What Do I Do With a Primary Rep System Once I Find It?

By: Shlomo Vaknin, C.Ht

Let’s say you want to sell me a vacation package.

Listen to this, and ask yourself what rep system I’m using. “I just don’t SEE how I can afford to take a vacation.”

You heard the word see, as in visual. I can’t SEE how I’ll afford it. Most people use the visual rep system more than the other two main ones, hearing and feeling. This tells you that you must create pictures in my head of your wonderful vacation package. You know that pictures will especially help to influence me.

But consider the internal aspect of seeing. I can’t see it because my concern about finances won’t let me see it. So when you talk financing, that is the most important point for the visual rep system. Show me how I’m locking in value while the cost will increase for everyone else. Show me a graph. Show me big, simple numbers. Make me see other people missing out and being jealous of me. Before long, I could be seeing a whole new opportunity.

Now let’s say my wife is along, and she has a great influence over my buying decisions, or maybe a total influence. Listen for her rep system. “Honey, I’m UNCOMFORTABLE with us committing to something when your work is so FEAST or FAMINE.” This wife of mine is all about feelings. No wonder she lights up the room. Uncomfortable, feast, famine… When you’re coming up with things to influence her with, you’d better touch her feelings.

She needs to think about how she’ll feel finally having some quality time with her feast or famine husband. On our vacation, she can look forward to sunshine, warm sand, and the plush beds and carpeting of the air conditioned resort. Did you notice which of those things were not from an external sense? Warm sand affects your senses through your feet. But where does the feeling of quality alone time come from? Inside! Hey, remember feast or famine. You’d better tell her about the amazing food.

This is a huge lesson for influencing with rep systems. You should appeal to the internal sources as well as external. In fact, the internal sources may be many times more powerful than the external ones. This is because they are often about motivations and values.

NLP uses the term predicate for the clue words that tell you what rep system someone is using. Predicates, as you have seen, are words like see, hear, and feel. Predicates are not always so obvious, though. If I tell you I’m CERTAIN, I might be in the auditory digital mode. That’s the one where my internal talk is very dominant. But what if I not only tell you I’m so CERTAIN, but I also gesture forcefully with my fist. In that case, I’m telling you I FEEL strongly about it. Instead of knowing I’m right in my head, I know it in my heart; I FEEL it, and I want you to FEEL it, too. Are you with me, or against me? Feelings make choices very simple. So they can make your job simple.

So there’s another important tip. Body language can be very important. If someone cocks their head and looks kind of skeptical, that’s a sign that they aren’t hearing things that they can agree with. They may be taking apart what you said in their own heads, because you weren’t being analytical or logical enough for them.

In that case, you need to build more trust so they can get into the feelings or images, or you need to offer up your most compelling evidence, that is, the facts that show that you are right. And keep working on building that trust. You don’t need to drop the other sense modalities, but you need to deliver the facts. And did I mention building trust? We’ll teach you a lot about rapport-building soon.

But here is a trust-building technique you can start using right away. It’s called matching predicates. As you talk to people, practice using the same rep system that they are. See how this affect how they act toward you. Are they more open to your ideas? Do they show you friendlier body language? Do they smile more or give you a softer, kinder facial expression?

Since body language is a non-verbal predicate, see what body language you can use that goes along with the rep system you are emphasizing. If they are hearing, cock your head, put your finger to your ear, lean forward a little bit with an ear turned a little toward them.

If they are seeing, tilt you head up just a little and raise your eyebrows a bit, soften your eyes, like you’re letting them in.

If they are feeling, use more emotional gestures. Nothing too dramatic for now, just enough to show where your heart is; or at least where it is supposed to be.

Keep in mind that people may change their primary rep system depending on the subject, or even the point of the conversation they are in. So don’t think people have only one rep system. Be flexible and follow them into different rep systems.

Also, it’s good to appeal to all rep systems during your discussion. In psychology, there is a thing called neurological recruitment. This big phrase means that the more brain cells you can get to think about something, the more powerful it is. If you’re in an airplane, you want ALL the engines firing. Using more rep systems means you are influencing with more power. Emphasize one at a time, but use all of the three primary ones: seeing, feeling, and hearing.