It is said that greatness cannot be achieved overnight. But with the right learning styles, achieving greatness may come easier. Learn about the four different learning styles and how you can leverage them for your success. Find out the importance of having high intention and low attachment when framing your presentation, as well as discover why framing your presentation is more important than actually delivering it.

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Listen to the podcast here:

Four Learning Styles to Greatness

Although ethical influence is central to our discussions, you and I will also explore other fascinating and important topics such as growing your relationship capital, virtual presentation strategies, finding your joint venture partners, the principles of Karmic Marketing, premium client marketing strategies, repurposing strategies and digital marketing strategies to name a few.

In this episode, you’ll learn three key insights which I believe are critical to making you a highly skilled ethical influencer. Ethical influence is not something you’re born with but it’s something that you learn. It is a learnable skill and it’s a very lucrative skill. In this episode, you’re going to learn the four learning styles of other people as well as yours so that you know how to adapt to others who are not like you, whether you’re selling them something or teaching them something.

You’ll learn the importance of having high intention and low attachment with everyone you want to influence ethically. You’ll learn why context is more decisive in the selling process than the content that you’re selling. Lean in and listen carefully because this episode could have a significant impact on how you can quickly and easily win the hearts of others.

The year was 2006 and I was sitting in a converted office that was the fifth bedroom of my home in Marin County, California. My then wife and my two children were sleeping and I was wondering, “I am up for writing another course, which would it be? What’s the topic?” I was thinking about my successes. In 2001, I developed Market With Postcards which was a bestseller. I retired that course about five years later, but I made nearly $1 million with that course.

In an era of the $20 eBook, all digital sold online and this is the dial up era and there was no cable Internet, it was very slow back then. America Online was the big thing. What had happened was I sold this physical course for $247 and it was in an era where people didn’t send postcards anymore. Digital marketers were just sending an email. I thought if I can get people via physical mail, that would be cool.

If I could sell a physical course, which was a three-ring binder, there was a CD that had all the contents in there and it was four colors, then it would be successful. Through that course, I learned how to generate five figures month after month, getting less than 50 visitors a day, sometimes less than twenty unique visitors a day. I was very good at conversion. I wasn’t so good at traffic creation, but traffic conversion, I was good at.

These days the biggest digital marketing event I know of is run by Digital Marketer called Traffic & Conversion. One of the students of Marketing With Postcards who is now my teacher, Ryan Deiss, runs that with his partners Perry Belcher and Roland Frasier, also great friends. They are really good at creating traffic and converting traffic. They draw about 5,000 people each year in San Diego. Look it up, Traffic & Conversion, you’ll always find me there.

Marketing With Postcards was that course that really got me on the map, which led to Traffic Conversion Secrets because I was really good at converting traffic. I put together an eight-module teleseminar and I recorded it. I put it on CDs for people to listen to. Yes, people listen to CDs back then and two thick three-ring binders with the enhanced transcripts. I sold that for $1,800. That was a first because it was a premium sale sold through teleseminars. People actually listen to it live.

Then that led to Teleseminar Secrets, which was my big success. It made over $14 million in the five and a half years I had it before I retired it. It put me on the map and I got many students who are now my teachers. Russell Brunson is one of those people. Vishen Lakhiani of Mindvalley is one of those people. Russell runs ClickFunnels, which I use and I recommend you use as well.

 

These courses brought me not only great students who are now teachers of mine and have far ascended beyond where I am with the sizes of their company and the reach that they have. They also taught me about the different types of students that I would get. Some would keep asking, “What’s this about? What’s the definition of this?” Others would say, “Why is that important and why do I have to do that?”

Others would say, “How do I do this? I want to do it, but how do I physically do it?” Others would say, “What if I did all those things? What would my life look like 30 days, 90 days, a year from now?”

I realized that not every student learns the same way. In 2005, I developed Virtual Book Tour Secrets. I still do virtual book tours today, back then with teleseminars. Today, we do it with webinars and most notably with Facebook Live because of the networking effect in the reach that we get.

I charge people to do a virtual book tour. Instead of going from bookstore to bookstore, the author explains the book through a host scenario. It’s like I become the Larry King. In fact, Larry King calls me the Larry King of Web TV.

