How To Influence

If I walked up to you at a local Chamber of Commerce networking event and after introducing myself as a Life Coach, proceeded to eat the rather nice shrimp vol-au-vent off your plate, quaff the last of your delicious wine and then after announcing you were an asshole, turned and walked off. What would you think of me?

Would you be wondering what kind of Life Coach I was because you were eager to hire me? Would you be angry and annoyed and want to punch the tasty crustacean back out of my mouth? Or would you be shell-shocked, stunned and speechless?

Imagine the same scenario only this time the perpetrator is your best friend and you’re at a really boring event that neither of you wanted to attend in the first place. How do you react this time? Fits of giggles or maybe a retaliatory strike in which you launch a carefully aimed mini pizza onto his or her well coiffured head?

Do you know what the most important factor is in working out how likely a doctor is to be sued by one or more of his patients? The fact that I’m asking this question probably leads you to presume that it has nothing to do with medical skills, and you’d be right.

All doctors make mistakes, all surgeons lose patients through error and all hospitals have procedures go wrong resulting in unnecessary deaths. It’s the name of the game I’m afraid. A lot of what they do isn’t exact science, even if we’d like to believe it is.

But why is the surgeon who performed the operation far more likely to get sued than the family doctor that neglected to offer a referral sooner, even when it’s obvious the blame lies with the doctor? And why do some brilliant surgeons get sued more often than their less capable and sometimes incompetent peers?

Have you ever spoken to anybody that has met Bill Clinton? Have you ever spoken to somebody that has spoken to somebody that has met Bill Clinton even? From people I have spoken to and stories I have read, there is one thing that everybody seems to be in agreement on, and no,  it’s not his amazing abilities at hide the cigar.

Clinton is renowned as having charisma by the boat load. People that speak to him say he makes them feel like they are the only person in the world, that he seems enthralled by them and makes them think he’s their best buddy for ever and ever and will be carving their name in a tree any moment now.

One word binds Clinton, the thieving friend who stole your Sauvignon Blanc and the doctor you don’t want to sue. And that word is ‘rapport’.

Many times I’ve heard people say thinks like; Leaders are born and not made. You are either born with the ability to light up a room or you aren’t. And charisma is lot like the clap, you’ve either got it or you haven’t.

I do agree that some people appear to be naturally charismatic and there may be some element of genetics that comes into play, but I also happen to believe it’s primarily a skill. And by that I mean it can be learned, either consciously or unconsciously by anybody.

Let me blow my own horn for a moment if I may, and indeed I may because it’s my blog. I am technically speaking, a very good if somewhat lazy, sales person. Unlike 95% of people that say the sell for a living I actually know the structure of a sale and what is required to sell.

The reason I’m good is not because I was born like that, but because I’ve had several hundreds, maybe even thousands of hours training over the course of my life. I’ve also read dozens of books on sales and also associated topics like marketing, advertising and NLP. In short I’ve learned my trade in much the same way as I have learned about life coaching.

People like Bill Clinton may never have bought a book on charisma and rapport building (or he may, I really have no idea) and he may not have consciously trained himself. But that doesn’t mean he didn’t unconsciously train himself over the years. That he didn’t adjust and refine his methods using the constant stream of feedback he was receiving from all the people that he met.

Most people don’t do that. They get so wrapped up in trying to hammer home their message, they never notice that nobody’s really listening and any chance to build rapport, demonstrate charisma or influence the other person has disappeared quicker than you can scream ‘Swine Flu Is Coming!!!! Close All The Schools!!!!’.

So would you like to know what you can you do to help build rapid rapport that will allow you to exert more influence  in all areas of your life? Well wa-hey you’re in luck! Because I’m the man to tell you and I’m even going to do it in an easy to read list form so you can scan away till your hearts content!

1. Pace & Lead - Pacing is critical in building rapport. Pacing is the act of following the tempo of the person that you are talking to. This does not mean mimic them or trying to copy their accent. It simple means listening for their speed and pitch of delivery and match it as closely as you can.

