Rapport Case Study 2: I Cheated But I Won
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Photo Credit Oh That Body Language
This is case study 2 of The Great Rapport Experiment of 2008: Matching and Mirroring Edition. This is an experiment in persuasion to see what methods of influence work best in the real world. These are all true stories and all subjects are real.
This was an interesting case study, I have to say, but I did cheat and use another technique, I know the rules of the experiment were to use only matching and mirroring as a means to get rapport so to have a fair study on the effectiveness of matching and mirroring.
A man came in with his daughter. One of the first things he told me was he was not going to buy, which is always interesting when someone says that before they even see their offer.
Anyway, what was unique this time was I did something I never did before. Not only did I match his body movements, specifically the way he was sitting with his legs crossed. But he did have a small piece of paper in his hands that he was carrying in his right hand, and he was waiving it around as he spoke.
So what I did was go to my desk and pick up a brochure and put it in my same hand, interestingly enough he never asked why I got that or what it was for, I just carried it in my right hand as he did and waived it around when I spoke too.
How I Cheated:
One of the constraints of The Great Rapport Experiment of 2008 was I had to use only matching and mirroring by means of getting rapport. In this case study cheated by matching his Middle Eastern accent a tad too.
I don’t know if it was the matching the movements or matching the voice, or it was the bold move of having random paper in my hand.
But this guy fell in love with me.
We had rapport, he was telling me his life story, and we were laughing like old friends. I thought the guy as going to offer me his daughter.
He said he was just looking and wasn’t going to buy, but he ended up placing two orders. Then he went across the street to buy me some coffee!!!
I’ll try not to cheat next time guys 
Case Study 2 Results:
Strong rapport achieved through matching and mirroring. I probably shouldn’t count this one because I cheated my adding my sneaky accent matching (which I am really good at by the way) but I will include this in the study because I came up with the mirroring the item held in his hands.
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