Rapport and Criteria: Two Sides of the Same Coin

"You will make more friends in a week by getting yourself interested in other people than you can in a year by trying to get other people interested in you." --Arnold Bennett

Not too long ago I added an additional facet for members of my elite coaching club--one-on-one calls with my advanced student. The subject matter of these calls is dictated by the members themselves and can vary from deeply personal matters to advanced persuasion strategies where my students can focus on their individualized struggles or blocks.

I love these calls also for the fresh perspective and phenomenal questions and comments my students come up with. From time-to-time I will work these questions into my articles making sure to keep my students' identities confidential.

Recently a student said he had always thought of the process of criteria elicitation as part of rapport building but that he had gotten some contradictory information as a result of a comment I made or posted.

Actually, criteria elicitation and rapport building are intrinsically, inextricably linked. The reason I break them into separate pieces and say, "here are the elements of rapport, here are the elements of criteria," is that people get good at doing both sides of it.

Criteria elicitation requires that you have at least a small amount of rapport to begin with. If you have no foot in the door, so to speak, there's no way the door is going to open all the way. In order to acquire your prospect's deep, core values, you must have a modicum of rapport built up.

In MaxPersuasion our focus is on high net worth and affluent prospects and clients because that's where the money is. However, this process works on absolutely everyone. For procedurally oriented people, the first step is a small amount of rapport, deepened by the process of criteria elicitation, further strengthening the rapport. These two actions compliment each other and require each other for them to work.

Understanding how to gain rapport will guarantee your success in eliciting criteria from your high net worth prospects, and in turn you will feel yourself become a powerful persuader as you close the sale.

About the Author

Kenrick Cleveland teaches strategies to earn the business of affluent prospects using persuasion. He runs public and private seminars and offers home study courses and coaching programs in persuasion strategies.

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