Episode 5 - Rapport: Non-verbal Communication

Episode 5: Rapport: Non-verbal Communication

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[Music]

Jason McClain: Welcome to Evolutionary Sales. I'm Jason McClain, and your guide to the 21st-century marketplace. This is episode five of Evolutionary Sales, and today we're going to talk about "rapport", as well as a little bit of phone work. So thank you for joining me again. And I'm going to recap a few things, go over a few important mindsets and orientations for you to remember, as you listen to this series of podcasts. Now some of you who've subscribed, you've done a wise thing, you've subscribed to either through iTunes or through the website, or through your RSS reader. You may be getting a little bit tired of this, my recaps of all the previous podcasts, sort of giving you a two-minute summary, or a three-minute summary, of all the previous podcasts. So let me just say first of all, a lot of people make the mistake of thinking that because they remember something, they *know* it. So I'd like to talk a little bit about the difference between knowing something and learning it, and therefore having it or possessing it. That is taking ownership of it yourself; it's in your body, so to speak. The difference between knowing something and learning something is that when you know something, you go, "Oh, yeah! You know, I know that." But you're not actually doing it, or you're not acting from it. And so a lot of you, while you may have already subscribed, may be getting tired of the repetition of some of this at the beginning. What I'll say is that after seventeen years of learning strategies to assist people in learning, repetition is the mother of integration. Insight and integration are tremendously different. You can have all the insight in the world and have little or no integration. And then it's just another book you read. It's an intellectual endeavor. You know it's an interesting hobby, but it won't transform your business, your practice, your sales business, your relationship with your clients, and ultimately your results. Repetition will. There are audio products that I've been listening to for ten years, and I listen to them over and over and over again. Not because I'm stupid, but because you are changing all the time, you hear something differently. You hear something you frankly didn't even hear before, because you tuned out for a minute, and that one distinction might be the difference that makes a difference in your business and in your life. Additionally, just because you've heard something once, or even ten times, doesn't mean you've got it fully embodied. It doesn't mean you're acting from it; it doesn't mean you have the ability to behaviorally demonstrate it. And it's the ability to behaviorally demonstrate it, to act from that distinction, or to have fully embodied that new way of communicating, that will transform your business, your results, and ultimately your income, and you'll be more fulfilled and happier, and you'll be able to move on to the next set of skills, or next set of distinctions. So really, everything I do is carefully designed to be in service of you. I want to make that really clear. And there's a sense in which the benefit I get out of this (because these are free to you)... the benefit I get out of it is to contribute to you, to actually hear about the results, the difference it makes in your life. So I want to thank those of you who've emailed me, given me some feedback, and I encourage all of you to email me at [email protected] (there're two L's in "PersonalLifeMedia".) Ask any questions or offer any feedback, so this is continually improving, so that it benefits you, and it benefits others, and ultimately it benefits your business and your income.

In that domain, there are a few things I'm going to tell you to do, and maybe some of you have already ignored the instructions [laughs]. And that is: listen to these podcasts in order; go back and subscribe. If you're listening to this for the first time, stop now, go to the website and subscribe, or go to iTunes and subscribe to Evolutionary Sales. Secondly, there're a lot of exercises that are in here, and sometimes I'll tell you to stop and do those. Make sure you find a comfortable place. Make sure you're not driving! Make sure you're not operating heavy machinery. That is NOT a joke... that is very serious, for two reasons: One, I don't want you to hurt yourself, and believe me, if you're visualizing something and you don't see a red light, that's dangerous. Of course, I don't take any responsibility, and neither does Personal Life Media, for your operating any heavy machinery or driving while you take on any of these exercises. The other problem that people run into is they try and do the exercises anyway in that way, and they don't get the most out of it, of course. But the third problem is if you skip over the exercises entirely, and this is the biggest danger, and you just go on to the information. The exercises again are designed to help you embody it fully, to help you practice, and we're about to get into skills today with rapport, and skills require practice. You can't *know* how to play tennis... you have to *be* how to play tennis. You have to *do* tennis, and there's no difference between the skill it takes to have an incredible backhand or serve in tennis, or an incredible drive in golf, or whatever metaphor you want to use... there's no difference between that kind of skill and the ability to navigate your own interiors, and to assist another in navigating their interiors. In communication, whether it's emotionally or whether it's linguistically, these are skills, and skills require practice. They also require two other things. The second one is practice, and the third one of course, is practice. So I'm going to encourage you to follow the instructions because the instructions are designed to assist you in getting the most from this series of podcasts, and transforming your business.