When I visited his house, I asked him if he could endorse me that way. He said, “Sure.” I took a picture with him and I’m very proud of that. I’m kind of the Larry King for virtual book tours.

That was also a course that I taught. I made several million dollars with Podcasting Secrets, a course I did with Paul Colligan. Coming back to Web Communication Secrets, which is the course I’m talking about now. I developed something for the first time that I’ve been utilizing ever since. That’s a clue into the type of learner I am.

This is late 2006. I thought, “What if I shifted the curriculum so that it would appeal to all different learning styles?” I did research because I knew that there must be different learning styles. Some people were interested in what things were. Others were interested in why those things were important or how they worked.

If I did these things, what would my life look like? There’s a hint: I’m seeding the four learning styles. I did a lot of research and I came up with the best researcher and developer of teaching different learning styles.

He is David Kolb. He was born in 1939. That’s the year my mother Carol was born. He got his PhD from Harvard in 1964. That was the year I was born.

[bctt tweet=”The what, the why, the how, and the what if do make a difference.” via=”no”]

Little Alex came out in 1964 in Hollywood, California and lived in Pasadena for many years. David A. Kolb, his colleague Roger Fry, they developed ELM or Experiential Learning Models. If you’ve ever seen me teach on stage or hopefully one day you will, I teach experientially through having people repeat what I say, do what I do and actually have them get in dyads and work with each other in group settings so that they really get it.

They developed this model in the 1970s and they came out with four different styles. Here’s one, concrete experience, the style of feeling. Reflective observation is the style of watching. Abstract conceptualization is the style of thinking. Active experiment experimentation is the style of doing .

Number one, concrete experience or feeling. Number two, reflective observation or watching. Number three, abstract conceptualization or thinking. Four, active experimentation or doing.

Think about it, which of those four do you have a bias toward? Which do you lean into more? You probably have a little bit of all four of them, but what do you have a natural draw towards? Those four descriptions: concrete experience, reflective observation, abstract conceptualization, active experimentation, I’m sitting in my converted office which was a bedroom and I’m thinking that that’s way too complex for my students.

In fact, I thought it was way too complex for me. David Kolb was a genius. I didn’t think that I would remember those. I thought, “What if I dumb them down and clarify them with different words?” I did.

The What Learner

I did the best I could and it still holds today. I believe there are four types of learners, thanks to David Kolb. The what learner wants to know, what is this idea and what’s the concrete definition of this idea?

The Why Learner

Number two, there’s the why learner. Why is this idea so important?

The How Learner

Number three, how do I apply this idea and how do I do the things I need to do?

The What If Learner

Number four, what if I know the idea and why it’s important I do it? What if I do that? What would my life look like or humanity, my future if I did those things?

The what learner, the why learner, the how learner and the what if learner. I am a what if learner if these four styles make sense to you. The course is still available. I still sell it domestically and abroad.

It’s $3,000. You can check it out WebCommunicationSecrets.com. It’s there and you see what’s inside of it. You don’t have to buy it. This is the course where from every how-to course, every training, every seminar, everything that followed this course in late 2006 I started teaching this way with a bias towards all four, not just one type of learner.

If I’m a what if learner and I teach from that perspective, then I want to do onto others as I want to be done unto, which is the golden rule. That’s good. That doesn’t make for a very good teacher. I prefer the platinum rule and teaching, do on to others as they want to be done on to.

The platinum rule comes from a book called the Platinum Rule, written or co-written by my good friend, Dr. Tony Alessandra. I wanted to create curricula, which is plural for curriculum, for the what learners, the why learners, the how learners and the what if learners. In a seminar room, I sometimes separate those learners and have them talk to each other, so they get a sense of, “You’re a what learner. What’s important to you? You’re a why learner? Why is that important? You’re a how learner. How do you do that? You’re a what if? What does your future look like?”

As I developed these four different ways of teaching, it was a natural flow. I noticed in my own experience that this is experiential. Coming from my research, there’s a sequence between the what, why, how and what if. A sequence, meaning you want to get rid of the what learners and the why learners first and second because they’re very impatient.

