Building Rapport Skills, Part 2

Lets talk about hooks.

Imagine a conversational tool that will give you the power to draw others in like a paperclip to a gigantic magnet. They’ll be so caught up in what you’re saying, they can’t help but to keep asking you questions

What are hooks? Hooks are unanswered questions in a conversation that others want to be answered. If you tell a whole story from beginning to end, unless you already have rapport with the person, you may as well throw the kill switch on the conversation. There’s no open branches for the conversation to continue.

Here’s an example of conversational hooks

“Just as I was about to leave the egg throwing party, a blond woman forcefully grabbed my arm. She swore she knew me from somewhere before, but she didn’t know where. To make a long story short, we ended up having one of the most hilarious and embarrassing conversations I’ve ever had.”

There are a few natural ways the conversation can go from here:

• What’s an egg throwing party?
• Who was she?
• Who did she think you were?
• What did you talk about that was so embarrassing?

Compare this to if I just said:

“I was at a party and I met this woman. We had an interesting conversation.” When a conversation is closed off like this, any attempt to continue the thread will seem forced. “Oh … What’d you talk about?”

Hooks is one of the building rapport skills you can learn to develop rapport with other people. At first, you’ll have to consciously think about it, but at some point this rapport skill will just become a natural reflex.

- Derek Young

P.S. If you haven’t checked out Igor Ledochowski’s Conversational Hypnosis yet, then you’re missing out on some of the most powerful rapport and persuasion skills I’ve ever seen. Igor’s taken these skills and explained it in an easy to follow, step-by-step manner. To learn more, click here.