So to recap the series so far: In the Prologue we talked about how to get the most out of this series of podcasts. We talked about the shifts in the marketplace, the 21st-century marketplace, and what's required for that. The simplest way to put it is we're no longer closing deals; we're opening relationships, or becoming even more transparent, or becoming more vulnerable, or connecting deeper. This is what people really desire now in the marketplace. It's going to become a requirement in the 21st-century marketplace before too long. So if you're not doing that, and when I say "that" I mean opening relationships rather than just closing deals and moving on to the next one, you're about to be eclipsed by those people. And so this series of podcasts is designed to prepare you for the 21st-century marketplace.

In Episode One we talked about personal work, your decisions and your beliefs, and how they create possibility or close the doors in your mind, whether it's about people, or about your business, or about yourself, or about money, beliefs that, when you start to believe them, they become concrete, they become convictions, and then they simply become the reality within which you move. They become the borders, or the walls, within which you allow yourself to move, and so some of the exercises we did in Episode One are specifically designed to expand the limit of those walls.

In Episode Two we talked about mastery of your mind, specifically how to manage your mind with visual, auditory, kinesthetic, olfactory, gustatory, and linguistic distinctions. Or pictures, sounds, feelings, smells, tastes and language, and we did a couple of exercises to assist you in being at a peak emotional state, or a resourceful emotional state, regardless of the circumstances in your life. Now that can become dangerous as well, and so you have to use balance. You have to make sure you take care of yourself, which is... it used to be that in the 20th century you could just demand that salespeople drank more coffee and ate more cigarettes [laughs]. I couldn't believe it but in 2002, the last time I ever worked for someone else, they would literally have us come in and they would say, "Okay, great! Have some more coffee; have some more cigarettes. Get yourself pumped up and get on the phone." I thought gosh, what an interesting model. You hear, "Let's put these things in your body that are harmful to you, so that you can get amped up, and improve these results." And of course there are ways to get "amped up" without putting toxins in your body, and so we explored some of those options in Episode Two.

In Episode Three we talked about setting goals, and SMART goals, S-M-A-R-T... (S)tating the positive, the (M)easurable, (A)chievable, (R)esponsible, and then setting the (T)ime. And then we went into your unconscious organization of time, and what that means to you.

In Episode Four, the last episode, we talked about creating an identity for yourself, literally creating a name for yourself that's both memorable and accurately describes what you do, so that you're unique and you remain top of mind for people when they're thinking about acquiring some sort of service. You get to distinguish yourself from the market in doing so. And you get to use language to impact your prospect or client. In terms of prospecting, most people make the mistake of never fully defining who they want to reach. They say, "Well you know, I'll just reach anyone with skin", I think as Laurie Molinari [spelling is not available] put it, one of my guests on my other show that I do for Personal Life Media, which is "Coaching the Life Coach". But really, what gender are they, and it could be both, but what are their habits; what magazines do they subscribe to; what kind of events do they attend; how old are they; where are they geographically; what's their financial status??? All those questions, and you can get more and more specific so that you can go and find them.

And in today's episode we're going to get into the first skill set, really. Not that navigating your own interiors and mastering your mind isn't a particular kind of skill, but really dealing with other people... these are the first skills that we'll be talking about touching dealing with other people. This is where the audio product "Evolutionary Sales" really picks up and if you're interested in that product, if you don't want to wait for these podcasts, if you want to get the whole meat of it now, you can go to my website, http://EvolutionaryAwareness.com, and just go to http://EvolutionaryAwareness.com/products and you'll see "Evolutionary Sales" there, seven CD's, and what that allows you to do is first of all get access to coaching with me, but also allows you to get a jump on the rest of this. And this is where that product picks up, with 'rapport'. We do some of the personal work as well. But really the meat of it begins with rapport.

