Exploring the Top 3 from QED 2012

Having reviewed the top 10 ideas to come out of the July 2012 QED event, here is a little more around the top 3.

1. Clients can feel a psychological connectedness to their healthcare professional if there is an exceptional level of trust and rapport. One way in which this can be generated and then maintained is by pacing the clients experience. Eye accessing signals (up-visual, lateral - auditory and down for internal feelings/dialogue) will assist the professional communicator to vary their language in response to their clients internal processing. Having asked the question "have you considered the benefits of hearing instruments?" the accessing should guide the response: up - how does that appear, or how does that look to you, or can you imagine what that may be like? lateral - how would that sound, or what would you expect to hear? down - how does that make you feel or what's going on for you right now?

2. Clients bury their deep rooted concerns and apprehensions below surface level, generalised statements. Therefore in order to retrieve the deleted and distorted detail a healthcare professional needs to be tenacious at using questions from the Meta Model to get to the root of the problem or the beliefs and values level of the iceberg. This is important in understanding what's stopping the other person from making progress.

3. By recognising that every aspect of the current experience is being received by the unconscious mind and that all except 5-9 things can be consciously processed we can deliver guidance in a way that the other person does not pay conscious attention to it. Tonality will help mark out certain key words to give them more meaning, whereas inadvertant marking will draw attention to things that we would rather the other person ignores. Remember, the brain is an instrument that likes to receive commands therefore when commands are present its easier for the subconscious mind to follow: Let me carry your coffee for you as you follow me through to hear and give me your coat.

ADE Advantage

ADE Advantage Lifestyle Profiling

Why:

-      denial is overcome by emphasizing what is important to the person

-      removing suspicion (gaining trust/confidence)

-      building trust/confidence by uncovering their unique needs, challenges and lifestyle changes

What needs to be accomplished:

-      prioritize at least 3 specific needs to the patients (trust)

-      agreeing on common goals

-      overcome denial/feel the pain

-      confidence in practitioner

-      shows patient is important and we care about their needs/lifestyle

The purpose of using Lifestyle Profiling questioning is to properly customize Lifestyle Profiling Needs to the patients needs. (The Bernafon Lifestyle Profiling (BLP) are similar to the Client Oriented Scale of Improvement - COSI). Our goal is to develop BLP NEEDS for what the patient actually tells us. We are not developing BLP NEEDS for the Activities in which we think the patient wants to improve. . It is important to be a good listener and assume nothing.

There are four types of questions that you will be using throughout the HHTesting Protocol. To remember them use the acronym ADE or Activity, Difficulty, Emotion-Explicit Needs and Advantage.

The way to Develop your patients ADE Needs –

Use the ADE Advantage Questioning Process

§  Activity – data gathering. “Tell me about your hearing.”

§  Difficulty – explore problems, difficulties and dissatisfactions in areas where a lack of hearing might affect the patient’s communication, relationships or enjoyment of life.

§  Emotion-Explicit Needs – Very important, helps person understand consequences of problem and urgency of correcting it.

§  Advantage – Most important, these questions allow the patient to tell you the benefits the solution can offer.

§  (Top performers ask 10 times as many emotion-explicit needs and advantage questions as average performers)

To fully understand how to ask the right questions you first need to be able to tell the difference between…

Implied Needs – Definition: Statements by the patient of problems difficulties and dissatisfaction. 

   EX: “I can’t hear the TV.”

Explicit Needs – Definition: Statements by the patient of wants or desires.

   EX: “I want to hear the TV better.”

The purpose of asking our patients’ questions is to uncover Implied Needs and to develop them into Explicit Needs.

Activities Questions

§        Used to collect facts, information, and background data

§        Are not positively related to success (asking or not asking doesn’t make a difference)

§        Inexperienced individuals typically ask more of the questions than experienced people

§        Need to be used carefully and each should have a purpose

§        People get bored if asked too many

§        Benefit the seller not the buyer

§        Are easiest to ask

Difficulty Questions

§        Are used to probe for problems, difficulties, and dissatisfactions

§        Allow for implied needs to be stated

§        Are more strongly linked to clinician success than Activity Questions

§        More experienced people ask a higher portion of these than Activity Questions.

