An FBI Agent Reveals 5 Steps To Gaining Anyone's Trust

An FBI Agent Reveals 5 Steps To Gaining Anyone's Trust

FARNAM STREET JAN. 20, 2014, 10:46 AM 246,925 10
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Editor's note: The five steps are listed at the bottom of the post.

I had an opportunity to ask Robin Dreeke a few questions. Robin is in charge of the Federal Bureau of Investigation's elite Counterintelligence Behavioral Analysis Program and the author of "It's Not All About Me."

Robin combines science and years of work in the field to offer practical tips to build rapport and establish trust. In this brief interview he discusses building relationships, how to approach someone you don't know and ask for a favor, and the keys to establishing trust.

A lot of people are interested in strengthening and furthering relationships. How can people do this?

This is the most important aspect of everything we do in life. I'm going to give some light science behind each of my answers but to me it just explains the subjective simple explanations behind naturally great trusting relationships.

Both anecdotal (evidence) as well as science supports the fact that the greatest happiness is found in positive social interactions and relationships. The simplest answer to this is to "make it all about them." Our brain rewards us chemically when we are able to talk and share our own views, priorities, and goals with others… long term, short term, etc. Our brain also rewards us when we are unconditionally accepted for who we are as a human being without judgement.

Both of these concepts are genetically coded in each of us (to varying degrees) because of our ancient survival instincts (ego-centrism) as well as our need to belong to groups or a tribe (tribal mentality for survival and resources). When you put these simple concepts together the answer is simple to understand, but oftentimes difficult to execute…. Speak in terms of the other person's interests and priorities and then validate them, their choices, and who they are non-judgmentally. Some people do this naturally, for the rest of us you can build this skill and it eventually becomes second nature.

Trust is a foundation to most situations in life. How can we develop trust? What are the keys?

I can only answer from my own background and experience because trust is a very difficult thing to measure and define and each individual's definition can vary and our brain takes in much more than verbal information when determining trust. For me and what I teach I start with what I said in question one. Trust first starts with a relationship where the other person's brain is rewarding them for the engagement with you by doing what I outlined above.

Part two of my trust process is to understand the other person's goals and keeping their goals and priorities on the top of my list of goals and priorities. By making the other person's goals and priorities yours, trust will develop. Over time (some people faster than others) a need to reciprocate the kindness and relationship will build. In other words, trust is built faster and stronger when there is no personal agenda.

What's the best way to approach someone you don't know and ask them for a favor?

Using sympathy and seeking help is always the best. If you can wrap the help / favor you are looking for around a priority and interest of the individual you are engaging, the odds of success increase. Add social proof (i.e., others around you helping already or signed a petition etc.) and you increase it even more. Again, focus on how you can ask a favor while getting their brain to reward them for doing so.

What are some strategies to build rapport while giving a talk, presentation, or interview?

Ego Suspension / self-deprecating humor… Make it all about them! How is the information you are chatting about going to benefit them? Talk about the great strengths and skills they each have already and that all you hope to do is to have them understand their strengths even better and be able to pass them on to others more effectively if they want to. Validate every question and opinion non-judgmentally. If you don't happen to agree, simply ask "that's a fascinating / insightful/ thoughtful opinion… would you mind helping me understand how you came up with it?" Again, their brain will reward them on multiple levels for this.

I suspect you spend a lot of time trying to figure out if people are manipulating you or the situation? Can you talk about this? How can you tell when people are attempting to manipulate you?

I'll start by saying I don't like the word manipulate. The word tends to objectify people and removes the human being from the equation. When people feel they are objects, trust will not be built. I tend to not think of anyone trying to manipulate me but at times a very self-serving agenda becomes evident. This is what manipulation generally is…. a self-serving agenda where the other person feels used with no reciprocity.

When I notice that there may be an overabundance of a self-serving agenda (manipulation) I don't judge the person negatively. I try to explore two areas in order to understand them better. (go back to my first answers here… this process begins to build a relationship and trust :)) I try to understand what their objective is and why that is their objective.

What are they trying to achieve, etc. I will also attempt to understand why they felt a certain way of communicating with me would be effective for them in the situation. I tend to ask questions to help them think about how they might be more successful in their objectives using other methods… such as I outlined above.

In other words, help them achieve whatever objective with me they had…. because wasn't that their goal after all? :) See… keep it always coming back to them.

If you had to give a crash course in building a relationship with someone, what are the top 5 things people need to do? What carries the bulk of the freight so-to-speak?

