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I couldn't snap Billy out of his trance.

It happened over thirty years ago. I was a teenager fascinated by the
powers of the mind. I read about spirituality, psychic phenomena, UFO's,
past lives, present problems, the magic of believing, and yes, even
hypnosis.

And that helps explain why I had my best friend, Billy, in a deep trance
in the basement of my parent's home in Ohio. I had regressed him from the
age of 16 back to the age of four or five. I had no business doing it. But I
was curious and Billy was game. It was a remarkable morning until something
truly terrifying happened.

I snapped my fingers---the prearranged command to wake Billy up---but
he stayed in the chair, smiling, eyes closed, and laughing loud and hard.

"How old are you?" I asked, wanting to check his age level.

"Seventy-two, how old are you?!" he replied, laughing like a wild,
untamed, truly obnoxious child.

You can't imagine my fear.

"When I slap my hands together, you will awaken," I commanded.

Billy laughed long and loud.

I slapped my hands together.

Billy laughed louder and longer.

I'm panicking now. I'm barely sixteen years old. I have my best friend
in a trance, regressed to a young age, and I can't bring him out of it. I
could see my parent's rage. I could see Billy's parent's rage. I could see
myself locked up, still a teenager, all because I practiced hypnosis like
other kids played baseball or monopoly.

I waited. I held my breath. I snapped my fingers. I slapped my hands. I
perspired. Billy wasn't coming out of his trance. He was locked into another
time period. And I was responsible.

Some kids borrow the neighbor's car and wreck it. I borrowed my best
friend's mind and put it in park.

What was I going to do?

I don't recall how much time went by before I decided to call for help.
I remember going to the phone book and desperately searching for a hypnotist
to call for help. I found one in Cleveland, Ohio, a hundred miles from my
home. I called him, got him on the phone, and acted as cool as I could.

"Doctor, my name is Joe, and, well, I've been learning about hypnosis.
I was just wondering, what would happen if you put someone in a trance and
they, well, er, ah, you know, never came out of it?"

There was silence on the line.

Then I remember the voice bellowing at me.

"Are you practicing hypnosis there?!"

"Oh, no," I lied. "I was just curious what would happen if, you know,
you put your best friend under, regressed him, and he wouldn't come out of
it. Is that a bad thing?"

"Is your best friend there now?"

The hypnotist was on to me.

"Well...yes."

"Will he come to the phone?"

"He won't do ANYTHING I ask," I said. My voice was cracking now. I was
scared and it showed.

"Don't worry about it," the hypnotist advised me. "He'll either
naturally awaken shortly, or he'll fall asleep and then wake up."

"But he thinks he's five years old," I added.

"YOU KIDS HAVE TO STOP PLAYING AROUND!" he roared.

"But I want to be a hypnotist someday," I explained.

"GET TRAINING FIRST!" he blurted.

"Okay, okay, I will," I said. "But what do I do about Billy?"

"Put him on the phone."

I went to Billy, somehow got him to get on the phone, and the hypnotist
said something which helped Billy awaken. To this day I don't know what he
said. And since I haven't seen Billy in nearly twenty years, I have no idea
how old Billy really thinks he is. I understand he's now a State Trooper in
Ohio, so I imagine he's stable and well. Still, I'm staying in Texas.

I learned something profound that day in my parent's basement when my
life stopped for an afternoon.

I learned that trances are powerful. They are real. And we are all in
them.

That's right. You're in a trance. Yes, right now. So am I. We may not
think we're five years old, but we think we are writers, or marketers, or
salespeople, or some other "trance." As long as we believe the trance we are
in, we will play it out perfectly. When we wake up, we'll just be in another
trance. Even the "I'm now awake" trance is just another trance.

Stay with me here. Whether you disagree or not, there's a valuable
lesson here---one that can help you increase your sales and your profits.

In short, your prospects are all in trances. If you merge with their
trance, you can then lead them out of it and into the "buying trance" you
want them
to be in.