They’re not as patient as the how or the what if learner. The what person wants to know what this is. What is the definition of it? They have why, how and what if in them, but they have a natural tendency to be dominantly what.

The why learner is very impatient. They want to know why. All of us as children were why learners, weren’t we? “Why Mom? Why Dad? Why grandma? Why grandpa? Why?”

Then around five or six years of age, we heard, “Because I said so.” “Why does the sun come up? Why do I have to go to bed? Why do I have to eat ice cream after dinner?“

Why is a very important style of learning. You have all four of these within you, but you want to get rid of the what and the why first. Web Communication Secrets is about writing copy but not just the written word, not just writing on a web page or email.

On page, meaning a website. Off page, meaning email or mobile texting. I use Skipio, that’s for copy but written for the mobile text, which is different than for email or different than a website or a landing page.

On page means you’re looking at the page. Off page means in the background like email or mobile texting. It was beyond that. It was now audio scripting. Web Communication secrets is about writing audio scripts and having templates for that.

[bctt tweet=”Web Communication secrets is about writing audio scripts and having templates for that. ” via=”no”]

I’ve written a script for this episode. It’s never word for word, but it’s four pages. They’re taped up on three monitors. I have one taped up on the left monitor. I have to have them taped up on the center monitor.

I have one taped up on the third monitor. There are four pages and each episode has four pages: the show opening, the female voiceover, my preview. The episode preview is where I said you’ll learn the four learning styles, the importance of high intention, low attachment, context versus content. Then there’s the episode content and episode review. That’s the pattern.

Then there is the call to action, which is I want a review and a rating from iTunes. If you’ve already done it, then I ask you what your biggest takeaway, write it on an index card and keep it. Then the final salutation of what’s going to happen at the next episode. That’s the pattern. That’s the audio script for All Selling AsideI hope you’re telling other people, friends, colleagues because it’s fun to learn together.

This is 25 years of my own sales and marketing knowhow and I’m delivering it in 25-minute audio chunks every single week, every Monday. It’s one episode per week. You can read as many as you want that are published at this time. This happens to be episode sixteen. Welcome to All Selling Aside. That’s web communication secrets as well, but you’re communicating through the spoken word.

Then there’s the visual word or video and they’re scripting on video. If you watch me on Facebook Live or if you watch me for marketing online mentor and you can go to MarketingOnlineMentor.com, that’s free training. It’s a pretty good one. I scripted all those video teachings and lessons. There’s video, visual word, audio, spoken word and there are written words that you can repurpose video, pull out the audio, then use the written word in enhanced those transcripts.

That’s called repurposing, which is a topic of another episode. That’s where Web Communication Secrets came from. The big breakthrough was the learning styles because so far, I’ve been teaching you from the position of a what and a why and a how and a what if. What if you learn these learning styles? What could happen to your life let’s say a week from now?

Not much, but 30 days from now if you change your teaching style or you change the way you communicate not just for copywriting, just the way you communicate with your loved ones or your friends and colleagues. If you’re a boss, with your management team. If you’re a manager, the way you communicate with your boss.

If you change that and you ask yourself, “What kind of learner am I am dealing with here?” Then you can pay homage to David Kolb and thank him and his colleague Ron Fry because they came up with it. Then I’ll give you a tip of the hat from a spiritual perspective for understanding that the what, the why, the how and the what if do make a difference.

When you create, write a book or deliver any kind of communication or if you’re selling a what learning buyer, then you’re going to sell that person a little differently than if it’s a what if. You learn what they are by asking questions and you want to go after the what and the why first because they’re impatient and you’ll lose them. The how will keep listening and the what if learner will keep listening. Are you getting this? That’s what I’ve been doing during this episode. I got rid of the what.

 

What’s All Selling Aside? It’s to be ethically influential. You’re going to be ethically influential and if you hate to sell, you are going to learn to sell through the concept of seeding, like planting seeds through storytelling, which I do and I’m in the middle of doing right now. I believe that’s the new selling.

Why is that important? It’s because people love stories. How does it work? A story has a beginning, a middle and an end. There’s a problem. There’s an action as a result. What if you tell stories?

