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Years ago I heard an old motivational speaker say the following:
“With persuasion, your words matter not, it only matters where those words come from. People will pick up on your energy at an unconscious level. They will be drawn to you or ignore you based on what they pick up from you intuitively.”
That was one of the first times I heard “energy and persuasion” used in the same paragraph. Using your energy to persuade is an unusual new form of persuasion practiced by many persuasion artists.
I used to be good friends with a world famous persuasion guru. I won’t reveal his name but if you have been studying NLP with seduction specifically for more than five minutes you have definitely heard of him. He has students in pretty much very major city in the world, he has an impressive level of persuasion home study courses from beginner level to advanced, and he has been teaching persuasion seminars around the planet for the past 20 years.
I remmeber the first night we went out to meet women at a local bar. We were at his house getting ready to go. I was very excited to see my persuasion idol in action for the first time. We were about to walk out the door when I noticed him doing some strange exercise I had never seen before. He was moving his body like he was doing some kind of yoga stance and he was focusing on his breathing very intently.
“What are you doing?” I asked.
“I am influencing my energy, so that I meet the right people tonight.”
“How?” I asked.
“I do this visualization and breathing exercise” he said. “So when I go into the bar, I will be able to get in rapport with the women I want to meet before I even open my mouth.”
I was like, uh, yeah… okay whatever dude, let’s go.
He looked at me and smiled the confident smile you see only on someone who knows a big secret you don’t.
Persuasion and Energy
Because I was going out with one of the world’s greatest persuasion artists on the planet I was expecting to see him explode into a flurry of powerful advanced hypnotic language patterns.
To my surprise I didn’t see my friend didn’t even use one hypnotic language pattern. But for whatever mysterious reason, people were drawn to him like a magnet. It seemed like me made friends with all the cool people at the bar. We would just be talking at the bar and women would approach him, guys were even buy him drinks. We had a great time.
I thought of what be said about influencing his energy and gaining rapport before even opening his mouth on our way to the bar. I was curious I wanted to know more.
I asked him how I could do that too, he said “Bill start meditating, and you will become more sensitive to the energy of others. Once you are able to sense the vibe of other people you will not have to worry about what to say to influence others you will use your intuition to influence others.”
I didn’t know exactly what he meant, but he gave me a meditation exercise I began practicing daily.
After a few months of doing this meditation, I noticed in my sales career I was improving. I was more centered and balanced in my persuasion, I was not an effected by peoples’ objections, getting rapport with others was a snap, I was more charismatic, and I was able to use the language patterns naturally and easily.
The further I walked down this path of persuasion and energy the more I noticed strange things began to happen.
I started getting intuitions about people; not cheesy fortune teller intuitive, but more like really strong gut feelings about people. I could just really pick up on things in people, and when I got in rapport with people my intuition as even more powerful.
It was great in my sales career because I knew which prospects to spend more time with based on their energy, and which prospects to avoid. I was even able to sense personal things about a person.
The more I continued on this path, the more I got these powerful gut feelings or intuitions.
Introduction to Psychic Influence
One day I was watching a video, by another famous persuasion guru and I picked up on something intuitively that he did in the video similar to what my friend was doing. I couldn’t explain it with words, but I could tell he did something unique with his energy in that video to attract clients.
I asked him about it in an email.
He was impressed that I could pick up on what he was doing.
He told me that behind some of the most successful and powerful persuaders is a very strong spiritual life. He then went on to recommend ten books to me. None of which had anything to do with persuasion! They were all ritual magick books!
The common thread of all these books was it is possible to persuade others beyond the power of your words, or psychic influence.
Here this guy is, possibly one of the greatest persuasion teachers of all time and he is revealing to me that he uses spiritual and magickal methods like intention, energy, and chakras manipulation to persuade others.
I was shocked. Up until that point my only experience of this psychic influence material was limited to my friend the other persuasion guru. Seems there are more people in on this energy persuasion than I thought.
A few months ago I was at work and I received a phone call from Pedro one of the other sales people in my company.
“Tell me about the golden bubble!” he said.
Evidently word got out that I was using these mental exercises to increase my sales.
I explained “What I do is I imagine the person I want to gain rapport with in a golden, warm bubble, filled with positive energy and love and connection. ”
Silence…
Intuitively I could tell, I threw Pedro off, and I needed to break it down a bit more.
I went on to tell him “Look, psychology tells us that communication is more than 90% nonverbal, so if that’s true, we are communicating with people on deeper levels than just words. There are cultures around the world that have known this long before our western scientist have. So when I imagine blasting them with warm positive thoughts I believe they pick up on it at an unconscious level, and their unconscious mind warms up to me, and the result is we are in rapport. Is something mystical going on, or is it just a constructive hallucination that puts me in the right state I need to be in to gain rapport with a person? I haven’t a clue as to exactly how it works. I just know it works.”
Psychic Influence vs Persuasion
I am always hesitant to reveal this side of myself on this blog, and you probably can see why. Psychic influence and energy persuasion is not the stuff you learn in persuasion 101 like language patterns, embedded commands, anchoring etc.
Energy persuasion has more to do with your state, management of your mental images, your intention and your will.
It is more about persuading yourself than persuading someone else.
I think this is what people who say; just be yourself, or just be authentic are intuitively picking up on. Those people would agree with the old motivational speaker that says your energy is more important than your words, but I believe those people along with the motivational speaker of that book are still missing something of great value.
