Building Rapport with Jurors: Three Essential Tips
May 01, 2024
Cultivating a connection with jurors can be challenging, especially given the stress and anxiety they often experience. However, when you encounter an Attentive Listener—a juror who actively listens to understand—you have a unique opportunity to build rapport.
These folks try to internalize your message by trying to connect it to their personal experiences or prior knowledge.
Here are three practical tips to help you equip these attentive listeners to make informed decisions:
1. Use Common Experiences
Connect through relatable analogies and metaphors. By anchoring new content to the jurors' existing memories and experiences, your message becomes more relatable and easier to understand. Think about everyday situations they can easily identify with and use them to introduce complex ideas.
2. Allow Longer Pauses
Provide the gift of time. Longer pauses are crucial as they allow jurors to process information, reflect on it, and make personal connections. It’s in the pause that your Attentive Listeners will reframe your content, putting it in their own words. This is when they personalize your content, which ensures that the information is truly absorbed.
3. Encourage Rephrasing
Invite them to summarize or explain concepts back to you or to a neighbor, reinforcing their understanding and recall. Encourage them to put it in their own words. When jurors rephrase the information in their own words, it not only enhances their comprehension but also helps with their retention.
The Attentive Listener is ALL IN. By using these simple strategies, you help attentive listeners retain and remember crucial information, empowering them to take informed action for you and your client.
Save this guide as a reminder.