This is also the #1 way to deal with everyone who wants to suck up your time on the phone, from colleagues to cold-calling sales-people with “Have you got a few minutes to talk?”
This skill is the perfect way to deal with open-ended, undefined agenda calls. You get in your low stakes practice in for your high stakes performance, you make people feel good, and then they dump all sorts of important information on you quickly. Every time you execute this and they show their hidden cards you are going to say to yourself “Boom! Drop the mike!”
Here’s how it goes:
Caller: “Have you got a few minutes to talk?”
You: “A few minutes to talk?”
Write this on a 3x5 card, or a slip of paper and keep it next to your phone. We double-dog dare you!
Most of you have recognized this as our skill we define as the “mirror.” Mirroring is simply repeating the last 3-5 words your counterpart has just said. You’ll generally use an upward inflection – like an actual question.
When you’ve built up the neural pathways in your brain to make this an automatic skill, you’ll also start mirroring a selected 3-5 words from within the conversation. Sometimes you’ll even mirror only one word!?!
High-stakes results call for low-stakes practice. Hence the use of the skill on all those life-sucking phone calls.
We heard John Foley, a former Blue Angel pilot with the US Navy’s flight aerobatic squadron give a motivational talk about a year ago. (PS: It was an awesome talk!) He talked about “grooving” habits into the brain. These guys fly fighter jets in tight formations. If they don’t properly grove habits into their brain, the results are catastrophic.
John said it takes about 63-64 repetitions to grove habit into the brain. Sounds like just another way of saying building a neural connection that fires a skill automatically, doesn’t it?
We’ve got a super-smart friend and client named Randy who makes it a point always to mirror his counterparts on every position they take. He knows it will trigger a response that clearly tells him if their position is soft or firm, AND they will never know how quickly they have revealed those things.
Randy loves mirrors. He loves how it gives him the upper hand while providing the counterpart the illusion of control.
Make the 3x5 card with the script from above on it.
Hand-write it. Handwriting also builds the neural connections far better than typing does.
“Have you got a few minutes to talk?”
“A few minutes to talk?”
Place the card next to your phone. Get in your 64 repetitions. Get your low-stakes practice for high stakes results.
And you know what?! Tell us about what happened when you did it!
We welcome you to put a comment The Black Swan Group Facebook page or if you feel so inclined, do a short video on your phone and post that!
Thank you and have some fun!