"It is the pervading law of all things organic and inorganic, Of all things physical and metaphysical, Of all things human and all things super-human, Of all true manifestations of the head, Of the heart, of the soul, That the life is recognizable in its expression, That form ever follows function. This is the law." ~Louis Sullivan
Architect Louis Sullivan understood that form follows function. The designer of the modern skyscraper was creating the modern cityscape, trying to accomplish something that had never been tried before.
If you're a salesperson, it may be that the function you are trying to accomplish is to persuade affluent prospects to buy your products or services.
If we think back to Sullivan's credo, it's easy to comprehend that we can design a form to go along with our function.
By building models of persuasion you will find you get amazing results affecting other people.
In rapport, we build the model of the person we're persuading. We build them and step into their shoes so that we can become them.
Here's an example of a wilder model which will be extremely effective in persuading your affluent prospects.
This is like figuratively stepping into someone else's shoes, trying on their skin and is asking your unconscious to do something simple, yet profound, on your behalf.
By assuming and presupposing that you can do this, your other than conscious believes that you CAN. It understands, and it takes its orders and engages the necessary behavior to fulfill the wish. Now all we have to do is set up 'the bubble'. This concept comes from metaphysical literature and is an effective tool in relation to rapport, whether you buy into metaphysics or not.
To gain this rapport, you simply need to imagine a pink bubble around you and your prospect. Sounds easy, doesn't it?
This might seem silly, but the color of the bubble matters, so choose either pink of gold.
Now that we've got our big pink (or gold) bubble, I am going to imagine up a lasso and throw it around my prospect and as I do this, I'm going to pull us both into the bubble.
You might be thinking, "Well, Kenrick, this all sounds a little kooky."
Believe me, there IS a point to all of this... The point is to link us energetically, to link what the two of us are doing.
So maybe you think this is all goofy and yet you still give it a try and find that there's a very powerful energy surrounding you and your prospect. Well. . . who's it hurting to have this mental construct in your mind?
For our purposes here, the pink bubble (the form) accomplishes rapport (the function) which leads to persuasion and influence.
Let's say that I want to encircle many, like the whole room. I can drop the bubble over all of us, and then I can step out of it.
What will be the impact of doing that?
I'm not really trying to influence you very much, except wanting to have a lot of rapport amongst all of us.
Try this exercise and see that you will gain a whole new perspective on your persuasive abilities with your affluent prospects.
Kenrick Cleveland teaches techniques to earn the business of wealthy prospects using persuasion. He runs public and private seminars and offers home study courses and coaching programs in persuasion techniques. Click here to get your own unique version of this article.
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