This article is for you if you are a dedicated helping professional (coach, therapist, facilitator, or holistic practitioner) and...

• You are struggling with getting some of your new clients to stick around long enough to get the best out of the awesome work you are able to do with them.
• You already have a great track record for helping your clients, but you just know in your gut that you could get even better at deepening trust with some of them.
  
• You wanna cut through some of the unnecessary limits in your particular field or setting of work and instead return to practicing the core skills of how we truly connect with other people.

The Unfiltered Truth

The first momentof contact with a potential client can be a source of great warmth and satisfaction, misunderstanding and disconnect, or anywhere in between. Whetherby email, phone, or in person, how we well we are able to establish trust in the first few minutes can make the difference between having a client or not. And even when they are being coerced or pressured by third parties to receive help from you, the amount of trust you establish can determine whether your help is received or not.

FACT 1: They may not wish to admit it, but even the most successful and masterful helping professionals fail to make a deep enough connection with a significant percentage of their clients. Many clients seek help and settle out of desperation or in deferring to our authority.

FACT 2: It is in no way your fault if you struggle with establishing deep and quick trust with some people. I will tell you about why you and most helpers will fail at it, the pre-determined factors going against all of us, and the simple and instinctual solution to help you increase your chances at getting trust right from the first handshake.

Imagine...

What if there was a way to build instant trust with any potential person in need, within the first few minutes? Even the long term clients you have the hardest time with?

Imagine how such a skill could increase your chances of gaining more quality clients and making a real difference in the lives of the ones you are currently feeling stuck with?

The 5 Most Common Ways Helpers Tend to Connect

Being a people person determined to help the world, you've probably already put in a lot of time, energy, and money into the School of Life and Relationship Skills. There are a lot of things you have already learned or know instinctively. Here are the major ones I’ve seen:

1. Counting on the tools of your trade. We all have different ways of speaking and making contact which we learned in our professional helper schools. Play therapists have their bag of tools, as do psychologists, life coaches, naturopaths, social workers, and everyone else. Your unique language of helping may give you a format and some security to engage your clients through. The problem is that unless your client has been to see another professional like you and/or is studying the same school of helping as you, they will not likely speak your tongue. At least not right away.

2. Having something in common. Something obvious like having kids or red hair may bring an instant smile of recognition to your client. It can also be something which naturally pops up in conversation, like the place you grew up or a common hobby. This can work for you even without your knowing. It can also work against you when your client reacts to something about you (like your smell) that turns them off or triggers an unpleasant association.

3. Asking Great Questions. I love doing this. Nothing better to me than an out of the box or very insightful kinda question. I can’t say anything critical about this approach because it is so client-centered, yet I also have seen the best questions fail me. I have met certain people who simply do not wish to share anything when they attend a first meeting. Please be aware that our curiosity as helpers can open some important doors and while encouraging others to stay well shut.

4. Speaking from Wisdom and Experience. Being transparent and sage-like is either over-rated or under-rated by the many helpers I know. Experts doling out advice are sneered at by some, but they do sell a lot of books that are reported to be helping people. Hmm. Also, being open and transparent about ourselves can be a powerful sign of trust on our part, or it can backfire with clients who – for whatever reason -- are simply not interested in anything or anyone outside their own bubble at the moment.

5. Being Fun & Entertaining. Think Patch Adams. I do appreciate someone who is playful or who can tell a great story or joke, and fill the room with dynamic energy. You may be very entertaining yourself and even get most people to laugh or agree with your ideas, but, when the excitement fades, are your clients ready and willing to take the risks necessary to make changes with you as their trusted ally and guide?

Why You May Be Failing - Right From the Start

Having hundreds of helping friends tell me about this, in one way or another, I firmly believe that your struggling in the trust department with certain people, is NOT due to any lack of trying on your part. Remember, you are a helping professional who has studied and striven to understand and help those whom you care about. If you count your friends and family, you are likely giving care 7 days a week! The tension in your belly or the coolness between you and some of your clients is not your fault or anyone elses for that matter.

Why? Well, first impressions do count, for sure. As human beings, we all carry prejudices and assumptions. But it goes deeper. We all have a gut instinct, about whether we feel safe around someone. Once we pass this gut test, as helpers,our relationship has a foundation to build on.

To give you areal life example, read below about how I started off failing miserably with a client of my own.

CASE STUDY (pt. 1): Introducing… The Starving Artist

Early on, in myt raining as a Drama Therapist (yes there is such a field – I’ll save that story for another time), I worked with a pre-teen figure skater who was determined to starve herself to death. For the first month, she wore one of those very zany and very fake kind of social smiles. Apparently, everything was perfectly fine and she was delighted to be at the hospital on life support.

By session 6, I did what every arrogant know-it-all young therapist uncomfortable in such a situation might do, I called her bluff.

“Suzy, you are certainly not happy. I don’t believe you and I think you are being a fake here.”

Later in this article, I’ll tell you just how badly that intervention went and how I learned to make a much more honest and deeper kind of contact with her. It heartens me to consider now just how far off I was when we started and how much closer we came together in the process of treatment.

The Simplest Way to Establish Instant Connection

(You Probably Know It Already)

There is an art and a science to connecting with others and building trust. Since body language is believed to be somewhere between 60-90% of our communication, the skills we need to master are also non-verbal. Because our emotional brains and gut instincts are the ones in charge of deciding who is safe and trust-worthy, you will need to know how to engage your clients’ emotions and guts directly. And since bonds can be strengthened or weakened greatly -- in a matter of seconds -- you will need something that works right away.