So the question is: What is Rapport? I like to think of rapport in two different ways. It's really two types of rapport. One is momentary rapport, that is *in the moment*, you're in rapport with somebody. You've entered their world to some degree. You're walking in their shoes. You understand them; you understand their motivations; you understand their wants, needs, desires, fears. You have a sense of them. These are all different ways to talk about it. We've all heard, "Don't judge me until you've walked a mile in my shoes." That's literally a wonderful exercise to do, that is to walk in someone else's shoes. Rapport is about entering someone else's world, such that they relax unconsciously, literally some part of them goes *aahhhh...* And they relax, and in that moment you then get to truly be of service to them. You don't have to worry about whether or not they're open to you, because you have opened them up; you are in rapport with them; you're being of service to them. This is the critical and foundational skill. At any point, if you sense resistance from your prospect or client, you could say that it simply is a matter of a lack of rapport. And it's your job to notice that, back up, re-establish rapport. Let go of whatever you're doing in the sales process. If you start to get attached to some particular outcome or closing some deal, that's not 'evolutionary sales'. That's '20th-century sales'. And people sense that, and it makes them uncomfortable, and you want them to always be comfortable such that they refer people to you, and they are raving fans for you.

So rapport is about entering people's worlds. That's what it is. So how do you do it? Because a lot of people rely on interesting facts, like, "Oh, you know, I have children too." Except what if they don't? Or, "Oh gosh, yeah, I went to that kind of college as well", or, "Oh yeah, I grew up in such and such a place", or... And you have somebody trying to handle these 'me toos', or maybe you're just confused as to how to connect to somebody; you don't know what to say to them, don't know how to connect to them, and in the rapport-building exercises what you'll find out is that you don't have to worry about any of those facts. All you need to worry about is what they most deeply value, and you need to worry about the things that you can match, to build rapport. And the way neuro-linguistic programming talks about rapport is that it has three components: match, pace, and lead. And matching is literally matching them. And we'll talk about that in a minute here. Pacing is matching through time, that is you match them long enough, such that you can then lead them.

Some of you may have some concerns, some valid concerns, about manipulation here. And some people I know teach these skills for unethical purposes, and when I say 'unethical', I really mean *unethical* in my world. That is, as it relates to 'evolutionary sales'. It's not because they're in service of someone else's outcomes, or they have permission to be in service of them. It's because they're trying to get something from them. That's an unethical use of these skills. And I don't authorize that; I don't condone it; and I don't support it in any way. These are very powerful tools of influence, and it's your job as an evolutionary to use them with ethics, with care, and in service of someone else's outcomes, in service of their desires, their wants, their needs, as a service provider to them. If you do that, you'll never have somebody feel uncomfortable, and you'll realize that it's your duty to use powerful tools of influence to assist them in overcoming their limitations. Because really, evolutionary sales is about coming from service and contribution, assisting someone in getting what they ultimately want, and leveraging them beyond their limitations, and it becomes your job, your duty even, as a service provider, to move them beyond their limitations. And that requires rapport. You have to be in rapport with them, consciously and unconsciously.

So let's talk about how to establish rapport. When I say "match" I literally mean "match." You can match their voice tone; you can match their body posture; you can match the way they walk. If they're crossing their legs, you can cross your legs. If they're crossing their arms, you can cross your arms. If they're using a certain voice tone, you can use that certain voice tone. If they have an accent, go ahead and subtly, *subtly*, borrow the accent; take on a little bit of accent. It's not like this is something that never happens anyway. What happens naturally when you're in rapport? I don't know how many of you have ever been in the South, but if you've ever been in the South, how long did it take you to pick up the accent? An hour? Maybe a day. At most maybe three days before you started talking with a subtle Southern drawl. Why? Because you've gotten in rapport with them unconsciously. It automatically happened anyway. It automatically happens when you get in relationship with somebody. Maybe you've had a lover where you were able to finish each other's sentences, your boyfriend or girlfriend that, you started finishing each other's sentences. Or you were thinking about the same thing, or you bring something up and she says, "I was just thinking about that!" Or vice versa. It's just rapport; this is unconscious rapport. And there are ways to 'reverse engineer' it. And that starts with the body. Or it starts with the voice tone, particularly if you're on the phone.

