If it sounds too good to be true ….

 I was first introduced to Neurolinguistic Programming (NLP) in the early 90’s when I still owned the bookstore. To be honest, the guy really creeped me out but I figured I’d try to stay open. After all, he was a Master Practitioner! So I invited him to write about NLP in my monthly newsletter in hopes that I would learn some cool and awesome stuff he kept talking about.

Whatever his articles were about never made it past my blood-brain barrier.

I have since met various teachers of NLP and read numerous articles and books on NLP.  I have even attended live presentations at the convention. No matter what I tried, I still didn’t get it.

So I purchased a distance training program on NLP and enlisted a fellow hypnotist to be my practice partner. We sat down with notebooks, ready, willing, and eager to learn.

Until I switched on the DVD.

I think we made it through the first disk before completely losing interest. Okay, so at least now I know it’s not just me ….

Recently, I learned about a $97 NLP scholarship program being offered in California. And I thought to myself… “Maybe I should go to a live training...”

I know, I know. NINETY-SEVEN DOLLARS ?????

I had paid substantially more for the practitioner level distance training program. So it was a pretty fair assumption there was going to be an “upsell” factor. And, in truth, I was open to considering it.

After all, NLP was modeled after the works of three masters – Milton Erickson, Fritz Perls, and Virginia Satir. Fritz Perl’s approach to dream work awakened in me a passion for dream working over 25 years ago. In the nineties, one of my bookstore customers was a therapist who worked with Virginia Satir. She invited me to participate in a Satir Family Reconstruction – an experience I never forgot. And recently I completed the Level 1 training in Satir Transformational Therapy just so I could go to the source of “Parts Therapy.”

I had some unused Airmiles and a roommate to share accommodation costs. So by the time the smoke cleared, the actual cost of the course was still well under $1,000 for 4 ½ days.

So, what DO you get for $97?

The promoters got roughly 250 registrants. And a substantial opportunity to fill their advanced programs! All they had to do was dazzle us with their brilliance and we’d be signing up in droves!

What we got was a practitioner-level certification valued at $3,500. Awesome!

Day one was basic orientation. After being introduced to the trainers we learned about the organization, its mission, impressive credentials, programs, and requirements for certification.

The obvious question was, “So why only $97?” And the answer was given. “This is our way of giving back.”

Now THAT’s generosity!

The content and presentation was exceptionally well organized. The delivery was brisk and entertaining. There were plenty of breaks. And the live demonstrations were excellent.

Time given for practice techniques, however, was limited to brief exercises working with language patterns, lateral chunking, metaphors, sub-modalities, eye movement patterns, reframing and anchoring.

Which surprised me. With classes going from 9 am – 8 pm and only a one-hour lunch break, where did all the time go?

In a word - pitch.

Okay. We all expected the upsell to the master practitioner level. It just makes sense, right? But here’s the problem.

The first pitch was delivered WAY too early. By an assistant. And in an interesting way, new light was shed on the importance of first establishing rapport before delivering a suggestion to buy.

This initial blunder had far-reaching consequences as evidenced by the break-time chatter which could be summed up as simply this - “Where’s the beef?”

The problem was really one of timing. Failing to deliver sufficient content before introducing the advanced program resulted in increasing disdain with each subsequent pitch.

Oh, but there’s more. Let me tell you about the ‘guest speakers.’

The first was a publicist. Okay, clearly not part of the NLP training program. But who couldn’t benefit from learning about how to promote their healing business?

I don’t think it was such a good idea to tell us he’s being paid $120,000 a year for promoting this very provider of NLP trainings, but that’s just me. All I could think was ‘if that’s what it takes …  what hope do I have ?’

Still, it was a well-orchestrated presentation with solid, useful information, followed by … you guessed it …  “The Pitch. “

Is there a pattern here?

When the offer for a $5,000 marketing package was delivered, I was thinking about the difference between fresh oats and the kind of oats that have already been through the horse ….

But wait. There’s more. Let me tell you about the Australian!

It was day 3, right after lunch. Sleepy, dozy, take-a-nap time for those of us who were sleep-deprived from late nights. (We didn’t have dinner until 10 pm each night!) And in breezed this guy, with glossy spiked black hair, dressed all in black, with a gianormous android phone in hand. He immediately took to pacing back and forth in front of the audience, ranting about how he just got off the plane after a 15 hour flight all the way from Oz (I’m thinking, Dude! WAY too many espressos!), and how he didn’t even have a job … But he had found a way to make tons of money. With virtually no money. And absolutely no risk. And he was here to show all of us how we could, too.

Yup. He got some people’s attention. ‘Whazzat? Money for nothing?’

A thought briefly flitted across my mind … This has to be a demonstration of NLP techniques. This guy CAN’T be for real!

As he moved into his presentation, showing slides of his home and family, I thought, Okay, I get it. Step one is building rapport. Clever! What next?

He lost me completely during the next 15 minutes. Turned out to be a presentation on internet stock trading. I kid you not.

It was all about ‘puts’ and ‘calls’...  Maybe that’s just how they talk Downunder. But seriously. I don’t give a rat’s patoot about trading on the stock market. I considered heading out to the pool until it was over. I just kept thinking this must be some disguised lesson on NLP.  It HAS to be!!! Besides, how much longer could this go on?

Wanna guess? Two hours.

Oh, the Pitch was magnificent! Following his buy-now-and-only-pay-$5,000-for-my-stellar-mentoring-program offer (wait, I thought he didn’t have a job ….) he held up a sheath of certificates.

Wait for it …

“I have 20 of these certificates.” He crowed. “The first 20 who decide to sign up today and get one of these certificates will get my personal number on this android phone. But I can only do that for the first 20.”

The stampede for the stage jolted me to wide-awake.

When the dust settled, two people remained off to one side. They hadn’t been fast enough to get their certificates. “That’s okay,” he crooned. “I’ll make an exception for you two.”

During the break that followed, a woman sat down at our table and sputtered, “I don’t know why I ran up there for a certificate! I don’t have $5,000!!!”

Okay. Maybe it actually WAS a demonstration! But 20 people coughed up five grande for a lesson in the art of persuasion!

Say ... can I interest you in a beautiful island just off the west coast of Canada? I can get you a really good deal!

My website is still under construction so if you haven't yet received your sample first three chapters of The Devil's Therapy: from Hypnosis to Healing just contact me by email: wendie@devilstherapy.com