Effortless Rapport: Mirror, Model, Profit!

November 17, 2014 | By | Reply More

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One of the most important and critical skills any REI should master is negotiation. Going belly to belly with another person – whether it’s a motivated seller or private lender or buyer… negotiating is a skill that we should all be constantly working to master on an ongoing basis.

A subset of negotiating is building rapport. The more easily and effortlessly you can build rapport, the lower the barriers are that you have to face when you’re negotiating with someone.

Having rapport automatically opens doors for you that normally wouldn’t be opened. It’s a skill that I am an avid student of. So, I’d like to let you stand on my shoulders so I can share with you some of what I’ve learned.

In this blog post, I’m going to specifically talk about a concept that aims to build rapport called Mirroring and Modeling.

Rapport building is uber important…

Rapport is a connection, a mutual understanding or trust and agreement between people. Being able to build and maintain rapport is the foundation of excellent communications.

People like people who are like themselves. Rapport makes you more ‘like’ the person with whom you’re communicating. If someone likes you, there’s a better chance they will do business with you.

One of the best ways to build massive rapport with someone quickly is through mirroring and modeling the communication of a prospect.

Mirroring and modeling

When you mirror and model a prospect’s verbal (words and tonality) and nonverbal (physiology) communication, you put yourself on the fast track to creating an environment of trust where both parties can be open and honest.

This will allow you to disqualify the prospect if your program is not a good fit or lead the prospect toward the sale if it suits their needs and goals.

If you watch people around you, you’ll begin to notice that people mirror and model each other ALL the time. But they do it unconsciously.

2014-11-17-copycatWhat you want to do is train yourself to do this consciously in order to build rapport quickly. Sure, you may feel awkward at first, but so what! It’s not like you’re gonna get called out anyway – because while you may doing this consciously, the person you’re doing it to doesn’t realize it because they’re carrying on at an unconscious level.

Questions to ask yourself when meeting with a prospect to mirror and model. . .

  • How is the person sitting/standing?
  • Is the person leaning in a particular direction?
  • Do they use a lot of gestures?
  • Is the person using the same word(s) or phrases repeatedly?
  • Are their hands or feet crossed?
  • How fast/slow do they talk? (This is one of the main things I focus on when on the phone with a prospect to build rapport)

Quick Tip Warning:

This is not a game of copycat! This is very powerful information when used judiciously. Use it for all the right reasons. Just in your conversations and interactions with potential lenders… notice how the prospect is interacting with you and mirror some of the same elements.

So, if the prospect sits forward in their chair… you might sit forward too… if the prospect is talking fast… you might speed up the rate at which you’re talking. Sounds simple… but it’s crazy how effective it is.

Good stuff, right?!

I love talking about things that help make connections with people – that help us do more deals and make more money.

In fact, I think I’ll continue this topic with another blog post in the near future to talk about other aspects related to building rapport using modeling and mirroring. We can deep dive a bit more… Stay tuned!

Patrick's signatureIn the meantime, talk to me…

Talk to me below, tell me if you’ve ever had any experience trying any of this out of anybody and whether you felt it was easy or hard. And, let me know if you have any other questions.

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Category: Negotiating

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