What if you could influence everyone you meet? Create that immediate sense of trust, or rapport, that leads to more powerful and immediate relationships?
You can. Just not necessarily in the ways you’ve been taught.
Influence is Unconscious
I read articles all the time talking about how to create trust. Thing is, unconscious trust happens in the first 30 seconds you meet someone. If you don’t capture that unconscious trust, you’ll never be able to influence everyone, to have the relationship you want with your buyer, boss, team, family or friends. Or anyone else.
Here’s the scoop:
- Unconscious trust, or influence, is created in your brain. You either trigger trust or dis-trust with another human based on 2 primary factors. Your body language and your voice.
- That’s how cave people knew whether to trust another cave person or people. They watched their movements and gestures to see if they matched their clan’s body language. They listened to vocalizations to do the same. Words, well words didn’t matter that much back in cave times.
- Today, that same wiring is in our unconscious mind. We check another person’s body language and voice to see if they are “like” us. If they are, we trust them. Immediately. If they’re different, we do not trust them. It has to be earned in further interactions.
How to Influence Everyone You Meet
Creating trust isn’t really that difficult. When you understand the recipe. Here are 3 proven ways to influence everyone you meet.
- Let your Body Talk. Your body says more than your words can ever say. So let it talk. Watch the person you are meeting and match their body language. If their head is tilted, tilt yours. If they cross their legs, cross yours. If they sit with their hands in their lap when they talk, you do the same. It’s a simple technique called mirroring. And it works. Don’t be obvious, but do match their body positions and gestures.
- That Catch in Your Voice. Now, do the same with your voice. Subtly match their tone; high or low. Their volume; loud, medium, soft spoken. Their speed. Do they talk fast? You do too. Do they talk slowly. You do the same. Do they answer in short clipped cadence or long, slow drawl? You do the same. That’s right. Subtly match their voice patterns.
- Words Do Matter. Studies say that words make up less than 10% of our communication. But some words DO matter. For example, use their words when speaking. If they call your product a whatchamafloppy, call it the same. If they say Doohickey, do the same. One of the biggest mistakes I made in my early marketing career was pushing sales folks and more to use our positioning words. WRONG move. All that did was to limit the trust between prospects and my sales force. Who cares what they call it? Use their words for everything and watch the connection begin.
I used these methods in Las Vegas one night. It was midnight and I’d just arrived to find no cars in the rental center. And hundreds of people waiting. I had to drive about an hour out of Vegas for an early meeting, so I was bummed. All around me, people were doing their ugly humanity imitation with the poor agents.
I waited in line and when I got to the counter, I used these techniques with my agent. Plus I was nice, which goes a long way. His manager came over to thank me for being reasonable, and I created a bit of influence with her as well. She asked me to go sit in a corner close to her office door. 15 minutes later, I had a huge Hummer and was on my way. For the price of my little compact. Yep, influence comes in handy.
The Bottom Line
Your ability to influence everyone isn’t really about what you say. Even though many of us spend hours working on the perfect words. We’d be better off if we spent time watching and listening to others to mirror their body language and their voice.
Influence is an unconscious mechanism controlled by our mind. Since our unconscious mind doesn’t use words, our words really don’t matter. Not in the initial stages of creating trust.
You can influence everyone. If you pay attention and use these simple techniques
