I was recently reading about an experiment done at University of Minnesota called the 'Phone Booth Test' and I thought it might help all you sales people close more sales.
What the experiment started by placing a coin on the ledge in a phone booth and hide behind a tree and wait for an unsuspecting subject to walk in and find it.
When this happen one of the researchers would walk over to the subject and ask "Did you happen to see my coin in the phone booth? I need it to make another call"
Only 23% of the subjects reported seeing it and handed it back.
In the second part of the experiment, the coin was again placed in the phone booth but when the researcher approached the people who took it, they touched them lightly on the elbow for no longer that 3 seconds and inquired about the coin.
This time, 68% admitted to having the coin, looked embarrassed and said things like, "I was looking around to try to see who owned it...."
That is a Huge 45%
There are 3 reasons this technique works: first, the elbow is considered a public space and is far away from intimate parts of the body. Second, touching a stranger is not considered acceptable in most countries so it create an impression; and third, a light, 3 second elbow touch creates a momentary bond between 2 people.
Allen Pease in his book 'The Definitive Book of Body Language' (a must read for everyone) also talks about this experiment and found the results differed from culture to culture.
He found the coin was returned, 72% of Australians, 70% English, 85% of Germans, 50% of French, and 22% of Italians. The results show how the elbow touch works better in places where frequent touching is not the cultural norm.
I hope this helps you get more sales.
Darius
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I forget what interview it was, but theres a heated argument where bill clinton uses this technique to diffuse his oponent. It was recentish, say the last year or so. The bloke laying in to him was a bill orielly type character and was really doing his best to stick it to bill clinton. Clinton simply marks his points camly while occasionally touching the right knee of the interviewer (they were sitting down). Bill clinton controls the interview after that.