No matter what you do with your energy if you just stand at stare at someone silently, you are not influencing them. You at least need to know how to ask for the sale, or you at least need to know how to ask a woman out.
Energy alone doesn’t work.
That being said I personally know many persuasion artists who have been to all the persuasion seminars, have all the persuasion home study courses, have read every book on NLP, and know all the cool language patterns but they can’t persuade themselves out of a paper bag.
Fancy smancy covert language patterns and covert hypnosis strategies alone don’t work either.
My philosophy is to combine both approaches. Learn all you can about how to persuasion, but also learn all you can about how to radiate an energy influences others.
The combination will be so powerful people around you will think you have supernatural persuasion powers.
The Golden Bubble
Here is the method I learned from my old persuasion mentor to gain rapport using energy:
1. Imagine two balls of light on the floor about the size of two hula-hoops.
2. Walk into the first ball of light, and imagine your agenda is clearing from you completely, say silently to your self “unconditional love” The purpose of this is to communicate to them unconsciously that you are not attached to the outcome and they are totally free with you.
3. Imagine that in the second ball of light is a life size image of them. Walk into that image as if you are trying on their body. Feel what it feels like to feel their hair style, be their body shape, be their gender if they are opposite your own, and feel what its like to have their hair style. See if you can imagine what it must be like to be them. If they are a prospect, feel what it feels like to be your customer. If they are a women you want to date, feel what it feels like to be the object of your attraction. Next say to yourself “compassion”
4. Imagine creating another energy ball make it pink, orange, or golden light, warm colors work best. In your mind charge this energy ball with warm feelings. Fill it with the feeling of being with your best friend, or being with a baby, whatever works best for you. Then imagine surrounding that person with this colorful ball of positive warm emotions.
It seems like a lot of steps on paper, but with a little practice you will be able to do this process in seconds. And as you do it more and more you will be amazed at how people respond positively to you. Using this I can quickly and easily get in rapport with almost anyone I want.
Also know that the exercise above is not rules set in stone, customize it to a way that works best for you. The most important thing is that you set your agenda aside, step in their shoes, and send them positive thoughts.
I know some people will read this post and say this sounds like a bunch of crap.
Well, I can’t prove that psychic influence exists without looking silly, but I can prove that if you do this exercise you will get in rapport with more people, I promise.
For if nothing else, this is a great way to manage your internal state which is the key to persuasion mastery, read more about this in my post The 7 Inner Laws of Persuasion.
Whether psychic influence is real or not, when you are balanced on the inside, filled with compassion, and looking out for a persons best interests, and unattached to the outcome people will pick up on it. You will be able to gain rapport with others so quickly and easily that it certainly will seem like magic.
A Deceptively Simple Meditation
Here is the meditation my friend taught me. I call it deceptively simple, because I never would have suspected that such a simple mediation would net me such positive results. Anyway here is the video, enjoy. -Bill
You are going to want to bookmark this one guys. I have compiled a list here, in no particular order, some of my favorite NLP, covert persuasion, conversational hypnosis, and covert hypnosis strategies.
This is one of my best posts on this blog to date. Never have I crammed so many different persuasion strategies into one post. I sincerely hope enjoy these juicy persuasion tips.
These strategies will not make you a persuasion master that is able to spin words into gold overnight, but it will give you a firm idea of what the most powerful and potent covert persuasion strategies are built upon, as well as reveal the fundamentals of the art and science of persuasion.
These persuasion fundamentals will plant some healthy seeds of knowledge in your brain causing you to continue learning and practicing the art and science of persuasion in a way that gets you the results you desire.
Some of these strategies might seem as foreign as learning Algebra in Klingon, but you can relax in knowing that everyone who has gotten powerful positive results using this material has been there as well.
Whenever I write a post like this, where I lay out the hard-core covert persuasion strategies on the table, I get a lot of positive and negative feedback. So I will take a moment to address the haters.
A lot of you critics and naysayers read this type of post and think “oh, that wouldn’t work one me.” Or “I’m so smart; I’ll catch someone doing that”
To all my un-fans and anti-readers, I say to you with a large grin on my face, how do you know these strategies won’t work? Maybe it will. Maybe you are the kind of person who always knocks things before you give them a fair and intelligent assessment.
Did you know that even now as you read this post there are people around the world using these same skills for sales, marketing, even seduction?
Well, I gotta tell you in the right context, in a way that wasn’t obviously manipulative, and with a persuasion artist who knows what he’s doing it can and will work. In fact, if you live in America it most likely already has worked on you through the media.
Even you don’t see yourself using these strategies of persuasion I would encourage you to at least learn the basics of persuasion so you will be aware of when it is being used you are being used on you in a negative way.
Once I learned these strategies I felt like Neo the first time he saw The Matrix. I was able to hear them all over the radio and in TV commercials; I could hear people who don’t study the art of persuasion using them unconsciously. Believe it or not, some people talk like this without ever reading one book on covert persuasion, we call them naturals.
I even heard one of the 2008 presidential hopefuls using one of these patterns! Trust me it, she is NO natural. LOL, and it doesn’t seem to be helping her too much in the primaries.
Bragging-Right 2008 by Bill Alexander
I will also say that I have full license to brag about all of these techniques, because none of them were invented by me. As a Persuasion Artist I paint the picture, but I didn’t invent paint. This article is not me speaking it is the ideas of from the results of decades of trials by hypnotists, therapists, NLP practitioners marketers, psychologist, masters of the mind and persuasion geniuses.
