If you’re “doing” NLP full time, the automatic answer to this question is usually “I’m an NLP Practitioner”… well, that might be the wrong way to answer! (if you’re interested in getting clients).

Here’s a quote from a new book titled “Persuasion Mastery – 500 Lessons In the Psychology of Sales“, by Stephan Thieme:

(republished here with permission by the author)

What are You?

By: Stephan Thieme

If you could create your own job title, what would you like it to be? Try coming up with a title that does NOT have sales, representative, or account in it. This is a mind stretch that will get your subconscious mind more creative. Who knows what little brilliant ideas will come to you in the shower when you least expect them. And just because of a little silly creativity.

Of course, I’m not suggesting that you change what you say in public. Not unless you come up with something that’s just irresistible. I’m certainly not suggesting that sales is a bad word. I’m just saying that you get a mental stretch from finding other names for what you do. For this exercise, it’s okay to be funny and creative. Sometimes, people do this, and like the results so much that the decide to use the title as an attention-getter.

It’s good to sell shoes, but aren’t you really a personal mobility broker? Or maybe a foot longevity consultant? Maybe a paparazzi escape facilitator. (If you’ve ever sold an athletic shoe to a celebrity, there you go.) Selling vacations and timeshares is good, but how about being a dream fulfillment expert, a dream agent, or a dream proofer?

Bankers, real estate agents, and executive head hunters are salespeople. They don’t call themselves salespeople because their products and industries define them. What should define you? You and I know that sales is not just transactions, unless you spend the day at a cash register.

But the word “sales” sounds like a transaction and can limit some people’s thinking.

So try this little experiment. Do it for the fun, the motivation, and maybe a way to create more attention, more conversations, and more sales!

Just so you know I’m not crazy, there are many people who have done this very thing in order to create a professional identity that attracts attention. The first “success coach” could have just gone by the old moniker of counselor. The first “glamour consultant” could have stuck by cosmetologist or make up salesperson. And how many people have put celebrity or “of the stars” in their title? They didn’t find that in a federal pamphlet about work titles. Maybe tax collectors should call themselves “infrastructure funders.” As in, “I get money for streets, bridges, and everything else you take for granted.”