Over the years I have heard a lot of stuff about rapport. The one thing
that
makes logical sense it that if you match someone's posture and tone that
you
will get rapport with them. The only problem is that......it does not
work.
I know that many of you have been taught matching and mirroring.
What I am
going to say next will challenge all of that. So I am going to ask
you to
open you mind a bit for something different.
People in rapport
automatically blend into the other person. That is driven
by the connection
they already have. It is a RESULT of rapport. it is NOT a
way to gain
rapport.
Some of these methods that I have been told about are so
misguided that they
are comical.
One guy told me that is could match
the eye blinks of the other person.
Another said he spent years learning to
control his pupil dilatation so he
could match other people's pupils.
matching breathing has been suggested but
I never have seen anyone do it
successfully.
Then there is the matching of representational systems. If
someone says they
don't see your point then you talk to them in visual
language. If they say
it feels wrong you talk to them in kinesthetic
language. If they say is
doesn't ring a bell then you talk to them in
auditory language. The truth is
that this has no measurable
effect.
The odd thing about this stuff is that it sounds plausible on
paper. It just
fails miserably in the real world.
That is why we teach
the Secrets of Unstoppable Rapport Seminar.
http://essential-skills.com/site.php/spgs/read/URAtlanta2008
Let
me give you something that you will hear nowhere else. It is just a
rapport
hint to let you know the difference between what we teach and the
antiquated
concepts of rapport that never really work.
The Secret of
Positioning
One of the Secrets we will be working on is Positioning. When
you are about
to have an interaction you have to decide what position and
role you are
going to need to play in order to open the doors.
The
first decision is to decide the position. Are you going to be
dominant,
subordinate or equal? Then you have to decide how much of those you
need to
be. You could be slightly dominant or slightly
subordinate.
Then you have to decide what role you are going to occupy
when in that
position.
If you are going to dominate then you could
chooses several
roles....Teacher, Parent, Police,
Mentor..Ect.
Subordinate....Child, pet, helpless, student
ect.
Equal...best friend, colleague, team member, common
goal...ect.
This one concept is not taught anywhere else. It alone will
make your
rapport skills skyrocket.
Let me tell you about a recent
application of this. Kim and I just got new
cellphones. We were switching
companies because the service we were getting
from the other company was not
very good. I could not make a call from my
house. The thing that got me was
that 6 months ago I was able to do so. Then
something changed and it all fell
to crap.
Worse than that. It seemed that out phones worked like crap
anywhere. We
were in Florida, Tennessee and other places of the last few
months and we
could not get any solid signal. So we decided to
switch.
So after a ton of research I decided I wanted an Iphone. So we
walked up to
one of those mall booths and started talking to a guy. He was
one of those
guys who was about 23 years old but "knew" everything. So Kim
and I went to
the subordinate student position and let him teach us. He told
us what not
to waste money on. What services we should get. What phones
sucked and how
to have our phones unlocked so that we could use them in the
UK.
Ok that was good but what happened next was better. Our phones were
suppose
to cost 40 dollars a piece. He gave them to us for free. Then he
threw in
some chargers and took 25 dollars off of a 119 dollar jawbone
earpiece.
We went back a few days later to have the numbers pulled of off
my phone so
I could transfer them to the Iphone. For some reason they can't
do that
directly yet. He exploded when he saw us. We needed another charger
and a
cover and he gave us the charger for free and took 10 dollars off of
the
cover.
I am not sure you have dealt with these Mall booths but
they normally never
do this stuff. I watched the other people getting phones
and NONE of them
were getting these deals.
We NEVER asked for
anything!
All because we noticed what position would work best....and a
few other
little things but honestly not much.
If I tried to match and
mirror I would have just been distracted and looked
stupid.
There are
only a few weeks left of the early discount of 595 for the Secrets
of
Unstoppable Rapport seminar this June. If you want to REALLY want to
learn
how to effortlessly connect then you have to be there.
http://essential-skills.com/site.php/spgs/read/URAtlanta2008
More
to come.....
Tom
Anchoring Boot Camp April 26-27 Atlanta
http://essential-skills.com/site.php/spgs/read/Anchoring2008
Real
Skills for the Real World
http://www.youtube.com/profile?user=TomVizzini
www.essential-skills.com
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