/repeat after me_

Are you getting gassed with all the extra virtual calls happening? I don’t know about you but my meeting schedule has really exploded over the last several months. The friction to meet has been greatly reduced. There’s no commute. Everyone has adjusted to virtual meetings and everyone is willing to meet with everyone.

Don’t get me wrong. This is great. Lots of opportunity to be had. But there are days when I look back at my calendar and I’m surprised by who I talked to. I sit there thinking that was yesterday? It feels like last week!

There is so much of it that you’d think at some point my brain would run out of words to put together. Maybe you’re feeling the same way. Maybe you’re still a little unsure about how to hold a good conversation over zoom. Maybe you’re experiencing a little anxiety about how prepared you are for your upcoming call.

I get it. I have my days where I’m looking up the LinkedIn profile and the company website scratching my head about what we’re going to be able to talk about but after years of being an obnoxious talker I’ve finally figured out how to be a listener when I need to be.

The key to being a good listener is knowing how to get the other person to talk. And as it turns out it’s really quite simple. In fact, several academic studies have proven over end over again that this simple technique works. It works quite well. Former FBI negotiator Chris Voss teaches it. Author Daniel Pink teaches is. Dale Carnegie taught it.

It’s simple. Just repeat after me.

…

Did you do it?

No?

Let’s try again.

Repeat after me.

…

Come on now. I’ll help you.

“Repeat” (your turn)

“After” (there you go)

“Me?” (That’s it!)

And I’m glad you added that little inflection at the end because that tells me I need to elaborate. The science is clear. When you use mimicry or mirroring by repeating the last three words in a sentence or repeating back to the other person what they said, they feel heard, understood, and safe. Three very important things when having a conversation.

Daniel Pink sites a study of waiters and waitresses when they repeat the order back to the person ordering tips go way up, even though the order isn’t different. The accuracy of recording and fulfilling the order is the same. But when you repeat back the order number of tips go up by 26% from tipping 52% of the time to 78%.

So, when you feel like you are all out of things to say, just listen for the last three words the other person says and repeat them back with a little inflection. You will be revered as one of the great conversationalist of our day.

Torlando Hakes is an author and a professional speaker. He serves as the Director of Business Development at Periodic. He is the host of the PaintEd Podcast and a regular writer on Medium. Follow at torlando.medium.com.

Periodic is the app that books. Design dynamic webforms, manage the schedules of multiple locations and large teams, automate messaging. To learn how you can design a conversion funnel that books more appointments feel free to hop on Torlando’s calendar at torlando.periodic.site. He would love to give feedback on your current conversion funnel and have a short strategy session for how to ramp up bookings on your sites.