§        More powerful in smaller sales than larger sales

Emotion-Explicit Need Questions

§        Uncover more than just the problem and offer a solution-where these come into play

§        Take a problem that the buyer perceives as small and builds it up into a problem large enough to justify action

§        Help inexperienced people be more successful-especially to those who don’t think they can

§        Powerful in convincing decision makers to take action

§        Powerful in high-technology solutions to address a real need

§        Though extremely effective, they can be more problem-centered and bring out sad emotions

§        Emotion-Explicit Need questions are the most important questions to ask. DO NOT SHORTCUT THIS STEP.

SAMPLE ADE Questions

Activity Questions about TV How important is it for you to hear the TV? Does anyone ever tell you that you play the TV too loud? Who? What kind of programs do you like to watch?

Difficulty Questions about the TV Do you always understand the voices on TV?  Tell me more about that. Do you miss the punch lines of comedians' jokes? What would you like to hear better on TV?

Emotion-Explicit Need Questions about the TV How is your enjoyment of TV affected by your hearing? How is your family's enjoyment affected by your hearing? Is TV less enjoyable because you don't hear well? Have you skipped watching your favorite program because of your hearing? Is it enjoyable for you to watch TV together with your spouse, or does your hearing get in the way?

Activity Questions for the Telephone Who do you talk to on the Telephone the most? Do you always hear the telephone ring?

Difficulty Questions for the Telephone Who do you have trouble understanding on the phone? How long have you had problems on the phone?

Emotion-Explicit Need Questions for the Telephone Are there important telephone communications you are missing? Does your ______ express frustration with you when you have to ask to have things repeated? How do you think it makes your _______ feel?

Activity Questions about Religious Service - Meetings Do you attend church regularly? Can you hear the sermon? Do you socialize after church?

Difficulty Questions for Religious Services - Meetings How important is it for you to hear well in religious services? What parts of the service can't you hear well? Does it bother you that you miss things in religious services?

Emotion-Explicit Need Questions for Religious Services - Meetings If you have difficulty hearing at religious services, is it causing you to attend less frequently? I'm sure not attending church is upsetting.  Is that the only effect, or is your quality of life affected as well? How do you feel about missing out on the different parts of the service? How is your enjoyment of church affected by your hearing? How is your relationship with your pastor, rabbi affected by your hearing loss?

Activity Questions about Spouse/Family/Significant Other When is it most difficult to hear your wife? Are you asking her to repeat a lot?

Difficulty Questions about Spouse Do you avoid talking about things together, because of your hearing? Is your wife complaining about having to repeat for you? Are you able to hear and understand your favorite programs? What are they?

Emotion-Explicit Need Questions about Spouse How does your wife feel about your communication with her? Is your hearing causing some stress in your relationship? Is your wife frustrated with you because of your hearing? Have you lost some of the enjoyment of some of things you used to do together?

Activity Questions for a Spouse (Third Party) How much time do you spend with your spouse? What activities do your spouse and you enjoy doing together? How long has your spouse been having difficulties hearing? Does your spouse wear their hearing aids on a regular basis? Do you turn and face your spouse when you communicate with them or do you often talk to them with your back turned?

Difficulty Questions for a Spouse (third party) Are you satisfied with how your spouse currently hears you? Does your spouse       Ask you to repeat yourself?       To turn the TV up louder than              you would like?        Seem to ignore what you              say? What happens when you go to a restaurant and try to have a conversation? Does your spouse's current hearing aids seem difficult for him/her to use? What are the difficulties you find your spouse having with their hearing?

Emotion-Explicit Need Questions for a Spouse (third party) What effect does your spouse's hearing difficulties have on your relationship? Could your spouse's hearing difficulties be causing tension between the two of you? Does your spouse's hearing difficulties keep you from the activities you care about? Would you say that you find yourself pulling away from conversation at restaurants with your spouse? What are the consequences to the quality of your spouse's life, because he doesn’t hear appropriately.

Generic Activity Questions for…Remember these are only sample questions. Each practitioner must tailor their questions to their patients needs. Key words/sayings are: “Tell me more…” “Who?” “What...?” Review the section above describing ACTIVITY QUESTIONS

Generic Difficulty Questions for… Remember these are only sample questions. Each practitioner must tailor their questions to their patients needs. Key words/sayings are: “What happens when...?” Review the section above describing PROBLEM QUESTIONS.

Generic Emotion-Explicit Need Questions for… Review the section above describing IMPLICATION QUESTIONS.

