the owner of the gas station would. Does that make
sense? Because what happens when you walk in with a coat and a
tie, you look like the church people from down the road trying to
get you into their church and people take offense that you would be
dressed that much nicer than them. Also the fewer people involved
in a meeting, the more you want to be dressed like the people. The
more people, if you’ve got 100 people, if you’ve got to make a
presentation, you do have to dress to the highest person’s dress.
So in other words, if there’s going to be one guy that always wears
a suit and tie and everybody else is going to come business casual,
you’re still going to wear a suit and tie. Boy, there are so many
things people can do for their looks. Pounds per square inch
matters on the human body in sales. The more that we weigh, the
less sales we make. Even if I’m sitting at dinner across from a
man and he is 350 pounds. The poor guy is just way overweight, no
control over his eating or whatever. Let’s say that the sales
person’s 300 pounds, so it’s a 300 pound sales person sitting
across from a 350 business owner. Well, the fact of the matter is
that the 350 pound business owner looks at the 300 pound salesman
and goes, gosh he’s fat. Wait a second, you’re 350 pounds. That’s
the thought process. That’s not how people think; they think YOU
are out of control. Do I really want this person who is out of
control, who has no control telling me how to run my business? And
so the best thing to do is to cut down your weight because it’s the
most controllable variable that we have about our appearance. That
and little things like glasses reduce sales. Another great idea is
teeth whitening. And this is one of the things that I do. I use
Rembrandt and I like the system and it works well and when you
think about it just from a psychological point of view, if you’re
looking at somebody that has really white teeth, you think that
they are on television, they’re a celebrity, that they are people
that are meeting a lot of people often so it just gives you a
psychological advantage. Interestingly, I don’t think that there’s
been a controlled study done. It would be a pretty tough study to
do, but it just makes sense to have white teeth.
Michael: How about colognes and perfumes?
Kevin: Boy, men and women are all terrible at this. I’ve competed
with a lot of men over the years for sales and it’s really
interesting where a guy would go into the office and 10 minutes
later, I’ll walk in and I can still smell his after shave, which
means that he is not going to get the sale and I will. So that’s
why he left and I still had the appointment. And women do the same
thing. If you walk into Dayton’s or Macy’s, it’s terrible. Maybe
the sense has just died but there are a lot of people that first of
all find that unhealthy and literally you’re shutting down sales
and doing business with people simply because there are a lot of
people that believe all that stuff is toxic, as odd as that may
sound. There’s about 10% of the population there that don’t wear
any cologne. They just use a nice deodorant and that’s it.
Michael: What are some ways a consultant can use their hands in
communication that will work for them?
Kevin: Good question. There are a few things that you can do with
your hands. There’s something I call the Clinton Box. The Clinton
Box is sort of a cute little way to remember what to do with your
hands. Bill Clinton, back in the 90′s was known to get in a little
bit of trouble with people because of his hands. So you want to
always keep your hands above your waist and then there’s above your
shoulder line. Above your neck, you don’t ever want to touch
anything above your neck while you’re communicating with another
person. There’s nothing good that you can touch above your
shoulder line that is going to help you get this piece of business;
get this person to date you; whatever. They’re not going to do it.
You don’t touch your face, you don’t touch your hair, you don’t
touch your nose, you don’t touch your ear, you touch nothing. And
then from side to side. The furthest part of your shoulder
straight down to the floor is where you don’t want to put your
hands outside of. So in other words, if you were to extend your
hands all the way as far as you possibly could, they would be 6
feet from end to end and you would probably not make the sale. But
if you keep your hands in the Clinton Box and you don’t put them
outside, you look like you’re in control. You actually know what
you’re doing. You appear more competent. And then if you want to
create good feelings with your hands, you don’t point your finger
at somebody with anything other than a cute, nice smile.
Otherwise, it’s like, oh my gosh, that guy’s like my mom was. It’s
not a good thing. And then if your palms can be face up towards
your audience or towards the person you’re talking to, as opposed
to face down, you win. Palms face up is almost like what we were
talking about in the restaurant with the dimming lights and all
that. There’s sort of an unconscious response with people when
they see a person’s hands and they’re gently up and comfortable,
not like extended and tight and straight out. But just hands that
are face up, palms face up; generally it causes a good feeling in
other people. It’s a very vulnerable position. People with hands
closed, hands in a fist, hands that are touching each other, all
that stuff just doesn’t work very well. There’s more. Your hands
should be clean. If you’re working with women, women notice hands
and hands for whatever reason are very, very, very important to
women. Probably because they put a lot of time in on their own.
