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Last time, we looked at noticing the large movements that people are making and matching them to begin to build rapport.
Let’s find out what else you can do:
1. Match breathing - when people are talking they are breathing out.If you breathe out at the same time then you will put your whole top half into rapport with them. Breathe in during the pauses (which is when they breathe in). This takes practice!
2. Match blink rate. Start by noticing the way that people you talk to are blinking. Then, when you feel confident, match it.
3. Put it all together - match words and language, voice tone & speed,body position and breathing. You should notice a real quantum leap in your ability to get people to like you.
4. Use mismatching. Mismatching body language is an elegant way to end a conversation without upsetting anyone. If you deliberately mismatch then you are sending a signal that the rapport is over and often,people will leave. This is usually completely unconscious.
Practising these four skills will help you to develop advanced rapport skills. There’s always more to learn though and to find out more about our training’s, drop me a line.
BONUS TIP: A great book to build your rapport skills is Don’t Think Of Purple Spotted Oranges
Here’s a link to the book on Amazon if you want to find out more:
One of my favourite training exercises in rapport and one that still leaves people amazed is the following.
We ask people to pair up and ask person A to recall a strong emotional memory and hold it in mind. We ask them to match each other as closely as possible right down to the little details. We then ask person B to guess what person A is thinking about.
More often than not they are very close or spot on.
How can this happen?
It seems that our emotions are linked to our bodies and when you arrange your body in the same way as someone else, you can feel the same emotions that they feel and, quite often, have the same mental pictures, sounds or feelings that they have.
If you've ever wondered how the very advanced mind readers do it, they just use a development of this technique.
When you get good at rapport, you will get very good at empathy with others such that you can develop a reputation as a bit of a mind reader or someone with great understanding. You’ll find that you attract people and that they will want to talk to you.
Here’s a story of my own experience with this…
Back in the early days when I was first learning about rapport skills,I was a team manager with about 35 people. One of my team leaders wasSally (not his real name!) and between you and me she was a total pain.
Disruptive in meetings, always questioning things, resisting change etc.Just a general nuisance. This use to bother me a lot and I couldn’t workout what was going on.
I remember searching the internet one night for stuff about dealing with difficult people but none of that seemed to hit the spot. And then I thought about the article I’d read on matching body language and thoughtI’d give it a go - after all the relationship was already poor and I’dnothing to lose.
The next day when she sat down across the desk to talk to me I consciously adopted her posture and gestures.
The next thing that happened convinced me that this rapport stuff was massively powerful.
As I adopted her posture and gestures, I was overcome with a complete sense of fear and panic. It dawned on me in that instant that behind her loud facade, Sally was terrified.
I then started to rephrase everything to emphasise reassurance and trust.From that moment on the relationship began to be transformed.
You might argue that someone else could have spotted this anyway and maybe they could. All I know is that time and again, using simple rapport building techniques like the ones we've covered, I have been able to make a real difference to relationships in sales, at work and socially.
Let me know your experiences with rapport or if you have any questions:
Building rapport with individuals, one-to-one, makes sense with the techniques we've talked about but how do you build quick rapport in a meeting or during a presentation when there is a whole group of people in the room?
Here are some hints:
1. With a very small group (5 or less) do it one at a time. See if you can get everyone in the room sharing the same body language by matching them one by one.
2. Remember the rapport process - notice first, then match. Start by noticing the little pockets of shared body language in a group. You’llsee pockets of rapport all over the group and when you look closely,you can see "rapport leaders" who are the people that everyone is following.
3. Use balanced language and a presentation style that appeals to everyone in the group (see hints in Day 2).
4. Use stories. Everyone loves stories and we want to know the ending.
Which reminds me of the time I made the greatest mistake ever with agroup…. (bet you’re curious now aren’t you? See what I mean?)
In our last part, Day 5, I’ll give you two other major techniques for holding an audience in the palm of your hand.
Here’s an exercise from Don’t Think Of Purple Spotted Oranges to become instantly enthusiastic. It works by helping you to improve rapport with yourself:
Step 1 - rate your current enthusiasm on a scale of 1-10.
1 = almost asleep while 10 = a positive dynamo.
Step 2 - make yourself half a point LESS enthusiastic. This shows that you can manipulate the scale.
Step 3 - turn up your enthusiasm levels by pushing your rating up towards 10, half a point at a time. Work out what changes you need to make in your posture, facial expressions and self talk to support this new level.
Enjoy it!
PS - this works with other emotions too (do it with love, happiness,passion etc.)
Coming up:
That’s it for this time.
Do mail us with your comments, questions, advice or requests for information.
By the way - if you’re liking the ecourse then please let me haveyour comments.
Thanks!
Andrew
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