So when you really think about these covert persuasion strategies, you will naturally realize it’s not Bill Alexander speaking but the voice of wisdom, experience, and truth speaking through Bill Alexander.
Stacking stories is telling a story inside of another story, inside of another story so that the conscious mind can’t keep up with what is going on and goes into a light trance. Notice the way my article How to Combine Hypnosis with Stories for Covert Persuasion DYNAMITE is written for an example of this, as well as how to use hypnotic language with story telling as well.
Sub-Modalities:
This is an advanced strategy that I have not used yet, but would love to learn. Richard Bandler the co-founder of NLP discovered that people place different beliefs in different places in their mind.
For example, when you think of something that you believe is absolutely true you and you imagine it, you might see that image directly in front of you. When you think of something you wouldn’t like to do you really don’t want to do, you might see the image of it in the lower left corner of the screen of your imagination.
The neat thing for persuasion artists, is that we can use this by eliciting where they place in their imagination things that feel good, or things they take immediate action on and use language and or physical gestures to place ourselves or our product in that place. Or we could elicit from them where they put things that used to me true but no longer is true, and place our competition there.
I know this is heavy, so here is a video if Kenrick Cleveland displaying persuasion with sub-modalities.
Embedded Commands:
Embedded commands are commands hidden in a sentence and are marked out by a change in voice tone or physical movement and meant to deliver those commands to the unconscious mind without the awareness of the conscious mind.
Example:
What would it be like to get really excited about learning persuasion skills?
I’m curious as to whether you begin to feel curious about these covert persuasion skills to the point where you feel compelled to use them.
I wonder how quickly you’ll feel the anticipation to persuade and influence others where ever and whenever you want.
Values Hierarchy:
Elicit their values in a company, product, relationship, opportunity etc. Then ranking them in order of importance, and then stating them back to them in order of the least important to the most important, and as you use a tone that amplifies that feeling they get from the value it will intensify the feelings. Then you will link those intense feelings to yourself or your product using binder commands and or physical gestures. (see binder commands below)
Anchoring:
Anchoring is one of the easiest and most profound strategies of covert hypnosis. In essence you are creating an emotional button for a person, that you can push any time you want them to feel a certain way. You elicit a state, and then you link or anchor that state to a specific gesture, sound, or object.
An example would be using good tonality say “think of a time you self really relaxed, what was that like?” then as you see them going to the state make a unique hand gesture. Now every time you want them to feel relaxed you make that unique hand gesture.
This one you have to try to believe, but trust me it really works, and it is so easy you can probably do it today. You might not even realize it but when you say something that elicits a negative response from someone, or offends them, or breaks rapport etc. that person is going to unconsciously associate that emotion to you.
When you state something that gets a negative response from a person you can detach that negative response by physically moving your body from where you were sitting or standing.
An advanced strategy I am experimenting with is after I move from that spot I will point to it whenever I talk about my competitor.
A conventional persuasion strategy is to use the painting of a beautiful picture of what you want your prospect or client to experience with your product as bait, in such a way they are compelled to bite on the bait and take action. This works because people generally will not take action on what you want them to do unless they can clearly see what the outcome will look like for them.
Persuasion Artists take this strategy a step further. We use what hypnotists and NLP practitioners call time distortion. Time distortion is placing a subject mentally in the future where they are enjoying the decision they made and looking back on the interaction with you being the catalyst for it all.
In persuasion we do this by getting subjects to imagine that same bright future and then leverage that even more powerfully by making their self from the future look back on the image of us interacting as if it were the past and that working together, buying X product, or having X experience was what caused it all.
This works wonderfully because A. It elicits a light trance state for suggestions embedded commands to go into the unconscious without resistance B. It presupposes that they are going to love what you want them to do. and C. People do not resist a decision they have already made.
“Imagine a time in the future, and looking back on this moment having been the start of it all.”
Binder Commands:
This type of command works exactly in the same way embedded commands work, except they are used to link an emotional state to a specific person, thing, or an action.
Like me, to me, do it, now, with me, experience that, taking place now etc. are examples of binder commands
The other day I was talking with my friend Brenda and she was telling me a story about her girlfriend named Shelly, and she said “Isn’t it interesting when you are meeting someone for the first time and you suddenly reach that point in the conversation where something inside you just naturally clicks, it’s like a part of you can begins to realize that you really want to spend time with this person, while another part of you can look forward to moments where you’re laughing, and good times you’ll be having together. And underneath all of that you are just having fun and this causes you to begin feeling really good. With me it’s a little different, I really have to get to know a person first and then feel really and comfortable around them.
Tonality:
This is a simple, but vital part of the persuasion process. In order to be effective at persuasion, your tonality must match the state you are working to elicit. I call this congruence; I wrote a whole article on congruence called Beyond Covert Hypnosis: The Hypnotic Power of Congruence
Also, dropping your tonality to mark out certain words or phrases in your speech to bypass the conscious and send messages (embedded commands) directly into the unconscious mind of the subject or client. In the following example I put the embedded commands in bold:
“Notice this SIGN of quality. And you know we are offering you a good deal, if you HEAR what I am saying.”
Naturally the words Sign and Here would be where you drop your tonality. Obviously making SIGN HERE the embedded command.
This is finding out the unique behavior that this individual need to experience in order to take action. In sales I call this eliciting a buying strategy. You could ask questions like:
“Out of curiosity, have you purchased a product like this before?… and just so we are on the same page, how did that work or how did you know it was the right product for you?”