Fast talkers can often get frustrated with people who talk more slowly and vice versa. When you start to do this effectively you’ll be amazed at how quickly you can build rapport

If you’ve paced properly you can now lead. This simply means moving the conversation to where you want it to be. Low and behold the other person will often unconsciously start to pace you, and you have control of the situation as well as confirming you have built a high level of rapport.

This can be used by highly astute customer service people that want to calm an irate customer. If somebody is shouting and screaming at you, about the worst thing you can do is slowly and quietly tell them to calm down.

2. Mirror/Match – People that are in rapport will often have similar body language. Next time you’re in a restaurant or bar look for couples and see if you can spot those that are in completely engrossed in each other.

Apart from the gazing into each other’s eyes and fooling around under the table they’ll also be replicating each other’s body movement quite closely. When one takes a drink, more often than not the other will do too. This is all done at an unconscious level, so don’t worry about looking too obvious I have never had anybody pick me up on this.

Note of Caution: If the other person starts fondling themselves in a suggestive manner in a public place it’s probably best not to duplicate their behavior, even if you do think you’re on to a promise.

A good starting point with this can be with an introductory handshake. If the person you are meeting has a handshake that could crack walnuts don’t hang your hand out there like you’re asking your manicurist what he thinks of your cuticles. You do have long enough during a handshake to get this right, so practice it.

Just to throw a rather large fly into a small amount of ointment. Some people that are intimately connected may look completely out of rapport to a casual observer. Don’t get too hung up on this, just stick with the basics.

3. Eye Contact – I don’t know how many times I have read that making eye contact is critical to building rapport, but it’s not necessarily true. It can be critical, but it can also blow the deal because it is so difficult to get right.

I’d advise being fairly vague to begin with and looking to see what the other person does. You can easily creep somebody out if you hold somebody’s stare for too long, and equally it can seem weird if you are gazing everywhere but at the person you’re with.

Hold eye contact when they are talking because it demonstrates interest and doing so is critical, but remember to break it from time to time especially if they start sweating profusely and looking agitated.

Also be aware of cultural differences with eye contact. In admittedly, very rare circumstances, and with the wrong person, it can not only break rapport but have the local Secret Police attaching electrodes to your nether region. That probably won’t happen, but you certainly may offend somebody.

4. Ask Questions – By this I don’t mean ask them if they know the collective noun for monkeys. Ask them open ended questions about themselves. Most people (although far from all) like to talk about themselves and if you keep asking them to tell you more they’ll think you’re just brilliant. Apparently this is one of the things Clinton is really good at.

EDITORS NOTE: I am adding this after the post was published thanks to Jens in the comments. I did not make it all clear that you need to really listen to what they are saying after you have asked the questions and be genuinely interested other wise you will look fake. Active listening is a skill and needs practicing like all this stuff.

5. Compliments – The vast majority of people like compliments and are attracted to people that give them one. A big no-no here though is to make them up. If your date has a tie on that looked like his cat threw up on it, don’t say you like it, in fact, don’t even look at it.

6. Smiling – As with eye contact this is not an open and shut case. A lot of time smiling is good and will help build rapport. However, smiling may be inappropriate on occasions. Bounding up to the widow at a funeral with a big cheesy grin on your face just wont cut the mustard. Use your common sense with this one.

7. Commonalities – This is a brilliant rapport builder and one I frequently used when I was in sales (in a highly ethical manner of course). It works best when you are in the other persons environment. Look for signs of things they like that you also like. Don’t pretend you’re into ferrets if you aren’t, that you too worship Bacchus if you don’t, or tell them you are a vegetarian with half a Big Mac stuck to the side of your face.

People like people like them, and this is a great way to demonstrate similarities and build rapid rapport whilst remaining ethical and honest.

8. Money – Have lots of money, be very funny and be stunningly good looking.

There are other ways to build rapport such as using representational systems ie if the person we are talking to is a visual person, we concentrate on using visual language. However, a bullet point really isn’t enough to cover this off in any detail. The same goes for anchoring and you can read more on that here. Or see my YouTube demo here.