Self Limiting Belief

This months QED session contains a reference to Nick Vujicic, his way of looking at life through his 'no arms, no legs, no worries' filter is a true inspiration for someone who has overcome the self limiting beliefs that you might expect from his condition. If you want to see more of this incredible human being in action then take a look at:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=snDQe3tWwRQ

Linguistic Ambiguity

One of the key tools within QED is the skill of influence and persuasion. A limitation on the human brain is that it cannot consciously process everything presented by our senses, although the unconscious mind processes every piece of data. So how would it be if you could sugegst something to someone without their conscious mind being aware of, or critically evaluating, what you have suggested? Thats what linguistic ambiguity can help you achieve.

Linguistic ambiguity is also used by writers and comedians to take your conscious mind along a path and then to change the context completely which causes the logical path to be blown away. The result is that most people laugh, inwardly and very often outwardly too. At worst people sigh or moan 'bad joke'.

A man is walking through a boat yard, alongside the River Thames, when he sees a small leisure boat for sale. He thinks it would would be good fun to take a boat on the river on his days off, and considers purchasing it. He goes into the office and asks the attendant the price of the boat. 'Eighteen hundred pounds' is the response. 'Thats expensive, I thought there was a sale' said the man, 'no' said the attendant, 'you need to get an outboard motor too'.

So now you understand the ambiguity around the word 'sail' and you will have just have had the effect of ambiguity hit your awareness. Imagine what could be done with words like here there.

So Much To Share

There are so many ideas being brought to the seminar by a top commercial dispenser, that we want to include in the next QED workshop an additional session to give all participants the benefit of the experience in the room. On the middle (Wednesday) evening there will be a session on Objection Handling and using COSI with SPIN to excavate the emotional side of the clients needs.

We will be asking you to list all the objections you have ever heard and then we'll look at whether they are statements or real objections. We will look at ways of dealing with these objections in a subconscious way identifying client needs and wants as well as the role of additional tools like the word test, warble box and tuning fork.

We currently plan to run this session from around 5:45 for a couple of hours.

All Aboard for QED 2012

Date: July 24,25 & 26 2012
Venue: Dalton House Training Centre
Start time on July 24th is 1:30pm

Preparations are now underway for the next cohort of QED participants who want to enhance their communication and influencing skills within the context of helping other people to live a more fulfilling life. In considering the challenges of moving someone from where they are today to ultimately achieve the lifestyle that they want there are other factors than just offering a product. Even more than offering a product and offering to look after it. To have a positive impact on a life changing event, like better hearing, healthcare professionals need to have the skills to make emotional connections, to eloquently adjust their communication to best suit the needs and style of the client and persuasively communicate in the most exquisite way. Thats what QED is all about. It's the tools and models that will enable participants to make a Quantum Leap as a professional executive.

While all pre-registered hearing aid dispensers are invited to discover these principles between achieving their qualification and full registration, you will also be joined by a number of existing registered professional who also want to enhance and develop these areas of skill.

Whether you are a new heathcare practitioner or a seasoned professional you will be in good company with a number of individuals all looking for the same goal - to be the best that they can be.

All Change for the Trainers

Since QED was first developed and delivered David Rist and Guy Wolstencroft have always worked together on the programme to bring a blend of Communication and NLP into a Hearing Aid Dispensing context. In March 2012 Guy is changing his own business focus to use his enthusiasm and skills to set up a new business venture in the NW and will no longer be involved in the QED programme.

Participants for 2012 will not be disadvantaged. David will be joined by two highly committed people to ensure that the future QED programmes receive a Hearing Aid Dispenser Focus. Firstly, David will be joined by Tim Pringle. Tim is a Hearing Aid Dispenser who uses NLP especially the language patterns of influence when working with his own clients in Northern Ireland. Tim is also recognised as a leading sales trainer in the industry achieveing excellent sales results himself as well as developing the earning potential of the people he trains. Tim is instrumental of the roll out of the Avada Testing Protocol in Ireland, a consultation model based around psychological influencing and communication skills that was developed in our U.S sister retail company. Joining the delivery team also is, Catherine Ley, a Team Leader from the SE Area. Catherine has found that the processes that are covered in the QED programme have help her to become successful and she is willing to share how she has applied many of the ideas in the dispensing context. Catherine has also added to her portfolio by listening to Richard Bandler, co-creator of NLP, and has taken personal development from his approach.

It is the shared experience of the three trainers that really will mean that the participants of the next QED Programme really are 'standing on the shoulders of giants'.