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Storytelling For Quick Rapport
So say you're face to face with a brand new prospect. They've heard a little bit about you, your reputation, what kind of a person you are and yet, maybe they still have some defenses which you are going to need to overcome before rapport has been established and they can feel good trusting you completely.
So say you’re face to face with a brand new prospect. They’ve heard a little bit about you, your reputation, what kind of a person you are and yet, maybe they still have some defenses which you are going to need to overcome before rapport has been established and they can feel good trusting you completely.
Stories speed up rapport and trust incredibly. They allow your clients to quickly learn who you are, what’s important to you, and that they can really trust you with their business.
Many times, relationships (of all kinds), take a while to unfold. We reveal a little information and then a little more, until it builds up into a whole picture of who we are. Stories accelerate this process, eliminating that build up, and when they’re told well and, most importantly, with a lucid, pertinent point, they can reveal your true essence in a brief time.
Stories have the ability to mesmerize and lull, they suck people in. They fit into the indirect permissive model not the direct authoritarian model and therein is one of the most significant powers of stories.
In a New York Times and CBS news poll, sixty-three percent of people were found to believe that you must be very careful in dealing with other people.
Thirty seven percent believe that most people would try to take advantage of you if they had the chance.
Thirty seven percent. Over one third of the population. One out of every three people believes you have the potential and/or interest in taking advantage of them and three out of four people believe that you have to be extremely careful in dealing with others.
That’s interesting, isn’t it? Seems like we are quite distrusting and cynical in our dealins with others.
This same poll asked, ‘Of the people you know, what percentage would try to be fair?’
The result was overwhelming. Eighty-five percent of those polled believed the people they *knew* to be fair.
This means by getting people to know us, we cut down on the distrust dramatically. Our powers to influence and persuade increase.
One of the best ways of letting people know you is by telling them a story. We go from three fourths of them distrusting, believing you can’t be too careful, taking cautions with you, and over a third of the people thinking you’d try to take advantage of them if you could, to a whopping eighty-five percent of them believing you would be fair with them.
Use a story to let people know who you are and your trustworthiness almost triples.