And they look at your hands and they judge you based upon what your
hands look like, in addition to your face, too of course. I wrote
one book, Michael, “Irresistible Attraction”, and I’ll never forget
one of the interviews I did with women. They say, we spend almost
two hours in front of the mirror getting ready for you. Would you
guys please spend two minutes in front of the mirror getting ready
for us? And I thought, gosh, that’s a really good point. And so
literally just making sure that you’re presentable. And men tend
to overlook this and of course, they just don’t think about it.
We’re very task oriented. We’re not sitting there thinking, oh is
my hair in place or do I have anything in my teeth, which is an
instant no-sale if you do. All those kinds of things, but anyway,
hands are really important.
Michael: What is a gesture that signals deception?
Kevin: We mentioned a few earlier. If I scratch my ear or I touch
my ear when we’re talking about a topic that has truth as
relevance. So if you say, so Kev, where were you on the night of
February 14, 1927? And I say, well, I was at the Cubs game and I
touch my ear. You probably know that either, A-I’m lying, or B-I’m
really nervous about that question. So touching your nose,
scratching your nose, touching your earlobe, particularly any part
of your earlobe is a pretty deception gesture. Also two other
things are worth watching. If you’re really good and you can
notice a person’s hands and if you can actually see perspiration on
a person’s hand. You get used to it if you do body language but if
you can’t, don’t try to figure this out. But if you get used to
it, and you all of a sudden see perspiration. You can’t control
the perspiration on your hands no matter how good you are. I can
control just about everything about my body language but I can’t
control my perspiration. And so if I was with somebody else and I
see that their hands are starting to perspire and they glisten
essentially when they’re under this kind of duress. It’s either
super high anxiety or it is deception. It’s often hard to tell the
two apart and you can’t always tell them apart. And the other
thing is their feet. People’s feet will move away from you toward
the exit or where they plan to exit to, even though their body is
positioned towards you. So in other words, we could be sitting
opposite of each other at a table, 180%, you’re sitting there and
I’m sitting here, and then you say, so Kev, how are sales at the
company the last couple of years? They were really terrible and
for whatever reason, I decide to cover this up. I’m going to say,
oh things have been good. Well, there’s an unconscious clue; we
have a flight/fight response inside us from two million years ago
we have this desire to flee right now and our feet will do it. We
won’t do it with our bodies if we’re controlling everything from
our trunk up, but your feet literally will shift toward the door.
Michael: So we may shift our seating position towards the door? Or
cross our legs towards the door?
Kevin: The point of your toes; where are your toes pointed? That’s
what I’m looking at. Not so much my lower body or my legs, but
where do my toes point? I know it’s weird. But one of the things
that I look at when I evaluate politicians or celebrity photos as
to whether they like each other or they don’t like each other,
there’s three things. One of them I do is I look at their feet;
where are their feet positioned in respect to the other person?
Are they angled toward the person or away from the person? And
it’s a remarkable predictor of longevity in their relationships.
Michael: Now is this how you can tell if a person’s covering hidden
feelings or is that another topic?
Kevin: No, that’s a pretty solid predictor. There are a few things
that people will do. People who are with another person for
example, will maybe put their arm around somebody if it’s a man and
a woman. But they won’t be close to each other. There will be
like 3 or 4 inches between their bodies. That’s usually a good
thing so people will attempt to see there.
Michael: How can you tell if another person is covering hidden
feelings?
Kevin: If you’re just looking from the non-verbal aspect, there are
a few things. People don’t like to look at another person when
they’re covering hidden feelings because unconsciously we know that
the longer that we look at that person, the easier we are to read.
And we don’t sit there and think that; it’s just unconscious.
Another thing is that vocal intonation is a lot different. So if
you were to ask me, Kev is everything okay? And I say, yes
everything’s fine. Well then you know everything’s fine. But if I
say yes everything’s fine, or yes everything’s fine (note: both
these sentences are spoken with different intonations), all those
little pacing and intonation differences mean something. There’s a
really cool book out there called “Deep Listening” by Robert Hassel
and he talks a lot about the very specific words that we select
when we’re trying to deceive or to not hurt feelings of other
people. But anyway, for covering up, listen to the intonations;
listen to the differences, how long people have between words they
say in contrast to what they would normally do. Also again, their
body language, their feet would be facing an exit as opposed to you
if they’re uncomfortable and they’re trying to cover something up.
