92 Little Tricks for Big Success in Relationships (21 page)

“hitting the dirt,” “or throwing a spit ball.”

You’ve heard people say, “This solution is right on target.” We all understand it. But the phrasing would be more dramatic for archery enthusiasts. If your listener were a bowler, speaking of

“gutter balls” or “big splits” would bring whatever you were discussing to life. If your business buddies were basketball fans, analogies like “hook shot” or “air ball” would land right in their basket. If your client wrestles, saying “feints” and “scissor holds”

would be the way to grab him.

These analogies might sound far-fetched to you. But they are potent communications tools when they evoke your conversation partner’s world. Why not use the most powerful terms possible to get your point across and make the sale? I call the technique

“Potent Imaging.”

Technique #46

Potent Imaging

Does your customer have a garden? Talk about “sowing

the seeds for success.” Does your boss own a boat? Tell him or her about a concept that will “hold water” or

“stay afloat.” Maybe he is a private pilot? Talk about a concept really “taking off.” She plays tennis? Tell her it really hits the “sweet spot.”

Evoke your listener’s interests or lifestyle and weave

images around it. To give your points more power and

punch, use analogies from your listener’s world, not

your own. Potent Imaging also tells your listeners you

think like them and hints you share their interests.

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Pardon me while I return momentarily to my sadistic fantasies of the hopelessly confused lone male employee. The all-female management team is now arguing the corporate strategy using, not football of course, but ballet analogies.

“I say let’s do the corporate takeover allegro,” she suggests.

“Nah, you gotta go adagio in these matters,” her colleague responds.

“But what if they do a
tour jeté
while we’re poised in fifth?”

“C’mon did you ever see a good pas seul from their president?”

The top woman settles it. “I say let’s just give him a little
révérence
, and then a
grand battement
in the balls.”

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47
How to Make Them

Feel You Empathize

(Without Just Saying

“Yep, Uh Huh, Yeah”)

While listening to someone talk, we often vocalize “uh huh” or purr throaty little “umm” sounds to reassure the speaker we have heard their words. In fact, with some it’s such a habit, the noises escape their throats unconsciously. My friend Phil is a consummate, constant, and incontinent “ummer” whenever I’m talking. Occasionally, if I’m feeling contentious after he’s given one of his agreeable “umms” in response to something I’ve said, I challenge him with, “OK, Phil, what did I say?”

“Uh, well, gosh . . .” Phil has no idea. It’s not his fault. He’s male. Men are especially guilty of the not-really-listening umm habit. Once, when I was on a monologue about nothing in particular, Phil was on a real umm roll. To test his listening skills, I slipped in, “Yes, this afternoon I think I’ll go out and get tattooed all over my body.”

Phil nodded his habitual “uh huh.”

Well, umming is better than a blank stare. However, it’s not the choice of top communicators. Try replacing your umms with full-blown empathizers.

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What Are Empathizers?

Empathizers are simple, short, supportive statements. Unlike “uh huh,” they are complete sentences such as “I can appreciate you decided to do that,” or “That really is exciting.” Empathizers can be one-sentence positive critiques like “Yes, that was the honorable thing to do,” or “It’s charming you felt that way.”

When you respond with complete sentences instead of the usual grunts, not only do you come across as more articulate, but your listener feels that you really understand.

Technique #47

Employ Empathizers

Don’t be an unconscious ummer. Vocalize complete

sentences to show your understanding. Dust your

dialogue with phrases like “I see what you mean.”

Sprinkle it with sentimental sparklers like “That’s a

lovely thing to say.” Your empathy impresses your

listeners and encourages them to continue.

Of course, you pay a price. To use the right empathizers, you do need to listen.

Now let’s fine-tune this technique and explore advanced empathizing.

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48
How to Make Them Think

You See/Hear/Feel It

Just the Way They Do

About ten years ago, I had a roommate named Brenda. Brenda was a tap dance teacher who didn’t just tap dance to make a living. She lived to tap. Posters of Bill “Bojangles” Robinson and Charles “Honi” Coles plastered her walls. She didn’t walk around the house. She tapped her way from room to room. It was noisy, but at least, when a phone call came for Brenda, I never had trouble finding her. Once I asked Brenda when she got interested in tap. She said,

“From the moment I first opened my ears.” Her ears? I thought, that’s strange. Most people say “from the moment I opened my eyes.” At that moment, I realized Brenda “saw” the world more through her ears than her eyes.

We all perceive the world through five senses. We see the world. We hear the world. We feel the world. We smell the world. And we taste the world. Therefore, we talk in terms of those five senses. Proponents of neurolinguistic programming (NLP) tell us, for each person, one sense is stronger than others. For Brenda, it was her hearing.

Brenda told me she grew up in a dark apartment below street level in New York City. She remembers, as an infant, hearing the pitter-patter of feet walking just above her crib on the sidewalk.
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As a toddler, her tiny ears were bombarded with honking horns, shrieking sirens, and tire chains slapping the icy streets. She especially remembers the clumpety-clomp of police horses’ hoofs on the pavement outside her window. Her first perceptions of the outside world came to her through her ears. To this day, sound dominates her life. Brenda, the tap dancer, is an auditory person. Since neurolinguists suggest invoking our listener’s strongest sense, I tried a few auditory references on Brenda. Rather than saying, “That looks good to me,” I’d say “That sounds good.”

Instead of saying, “I see what you mean,” I’d say, “I hear you.”