You get rejected less often if you tell stories. That’s why I’m teaching this way. In fact, I’m eating my own cooking. I’m drinking my own Kool-Aid. That’s what All Selling Aside.

There is always a story. Have you noticed? If this is your first episode, keep reading and I hope you give us a review because that will mean much to me.

The what learner is about the head, your head. If you point to your head, you say, “It’s my head.” That’s the what learner, their brain. The why learner is about the heart. You get the head and heart out of the way first it makes sense.

The heart is why? It’s about energy, emotion. The how is about the hands. Doesn’t that make sense? Your hands, that’s how you do something.

Humanity is the what if learner. I wanted to have four H’s and they worked out great. The head, the heart, the hands in humanity. What I do for me to remember the four learning styles is I point my head and I say, “What?” I point to my heart, I say, “Why?”

I dangle my fingers in front of me and I say, “How?” Then I kind of do this swoosh where my fingers come together with my hands. It’s kind of like a fountain thing with my hands. I use both of them and I go, “Humanity.” You could do that.

Head, heart, hands and humanity. With teaching and selling do on to others as they want to be done on to. It’s very important. That’s the way you manage uncertainty because that’s the key to success. When you manage uncertainty, then you are really dealing with great business success.

That’s the most difficult thing for entrepreneurs. What makes a good entrepreneur great is their ability to manage uncertainty and that’s the Alexism for today. What makes a good entrepreneur great is their ability to manage uncertainty. Managing uncertainty is the key to your success. Whether you were when you were a child, that was true.

As an adult, it’s true and into the senior years, it will always be true. One of the ways that you can start creating a curriculum that makes sense to others, even if it’s just a script because that is a curriculum for an upcoming talk or upcoming presentation. I always write down and I recommend that you do this. I write down what and then underneath it, why, how, what if.

What is, “What is this about?” This episode is called The Four Learning Styles to Greatness. You want to do the what and almost make a little mind map and define the what’s of what you’re presenting. Why is this important? Why is this relevant?

Why does it kind of hooks in your Avatar or your ideal audience? Who is it that you’re ultimately going to influence ethically? Why is it important to them? Why is it relevant to them? The why captures the who.

That’s why I love why. The how is how are they going to take the next step? How do they buy from you? How do they use the product or service?

You can do a little mind map with how and then what if they did this? What would their life look like in 30 days? Take them on a journey. What about 60 days? How about 90?

What about a year? What would their life look like a year from now? The way I start my curriculum is I write what and then I have little spokes coming out and all the different whats. Then why, what, how and what if. There are four different pages many times.

Sometimes you can do it in an outline form too, but it’s not as powerful because the mind works with connections. I like to do a little mind map for each word. Now you have a more complete presentation or course. Back in the days of 2003, I was selling media for infomercials and Tony Robbins’ Personal Power One, the one that started it.

Fran Tarkenton was in that, the great quarterback from Minnesota. Harvey Mackay, my good friend, also from Minnesota, he was in that as well. I remember that was 2002 I believe. I was buying media and Personal Power One happened to be one of the infomercials that we were buying. When someone goes to a Tony Robbins event, I don’t know if they do this anymore, but what I noticed is when I went to one back in the 1990s, the person who got on the phone who was enrolling me said, “Alex, what would happen if you didn’t say yes to go to this event?”

I said, “I don’t know.” The other person said, the salesperson said, “Nothing would happen. It would be terrible. If you like where you’re at now, then there’s no reason to go. If you want to change, let me ask you what could happen if you did say yes.”

Those are two great questions. What would happen if you didn’t say yes? That’s my version. They said what would happen if you said no, I don’t like the word no most of the time. I said, “What would happen if you did not say yes?” I’m seeding the yes.

Then the next question is what could happen if you did say yes. Let them tell you what could happen. That’s really a what if learner, you have all the information, then you take them into the future, their future self.

That’s the type of learner I am. I have a bias towards what if. What could happen if you did say yes? That doesn’t mean it’s going to happen, but it could happen.

This is where framing your presentation means that you have high intention. You want them to get what they want, not what you think, what they need. You want them to get what they want. You want to have a high intention, low attachment.