Michael: Is there a preferred presentation order that can increase
my chances of getting a client?
Kevin: This is where stories can pay off. The answer to your
question is, you want to look at a problem but this may not
necessarily be a start. But you want to look at the problem and
then look at multiple ideas. Michael, you might have thought about
this idea, or you might have also thought about that idea, and you
might have thought about this idea and you really don’t know which
one to do and it’s not your fault because how could you. You’re so
close to the situation. Everybody knows that when you’re too close
to a situation you can’t solve it which is why you bring in a
consultant. So that’s how you really want to solve it. Now at the
very, very beginning we walked in to the restaurant, we sat down,
you don’t immediately go, so what’s your problem today? The only
place you do that is the doctor’s office. But you do want to do a
little bit of a diagnostic without getting too deep into the
person’s challenge. Nobody wants to be telling you that their
business has been failing disastrously. This is one of the hardest
things I had to learn. I mean, I’m telling you, it was so hard for
me to do this because I never think in terms of, oh you’re stupid;
just let’s fix it. And so I would get right to the point always.
It’s like, okay so what’s going on here? This, this and this and I
realized I was just a little too fast. So you come back and you
work your way into it. Always give people the factual piece of
information that this is not their fault.
Michael: What is a more powerful motivator? The desire for gain or
the fear of loss and how can my consultants harness that power in
their persuasive message?
Kevin: Great question; just about cross business, cross culture,
cross everything, fear of loss, fear of pain is about 2 to 3 times
more powerful than the desire for gain. So if you were to say, Kev
I’ve got a really cool idea that can help you make an extra
$100,000 this year. You didn’t even get my meter to go up to a
one. It doesn’t do anything; zero. I mean, it’s nothing. So
what? But if you say, hey Kev, I’m concerned. I saw something on
your web site and I’ve got a hunch that it’s going to cost you
$100,000 a year. Now you have my attention.
Michael: That’s great. How can a HMA Marketing Consultant make
their client’s decision to hire them as a consultant permanent?
Kevin: If you want to be hired permanently as a consultant, I think
that you simply create an awesome, (I know this sounds so easy),
you create the awesome relationship. You create an enormous amount
of value. One guy I worked with this year, for example, Michael,
he was unemployed when I started working with him on a mentoring
basis. His name is Paul Thomas over in England; he loves to have
me tell the story so I’ll tell the story. This is a year and 2
months ago. He was literally broke, literally unemployed. Today
he’s making 450 pounds a year on two contracts from now forward and
it’s just because of little things that we did that changed how he
thinks. So one thing I would tell people to think in terms of this
client as becoming your friend in this context. Literally, I mean
like your real friend, like your best friend; somebody that you
would never let anything bad happen to. That’s truly it. And when
you start to look at people and go, this is one of my best friends;
obviously you’re going to do everything you can to figure out stuff
for them. It’s not a tactic; it’s just the best way to run
business and it shows through and it’s you and it’s real and it
works.
Michael: How can a consultant frame their pricing so the prospects
believe it to be the right price when they’re quoting prices?
Kevin: Great question again. Generally speaking people have lots
of choices that they can do in price offerings. A lot of people
will mention a price, which is usually a big mistake. They could
mention all the competitor’s prices and then compare themselves to
that; a big mistake. The best thing that you can probably do is to
either compare prices with yourself or compare with 1 or 2 major
competitors. And here’s how you would do it. To compare with
yourself, you would say, okay Michael, I want your business because
I want you to pay me actually a lot of money. And I want your
business to be useful to me and to you. So I will mentor you this
year as part of my coaching program for a price, but I want to
first tell you what’s in it. There thing and that sells for $5,000
and there’s Q which sells for $7,000 to the public, and there’s
this which is worth $6,000 and there’s this which is worth $8,000.
I know these numbers sound remarkably high but I’m not the kid down
the street. You’re looking at about $44,000 for the information
and you’re going to have access to me by email every day, $10,000.
And that’s it. Your alternative, by the way, and you should know
this, is that you can offer 3 different levels of service. I would
encourage people not to offer 2 levels of service; have 3 levels of
service where you can offer 3 different kinds of things and to have
1 outrageous, ridiculously super-high priced one and then 2 that
are closer together with the 2nd one being just a little more
expensive than the 3rd and then position the middle price last and
you’ll sell it about 80% of the time.
Michael: Great stuff. What is the number one question that someone
must say yes to every time?