Then they might respond by saying, “oh, fist we did a little research online but that was frustrating, so we went to a few stores and heard the salesman’s spiels at different stores, all the prices were about the same, so we just bought from the salesman we liked the most. The product we chose seemed to fit our needs the most, and seemed like a good value, and it just felt right”
Now, what I do here is I cater my presentation to what I quickly gathered from them by eliciting their buying strategy.
In the example above I know that research online was frustrating so they might not be interested in detailed technical specs features, so I will make that part of the presentation as short and sweet as possible.
They shopped around so they obviously are price conscious, so I would do everything needed to convince them that we have fair pricing.
I would also get rapport the best I can because they seem to buy from people they like.
And finally I would use every covert persuasion strategy I have to elicit a state of a gut feeling that is just right.
Mirroring:
Matching externally the subjects vocal attributes, breathing, posture, physical gestures, representational systems, etc. is a classic way to gain rapport with people. You can also match values, by eliciting those values and simply agreeing with those qualities. See my article on rapport for more on this. See my popular article 8 Covert Methods to Instant Rapport and Charisma with Anyone Fast for some advanced matching strategies.
Presuppositions:
A presupposition is a statement or question that presupposes something or things have to be true in order for a statement to make sense. Combine presuppositions together for maximum effect, but only utilize when you are in rapport and have already elicited a light trance state, otherwise they will either overwhelm a person or you will just piss em off.
Example: “After we have talked about this opportunity and you find yourself completely compelled to buy, I wonder how easily you will find yourself imagining how good it will feel to work with us.”
Stating what someone else said and using that to create a state in a person, is one of my favorite tools because it allows you to say things that you might not be able to say directly. This works very smoothly because you are not saying the commands yourself, it is what someone else said, and therefore it generally is received with less resistance.
And even if it doesn’t get your outcome, you have separated yourself from it in advance. I personally have experienced my results with embedded commands go through the roof as soon as I hid my commands in quotes.
Example1: “The other day I was talking to another client of mine and she said right before she decided that this was right for her, she likes to just stop for a moment, and go inside and imagine just how good it’s going to feel to experience a product like this.”
Example2:The other day I was talking to my best friend John and he said, “Isn’t it interesting how a part of you can come to the conclusion that you really want this, while another part of you can begin to get excited about all benefits an experience like this provides.”
Creating Parts:
Have you ever heard someone say “Part of me wants this, while another part of me wants this” or “Part of me wants to go on a diet, while another part of me wants to just go home and watch TV.” This ambivalence is because people are running into their unconscious habit patterns. The conscious mind wants one thing while the unconscious mind wants another. You can use this psychological pattern to over come objections.
Get past objections by saying “I know a part of you wants to shop price, but I know that there also is a part of you that does want to buy this now. Because that part has heard everything were are talking about today and knows the value of what you are getting from us.” I then would build up praise and support that part to the point where the objection has no ground anymore.
Double Binds:
Double binds are giving someone two decisions but both decisions lead them to what you want them to experience. This illusion of choice is heard in the mouths of car salesmen across the country as they attempt to close their customers. “Would you like to buy now or should I just get started on the paperwork?” *sigh* please, don’t employ this direct and manipulative method it just annoys people.
Instead I use double binds to lead people into different emotional states, and I use it as indirectly as possible so that I don’t get any resistance.
I don’t know whether you are beginning to feel excited about this opportunity, or just feeling really good about or company, but either way etc…etc…etc.
Comparison Patterns:
The strategy here is to compare two similar but different sates (one of which is the state you want them to go in) and then you use describe that state and amplify it with embedded commands, language patterns, and presuppositions, etc.
“The other day my friend was talking about the difference between liking a product and loving a product, and he said…”
“Have you ever though about the difference between will and willingness, see a lot of people think they are the same thing but actually…
“Have you ever thought about the difference between anticipation and compulsion? ”
The art of pacing and leading is stacking truisms and then strategically throwing in suggestions to take them in a new direction. It’s pretty slick. You do this by stating undeniable truths a person cannot argue with in their internal or external environment. Then lead by adding a new idea or action you want them to take. Read my article Covert Persuasion Tip: Using pacing and leading to persuadefor more on this.
Softeners:
Some of the criteria and elicitation questions in covert persuasion can seem like strange questions when said the wrong way. If you are in car sales and you ask a prospect “what is important to you about a car?” in the same tone you ask what color car are you looking for? people will look at you funny.
If you are on a date and you ask “where exactly in your mind you do see us having a great time together” in the same tone you ask where are you from, it will probably be your last date.
Part of what helps this is having good calibration, which comes in time as you develop your persuasion instinct.
It is super easy to ask these questions when you use softeners. Before asking an elicitation question soften the question by tagging phrases in front of the question things like, “I am curios… I am wondering… just so we are on the same page… or I like to understand people I work with so just so we are clear…”
Tag Questions:
I was reading an article about an NLP trainer named Jaime who was telling a story of two girls from London arguing. She said that most of the girl’s sentences ended with the word “innit?” Now, being American to me “innit” sounds like a funny way to butcher the phrase isn’t it, but the NLP trainer recognized something profound underneath the language.
You see, “innit” is an abbreviation of “isn’t it”, & putting “isn’t it” on the end of a sentence makes the sentence difficult to disagree with, doesn’t it.
