Training

Building Powerful Relationships with Matching and Mirroring

Posted by: Team Tony

Establishing rapport with another person is one of the fastest ways to make progress in your business— and in your life. When you’re in rapport with someone, he or she is much more inclined to help you achieve your goals by, for example, connecting you with a gamechanging business partner.

One of the fastest ways to get into rapport is by aligning your physiology with the another person’s, through the technique of matching and mirroring. Let’s say you’re having lunch with a connection for the first time and he’s talking with a particular tone and making a certain gesture. If you use that same tone and gesture—just these two things alone—he’ll feel bonded to you very quickly.

Rapport (n): The ability to enter someone else’s world, to make him feel you understand him, that you have a strong common bond.

You don’t have to do everything the other person does at the moment he or she does it. Wait for the moment when it feels most natural. For example, let’s say you need to win over the woman across from you. She crosses her leg while she’s talking. Casually cross your leg, too. If she leans forward while she’s talking, mirror her by shifting forward as well.

Take any relationship between two people and you’ll find the first thing that created their bond was something they had in common. They may have different ways of doing the same thing, but it was the commonalities that first brought them together. Think about someone you really like and notice what makes him so appealing. Is it the ways in which he’s like you? Matching and mirroring establishes that commonality in a matter of minutes.

You can use this anywhere, anyhow, across gender, color and race. You can break any barrier down with this technique. Just imagine how powerful it would be to walk into any room in the world and know that you can create a bond with whoever’s sitting there in less than 10 minutes. Can you see how these new bonds would get you instantly closer to achieving your goals—and your ultimate vision for your business?

The next time you’re in a situation where you’re out of rapport, examine what’s happening in your voice, your volume, your tempo and your body. You’ll see what’s getting in the way of what you’re trying to communicate. You’ll also be able to correct it quickly to create the rapport you need to move the conversation forward.

“Rapport is created by a feeling of commonality. Rapport is power.”—Tony Robbins