So to get a real sense of this, this idea of nonverbal communication, we're going to give you two exercises. The first is: I'd like you to go and I'd like you to get a partner, and stop the tape until you find a partner, after I explain the exercise. Because this exercise is designed to assist you in embodying this distinction, that is actually learning it, not just knowing it. And the first exercise is I'd like you to pick a partner, and pick this 'Person A' and this 'Person B', and Person A is going to stand over the other person who's sitting down, and you're going to discuss something that's controversial, and you're going to agree with them verbally, but you're going to disagree with them physically and tonally. So in other words, you're going to be standing up over them... that's Person A. Person B is going to say something, talk about current events, and they're going to express some opinion. And you're going to verbally agree with them, but in terms of their tone, you're going to mismatch their tone, and you're going to stand over them with your arms crossed, mismatching their body. You're going to do that for two minutes, and then you're going to report your internal experience to each other. And then you're going to stop, and you're going to switch roles. You as Person A will sit down; Person B will stand over you; you'll talk about something that's controversial, some sort of current event, and you will have them, Person B, who's now standing over you, cross their arms and agree with you verbally, but disagree tonally and physically. Do that for two minutes and then report your internal experience. That's the exercise. STOP the recording now, and find your partner, and experience that, and come on back.

Welcome back to Episode Five of Evolutionary Sales, and in discussing rapport, hopefully you had an interesting experience about that exercise. Now we're going to do one more rapport exercise. It's pretty much the opposite of the last one. You're going to find a partner, and Person A is going to... you're going to sit aligned, and Person A is going to disagree verbally, that is the words, but agree tonally, and agree physically. So if they have their arms crossed, as you sit across from them, you'll have your arms crossed. If they cross their legs, you'll cross your legs. If they open their legs, you'll open your legs. Their breathing, you'll match the rate at which they're breathing. You'll match their volume; you'll match their tone and inflection. But you'll be disagreeing with the content of what they're saying. Experience that for two minutes, and then switch roles. Person B will be agreeing with you, as you discuss some controversial topic in terms of current events. And they'll disagree verbally, but agree tonally; that is they'll be matching you tonally, and they'll be matching you physically. And then you'll discuss your experience. And then come on back. Pause the recording now, and go experience that exercise.

Welcome back to Evolutionary Sales. So now you've gotten a little taste of what it's like to be in rapport and out of rapport. And you can begin to see how powerful these dynamics can be. Studies indicate that only 7% of our communication is actually the verbal content, that is the words. And the 54% is the body, the physicality. And the 38% is tone, inflection, accent, volume, these things. What that means to you is people are listening, to use that term loosely, listening to your communication all the time. When they're in front of you, and you're in front of them, they're receiving information about how you're communicating. And most of it's nonverbal; in fact 93% of it is nonverbal. So begin to be aware of these dynamics, to use these dynamics, and remember, the only purpose for you to get masterful at these skills is so that you can be in service of someone else's outcomes, so that you can enter their world to such a degree that they feel safe enough for you to add to their world, to enrich their world, or enrich their "map of reality", as they say.

In our next episode we're going to get into "Permission Selling", and the phone. And we'll talk a little bit more about rapport, a deeper level of rapport, rapport at the level of values.

I'm Jason McClain, your host in Evolutionary Sales. For transcripts of this show, or other shows on the Personal Life Media Network, feel free to visit http://PersonalLifeMedia.com; there are two L's in PersonalLifeMedia. If you have any questions about this episode or any other episodes, feel free to email me at [email protected], that's "PersonalLifeMedia (again with 2 L's).com", or contact me through http://EvolutionaryAwareness.com. Thanks for listening, and I'll speak to you next week.

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