I couldn’t snap Billy out of his trance.

It happened over 30 years ago. I was a teenager fascinated by the powers of the mind. I read about spirituality, psychic phenomena, UFOs, 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 4 or 5. 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 fi ngers—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 16 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 parents’ 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 fi ngers. 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 fi ve 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 fi rst!” 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 that helped Billy awaken. To this day I don’t know what he said. And since I haven’t seen Billy in nearly 20 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.

Buying Trances

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 fi ve 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 profi ts.

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 that helps people incorporate their 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 approach would merge with the existing trance in many businesspeople. 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 three steps:

1. What do your prospects 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.

Let’s take another example. Say you want to sell a pair of pants. How would you use our hypnotic selling, three-step process to move them?

1. What do your prospects 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 lets 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 to 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 position—a very powerful position—to sell them.

There are numerous ways to fi nd people’s trances, merge with them, and then lead them into a “buy from you” trance. I can’t discuss 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 some 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 tired 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 is self-serving. That’s the nature of people. They are interested in their well-being fi rst. They are preoccupied 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 fi nal 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. Follow these steps:

1. What trance are people already in? You can imagine they come home from work, fi nd your sales letter in their mail, and are Not In the mood for it. Your headline might say, “Just got home from work?”

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.” 3. Now introduce your new trance. Maybe write: “Imagine putting a CD on that fi lls 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 profi t.

Just don’t age-regress any of your prospects!

Joe ’ s article proves that stories can be the fi nest form of hypnotic writing you ’ ll ever put on your web site. So look for stories. Record them. Write them down. And add them to your site to bring it to life with hypnotic writing.

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