Kevin: If you ask the question first, I’ll say for example, Michael
if I could guarantee that I could show you how to earn $100,000
more next year. Guaranteed, 100% positive, for $9,000 in return,
$700 a month each month over the next year. And this is a
guarantee; I promise you will make $100,000 a year. Would you be
willing to work with me this year?
Michael: Yes.
Kevin: That’s it.
Michael: Oh, that’s great. So it’s the way you frame your
question. Good job. What’s the most common mistake people make in
building credibility? And this is by far the number one question I
get from new consultants. They want to know how to go in with
credibility because they don’t have consulting experience
previously.
Kevin: You know that sounds like a question I probably answered in
an article some time and I’m not sure what I said that day, but
what comes to my mind is people, when they’re trying to build
credibility, they try to put too many bricks on top of each other
when they’re communicating with somebody. So they’ll say, oh you
know I wrote 16 books and then also I do international work and
then I taught at the University of St. Thomas and I was interviewed
by all these magazines. People don’t need quite that much
information. Instead you always start like this; I’m not the best
choice for everybody, there’s no question. I don’t belong in the
aerospace industry, I can’t do that. I’m so not good there. But
what I do focus on is ding, ding and ding. This is my area, this
is sort of like my niche, this is what I get paid to do. And
frankly, I’m being just honest; I really think there’s nobody out
there that does as much work for their client as I do. And that’s
why I think that you might want to look at hiring me instead of
somebody else. And I’m going to ask you today because that’s what
I’m going to teach you to do is get your business today.
For more interviews like this, go to www.hardtofindseminars.com.
Michael: Is there any other business you’d rather be involved in
than your consulting business? Can you think of anything better
that you’d rather be doing for making a living?
Kevin: No, not to make a living.
Michael: As your profession, I mean, do you just love what you do?
Kevin: Yes, there’s nothing I do except for taxes that I’d trade.
I think I wouldn’t mind doing some more consulting to our
government; to high level politicians it would be very nice to show
how to maybe accomplish some goals for the United States that might
be helpful to our country. I guess that’s sort of like a dream
that I’ve had. I’ve had a chance to help another government with
that, but that was Poland.
Michael: How did that occur?
Kevin: I had done 2 events in Poland and my book, “The Psychology
of Persuasion”, became really well known there for a couple
reasons. One of them was because Yatsik Senschworsky, the
publisher of the book, also was the state psychologist. Just like
we have like a surgeon general. Well, they don’t have a surgeon
general in Poland but they do have a state psychologist. And this
happens to be Yatsik who published my book; he’s also a book
publisher. He’s a pretty wealthy guy for Poland. And he put in
some good words for me at the same time that Kasha, the woman who
was doing my translation at events, she also happened to work
part-time for the Health Ministry. So they were talking about who
do we bring in to do Aids prevention work that’s going to be
persuasive, that’s going to actually work because this is a
Catholic country and Pope John Paul doesn’t want us wearing condoms
but that’s the only way you can get Aids stopped. And so they
called me one night and they said would you know how to get us to
have a reduced Aids rate in Poland? And I confess, I simply said,
yes. That was so stupid because I didn’t know what the hell I was
talking about. I didn’t realize how much work I was getting myself
into. But I did all the research. I went there, helped a lot of
people; I learned more than I taught. And it was a great
experience and that experience made me know that working at levels
that you can influence a lot of people and a lot of people’s lives
is a really wonderful feeling inside. So that’s that story.
Michael: On your web site, why don’t you give the listeners the
URL? What’s the best way for someone to get to know you more, read
some of your articles, find all your products? Do you have more
than one web site?
Kevin: Lots of web sites, but the one where you probably want to go
to is www.kevinhogan.com and I think the neatest thing on the web
site is the fact that you can get Coffee with Kevin Hogan, which is
a weekly e-zine, it comes to you every Monday morning. It’s neat,
I mean you just read it twice and if you don’t like it tell us.
But try to see if you become addicted. And it’s just called Coffee
with Kevin Hogan; it’s awesome. Just leave your name and email
address and I’d be thrilled if you did that. That would be very
cool. And send me your responses to the things that we talk about
every week.
Michael: Out of all your courses, what do you find has the biggest
market demand?
