8 Covert Methods to Instant Rapport and Charisma with Anyone Fast | Persuasion Artist

photo credit: Jeff Bauche

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.

More on this is my articles How to Combine Hypnosis with Stories for Covert Persuasion DYNAMITE and Should You Use Memorized Hypnotic Language Patterns?

6. Mirror the Unconscious Hello

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”

8 Covert Methods to Instant Rapport and Charisma with Anyone Fast | Persuasion Artist

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