“Isn’t it” is an example of a tag question, & using tag questions is a great way of making it easier for people to agree with you &, after all, you want people to agree with you, don’t you. This seems to have something to do with the fact that you introduce a negative into the situation, & negatives get processed differently neurologically than linguistically (“isn’t it” is an abbreviation of “is it not”, which is a particularly cool / weird sounding tag question, is it not?.) -Jaime Smart
What I do is say tag questions in a commanding tone instead of like a question; I also nod my head which is a non-verbal cue for agreement.
Embedded Tag Questions:
Combine the power of tag questions and embedded commands and you have embedded tag questions.
Example: Don’t worry if these persuasion strategies sound strange or confusing, or even weird. Even if a few of these persuasion strategies seem a bit advanced that’s okay, because the more you read this blog the more it just makes sense. Doesn’t it feel good to have a resource like this to quickly and easily learn these persuasion strategies?
This was a great article wasn’t it?
What Are Your Thoughts Guys? I’m All Ears. Leave a Comment and Share Your Perspective.
You want to be more persuasive, that’s probably why you are on this blog. Perhaps because you want to increase your sales and income or because you want to win friends and influence people, or perhaps you want to present yourself in a more attractive way to the opposite sex.
Thinking about the objectives you have, and thinking about using persuasion and influence skills to obtain those objectives, eventually leads you to learning rapport strategies. Because unless you have rapport with people you are trying to influence, you might as well throw any other persuasion, covert hypnosis, or influence skill out the window.
You probably have heard about matching and mirroring, and maybe some other NLP based rapport techniques. I am going to share with you 8 advanced and powerful rapport strategies that you probably haven’t heard of before.
As powerful as these rapport strategies are, they are not silver bullets. These methods will work best depending on the situation you are in, because all situations are unique. However, you will notice the more you use them the more people will find themselves drawn to you and you will become extremely persuasive and irresistibly charismatic.
1. Match the Other Persons Breathing.
When done properly matching and mirroring a persons physical gestures is effective at gaining rapport. What I have found is when it comes to mirroring, the more unconscious the gesture is, i.e. the more it is out of the persons conscious awareness, the more it has an impact on rapport. This is why mirroring someone breathing is so effective, in normal conversation people don’t think about their breathing.
When I first heard this method it sounded really hard, how do you notice the rhythm of someone’s breathing without staring at the person’s chest?
Especially with females this seems like it would be a problem.
Here’s what you do, when people are speaking they are breathing out, so when they stop speaking most of the time they are breathing in. To match their breathing, breathe out when they are speaking and breathe in when they stop talking.
2. Mirror Facial Expressions
This is one of the easiest ways to match someone because unless you are being really ridiculously obvious, there is no way to get caught. Simply because the only way they can see what facial expression they are giving is you have a mirror up against their face.
P.S. This is also one of the best ways to test for rapport too. If you want to see if you have rapport with someone make a slight change in your face, I squint when I am stressing a point, and see if they follow by making the same face. You will be amazed at this, believe me it works – really good.
3. State Truisms in Their Reality
If you state something that is obviously true, their unconscious mind will recognize you as a truthful person and you will gain rapport. You want to say things that they cannot contest; this will get them into an agreeable state of mind. Truisms typically can be anything that is observable in the current environment. For example:
“We’re here and we are obviously looking at this type of product.” or “I noticed you were over here standing by this product on and earlier you were looking at the product over there” or “We have a lot of customers in here today” or “You look like you are pressed for time”
If you are good at calibrating you might even be able to state a truism about what they are thinking.
For example when your prospect hears the price, and their eyes get big, and they take a step back, and it’s obvious they have a concern about price. You can say, “The other day I had a client who asked me about the prices and he said at fist he thought our price seemed to be more than he expected…”
4. Use Hypnotic Language Patterns to Increase Rapport
This is a more advanced strategy, and I will recommend some practice alone before application in the real world. I would only use it if you already have at least a little rapport, and then stack it in to the over all method to dramatically increase rapport.
“As we are talking today naturally we will begin to open up to each other, the more we talk you are going to notice how much more connected we become, you may or may not be aware that underneath those questions is the desire to connect with a person, or it’s not important to feel that connection now, only that you feel it as naturally and easily as you find reasons to feel connected, don’t you agree.
Language patterns are great because they presuppose you already have or quickly will be in rapport, and it is very difficult people to resist things that are inevitable For more on how to use and create your own language patterns see my article How to create your own Covert Hypnotic Language Patterns.
5. Use Descriptive Language to Increase Rapport
Some persuasion gurus say this works like magic, others say it’s as useful as having an ear on your elbow. I say ANYTHING can be appropriate under the right circumstances. Why thrown out a tool all together.
Descriptive language is effective, because it entails trance phrases, a little story telling, stating truisms, as well as hypnotic language patterns:
“Have you ever met someone first time, and you just found yourself feeling really connected to them. Maybe because you just feel it in your gut or maybe because they say something that really just resonates with you just can’t explain it, but for whatever reason you naturally find yourself just being drawn it this person, almost to the point where it seemed like the rest of the world just disappears, and time stands still, and all you feel all you experience is the power and the warmth of that connection?”
I realize this might sound funny in your head as you are reading it, this is an extreme example for sake of stressing the point of how to apply this. Anytime you describe an unconscious process the person will feel at least a little of that process, if you tonality is congruent and it makes sense to bring up conversationally.
Everyone has a unique nonverbal hello. It could be the way you nod your head, the way you smile when you greet people, or even a unique eye movement.
The rapport strategy here is to greet a person without giving them your unconscious hello, and when they give you theirs you immediately mirror it back at them.
Sounds simple right?
