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Senior Living

1969-12-31 18:00:00

Hypnosis and business

Question: Can hypnosis be used to help in business?

Answer: Yes! Hypnosis can be used in so many ways to assist the business owner, and employees to be more successful. It can relieve stress, increase focus, decrease wasted time, insurance costs, and absenteeism, increase production, sales, and morale.. The list is almost endless. Most companies, whether they are a factory producing a product, or a service organization, have stress which decreases production. It may be the kind of stress that inhibits sleep, resulting in a tired, less focused, slower, less accurate employee. Maybe the stress results in attempts to nervously hurry on the production line, or to try to cut corners, resulting in more scrap. Maybe the stress causes the conscientious employee to transpose figures. Or maybe it just makes life miserable resulting in call-ins, tardiness, or just takes the fun out of what could be a good, fun, job. Hypnosis can be used to easily deal with stress. My employees are always under stress. They are expected to always be on the run, taking care of residents, while trying to comply with multiple conflicting rules from several different regulatory agencies. In short, they are overworked and underpaid. Their wages are indirectly set by governmental agencies, such as Medicaid, which again is cutting back on payments so they know raises will be minimal, if at all. They try to work extra to make up for the low pay and they get tired. Stress causes them to forget details, or to try to fit in an extra break, or not be able to be a good parent when they get home. I periodically offer them a stress relief workshop, where I teach them techniques for relieving stress. We begin the workshop by discussing how the techniques work, and then suddenly, they’re relaxed, as we teach them the techniques they can use for the rest of their lives to relieve stress of any kind. Most of them are totally shocked when they find a stress relief technique can take as little as 20 seconds while standing up right in the middle of performing their duties. I’ve never had a one of them attend and not come away amazed at the abilities they had developed in relaxing. We teach them twenty-second methods and we teach them methods which are a little more time consuming and a lot more fun.. I hear a lot from my staff about “stress-headaches” They never need to have another one after they attend my workshop. With a disproportionate number of staff members being single mothers, you can imagine the stress they are under while trying to work and raise a family at the same time. It really does my heart good when I can make their lives better. My greatest concern is that so many are so very busy taking care of others., they think they don’t have time to attend a stress-relief workshop for themselves. It really doesn’t matter where the stress stems from, hypnosis can help relieve it. Sometimes, self-esteem issues crop up in the workplace, keeping a person from doing their job. Hypnosis can help. Depression can seriously impact work and/or relationships with other employees. Hypnosis can help. Smoking is one of the serious impediments to getting work done. Most businesses who employ smokers will tell you they are sick more, miss more work and take more than their share of “smoke breaks.” For the person who wants to stop smoking, hypnosis can immediately end their desire for cigarettes forever. As I tell them. “It’s a slam-dunk.” In fact, the last time I checked, the IRS was offering direct tax credits for people who used hypnosis to stop smoking. (You might want to check with your accountant on that one and not take my word for it since IRS regs change all the time.) There is an epidemic of obesity in our country. With it comes increased illnesses, needs for expensive equipment and accommodations, slower motion i.e decreased production and increased absenteeism. Obesity costs business owners huge amounts of money every year. Hypnosis has long been known to be effective for weight loss. In fact, “O” magazine ran an article a couple of years ago about some tests they had run which showed people using hypnosis for weight loss, lost more weight and kept it off better. By the way, IRS also used to offer direct tax credits for these programs too, but you had to have a physician’s order for them before it worked. Again, it’s a good idea to check it out before depending on it Hypnosis lends itself very well to helping those who are in the business of sales. And in reality, what business doesn’t sell something. Whether its an item or a service, all businesses sell something. As Zig Ziglar, the guru of sales used to say. “Nothing happens (in business) until someone sells something.” Hypnosis can make that system work so much more smoothly. Too often, we think of salespeople as pushy, disgusting, plaid-coated antagonists who are out to separate us from our money with no benefit to us. Because of that attitude, which is prevalent among many, the sales person dreads trying to get through the door to make his sales calls, anticipating rejection if not outright hostility. The salesperson is nervous and tense when they begin their presentation. The voice may be higher pitched, and/or louder and often times they talk faster than normal, trying to make their point before being rejected. That situation tends to make me listen less and prepare more to tell them how busy I am and invite them to leave without a fair hearing.. Having been a salesman at one time, I am familiar with both sides of the desk and realize that most salespersons, while they are trying to get me to buy something, usually have a good product, whether it is appropriate for my needs or not. In reality, salespeople are service people. They are information centers that can help me with my business, However, if they rankle me when they come in, I am far less likely to give them a fair hearing, even though it may be a product that I need. Hypnosis for the salesperson, and for sales supervisors is a wonderful tool. It can result in the person coming through the door being a helper to the businessperson as opposed to an irritant. Most people in sales believe in their product. Otherwise they wouldn’t be trying to sell it. Of course, there are the charlatans out there who are just trying to get your money, but in reality they are few and far between. Then why is it, that sales people often seem so pushy or objectionable? In reality, it is usually because they are afraid. “What?” you say? “Do you mean to tell me that pushy, loud-mouthed, character who couldn’t understand a simple NO, was afraid?” Yes he was, and through hypnosis, we can find, isolate and remove that fear. Once the fear is gone, we can have conversations, rather than confrontations, and instead of a sales presentation, we have a discussion about needs and solutions. Of course, the fear is not just on the part of the salesperson. Usually there is a little subconscious fear in each of us that someone might take advantage of us. If we can allay that fear also, the conversations center on substance and solutions. The fear of public speaking in one of its many forms is usually the base fear of the sales person. Interestingly, a study a few years ago found that people were more afraid of speaking in public, than they were of dying. Now we know the people saying that “I’d rather die than be forced to speak in public” are probably telling the truth. However, they may also have had a fear of strangers instilled in them while they were very young. While that fear is no longer in their conscious mind, it has been submerged into the subconscious, which never forgets anything! The fear of strangers, while meant to protect the child from predators, now has become a fear which prevents success. Another operable fear is the fear of success, again, an imprint in the subconscious mind, usually there since childhood. Hypnosis, can be used to determine the origin of the fear and remove it enabling the sales person, or business person to do their job of helping others obtain what they want and need -- which is they goal of any business. While all of us know that businesses are intending to make money, they in reality only do it as long as they provide something that others want or need. As Earl Nightingale used to say. “If you just help enough people get what they want, you’ll get rich.” As a hypnotist, I like helping people in business help other people. Helping people get what they want is what I do. (“I’m waiting for the rest of Earl’s saying to come true!”)