3 FBI Techniques to Win Over a Conversation Partner

A sales conversation is not a cross-examination, but the FBI can help you smooth out a tough talk. Use these 3 techniques to get even the most stubborn prospects talking.

You're having a conversation with a potential client, but they aren't cooperating at all. They reveal almost nothing or sit with their arms crossed listening to what you have to say. You start your story and have no idea if you can really help them, because you know nothing about their situation. Chris Voss, a former FBI agent, developed three different techniques so that you can completely change the outcome of such a 'conversation'.

The Magic Of Mirroring: The first technique is Mirroring, where you repeat 1 to 3 words from another person. You repeat a few key words with a questioning tone. The technique is super effective if you repeat words they just spoke. This lets the person know you're really listening, but that you don't fully understand them yet. This automatically triggers the person's urge to supplement it and give you more information.

An example of how you could use it: A: What occupies you most in the field of online workplaces? B: What occupies me most is that we have to set up an individual workplace for every employee. A: An individual workplace? B: Yes, everyone uses different applications, so everyone has different needs. A: Different applications? B: Yes, some employees use Photoshop and others only use office applications. And so on... It's important that you dare to drop a silence after your question. The other person is then inclined to fill the (awkward) silence by providing information themselves.

Labeling: The second technique is about labeling emotions and traits. You use labeling to let the other person know that you understand their emotions without giving a value judgment. This allows you to decrease or increase the emotions of your conversation partner. Labeling works with negative and positive emotions, but they both work differently.

Negative emotions

Research has been done on labeling negative emotions by looking at the activity of the amygdala. This is a part of the brain that processes and controls emotions. In this study, they showed a photo that evokes negative emotions. After this, they simply asked: 'What do you feel about this?'

Your conversation partner starts to rationalize (labeling themselves) and this reduces the activity in the negative part of the amygdala. Because someone labels themselves and starts to rationalize, they ensure that they reduce their own negative emotion. If you notice someone getting frustrated by a comment, you can also label this negative emotion by naming it yourself. 'It looks like you're frustrated.' 'It looks like you're angry.' This makes the other person rationalize and the negative emotion decreases.

Positive emotions

By naming and labeling positive emotions/traits, you ensure that the emotion or trait is magnified. For example, if you call customer service for a wrong delivery, it's probably not because you want to thank them for the correct delivery of other products. Customer service employees know they'll get an angry customer on the phone. They expect irritation and therefore you can completely surprise them by handling the situation in a completely different way.

Start by thanking the service representative for their time: 'It seems like you're very generous with your time.' By assigning them a positive trait (generous) upfront, they will be inclined to live up to this, because everyone naturally wants to be generous! The first step of labeling is recognizing emotions. Make sure you don't use 'I' after that because the whole idea is that you don't want to give a value judgment. You can do this by using different sentences, such as:

Labeling can be used to tackle negative emotions and magnify positive emotions.

The Beauty Of No! A 'yes' can be used in three ways: as commitment, confirmation, or for a brush-off (a 'yes' that means 'no'). People feel safe when they can say 'no' to something, because they don't feel like they're giving commitment. This gives you extra information that you can use in your conversations. You can ask questions such as:

You also prevent a negative feeling from arising because they are afraid they are giving in to something they wouldn't want. This can make a 'no' much more valuable than a 'yes'.

Conclusion: To get into a better conversation with a negative or rigid conversation partner, you can apply these 3 techniques to turn the tide. Repeating words, labeling emotions and, the highlight, the negative question. The idea is to gather as much information as possible and listen. Try to understand the other person and use this information to eventually help the other person further!