I gotta tell ya of all the strategies I am sharing with you about rapport in this post, the unconscious hello, if one of my favorites and in my experience it has also been one of the most powerful.
As simple as it sounds this one has been difficult for me personally to master. It requires focus and excellent calibration skills. But when I do it correctly with clients and people I meet socially it works better than many of the other rapport strategies combined!
It creates such instant and powerful rapport that the other strategies of rapport become unnecessary to use.
This technique is so complex it deserves it’s own post, and or video. In the mean while if you want to learn more about the unconscious hello search the archives in the NLP Connections Forum or go to a Kenrick Cleveland Max Persuasion seminar, he is the only one I know of who teaches this strategy.
7. Constructive Imaginary Experiences
A forewarning, this one gets a little woo woo. But as new-agey as it will sound, a lot of popular persuasion gurus have some type of method like this they teach. It works like this, as you are focusing on the person you want to gain rapport with, in your imagination see or feel some type of positive imaginary experience associated with them.
Kenrick Cleveland in his Max Persuasion course offers the experience of imagining a beam of light shooting into their eyes that works to connect you together. Tom and Kim of essential skills.com use a golden bubble of light surrounding the other person that opens the door way to rapport
I know this can sound like a bunch esoteric B.S., but I think there is a practical “planet earth” explanation for it.
One of the fundamental principles of NLP is that anyone can do anything if they are in the right mental and emotional state.
I think constructing imaginary experiences like this work because they change your internal state. When you are focusing, getting the deal, how you look, or wondering if they like you are in a state that hinders rapport. When you imagine surrounding someone with warm positive energy you are focusing on rapport and connection and most importantly THEM.
I think people can sense when you are looking at them as a piece of meat or a walking dollar. People can also sense when you care. It’s all in your state.
Some people try to explain this method by getting into chi, energy, psychic influence, and all other sorts of pseudo scientific reasons as to why this method is so effective. I would rather not get into that. I just care about results and I am sure you do to. Try is, if it works you have another tool to gain rapport.
8. Anchoring to Gain Rapport
In NLP, they call this high jacking anchors. Go watch Tony Robbins live or on DVD and you will see an example of the world most notorious anchor high jacker. He will be speaking, and he’ll go off on a motivational tangent and he’ll mention something about Buddha or Jesus Christ. Watch what he does with his hands. Whenever he says Jesus, or Buddah or any other person from history that he knows has a huge impact on many people, he will point to himself.
Now, this works for Tony because he is already in a frame where he is a powerful leader and teacher and he is saying it while surrounded my hundreds of people. So it’s not that big of a stretch for him.
I wouldn’t go around to people on the street and saying JESUS! while pointing to your chest, you’ll probably look like you escaped from a mental institution.
Here is how you can use it in the real world. Say you are meeting some one for the first time and you want to gain rapport you could say “I had such a great day the other day I went fishing with my best buddy Mike… Ya know, what it’s like when you are with your best friend (gesture to yourself) it’s really a nice way to spend your day off”
What do you think? Do you Have a Question About Any of These Rapport Strategies? Would You Like to Share How You Would Use The Rapport Strategies? If So Please Leave a Comment in the comment Box Below- Thanks for Reading My Article! -Bill
I just read a very controversial article by Deborah over atNew Media Marketing on how to be more influential in social networks, specifically twitter. Deborah wrote in this article that women are better persuaders than men, always have been always will be, and us men need to get our act together if we are ever going to make it in the new web 2.0 culture of marketing.
Some people have been calling this article sexist. Gee, I wonder why?/sarcasm
Deborah then went on to say that is mostly the men on the very popular social site Twitter, are not able to reap the benefits because men are bad at connecting and women are the queens of connection.
She even made the bold statement of claiming that women have been influencing men since the beginning of time, with Adam and Eve as an example.
By the way,I don’t think it was Eve’s ability to connect that got her to persuade Adam, I think she used other assets. That’s right, I went there >:-)
Seriously though, here is a quote from her article:
“Since the dawn of time, women have been influencing men–whether men admit it or not (Remember the apple? Bathsheba?)…I’m merely pointing out that connecting and influencing people is not something that comes naturally to men. But just as any skill can be learned in business in order to succeed, men are learning from women how to succeed in the New Media Marketplace that requires you to really get to know your clients, prospects and followers.” -Deborah Micek
Interesting idea Deborah, but I gotta school ya on this one.
I do agree that some twitterers just push their product and or blog without connecting with anyone and then they get frustrated and wonder why they are not getting all the benefits from twitter that they were told were possible.
I see what she is saying, and it makes sense, in the new web 2.o where social media and human connection is how people are finding information online. And women by their very nature are usually pros at making social connections, but I think she is still missing one important thing.
There is a persuasion philosophy that I subscribe to, and it applies whether you are influencing others face to face, online, offline, in person and on the phone.
Influence can be summed up and chunked down into two basic components connect and lead.
You must make the connection that establishes trust, rapport and credibility, and THEN you leverage that connection to lead them to take action.
You have probably heard of the Chinese philosophy of Yin and Yang. The concept of yin and yang (or masculine and feminine) describes two opposing and, at the same time, complementary aspects of human beings.
We all have both energies within us, but with most people one tends to be dominant.
Therein lays the problem grasshopper, when you are too dominant in masculine energy or too feminine in your energy you persuasion style suffers.
I think what Deborah is talking about on twitter with her examples of the Men who are less persuasive need to balance out their masculine and feminine energy.