What’s a low attachment? You have a low attachment to their learning style because they’re going to be what they’re going to be. You have low attachment to what they tell you on why it’s important. Don’t argue over the why. That’s what many people do.

Why would you do that? Why would you argue over the whys? They’re going to have the reasons for their own reasons and they’re different than you are. Be unattached or at least low attached to their reasons why. They are what they are.

It’s high intention, low attachment. What that means is you want the intention for them to advanced whatever they’re doing, whatever you’re selling. You may be selling your family on going on a vacation at a certain time. That’s a sales presentation.

It’s going out to dinner or if you have kids, going to bed on time. Kids stay up a lot later in this era than I remember me staying up. I would stay up maybe 10:00 PM, 9:30. My kids go to bed at 10:30, 11:00 PM. It drives me crazy.

They don’t get enough sleep because they have this little computer in their hands that I take away or I threaten to take away if they don’t get to bed because they’re going back and forth with that little computer called the mobile phone or the smartphone in between doing homework.

They are switch tasking. We have rules when my children are with me, they’re in their teenage years. I say, what would happen if you continue doing this? They get it and they’re really great, great kids. You want to have high intention, low attachment.

Imagine if you knew that as a kid or your first relationship, wouldn’t that be great? I hope by now you realize that the context of your presentation or a course like Web Communication Secrets, Virtual book Tour Secrets, Traffic conversion Secrets or Teleseminar Secrets or Podcast Secrets, I have a lot of secrets courses. Hopefully, you realize that the context, the four learning styles, that’s the frame. That is more decisive than the content because if the content is delivered from your bias and your learning style, it’s not going to be as good a course.

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Let’s review what we talked about. The four learning styles for you to become an ethical influencer is the what, he why, the how and the what if learning styles. Ethical influence is about high intention and low attachment. Framing your presentation is more important than actually delivering it. The frame is called the context and I like to utilize the mind maps of the four different learning styles and that’s where I begin.

That’s the seeds of a successful curriculum and course. Hopefully, you’ve enjoyed this episode as a result. Framing it in the context of that presentation is more decisive over the content of the sales presentation. Remember, whatever you learn right now can only work for you if you work the principles. That’s our review.

Speaking of reviews, I want you to go to AllSellingAside.com/iTunes. I want you to type in the biggest takeaway or a-ha moment you experienced during this episode. You can do this in the review section and when you do, it iTunes will ask you to rate the episode and I hope I’ve earned five stars from you. If you’ve already rated any of my other episodes, I thank you from the bottom of my heart. What could happen as a result of that rating is you can keep listening to other episodes which are all free and learn and then earn.

Go ahead, declare your big takeaway in the iTunes review section by visiting AllSellingAside.com/iTunes. It’ll take three minutes out of your day, but what you declare could provide you a life time of learning. If you have already given me the rating, just write it on an index card and hold onto that card what your biggest a-ha moment was or biggest takeaway that I have a final gift for you is I’ve given in the previous episodes and in honor of this 16th episode of all selling aside, you’ll get a complimentary copy of my digital eBook.

It’s also in a physical format, but it’s $20 on Amazon. Why pay $20 when you can get it for free? That’s my book called Alexisms: Useful Lessons From A Recovering Serial Entrepreneurl. You can download it instantly at AlexismsBook.com. The Alexism for this episode is, “What makes a good entrepreneur great is their ability to manage uncertainty.”

This is the show dedicated to making ethical influence within your reach so that you can achieve and even exceed your sales potential because you’re not as good as you think you are. You’re better.

Do whatever it takes to join me next time because our topic will be why Socrates avoided sales rejection. It’s going to be a good one. I encourage you to invite a friend or bring a study buddy because it’s always fun to learn with someone. I can’t wait to connect with you then. All good wishes.

Important Links:

• Market With Postcards
• Traffic & Conversion
• Traffic Conversion Secrets
• Teleseminar Secrets
• Mindvalley
• ClickFunnels
• Web Communication Secrets
• WebCommunicationSecrets.com
• Platinum Rule
• AllSellingAside.com/iTunes
• AlexismsBook.com