1) Learn… about their priorities, goals, and objectives.
2) Place… theirs ahead of yours
3) Allow them to talk…. suspend your own need to talk.
4) Seek their thoughts and opinions.
5) Ego suspension!!! Validate them unconditionally and non-judgmentally for who they are as a human being.

If you haven't already, check out Robin's Ten Techniques for Building Quick Rapport With Anyone.

SOCIAL MEDIA TOOLS

Favorite Social Media Management Tools for Small Business

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by Jess Ostroff 72 Comments

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Although we consult primarily for large and medium-sized businesses here at Convince & Convert, we are often asked online and in speaking engagements about social media management tools for smaller businesses. Several tools have been developed specifically for SMBs, although they're often overlooked because they don't get as much love from Mashable, AdAge, and beyond.

If you're thinking about adopting a social media management tool, there are several questions you should be asking yourself and your team before you dive in. It's important to make sure you've identified why you want to use a management or monitoring platform and what you hope to gain out of it. Using a social media management platform is a commitment and an investment in terms of both your time and your bank account, so picking the right one the first time is ideal. Also realize that it's more about the wizard than the wand. No tool is a panacea. It's about what you do with it.

Here are some questions to consider before we start looking at potential solutions:

What are you trying to accomplish by using a social media management tool?

Some answers to this might be:

• Improved workflow
• Keyword monitoring and listening
• All-in-one view of social media channels
• Better engagement across multiple networks
• In-depth analysis of your social media marketing program

You might have other goals that you're trying to achieve here. No matter what your overall goal or goals are, it's important to identify them first.

What (specifically) are you trying to measure?

• Are you evaluating user engagement over time or for a specific campaign?
• Are you trying to measure the value of each post as it relates to sales?
• Are you looking for increased chatter about your brand or topic across the web?
• Are you stacking your brand up against a competitor to see who performs best?

How much do you care about your competitors?

• Are you using your competitors as examples for what you should do?
• Are you looking to see where users are interacting with competitors?
• Do you want to see which topics or keywords your competitors are ranking for?
• Are you not really worried about your competitors at all at this stage?

What's your budget?

This is always a difficult question for SMBs because they're often unsure of the value-add that a social media dashboard can provide, and therefore don't know how much is reasonable to spend. Luckily, most of these tools include a free trial so you can start measuring and monitoring immediately. Keep in mind, however, that building up your social media presence and seeing results can take time, so don't give up if you haven't seen the arrows move in just 30 days.

Choosing a Social Media Management Tool

Most of the tools below have options for every type of social media scenario that small and medium-sized businesses may encounter, but certain aspects of each tool are more robust than others. This is why you should have a clear goal in mind before evaluating your options, so you can choose the one that offers the tools that are most closely aligned with your objectives.

Crowdbooster

Crowdbooster is a social analytics platform that looks at your tweets and Facebook posts and offers suggestions for when to post, who to interact with, and what your audience cares about. It also highlights which messages are working best so that you can learn and prepare better content from your results.

Pros:

• Visually appealing dashboard that is easy to navigate
• Lots of different graphs and charts so you can measure progress, including impressions, follower growth, influential followers, and top retweets
• Scheduling functionality
• Bit.ly integration
• Recommendations are built into the dashboard
• Weekly progress summary emails
• Audience monitoring and listening capabilities

Cons:

• It takes a while for them to aggregate content, and not all past content is aggregated
• Only supports Twitter and Facebook
• Analytics are fairly simple
• No keyword monitoring capabilities

Price:

• Free for one Twitter account and one Facebook fan page
• $39/month for 10 total accounts
• $99/month for 30 total accounts

Best for:

• Measuring engagement over time across multiple networks
• Small budgets

SproutSocial

SproutSocial is a social media management and monitoring platform known for its slick dashboard and its Messages view, which pulls in all of your activity from all networks into one stream.