Men who are too dominantly masculine in persuasion situations come across as the pushy salesman, too eager to close the deal, without taking the time to really connect, get rapport with a person, and really see what their needs are still not going to reach their full persuasion potential online or offline
So I can agree with her at least this much, however the same thing goes for women.
Women who are too dominantly feminine in persuasion situations come across as too compassionate, and too nurturing. This person might find themselves talking too much about things that have nothing to do with what you are marketing, because you are too busy trying to connect are neither reaching their full persuasion potential.
In this sense rapport and connection is a two edged sword.
Think of salesman or saleswoman who has such strong rapport and connects so deeply with the client that they feel too much compassion, and when the client offers an objection you agree with them, because you are too good of friend now.
It isn’t that masculine energy is better in persuasion of that feminine energy is more appropriate for influence. Masculine energy and feminine energy compliment each other.
In short, Deborah men and women can learn from each other, when it comes to persuasion.
Men can learn from women by balancing their dominant and at times pushy energy, with the nurturing caring energy that leads to rapport, connection, and trust.
Women can learn from men by balancing their strong compassionate, nurturing energy with masculine energy because it’s that energy which leads people to take action, which is what persuasion is all about.
To learn more about balancing your yin and yang energies for maximum persuasion power about the law of balance, in my article the 7 Inner Laws of Persuasion
P.S.
If you do not know what twitter is, it’s a new and unique type of social network, you can check out my profile here @persuasionrtist. It’s a great way to network with people, of similar interests, and a lot of big gun marketers and bloggers are using it to stimulate interest in their blogs and products.
I want to hear what you have to say about this controversial topic. Whether you agree or disagree with me, I welcome your feedback in the comment box below.
I see so many fundamentals of martial arts parallel the persuasion and influence arts. One of the basic fundamentals of aikido is using the opponent’s momentum and energy against them to throw them.
It is a violent metaphor; but hopefully you do not read this and start throwing your clients around. But one of the keys of persuasion is to be able to use the words, actions, and energy that your client gives you as a tool to persuade them.
One way to use your clients energy against them is to always be affirming their resistance.
One thing I see poor salespeople do all the time, is that they can tell when a prospect is resisting their message, they just continue with that message in hopes that their message will overcome the client or customers objection.
This strategy is as practical as giving your car a new paint job every time it gets dirty instead of getting a car wash.
The covert persuasion strategy is instead of ignoring the objection, affirm their resistance. In NLP this is called pacing. Before you overcome the objection you can say things like “that is a valid concern,” “I used to feel the same way, but because of-,” or “that is a really good question, lets address that-“
When you show that you understand them which gains rapport and you look like a professional. When you ignore the objection it looks like you are hiding something
Bonus tip: If you have an objection that you hear all the time, this is something you want to address early on in the presentation. A lot of my customer ask me if this car gets poor gas mileage because of it’s size, and that’s a valid concern in today’s economy, but because of XYZ feature that is a concern that you can let go of”
If you want to become masterful at persuasion then you will want to build on the following skills. The following three things listed I have found in my experience with persuasion and covert hypnosis to be are essential.
1. Intention
State you intention before you are begin persuading someone, and state your intention silently I when you shift methods when you are persuading someone. I have no idea why it works, if there is some mystical force or if it is psychological, there are arguments on both sides of the coin. But I do notice that when I state my intention inside to use a technique the technique seems to work better.
I do believe in the pop-psychological philosophy of what you focus on expands, so perhaps focusing on what you want to do increases you perasuasive power. All I care about are results.
Many top NLP trainers teach constructive hallucinations to amplify you intention when persuading. At a recent hypnosis seminar a fellow student was telling me how he was at a Richard Bandler seminar and he was telling people to imagine throwing lightning bolts at the peope they want to persuade. Tom Vizzini and Kim Mcfarland of essential-skills.com teach an effective method of using your intent to gain rapport using visualisatiosn like these.
2. Calibration
“People will teach you how to sell them if you’ll pay attention to the messages they send you.” - unknown
A friend of mine sells mattresses. He says one of the best mattresses he sells is this new mattress called a Tempurpedic. It’s made of this material called memory foam. Its this really flexible foam that has what called a “sense and response” foam. It senses you unique position and body weight and responds with the proper support.
I know it’s a strange metaphor, but when you are persuading someone, whether in the board room, in the night club, or on the streets, you need to be like memory foam. You need to be able to sense where the person you are persuading is at mentally and emotionally and be flexible enough in your strategy to respond with the proper technique. Persuasion artists call this caliberation.
The essence of persuasion is taking someone from where they are emotionally and re-directing them to where you want them to go. People are always communicating unconcious messages to you via non-verbal gestures, overall rythem vocal inflection etc. To the extent that you are able to receive and understand these unconcious messages, will be the extent you are able to shift and direct their emotions to what you want them to do.
3. Rapport
One day I heard a world fameous hypnotist say it isn’t amazing what hypnotists are able to make people to, what is really interesting what people are willing to do when you have rapport with them. Creating rapport means creating the bond, connection, or trust makes powerful persuasion and conversational hypnosis to be most effective. Part of covert hypnosis means giving people hypnotic commands and suggestions If you don’t have rapport, people are more likely to resist your commands and suggestions
I will save specific rapport strateges for another article, but the essence of all of the covert rapport strategies require that you to become as much like the person you are persuading as possible. This includes matcing and mirroring body movements and gestures, matching a persons over all rythem or vibe, and matching a persons vocal tonality.