The simplest & easiest way to evoke a feeling of kinship (that deep sense of “You Really Get Me” which includes trust, respect, and a real felt-sense of safety together) with your clients is something all animals will do by instinct. We call different aspects of this primal process mirroring, matching, and or attunement . We also call this process our therapeutic rapport. Great helpers know this to be the bedrock of the change process.

But, How Does it Work?

Now, did you know that the quality of rapport and the level of trust between us can be both measured precisely and taught to anyone who is willing?

How well attuned we are to another human being can be measured in how well are able to match these three very basic areas, which are easy to spot:

• Rhythm of movement
• Quality of voice
• Body language

As far as learning to attune and establish deep trust -- quickly -- lets see how it applies to a real life situation. You may now choose to read the rest of Case Study below, if you wish to know exactly how I discovered about attuning with my client who was starving herself and shutting me out.  

Or

You may be eager to apply to this to one of your own cases. If so, skip to the next paragraph to take my INSTANT CONNECTION Challenge.

CASE STUDY (pt. 2): A Taste of Something Real 

Suzy was smart and scared. Terrified actually. My attempt to rip her thin mask of protection off provoked her. She decided to cease speaking to me for the next 8 sessions. Being forced to see me, she just sat there and stared at the wall away from me, as I tried and failed a hundred times to engage her.

On one cold and wet Montreal city morning, I arrived in the hospital room, and decided to give up trying to help her. I just sat there. I don’t remember whether I did this with any intention or just found myself there, but out of sheer powerlessness and frustration, I melted into the same body position as Suzy.

I huffed and puffed and looked away from her with anger and annoyance any time I felt she was watching me.

A moment later, I heard her do the same.

I noticed her eyebrows furrow and through the window glare, I glimpsed her turning to check on me whenever I looked away, just as I had checked on her.

Finally, I put words to the feelings we were sharing, “I hate being here. Feel like I’m being watched. I have no control over you.”

She nodded, with a clear expression of deep resentment, sighed and slumped back. She then wiped her tearing eyes, got up, grabbed some paper, and picked out three markers from the pile I brought months ago.

That day she began to draw and eventually she would come to tell me story of a figure skater who lived imprisoned in an underwater world. Over time I also saw her grieve, share her anger, shame, and other intense feelings from her heart. She also started eating and eventually got herself out of the hospital. I was there, by her side, as she told me about her first friend. I also waved good bye to her as she smiled a very tender and sad smile back.

I am grateful to Suzy, years later, for teaching me to earn her trust. Her gut response to my desire to be right pushed me to let go of trying to do something to her, to listen more deeply and to open up to this primal bond between us, making a deeper connection and real trust between us finally possible.

Taking the INSTANT CONNECTION Challenge...

Ok. You may be already good at this or it may be your first time. Lets just throw you in the pool and see how you do. No need to feel self-conscious, nobody is watching you. This is an exercise you can do internally first. Once you see how it works, I would suggest you try it out in your practice.

Imagine your most “difficult” client. This is simply the person you have the hardest time understanding and reaching. Now, picture in your mind how you think things will go the next time you expect to see them.

Good. Probably not a great image, but good that you are imagining it.

Now, begin to imagine that instead of launching into one of the things you would automatically do (like the 5 common ways helpers connect, above) you consider taking the following 1 minute Connecting Challenge instead:

• Consciously match the body language they are holding when in the same space as you. (ie: sitting in a similar position, leaning in or back a few moments after they do.)
• Slow down or speed up to get more in synch with the rhythm of their movements. (can be done even via email in how you form sentences to match the structure of your clients: ie. You respond to a short formal note with an equally short and form alone, or a long emotionally latent sentence with a long emotionally responsive one too.”
• Adjust your volume and tone to match theirs. (This is possible to do on the phone, ie: listening to them speak and then matching their emotional tone, pitch, and volume).

After one minute of this challenge, done in the room with their clients, some helpers have reported to me personally.

“I now feel an increased connection with a client I didn’t thinkI had anything in common with.”

“He (the client) unzipped his winter coat! He hasn’t done that in all the weeks I have been seeing him!”

“My mother started talking to me about her concerns. I was shocked and didn’t know how to respond. How many times have I tried to get her to open up!?”

A Safe Place to Truly Connect

If you are looking for a more personal way to get quality feedback on how to apply skills like Instant Trust in your own unique situations, please keep reading.

Some of the best professional development trainings out there may give you the brilliant theory and the juicy science behind what drives human relationships, yet they do not often help you to apply this knowledge into your real life practice. Because of their one-off nature, training intensives finish without setting up the essential next step of a genuine community to continue to practice within.

What is much rarer is a space that has the following three core ingredients to ensure you can master the art of truly connecting, over time:

1. A group of people who care not only because of mutual learning and growth but just because that’s what they do… care about each other.
2. Skills you can break down and teach, from the simplest child’s level up to the sophistication of being a master of relationships.
3. An environment that has great learning flow — a fine balance between challenging new stuff that is extremely fun while also being what people are ready for and can do.

Ready to see more?

To find out more about who we are and what we actually do in this space, the impact it has had on our community members, and details about our next training, click here.

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