Ask Sue Knight

Dear Sue,

My name is Jon Zoghby from South Africa. I have read two of your books, NLP Solutions and your second edition of NLP at Work. Both Vey informative and practical. I especially like the practical business examples you refer to in your books, thereby giving a practical approach to NLP. I am currently reading the User Manual for the Brain Vol 2, Master Practitioner level.

I am Certified as an NLP, Meta States and Neuro-Semantic Practitioner through DR Michael Hall and DR Armand Kruger.

I have had my own training company for the last three years and at times have found it both frustrating and challenging. I am very passionate about people and bringing the best out of them. I am now introducing company's in South Africa to behavioural change and development via NLP, but find their lack of interest both disappointing and frustrating. I have been moderately successful over the last three years but still find company's attitude and objections such as "we have that...", "we know that...".

I realise that you have spent many years building your reputation, image and business and it is not my intention to ask you for your success recipe. I ask you only for a few pointers in how can I "market" my service without companies giving me the blank look when I inform them about my services, as well as to get the NLP message across without talking or using NLP terms, as they are even more lost than at the beginning of the interview.

Your time and input will be greatly appreciated.

Regards
Jon Zoghby

Dear Jon, this is such an key question as I find that NLP is one of those topics that is difficult to appreciate until you get into it and do it. I am happy to offer you some of the things that I believe have helped me. I have worked over the years to put out material in the form of my web, my books, and my talks that attract people to NLP rather than me taking it to them - that way you get the people who want to know from you because they already know something about you. I rarely talk NLP in initial meetings unless a client brings it in as subject. I aim to make the way that I behave in a meeting an example of what I offer and very often offer very specific feedback that would not typically get in other ways so for example - language patterns or specific non verbal behaviour or feeback on the environment and what it says about the culture of the business. Over time though I find that the one biggest selling factor is that I don't need to sell at all - I am very fortunate for being in a position where to some extent I can now choose who I work with and that seems to be very attractive to many clients. I have in the past though offerred free open days or open evenings for people to come and sample the way that I work and what I do and again you then get the people who like you for who you are. And overall I have aimed to more and more what I really love and there is nothing more attractive to others than someone who is passionate about what they do for their own sake.

I hope that helps you in thinking about your own future. Looking back the answers seem simple but isn't it always that way? And of course I recognise that what is true today might be totally different tomorrow. I feel very blessed and thankful for what I have and I hope that I don't ever get to a stage where I take any of it for granted.

Yours very sincerely,

Sue Knight