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Creating Group Rapport 
By: Kenrick Cleveland
When I first started out in the persuasion business I would have huge anxiety for about a week before a big seminar. I was impossible to be around. My family would sequester themselves and avoid me. Even my dog steered clear of my office somehow intuitively knowing I was in no mood to play. Not only was the gear up for these events intense and chaotic, but the let down after, not because the event was not successful, but because the energy I spent and absorbed and that worked its way though me, was immense.
As I became more comfortable with public speaking and more assured of my affect with students, I became aware of techniques that I could use to get my students/audience to become more connected and cohesive right from the start.
One technique that I absolutely love for creating group rapport, which forms a quick group bond, is this: I imagine a shovel, a big snow shovel the width of the audience, and this shovel is just sitting at the back of the room waiting. . . And I imagine further that this shovel starts just over the top of the heads of my audience and curves back around.
In my imaginings, I'm drawing energy through my feet and projecting it out through my eyes laying it gently over the top of the audience, like a blanket resting on their heads.
At the back of the room, the snow shovel catches this blanket of energy, whips it around as it comes to my feet, and hits a box which I imagine is sitting in front of me. I consider this box to be a filter.
In doing this I'm pulling the energy through the box so that it never comes to me unfiltered. I don't want any intentional or unintentional negativity flowing through me and when I see the energy come out of the filter I see it as clear.
The clear energy comes right up through my feet and out my eyes to the back of the room and starts all over again.
This will start out slowly and become increasingly faster until I can step aside and watch this process work itself through.
The energy takes on a life of it's own and as I do these seminars, I let the process repeat run the entire time.
When I do trainings of 250, 300 people or more, it bonds the group like nothing I have ever seen.
Of course this bonding and rapport could have everything to do with what I'm saying, the words I'm using, the presuppositions, the patterns. . . It could be because we are all there for a common reason, to learn and work together and experience curiosity and fun. For me, however, this exercise dramatically increases my ability at the front of the room.
When you're working with a big group, consider this to be another construct you can use.
Article Source: http://www.uberarticles.com/articles
Kenrick Cleveland teaches techniques to earn the business of affluent clients using persuasion. He runs public and private seminars and offers home study courses and coaching programs in persuasion techniques.
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