“When I examined the state-orphanage children, I had to sort out the children who could not see very well, had defects of hearing, learning disabilities. And how would you test a one- or two-year old who was totally deaf? How would you discover that? And you were a total stranger. The child had never seen you.
The attendants at the orphanage thought I was not really in my right mind. I had them bring in the child walking backwards with the attendant who led him in also walking backwards. And I had a tin pan on the side behind the desk. I dropped it on the floor. That was a heavy paperweight. And the attendant looked around and the deaf child looked at the floor. He felt quivers in the floor. Now, if I could thin of that, why couldn’t you? When you want to find things out about your patients, observe. Observe their behavior.”
The above story was taken from the book “My Voice Will Go With You: The Teaching Tales of Milton H. Erickson.”
Milton Erickson, who died in 1980, was the world's leading practitioner of medical hypnosis. Erickson was a psychiatrist, psychologist, and a master of observation and persuasion.
Erickson once told his daughter-in-law that the way to successfully deal with a patient is to first model their world and then to role-model their world. Dr. Erickson’s two favorite maxims were “Speak in the patient’s language” and “Join the patient.”
The only way to successfully model a patient’s (customer’s) world or to speak their language is through ceaseless observation of their behavior and mindset.
Erickson was a master persuader because he was a master observer. He paid attention to every detail about his patients. He observed what they were wearing. He noticed what they were saying. He noticed what they weren’t saying. He noticed their body language. He noticed the details that 99.99 percent of people never notice or even think to notice.
Erickson’s observation skills gave him the opportunity to be invited into his patient’s world. Once he was in their world, he would find ways, usually through stories and teaching tales, to slightly alter their mindset and help them deal with their problem.
I believe the lessons of Milton Erickson are as applicable to a businessman as they are to a hypnotherapist.
How closely are you observing the behavior of your customers? How often are you researching their habits and mindsets? How effective are your business communications (ads, direct mailings, etc.) at modeling and role modeling your customer’s world?
I try and ask myself the above questions every day, and the days I don't like the answer are the days that drive me to give A GREATER EFFORT.
Timeless Lesson: Observe. Observe. Observe. Observe. Test. Test. Test. Test. Research. Research. Research. Research.
P.S. Here is one another great story demonstrating Erickson’s habit of ceaseless observation.
“At Cornell they were making a big fuss about an idiot savant who could multiply six-digit figures. He could give you the square root, the cube root, of six–and–eight-place figures almost instantly. And he had one other trick. He would tell someone to hide a pin anywhere in the building. Then he would walk around with hand contact and he would read that person’s mind, he said.
When they were discussing this at Cornell I suggested, ‘Why don’t you hide a pin in some building? You don’t need to tell me whether you did it on the second floor, on the first floor, or where, but we’ll hold hands and walk around the campus and I’ll find the pin.’
I found the pin on the second floor, stuck in the frame of a painting. All you do is hold hands, walk along, and the person withdraws slightly when you get near the pin. So as soon as I found a minimal withdrawal as I approached certain steps, of course I went upstairs. When you reach the top of the stairs there is tension again. Which way to turn? You turn one way and the hands relax. You turn the other way and they tense. So you go around in a circle.”
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