Mirroring happens every day without you even noticing. In fact, you’ve been doing it since you were a baby. You probably do it with your partner, your friends and probably your family members too.
Mirroring is the psychological art of adopting someone’s gestures, expressions and body languages intuitively without even realising you’re doing it. It also can be adopted in voice tone and style of talking and often happens with groups of friends. Perhaps you use the same phrases and gestures. It’s a natural and innate thing that usually happens when we have a good connection with someone that we are fond of.
But mirroring can be a strong practise to take notice of when we are quickly trying to build rapport with a sales prospect and can be a very useful addition to our bag of sales skills.
Stay Authentic!
So how do we do it? Well first of all, you need to be subtle. Mirroring is an unconscious art, so literally copying your prospects hand movements or body language will be far too obvious. If he or she realises what you’re doing it will give the game away and also make you look a bit silly! Anything you do within a sales meeting that looks inauthentic will NOT help you to build rapport.
You can be subtle by not mirroring every gesture or voice pattern, but pick one thing to mirror every now and then. Small bits of body language or speed of speech can be an easy and undetectable place to start.
Look for:
Changes in body language
If the prospect is sitting in a certain way, see if it’s possible to make a similar body shape. If they change their body language at any point, try to shift to their new position. Don’t do this at the exact same time, but perhaps a few moments later. Again, remember to be subtle!
Voice speed
You can really build rapport by mirroring the prospect’s voice speed. If you’re naturally a slow talker but the prospect is speaking quickly, you may need to speed up a little so that they feel you are on the same wavelength as them.
Learning preference
Everyone uses their senses to process information, and most people have a preference as to which one of these senses is most predominant. It is quite easy to match the style in which they understand and process information by using words suited to that preference.
With time and practice you will be able to seamlessly match and mirror your sales prospect without being obvious or insincere and use this to build rapport and establish great relationships with your customers.
Leigh Ashton is the co-founder of Sasudi.com, the world’s first online subscription-based platform that is aimed at making sales easy for Small Businesses. If you’re interested in learning more about building rapport, or need help improving your sales, sign up to Sasudi.com for free. You’ll get free weekly tips and be the first to hear when the platform launches!