Over the years I have heard a lot about the relationship. The only thing that makes logical sense is that if you match someone’s stance and tone, you’ll gain rapport with them. The only problem is… it doesn’t work.
I know many of you have been taught to match and mirror. What I am going to say next will challenge all of that. So I’m going to ask you to open your mind a little bit for something different.
People in relationship automatically blend in with the other person. That’s driven by the connection they already have. It is a RESULT of the report. It is NOT a way to gain rapport.
Some of these methods that I have been told about are so wrong as to be comical.
One guy told me that he could match the other person’s eye blinks. Another said that he spent years learning to control the dilation of his pupils so that he could match other people’s pupils. Coincidental breathing has been suggested, but I’ve never seen anyone do it successfully.
Then there is the pairing of representation systems. If someone says they don’t get your point, then talk to them in visual language. If they say they feel bad, talk to them in kinesthetic language. If they say it doesn’t ring a bell, then you speak to them in auditory language. The truth is that this has no measurable effect.
The strange thing about these things is that it sounds plausible on paper. It just fails miserably in the real world.
Let me give you something you won’t hear anywhere else. It’s just a relationship suggestion to let you know the difference between what we teach and outdated relationship concepts that never really work.
The secret of positioning
One of the Secrets that 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 have to play in order to open the doors.
The first decision is to decide the position. Are you going to be dominant, subservient or equal? So you have to decide how much of those you need to be. You could be slightly dominant or slightly subservient.
Then you have to decide what role you are going to occupy when you are in that position.
If he’s going to dominate, then he could choose several roles… Teacher, Parent, Police, Mentor…etc.
Subordinate… Child, pet, defenseless, student, etc.
Same… best friend, colleague, team member, common goal… etc.
This concept is not taught anywhere else. It will only cause your reporting abilities to skyrocket.
Let me tell you about a recent application of this. Kim and I just bought new cell phones. We were changing companies because the service we received from the other company was not very good. I couldn’t make a call from my house. What caught me was that 6 months ago I was able to do it. Then something changed and everything fell apart.
Worse than that. It seemed like our phones worked like crap anywhere. We’ve been in Florida, Tennessee and other places in the past few months and couldn’t get any solid signals. So we decided to change.
So after a ton of research, I decided that I wanted an Iphone. So we went up to one of those booths in the mall and started talking to a guy. He was one of those guys who was about 23 years old but he “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 must get. What phones suck and how to unlock our phones so we can use them in the UK.
Okay, that was good, but what happened next was better. Our phones were supposed to be $40 each. He gave them to us for free. Then he tossed in some chargers and pulled out $25 off a $119 jawbone headset.
We came back a few days later to have the numbers taken from my phone so we could transfer them to the Iphone. For some reason, they still can’t do it directly. He exploded when he saw us. We needed another charger and case and he gave us the charger for free and took $10 off the case.
I’m not sure you’ve ever dealt with these mall stalls, but they usually never do these things. I watched the other people getting phones and NONE of them were getting these offers.
We NEVER ask for anything!
All because we figured out what position would work best… and a few other little things, but honestly, not much.
If I had tried to match and mirror, I would have been distracted and looked stupid.
This simple technique will change the way people see you and what you can achieve. It’s just part of the skills we offer for managers, salespeople, or just those who want more friends and social contact. The report has much more than that. It’s getting out of your own mental garbage to really see the other person. Train yourself to feel comfortable leading people. Become a human lie detector.