When I used these auditory references, I felt she paid more attention.

So I started listening very carefully to all my friends to discover which was their primary perception. Sometimes I’d hear visual references like

“I see what you mean.”

“That looks good to me.”

“I can’t picture myself doing that.”

“I take a dim view of that idea.”

“From my perspective . . .”

Wow, I thought I was really on to something!

A Wrinkle Develops

But then, whoops, at other times, I’d hear that same friend say

“Yeah, I hear you.”

“Sure, that sounds good to me.”

“I kept saying to myself it would work.”

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“That has a negative ring to it.”

“He really tuned out on the whole idea.”

“Something tells me . . .”

This wasn’t going to be quite as easy as I’d expected. However, I wasn’t ready to give up.

Once, Brenda and I went skiing with several friends. That night we were at a party. One of our friends was telling a group of people, “The ski slopes were beautiful. Everything was so crystal clear and white.”

“A visual person?” I asked myself.

Another skier added, “The feel of the fresh snow on our faces was terrific.”

“Aha, a kinesthetic person,” I mused silently.

Sure enough, just then, Brenda said, “Today was so silent. The only sound you could hear was the wind in your ears as you came swooshing down the slopes.” That little riff convinced me there was something to it.

However, I still found it difficult to discern one’s primary sense.

A Simple Solution

Here’s what I’ve found does work, and it doesn’t take too much detective work on your part. I call the technique “Anatomically Correct Empathizers,” and it’s easy to master. Unless it is obvious the person you are speaking with is primarily visual, auditory, or kinesthetic, simply respond in his or her mode of the moment. Match your empathizers to the current sense someone is talking through. For example, suppose a business colleague describing a financial plan says, “With this plan, we can see our way clear in six months.” Since this time she’s using primarily visual references, 05 (171-198B) part five 8/14/03 9:18 AM Page 191

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say “I see what you mean” or “You really have a clear picture of that situation.”

If, instead, your colleague had said, “This plan has a good ring to it,” you’d substitute auditory empathizers like “It does sound great,” or “I hear you.”

A third possibility. Suppose she had said, “I have a gut feeling this plan will work.” Now you give her a kinesthetic empathizer like “I can understand how you feel,” or “You have a good grasp of that problem.”

Technique #48

Anatomic ally Correc t Empathizers

What part of their anatomy are your associates talking

through? Their eyes? Their ears? Their gut?

For visual people, use visual empathizers to make

them think you see the world the way they do. For

auditory folks, use auditory empathizers to make them

think you hear them loud and clear. For kinesthetic

types, use kinesthetic empathizers to make them think

you feel the same way they do.

What about the other two senses, taste and smell? Well, I’ve never run up against any gustatory or olfactory types. But you could always compliment a chef by saying, “That’s a delicious idea.” And if you are talking to your dog (olfactory, of course), tell him “The whole idea stinks.”

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49
How to Make ’Em

Think We (Instead of

You vs. Me)

By just eavesdropping for a few moments on any two people chatting, you could tell a lot about their relationship. You could tell if they were new acquaintances or old friends. You could tell whether a man and a woman were strangers or a couple.

You wouldn’t even need to hear friends call each other “pal,”

“buddy,” or “mate.” You wouldn’t need to hear a man and a woman whisper “dear,” “sweetheart,” or “turtle dove.” It wouldn’t matter what they were discussing or even their tone of voice. You could even be blindfolded and tell a lot about their relationship because the technique I’m about to share has nothing to do with body language.

How? A fascinating progression of conversation unfolds as people become closer. Here’s how it develops:

Level One: Clichés

Two strangers talking together primarily toss clichés back and forth. For instance, when chatting about the universally agreedupon world’s dullest subject—the weather—one stranger might say to the other, “Beautiful sunny weather we’ve been having.” Or,

“Boy, some rain, huh?” That’s level one, clichés.

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We
(Instead of
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vs.
Me)
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Level Two: Facts

People who know each other but are just acquaintances often discuss facts. “You know, Joe, we’ve had twice as many sunny days this year to date as last.” Or, “Yeah, well, we finally decided to put in a swimming pool to beat the heat.”

Level Three: Feelings and

Personal Questions

When people become friends, they often express their feelings to each other, even on subjects as dull as the weather. “George, I just love these sunny days.” They also ask each other personal questions: “How about you, Betty? Are you a sun person?”

Level Four: We Statements

Now we progress to the highest level of intimacy. This level is richer than facts and creates more rapport than feelings. It’s
we
and
us
statements. Friends discussing the weather might say, “If
we
keep having this good weather, it’ll be a great summer.” Lovers might say, “I hope this good weather keeps up for
us
so
we
can go swimming on our trip.”

A technique to achieve the ultimate verbal intimacy grows out of this phenomenon. Simply use the word
we
prematurely. You can use it to make a client, a prospect, a stranger feel you are already friends. Use it to make a potential romantic partner feel the two of you are already an item. I call it the “Premature
We
.” In casual conversation, simply cut through levels one and two. Jump straight to three and four.

Ask your prospect’s feelings on something the way you would query a friend. (“George, how do you feel about the new governor?”) Then use the pronoun
we
when discussing anything that might affect the two of you. (“Do you think
we’re
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per during his administration?”) Make it a point to concoct
we
sentences, the kind people instinctively reserve for friends, lovers, and other intimates. (“I think
we’ll
survive while the governor’s in office.”)