Neurolinguistic Sales Lesson: Auditory Obama Versus Kinesthetic McCain

Whether you’re a Senator running for President or a salesperson trying to winover a customer, your most important competitive weapon is your mouth. The words you speak enable you to persuade people to follow your lead, turn skeptics into believers, and defeat your arch-rival. Therefore, it makes sense that you should study language and understand neurolinguistics (the study of how the mind uses and interprets language) to become a more persuasive communicator yourself.

   

Through language, we represent our thoughts and experiences. We use words to represent the sensory experiences of sight, sound, touch, smell, and taste. The mind describes and interprets experiences based upon one of three neurolinguistic word catalogs—visual, auditory, and kinesthetic. “Visual” refers to pictures and imagery, “auditory” to sounds, and “kinesthetic” refers to touch, taste, smell, and internal feelings.

   

The words of Barak Obama and John McCain originate from two minds which are “wired” quite differently. Gary Hart, the former senator from Colorado and long-time friend of McCain offered this perspective of him, “I think his mind is visceral. Driven less by thought and more by feelings. This doesn’t mean he’s totally reactive or without logic or thought processes; it just means he’s a fighter pilot. He reacts to circumstances.”

   

Meanwhile, Fast Company columnist Ruth Sherman made these comments about the masterful way Obama’s mind communicates, “Because of his oratorical prowess, supporters believe in his ability to do the job. Obama’s speech also has an excellent rhythm, the pauses and cadences that allow his audiences to absorb his meaning and participate with echoes, answers and chants.”

   

From a Neurolinguistic standpoint, Hart’s and Sherman’s comments confirm what I have learned about McCain and Obama from the many speeches, interviews, and debates I have analyzed. McCain’s primary word catalog is Kinesthetic. He receives, interprets, and transmits language from the sense of the body.  Meanwhile Obama has extremely strong Kinesthetic and Auditory word catalogs. He processes language not only with a sense of feeling but also primarily in terms of sounds.Why is this important in sales?

   

Most people use one word catalog more frequently than the others. This word catalog has become their default, or “primary,” mode of communication. You can identify people’s primary word catalog by listening to the adjectives, adverbs, and nouns they use in conversation. Kinesthetics like to use words that represent the body such as “feel,” “grab,” “hard,” “heavy,” “sense,” “smell,” “smile,” “smooth,” “touch,” and “weigh.” Auditories use words associated with sounds like “ask,” “assert,” “banter,” “berate,” “call,” “denounce,” “discuss,” “ “promise,” “shout,” “speak,” and “tell.” Finally, Visuals words represent sight such as “bleak,” “bright,” “clear,” “cloudy,” “disappear,” “glance,” “glare,” “illuminate,” “look,” and “watch.” 

   

Customers whose primary word catalog is based on sight will describe their experiences in visual terms. They are likely to say, “I see what you mean,” “Looks good to me,” or “Show me how it works.” Customers with a primary word catalog based on sound will say, “Sounds great,” “Talk to you later,” or “Tell me how it works.” People with a primary word catalog based on feelings might say, “Feels right to me,” “We’ll touch base later,” or “I can’t get a handle on how it works.”

   

The most important goal of every salesperson is to create a friendship with a complete stranger. Obviously, language is at the foundation of establishing rapport. Therefore, it is imperative you understand your own primary word catalog and whether not you process language visually, auditorially or kinesthetically.  Equally important, you must be able to identify the primary word catalog of the person to whom you are speaking.

   

You can think of rapport can be thought of as “harmonious communication.” If you are a Visual talking to a Kinesthetic, speak in terms of feelings. If you are Kinesthetic talking to a Visual, speak in terms of pictures; this will naturally help you build rapport. If you are talking with people who are wired exactly as you are, these are people you naturally communicate with and are the easiest for you to sell to.  However, it takes skill and effort to communicate with someone who is wired opposite of you. 

   

Remember, you ultimately want to become a communication chameleon who can persuade even the most ardent skeptic to believe in you.  And, it will be interesting to see whether our next President will be an Auditory or a Kinesthetic.

   

Intrigued? To learn more about Neurolinguistcs I would recommend reading Heavy Hitter Selling: How Successful Salespeople Use Language and Intuition to Buy. Recommended by the Harvard Business School, it’s a very different book about using language to build customer rapport. More articles can also be found here.