Q – Jade, it seems as if you are always repeating yourself.
A – No doubt. No doubt it does. And, it could be that I am.
Q – Are you?
A – Absolutely…well, not all the time. No.
Q – But, aren’t your last two answers repeaters?
A – Yes. Yes they are.
Q – Why do you do this?
A – Other than because I’m obsessively compulsive about repeater patterns? Well, let’s see, I have found them to be very persuasive in persuasive communications of all types. Advertising, sales, marketing, interdepartmental, interpersonal, interestingly, in just about every area that I observe and hear.
Q – You said, “interpersonal.” What are some examples of that?
A – Other than you having just repeating “interpersonal?” Let’s just take that, for instance, for a moment. One of the things I have noticed that salespeople do is repeat back the last word or phrase to their prospect in order to get them to open up more during the sales conversation. It’s very effective. I’m not a psychologist, so I don’t know the psychological reason for this, but I can tell you it’s definitely a pattern and an effective one at that.
Another thing it does is reconfirms that the target person said it in the first place. Whether it was said just previous or days or weeks or months ago, it can be used to take the target person back to that moment and recapture what they were thinking at the moment and refresh their memory, if you will, about the all the thinking that went into it.
And, yet another purpose is that it ties them to it. And, when you do it gracefully, it is received well. It’s hard to disagree with what you said. In other words, it’s hard to disagree with your own ideas when you’re faced with them. After all, they’re their ideas! The need to stay consistent with what they’ve said previously weighs heavily.
Similar to the way a high performing person opens up a follow up call or appointment with, “…you said the other day you were looking to improve your processes, what did you mean by that?”
If you don’t remember, you could just ask them.
Another example is when you opened this question with “You said, ‘interpersonal?’”
So, I would highly advise someone to use it in very personal relationships, also. Not only in the courting phase, but all phases of your relationship. Imagine coming home from a rough day of work and opening the door with “I love you.” Since it’s true and you left for work that morning saying it, it’s a great opening. Or, another example is “when you said the other day in passing that you were hungry for ice cream are you still hungry for a nice cold heaping helping of ice cream. You screamed, I scream, we all scream for ice cream. What do you say?”
I’m going to go get me some!
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A best-seller was a book which somehow sold well because it was selling well. -Daniel J. Boorstin #conduplicatio
Photo Credit: glamhag on Flickr