I'll repeat that:

"Your prospects are all in trances. If you merge with their trance, you
can then lead them out of it and into the "buying trance" you want them to
be in."

Let me explain with an example:

Say you want to sell a new software program on how to incorporate your
business. How would you do it? The average person might send out a sales
letter that says "New program makes incorporating a snap." That approach
would get some sales, especially from people already wanting to incorporate.

But a more hypnotic approach would be to run a headline such as this:
"Tired of paying too much in taxes? Read this surprising way out of the
maze!" This new approach would merge with the existing trance in a business
person.

In other words, they are in the "taxes suck" trance" and the "small
businesses get screwed" trance. Agree with them. Merge with them. Accept
that trance as your door. Then lead into what you want to sell by tying it
back to their trance.

Let's break down this process into 3 steps:

1. What do your prospect's believe right now? (Current trance.)
2. Agree with their beliefs to merge with them. (Rapport.)
3. Lead their beliefs into your offer. (New trance.)

That's it. That's the real secret to "hypnotic selling."

What? Oh. You want another example? Here goes:

Say you want to sell a pair of pants. How would you use our "Hypnotic
Selling" 3-step process to move them?

1. What do your prospect's believe right now about pants? A little
research would help. Let's say they believe all pants are the same. They are
in the "all pants are alike" trance. That's their current trance, or mind
set. You would not be very wise to argue with it. Instead, accept it and go
to step two.

2. Agree with them. In person, on the phone, or in your headlines, say
something that let's your prospects know you are in the same trance.
Use statements such as "I thought all pants were alike, too" or "No pants
are different--so why even look at this pair?" This creates rapport. You
can't sell anyone without creating rapport. So, step two is a way to meet
people where they are. Consciously join their unconscious trance. Then go to
the next step.

3. Now lead them into your offer. You might say something like, "Why are
people saying these pants are different? Here's why." This is taking them
into a new trance---a trance that says "Some pants are different"---a buying
trance. Because you acknowledged the trance they were in, and merged with
them, you are now in a position---a very powerful position---to sell them.

There are numerous ways to find people's trances, merge with them, and
then lead them into a "buy from you" trance. I won't be able to go into all
of them in this short article. I'm just giving you the tip of the iceberg
here.
But before I end, let's look at possible existing trances your prospects may
be in when you call, or send them a sales piece. They include:

"I'm worried about money" trance
"I'm lonely" trance
"I'm afraid of people" trance
"I'm sick and tried of my job" trance
"I'm fed up with my kids" trance
"The world sucks" trance
"I'm hungry" trance
"I need to lose weight" trance

And so it goes. You'll notice that each of these trances are
self-serving. That's the nature of people. They are interested in their
well-being first. They are pre-occupied with their own needs, desires, pains
and more.

Any inward state is a trance. Naturally, everyone is in one trance or
another when you call them or write them. Your job is to note it, merge with
it, and lead them out of it.

Here's one final example to make this process clearer for you:

Let's say you want to sell a music recording. We'll make it a classical
CD.

Step 1. What trance are people already in? You can imagine they come
home from work, find your sales letter in their mail, and are NOT in the
mood for it. Your headline might say, "Just got home from work?"

Step 2: Create rapport by acknowledging their trance. You might write,
"Since you just got home from work, are probably tired and ready to toss
this mail in the trash, wait one second before you do it."

Step 3: Now introduce your new trance. Maybe write: "Imagine putting a
CD on that fills your mind with soothing, relaxing, healing music...the kind
of heavenly sound that helps drift far, far away from your day..."

To end this article, let me remind you of what Billy taught me when I
was a kid: Everyone is in a trance and everyone can be brought out of it.
The idea is not to ignore this quirk of human nature, but to use it for the
well being of all you touch---including your own profit!

Just don't age regress any of your prospects!



About the Author
Joe Vitale is the world's first Hypnotic Marketer.
You can now get Joe's new email marketing course,
"Easy Marketing Secrets for Coaches," free, by sending
blank email to hypnoticmarketing@getresponse.com