Kevin: Oh, the biggest market demand is body language; the Body
Language Home Study course is really neat; it’s got video. It has
this secret web site where all the photos that I’ve done for the
magazines over the years in analyzing political figures and
celebrities and all that, it’s all there, and we’ve got this
interactive program where I have you analyze the photo and then I
analyze the photo when I tell you what I saw. Not necessarily
saying that what you’re doing is incorrect, but just to show you
what I saw perhaps in addition to what you saw. It’s a really neat
program. It’s very modestly priced; it’s almost like a lost leader
kind of an item. And it’s almost a perfect program for learning
body language.
Michael: Well, I saw the prices of your products and my first
impression is you’re selling this stuff way too little. Do you
have some kind of pricing strategy for your products?
Kevin: Yes, just like any good marketer, we literally have tested
numbers. We know what is not going to sell the most product and
that’s not the goal. The goal is to build the longest term
customer possible so when you subscribe to Coffee with Kevin Hogan,
you will get either a day, a month, a year, 5 years of material
that is free that you won’t find at any other web site anywhere,
period! And you’ll go, oh my gosh, I just saved $100,000. And
then literally people then go into the store one day, after a day,
a week, a month, a year, and they buy something. And then they get
this 12 CD program say, and it’s 12 hours as opposed to like 65
minutes or whatever and it’s good and it’s cool. It’s not being
read to you; it’s not stuff you’ve heard before. I hate rehash,
there’s no duplication between programs. And so we know that once
you buy this that you’re going to buy another one because this is
going to be roughly the same price. It’s hard to explain. It’s
almost like once you buy it, you’re sort of stuck with me for life.
Michael: How often are you doing speaking engagements?
Kevin: Right now I’m doing about 10 a year. I’m down by about 10
times from what I used to do. That’s because I get to hang out
with my son right now. And for the next couple years until he
becomes a teenager, that’s what I’m going to do. Then I’ll go back
on the road again.
Michael: How has www.amazon.com helped you? Your books are all
over Amazon; has that been a great resource, having your books on
Amazon in generating business to your site and your consulting
practice?
Kevin: Yes, Amazon is hugely helpful and the way that Amazon has
built itself as a marketing tool for themselves, they know how
generous they are to authors and to people who sell products.
They’re very, very smart how they run their business model. They
almost demand loyalty and they get it because they do such a great
job. People who write books should be involved in Amazon and if
you don’t write books right now, you certainly should be on there
reviewing other people’s books. One of the greatest things you can
do to build your business is to review somebody’s book who you
might need help from some day in securing a consulting gig.
Michael: That’s great. Who’s your publisher for all your books?
Kevin: I have 3 but Wiley is the biggest. Wiley is the number one
business publisher in the world. They do other books; they do
books for pregnant women, they do the Dummies series; they’ve got
lots of other avenues, but as far as business, nobody competes with
Wiley.
Michael: How helpful are they in getting you distribution other
than just publishing and selling you the books?
Kevin: I would say that they’re no better than smaller publishers.
I’m not all that impressed from the PR standpoint. I like my
editor and I like the company and if I didn’t, I would leave. But
every company has a way that they could do more. They could
definitely do more from the publicity end.
Michael: Kevin, this has been awesome. I really appreciate you
giving such great value and spending time with me; I really do.
And thanks for doing it.
Kevin: Yes, it was a lot of fun working with you, Mike. Take care.
Michael: Bye, bye.
That’s the end of our interview with Kevin Hogan. I hope you’ve
enjoyed it and I’m sure you’ve learned something. Make sure you
listen to this over and over again.
About the Author
Michael Senoff is the CEO and publisher of
http://www.hardtofindseminars.com
The world’s leading free digital audio business library.
Michael is an experienced Internet marketer and talk show host and
a popular professional interviewer. Michael has taught 100% on line
around the country & around the world to more than 50,000 students.
His over-the-top on line audio interview web site
http://www.hardtofindseminars.com is listed in the top 1% of most
visited web sites in the world.
Michael has also worked as a coach and adviser to other famous
marketing consultants.
Michael is a husband and father of two young boys in Southern
California. He has a successful audio publishing business. Michael
is originally from Atlanta Georgia and is now based in San Diego,
California. Michael works with small to medium sized companies on
four different continents.
He is the author of the book: “TALK YOURSELF RICH”: (86 of the most
revealing, proprietary secrets on the subject of how to make more
money with audio interviews and the soon to be released sequel:
AUDIO MARKETING SECRETS. How To Make Your Own Information Product
Using Audio Interviews. Michael may be contacted at
Michael@michaelsenoff.com or at (858) 274-7851