Pros:

• Unified inbox to see all activity in one stream
• Scheduling functionality
• Keyword, hashtag, and user monitoring across the Web plus Web Alerts when your keywords are found
• Easy following, responding, retweeting capabilities from directly within the dashboard
• "Discovery" feature with suggestions of who to follow/unfollow based on silent/irregular accounts, who is following you, and keyword search
• Robust reporting features plus exporting functionality (to Excel or PDF)
• Workflow management features, including assignment of tasks to follow up with tweets/posts
• iPhone and Android apps

Cons:

• Supports Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn only

Pricing:

• 30-day free trial
• $9/month for 10 profiles (1 user)
• $39/month for 20 profiles (1 user, additional users $19/month)
• $59/month for 40 profiles (1 user, additional users $29/month)
• $899/month for unlimited profiles (10 users, additional users $29/month)

Best for:

• Improved workflow
• Keyword monitoring and listening
• All-in-one view of social media channels
• Small budget

Postling

Postling provides an all-in-one dashboard for social media management across multiple platforms. They also provide listening and monitoring data from across the Web, including reviews sites like TripAdvisor and Yelp.

Pros:

• Supports Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Blogs (WordPress, Blogger, Tumblr, Typepad, Squarespace, Drupal), Flickr, Bit.ly, YouTube, and reviews sites like Yelp
• Allows posting to text, video, and image updates to all platforms, from tweets to full blog posts
• Unified inbox
• Scheduling functionality
• Manage multiple brands from one account, separated by tabs
• Keyword tracking and monitoring
• iPhone app (Android app coming soon)

Cons:

• No workflow management system
• Analytics system isn't perfect (pulls in all recent posts (including drafts) which can skew data, doesn't show all past data for accurate comparisons)

Pricing:

• $1 for a 30-day trial
• $5 for up to 5 social media accounts
• Additional accounts cost $3 each

Best for:

• Managing a large number of platforms and social channels
• Measuring engagement over time across multiple networks
• Listening to chatter around physical brands like restaurants, hotels, etc.
• Small budgets

Raven Tools

Raven Internet Marketing Tools provides a bit more than your standard social media management or monitoring platform because it also includes SEO and advertising components, all of which you can measure and analyze individually from within Raven's dashboard.

Pros:

• Includes SEO tools for campaign research, management, and link monitoring
• Scheduling functionality
• Workflow management features including assignment of tasks to follow up with tweets/posts
• Controlled access and limitations for different users
• Includes Google Adwords integration so you can create Adwords campaigns directly inside the dashboard
• Keyword monitoring and analysis
• Customized reporting features
• Includes a CRM system
• One-stop-shop for all things related to a digital marketing campaign

Cons:

• Supports Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube only
• Because it's not designed specifically for social media management, its posting functionality isn't great
• The entire tool isn't as intuitive or visually appealing on the back end as some other options
• Can be overwhelming for small businesses

Pricing:

• 30-day free trial
• $99/month for 4 users, unlimited websites, unlimited social media accounts, 1,000 keyword rankings, 50,000 managed links
• $249/month for unlimited users, unlimited websites, unlimited social media accounts, 2,500 keyword rankings, 150,000 managed links

Best for:

• SMBs who have a large-scale social media/digital marketing campaign running and need to manage it all in one place
• Keyword monitoring and listening
• In-depth analysis of your social media marketing program
• Bigger teams with more social channels/websites to manage

Argyle Social

I can't talk about social media management platforms without talking about Argyle Social, partly because they're a Convince & Convert sponsor, but mostly because their product was designed specifically to answer the social media ROI question that social media and community managers are faced with every day. By attaching actual dollar amounts to your posts using their top secret algorithm, you're able to see exactly what your posts are doing for your brand's bottom line.

Argyle Social is more of a mid-market solution since its features are extremely robust (and it is on the pricier side).

Pros:

• Data-driven solution provides you with high-level analytics, plus exporting functionality (Excel
• Scheduling functionality
• Workflow management features including assignment of tasks and separate user permissions
• Unified inbox that allows interaction directly within the dashboard, plus email notifications
• Real-time measurement that includes clicks, interactions, and conversions
• Custom URL shortener for tracking purposes
• Ability to set up Campaigns and Goals to separate programs and see results in terms of dollars
• "Hopper" functionality where you can add content when you want, and Argyle will push it out periodically according to rules you set (similar to Buffer)
• Ability to set custom rules and notifications for monitoring purposes
• Social CRM (currently in beta)
• White label option

Cons:

• Only supports Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn
• More expensive than other solutions

Pricing:

• $300/month for a single user
• $400/month for social media marketing teams
• $1,100/month for advanced users and larger teams

Best for:

• Improved workflow
• Keyword monitoring and listening
• All-in-one view of social media channels
• Better engagement across multiple networks
• In-depth analysis of your social media marketing program
• Mid-sized businesses who are ready to take their social media marketing programs to a higher level

What did we miss? What's your favorite social media management tool?