To Sell is Human: Post #4--Attunement

Attunement: It’s important to be on the same wavelength with the person you are trying to influence. When it comes to attunement, pay attention to three approaches 1) Power; 2) Heart and Head; 3) Mimicking.
a.    Power—be careful to purposefully reduce your power status if you want to “move” someone. People with more power are less likely to be in sync with others—about three times less. Research at Berkeley shows that low-status people are better at perspective taking—understanding the other person. So, engage in every encounter with less power and you’ll observe better. Think humility. Humility makes a huge difference in success, because it sets up a low barrier and also forces us into more of taking the other’s perspective.
b.    Heart and Head: Use your head as much as your heart. Says Pink, “Perspective–taking is a cognitive capacity; it’s mostly about thinking. Empathy is an emotional response; mostly about feeling.” Both are crucial. Together, they’re a powerful combination. In a controlled experiment, “empathizers” closed many more deals than the control group (who did nothing special), but perspective takers who used their heads—tried to think like their clients—did MUCH better…76% of them closed deals.
c.    Mimicking others greatly increases your ability to move people. Syncing vocal patterns and mannerisms helps in negotiating with and moving people. A Dutch study showed that waitresses who repeated orders word for word got 70% more tips. If touched lightly on the arm or shoulders, diners leave larger tips. Lightly touching a woman’s forearms when requesting to dance increases a man’s chance to dance with her! Why do we always learn things too late?