If you make sure the person goes through each step and satisfies all of the tests within his strategy or TOTE for buying, the product will approach irresistability to the customer, regardless of what that product is.

This same procedure, of course, could be employed equally well by a sales executive attempting to convince the five members of the board of directors to buy a training package, organizational development package, or sales package, etc. The sales executive would want to gather information like "Have you bought a program like this before?" "Were you satisfied with it?" If not, "Did you think you were going to be?" "How did you make that decision?" As the group responds to these questions you will be able to gather information about how they make a decision as a group (in order to answer the questions they will make a decision about how they make decisions) and about how they make decisions individually. It is very helpful, when possible, to question each member of a group individually as well as observing the group function as a whole, because your presentation to each one is going to be different. Once you have identified the strategies of each person you mark out the portions of your overall presentation to him nonverbally through eye contact or by pacing his individual tonality, etc. (The amount of information you can gather on the strategies of the individuals and the group will depend on the amount of time you can spend and the degree of rapport you have with the group members.)

Consider the example of a woman sales executive, (S), who, by asking a few short questions and by observing the predicates and eye movements of the group members as they respond, determines that of the group of five (A,B,C,D and E) A and B have a decision point in their strategy that is primarily based on visual information; C has a decision point primarily based on auditory digital information; and D and E have decision points primarily based on internal kinesthetic information. S could structure her presentation as follows:

S: (Begins by marking out A and B by looking back and forth at them as she speaks, and by assuming the somewhat tense and nasal tonal qualities of A, and by gesturing unobtrusively toward each of them with her hands and fingers as she speaks.) I think that if you really look closely at the situation we've been discussing you will see that there is a clear need for this program … (S continues talking, using primarily visual predicates and descriptions, and also brings out visual aids and diagrams) … (S then changes her tonality to match the even tempoed and controlled voice of C, and shifts her eye contact to C) And I think it's very important to listen to what other people in this organization are saying. One of the first things that I had to ask myself was, "What does this situation have to say about where we are going as an organization?" … And I suddenly remembered what the president had once said about… (S continues talking, recoding what she has just essentially communicated to A & B substituting auditory predicates and examples.) … (S then begins to make eye contact with D and E and lowers her voice to match that of E) It's a great feeling to know that you've got a practical and solid program design (looks at D) and that you're able to stay in touch and flow with the feelings of the majority of your employees … (S continues, recoding what she has already said to A,B & C, substituting kinesthetic predicates and expressions.)

What she does, then, in this relatively simple and generalized example, is to present the same content recoded into the language of each of the three major representational systems. She marks out and directs the appropriate coding to the person with that strategy and paces each person she addresses, even though at the same time she is maintaining the structure of a group presentation. S will use any feedback she receives to direct and amplify the strength of her presentation. If E (whose decision point was discerned as kinesthetically oriented) should begin to look up and left consistently and begin to shake his head slightly as S is speaking to him with kinesthetic predicates, she would know that she had lost rapport and would immediately begin to switch her presentation to pace him.

If she'd had time to elicit the full decision strategy from each of the group members her task would be slightly more complex, as she would, for maximum impact, want to pace the entire representational sequence that each member cycled through during their decision processes.

Those readers familiar with group decision making will recognize that such complexity would rarely be required. Rather the more typical group will have developed (unconsciously) some group level strategy where the various functions are distributed among its members. For example, one group member will be extremely active in questioning the factual basis of the presentation, while another will make comparisons with alternative products or services. Frequently, the group will have the decision point function assigned to a single group member. When that member's tests are satisfied, the group has decided. The individual who has sharpened his sensory acuity will recognize the signals and package for the sequence specified by the group strategy with special attention to the individual decision strategy of the member who serves as decision point and exit.

One of the major obstacles to success for many salespeople is the lack of what we have called requisite variety — that is, the ability to vary their behavior in response to feedback from different kinds of customers. Many salespeople present only one particular form of packaging that will pace some percentage of the population but will be ineffectual with the rest. They rely on volume coverage rather than repackaging their communications to pace each individual appropriately. High pressure tactics will pay off with some people but not with others. Any particular existing sales technique will work — but only for a limited percentage of the market population. One effective use of NLP for sales would be to determine which of the existing techniques, that work well, paces which class of representational strategies. The salespersons may then adjust their behavior to access the most effective approach for each buyer's strategy so that statistically they will succeed with a larger percentage of customers. Hence, any particular technique will continue to succeed where it has been succeeding, but you will know exactly which kind of people to expand with. After a period of time, since there will not be that many different categories of buying strategies, the salesperson will know the moment someone walks in the door which category he falls into and which tactic to use.