You strive for excellence in everything you do - especially your career. You read the latest books and you study the best new techniques. At times, though, you may wonder if it will ever come together. Surely there must be a better way. There is: it's called "modeling." In a nutshell, modeling means precisely duplicating the strategy of the person who is already achieving the result you want.

Quite a mouthful, but think of it in terms of that recipe that has been handed down from generation to generation, mother to daughter, but has never actually been written out. What if you wanted to make that dish (duplicate that result)? What would you do? You could taste the dish, and through much trial and error, attempt to duplicate the result. Or, a much more effective method would be to put the cook in the kitchen and carefully observe the exact ingredients, the amount of each ingredient, the order the ingredients are combined, the temperature used to cook the dish and for what length of time the dish is cooked. At the end of that period of detailed observation, you would have a recipe (strategy) that could be followed to product the exact result every time. Simple.

Let me give you a real world example. In 1984, the U.S. Army experimented with a new training initiative called The Jedi Project. The aim of the experiment was to use the modeling technique to increase the efficiency of .45 pistol shooting training...

A story about Making a Life, Making a Living...

People buy for emotional reasons and justify with logic. You've seen it happen over and over. Your sales pitch can be jam packed with great information, but if you don't move your customer emotionally, you won't get the sale. On the flip side, you've probably also influenced someone to buy based on excitement and enthusiasm and a minimum of information.

We're all aware that there are many different styles that can be used to deliver a message. When used deliberately, different styles can elicit specific emotions and specific reactions, which is highly useful for a communicator. I have chosen four styles, called archetypes, for you to master and used for maximum impact. The important point to remember here is that you need to bring your own personality and style to each of the archetypes. I am not coaching you to artificially create a rigid structure of communicating, rather to use these archetypes as a frame that you will flesh out with your own unique touches.

Let me introduce you to the four archetypes:

1. The Lover who connects with, uplifts, and empowers people.
2. The Warrior who conveys a sense of urgency and conviction.
3. The Magician who creates enthusiasm by showing people what's possible.
4. The Sovereign who imparts a vision and a sense of higher purpose.

Framing is the art of shaping the meaning of a situation, behavior, thought, word or phrase. It is deciding what this situation in front of you is going to mean to you AND it is helping others decide what the situation is going to mean for them. There are three aspects of framing: pre-framing, re-framing and de-framing. Each of these skills has its own place in your sales presentation.