Rapport Case Study 7: What I Learned from Brad Pitt About Rapport
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Photo Credit: Up the Sky
This is case study 7 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.
Something unexpected happened in this case study, and I learned a new insight about the effect of mirroring someone you already have rapport with.
Normally when a new customer walks in the door, they don’t know me and naturally there is no rapport at first glance, I need to warm em up.
That was not the case in this unique case study. A nice young lady walked in the door that I had already met because her mother had purchased something from me many months ago. Because of this we had a little bit of rapport from the get-go as she remembered me.
Of course, I began matching and mirroring her movements.
The rapport shot through the roof!
The experience reminded me those movies where there is a scene between a man and woman and there is the tension of attraction as they finish each others words, because there is an obvious connection going on?
A good example for this is in that old Brad Pitt movie Meet Joe Black There is a scene in the film where he meets his female interest in a coffee shop, and there is a really strong and obvious connection and attraction underneath every word they are saying. Then you see them both pick up the sugar at the same time, then immediately after that they pour their cream in at the exact same time, and then they both pick up their spoon at the exact same time.
As I have said before, mirroring happens naturally all the time when too people connect.
It is also important to know that mirroring and matching of connections like this are the effect of rapport not the cause of rapport. The phenomena of someone moving like you do unconsciously is pretty neat if you think about it; but that’s not as important as the connection and trust that is occurring underneath all of that with allows you to influence someone.
Well meeting with this client was like that minus the romantic part. The rapport went through the roof, we were laughing together, and we chatted long after the sale was closed. The most interesting part was that I intuitively knew what she was going to say at times before she said it.
It was a little eerie, I don’t want to say it was like a psychic connection, but I was really aware of her state, such that it felt like it was my state.
Case Study 7 Insight:
Supports idea that when you already have rapport matching and or mirroring accelerates rapport. I believe that mirroring is the effect of deep rapport rather than the cause of it.
Here is the clip from Meet Joe Black where we see a great example of people naturally matching and mirroring each other, as the effect of rapport and connection:
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