In between scrolling LinkedIn and hitting refresh on our email browsers at least four-hundred times a day, salespeople are always looking for a competitive edge -- something we can implement to increase our performance, especially if that something doesn’t require thousands of hours of additional training or expensive subscription fees. 
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Well, if you came of age in the 1970’s, you would’ve thought you’d found your solution in NLP, which stands for Neuro-linguistic programming, an approach to communication, personal development, and psychotherapy developed in California, which promised to allow anyone to “model” the skills of exceptional people, and to cure phobias, depression, and even the common cold, and which was marketed as leadership training to business leaders across the globe, including to hundreds of thousands of salespeople who were swept up in NLP’s promise of being able to master your own behavior, as well as to influence the behavior of others. 
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The backstory 
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In the 1970’s, two men from California, Richard Bandler and John Grinder, developed NLP as a form of therapy, using language as the springboard for helping people deal with their problems. 
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Around that same time, there was a new movement brewing, which focused on the untapped potential of all human beings (basically the early days of the personal development industry). Bandler and Grinder saw an opportunity, and began claiming that in addition to being a therapeutic method, NLP was also a study of communication. 
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They began marketing it as a business tool, claiming that, "if any human being can do anything, so can you." After 150 students paid $1,000 each for a ten-day workshop in Santa Cruz, California, Bandler an Grinder gave up academic writing and started selling books from seminar transcripts, such as Frogs into Princes, which sold hundreds of thousands of copies, and quickly made them rich. 
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Between the books, the seminars, and all of the other media associated with NLP, Bandler and Grinder were making money hand over fist. But, like in many business partnerships, they soon started feuding over dollars, and began a decades-long legal fight over the rights to NLP, with lawsuits that started in 1980, and continued through to 2000. Hilariously enough, none of their NLP teachings could help them work out a resolution without the help of the courts. 
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Putting it to the test 
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As NLP gained in popularity in the early 1980’s, it attracted attention in counseling research and clinical psychology. But, when put to the test in controlled trials and studies, NLP failed to live up to the claims made by its advocates.
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Surveys in the academic community have shown NLP to be widely discredited among scientists, and it's now considered a pseudoscience, that is, a practice which claims to be based on science without the evidence to back it up.  
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But it’s not all useless 
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That being said, there are a few teachings in NLP that salespeople can benefit from, some of which are still frequently used in modern sales training. 
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Mirroring 
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This is probably the most familiar NLP technique. Mirroring is when you (subtly) match and reflect the prospect’s body language, mannerisms, and words. Doing this can help put a prospect at ease and help with building rapport and trust.
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Body Language 
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While not as applicable in today’s Zoom-heavy world, body language still plays an important role in making prospects feel comfortable. Overly imposing or overly relaxed body language can be a distraction, and will interfere with efforts to build a connection. Focus on open, but non-threatening body language. 
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Active listening 
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Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you know that listening is one of the most important skills a salesperson can have. NLP encourages active listening -- that is, being attentive to what your prospects are saying, then reflecting it back to them in a compelling, but comforting way. 
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Expressing positivity 
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Back when NLP was first taking off, toxic positivity wasn’t even a thing. Even so, sales reps need to remain upbeat and enthusiastic, and use positive language where possible. Keeping your prospect in high spirits is always better than the alternative, and that’s one of the things that NLP got absolutely right.