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:
Here is a quick and easy persuasion model, that with little effort can become natural and easy for you. Allowing you to influence and change the minds of those around you.
There are many variations of this model, but here is an excellent one for beginners and effective for advanced persuasion artists too.
1. Get rapport (get their trust) by becoming as much like them as you possibly can.
2. Elicit their criteria by asking the right questions. Asking the right questions, like “what’s important to you about X?” elicits a very high emotional state.
3.Anchor that good feeling state to what state to you or what you want them to take action on.
4. Use embedded commands so it’s clear to their unconscious mind where you are taking them.
As a result of being in sales for so long I can read body language well. Often I can look at a person and size em up quite well.
Subject comes in, a young guy mid twenties. Looks like a salesman of some type. Most salespeople can always sniff out other salespeople. I’m suspicious he’s a competitor, spying on me on his lunch break.
NOTE: In sales, the people who are hardest to persuade are the ones who have some type of hidden agenda. That agenda can be as simple as they really aren’t meeting with you to buy, instead they buying their friend and they want to be sure their friend is giving them a good deal or this agenda can be as complex as it’s really someone from your competition spying.
These type of people have a wall up, and it takes a stronger strategy to gain rapport of they just aren’t worth the time.
Even though I knew this guy was a joke, I still proceeded with the experiment.
I started mirroring the way he was standing. He point his feet outward, so I pointed my feet outward. Then he has one hand in a pocket, I did the same. I did use the strategy I used from the last case study, of before I match exactly his stance, I maker a small distracting movement then match his so I don’t get caught.
I haven’t discussed this part of rapport yet, but it’s important to know that rapport alone is not persuasion.
Getting rapport is the first step and then you use that rapport to direct and lead the subject. One way to test for this is once you have paced for a while, you test by making a new unique body movement and see if the match you. That’s a sign of rapport.
I didn’t think I had rapport but what surprised me the most was that he began following me, and started matching my body movements!?
So I then started throwing in some commands and suggestions.
He was a little tense in his shoulders, and I told him it’s okay to relax and get comfortable, even really comfortable.
He said “yeah”, and dropped his shoulders and relaxed.
That’s all really cool for sake of practicing covert hypnosis, but there was no use he wasn’t a buyer. I could tell as soon as he walked in.
This is case study 4 and 5 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.
The concept of matching and mirroring is not a new breakthrough in persuasion; it’s been around since the seventies. Because it’s been around so long, matching and mirroring is common knowledge amongst many sales people, and business people. I have met furniture salesmen, realtors, even actors who never even have heard of NLP or the term covert hypnosis yet they know about matching and mirroring.
Because of this, it is rare, but possible to get caught.
Here are some tips to prevent getting caught.
This subject in this case study was a business man in fact he was making business deals and was focused on an important business call as he was shopping around
I did notice that as I tried to mirror him, by crossing my arms and crossing my legs, which he immediately shifted his position as if he knew what I was doing.
This all happened very quickly, and he may have reacted unconsciously, but the bottom line is this method lost it’s effect obviously in this situation either because he knew what I was doing or he just felt it was strange.
I can critique myself and say that I may have looked too much at the area I was matching. Knocking myself in the head, because this should be obvious but it is easy to forget THEY CAN SEE WHERE YOUR EYES GO!
Case Study 4 lesson:
Don’t obvious look at the area you are matching or mirroring.
If they fold their arms, don’t look at their arms and then fold yours, you will seem creepy and weird. Use your sensory acuity, which means use your peripheral vision to see what they are doing without directly looking at their movements.
Rapport Case Study 5:
The Subject in this case study was in my opinion an obviously unqualified prospect, lady came in asking about something our company doesn’t even provide. Normally I wouldn’t waist my time with her but, for the sake of the rapport experiment, I said screw it and began matching the way she was standing and I noticed something.
No breath taking results, but I did get some new insights on how not to get caught:
How to not get caught:
Move for a reason! People ALWAYS move for a reason, whether unconscious or a conscious reason, the movement is usually a refection of some internal state or thought shift. If you fold your arms for seemingly no reason AT ALL (except because you are trying to create rapport), people will pick up on this and then you are mentally projecting phoniness and lack of congruity, and it will just seem weird.
Instead make it seem like you are moving for a reason. You can do this by making another small gesture that perhaps caused the next gesture which is the matching you are doing.
Any slight movement to distract them from your mirroring them would do the trick.
If she folds her arms and then you fold yours right away for what seems to be no reason it will seem strange. If she folds here arms and you roll up your sleeves and then fold your arms it will seem more natural.
Another example would be if she puts her hands on her hips, perhaps you could tuck in a bit of the excessive fabric from your shirt around your waistline, and then put your hands on your hips.
Hello, my name is Bill "Persuasion Artist" Alexander. I am an avid student of persuasion and Influence.
I have a strong fascination for the mind, and I am passionate about the words, actions, and energies that influence the minds of others.
This is a blog of my insights on capturing and leading the imaginations of others using psychology, hypnosis, NLP, suggestion, and subconscious communication. I’ve been called a genius and I’ve been called dangerous.
All powerful forces can be used for good or evil. I encourage my readers to use these strategies for good and not in a harmful and manipulative way. Please see my Warning for more on ethics and persuasion.
Keep an open mind, feel free to ask me anything, I respond to all comments quickly, and I encourage and welcome intelligent discussion and debate. The content here is all free, so enjoy.
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Years ago I heard an old motivational speaker say the following:
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