Editor's note: David Farlow specializes in the qualitative aspects of research design and methodology with a special emphasis on moderating focus groups with Answers Research, Solana Beach, California.

The main objective of focus groups is to gain a greater understanding of the market by eliciting the perceptions, opinions, and feelings from each of the individual group members about the subject of interest. As a moderator, I am always looking for more effective ways to elicit this information. Once I know I have a good discussion guide and have properly selected the focus group participants, the quality of the information that I get is very dependent upon the amount of rapport I develop with the participants.

This article will show you how to use extremely effective communication techniques for developing rapport so that you can obtain the information you need from focus groups. We will look at two very powerful methods, neurolinguistic programming and analytical persuasion, and discuss some common sense techniques for putting people at ease.

In the mid-1970s, Richard Bandler and John Grinder developed a model of human experience and communication called neurolinguistic programming (NLP). Since that time NLP has been used effectively in a wide variety of fields, including sales, management, negotiation, education, psychotherapy, creativity, decision making, etc.

Bandler and Grinder developed NLP by systematically analyzing exceptional communicators so that their methods could be taught to others. The first people they modeled were in the fields of individual and group psychotherapy. It was in group therapy where some powerful techniques were discovered that apply directly to moderating focus groups.

How does group psychotherapy apply to moderating focus groups? For psychotherapists to be effective, they must be excellent communicators. They must develop trust and rapport with their clients, creating an environment where their patients feel safe to express how they feel. As moderators, we want to create this same type of environment so that each focus group participant feels comfortable enough to express his or her opinion and have it accepted.

Analytical persuasion

Techniques for persuading people have always been with us. Robert Cialdini, an experimental social psychologist, in his book Influence discusses the principles of analytical persuasion. These principles operate at the unconscious level and have been used with great success by people in the sales profession. With skillful use of these principles, people will react in certain predictable patterns, unaware that these principles are being used to influence them. These same principles can be used when moderating focus groups to:

  • Establish rapport
  • Encourage robust discussions
  • Elicit deeper and more meaningful responses
  • Ultimately get the information you need

Establishing preliminary rapport

After the focus group participants have arrived and processed the necessary forms in the reception area, have someone from the facility direct or escort them to the meeting room. Meet the participants at the entrance to the meeting room and invite everyone to help themselves to the refreshments. After everybody is in the room, join them in eating or drinking for a few minutes before you start the discussion.

The rule of reciprocation

At this point, you have already invoked several principles of persuasion and establishing rapport. First, by providing them with refreshments you invoke the rule of reciprocation, which says that we should repay, in kind, what another person has provided us. This means that they feel they have an obligation to somehow repay you for providing them with refreshments. This is a powerful persuasion tool.

To use this rule to its greatest advantage with a focus group, the participants should see you, the moderator, as the benefactor of the refreshments. There are several ways to do this. One is by inviting them to help themselves to the refreshments. You can also coordinate with the facility personnel to say to the participants that, "the moderator has some refreshments waiting for you," to strengthen the association. Also remember that the rule of reciprocation is working in your favor because you are paying them.

You may or may not be able to use the suggestions above because of the logistics and physical environment of the focus group facility. But the main goal is to somehow associate yourself as the benefactor of the refreshments.

At this point, you may be wondering if you are biasing the group to an extent that they will give you the answers they think you want to hear rather than their honest opinions or perceptions. The objective of using these techniques is to create a very safe environment for the participants to express their opinions. Later in this article, I will discuss how to set up this environment using the "team effect" and by asking questions in such a way that any biasing effect you may have on the group will be minimized.

Using association with the luncheon technique

You've also associated yourself with a very pleasant activity, eating and drinking. Research has shown that people become fonder of people and things they experienced while eating. This is known as the "luncheon technique." It was discovered by Gregory Razran in 1938 and has its roots on Ivan Pavlov's famous conditioning research with dogs.

People usually associate a good and favorable feeling when they eat, and if you are with someone while they are eating, the good and favorable feeling is associated with you. If this seems a little farfetched and you don't believe it works, just remember that Pavlov's dogs didn't believe it would work either and they still salivated. This is unconscious behavior and people are not aware of what is happening.

The principle of similarity

By eating with the participants, you now have something in common. You are like them. People tend to like people who are like them. This is the principle of similarity. The more we are like the people we want to influence-in almost any area including physical appearance, speaking style, body language and vocabulary-the more they will like us and ultimately cooperate with us by answering the questions we ask.

Preliminaries

Start the discussion by introducing yourself. Tell the participants that they are being video or audio taped and observed. I also tell them the reasons for taping the discussion, which will appeal to their interests or egos.

For example, "Some of you may have noticed the mirror behind me. There is a person behind it who is taping this discussion. The reason why this discussion is being taped is because what you say is very important to us. Some very important decisions will be made based upon what you have to share with us and we do not want to lose any of your valuable input. Another reason for taping is because I want to give you my complete attention during the time we have together. The reason we have a one way mirror is because the camera man doesn't want to disturb you and it makes people more comfortable."

Encouraging shy participants

One of the problems during focus groups is that some people will be swayed by the group and not voice their opinions.

Once you have established rapport and created a safe environment this problem is minimized. However, there is another tool of persuasion called the team effect that can elicit more participation from a shy respondent. People will generally do more for a team than they will do for themselves. If a participant feels that he is part of a team, then he will be more willing to speak up for the team's point of view.

This team, however, is not composed of the other focus group participants. The team that empowers a shy individual is the team of all the other people who are just like him who are not in the focus group. How do we get the participant to feel like he is part of that team? Here is one way of phrasing it: "What we are looking for during this discussion are your opinions, perceptions, and feelings. There are no wrong answers. Your opinions are very important to us. The reason I say that is because each of you represent a much larger number of people out there who are just like you. It is very important that we understand the opinions and per are generally more cooperative and supportive of other group members. The final outcome of this process is that people will feel more comfortable with you and the rest of the group. Comfortable people are more likely to participate in more robust discussions. This process also gives you a feeling for the group members so that when you start the discussion you can direct your questions accordingly.

Mirroring

After establishing rapport with the group and getting them into a positive state of mind, you want to maintain rapport as the discussion progresses. There are a number of ways to do this.

One of the most effective ways is an NLP technique called mirroring. This is simply matching a person's behavior. The easiest way to do this is to match the person's body posture. If the person leans back in their chair, you lean back in your chair; if the person has her hands under the table, you have your hands under the table.

You do not want to be blatant about this by matching every move he or she makes at exactly the same time. Do it elegantly, so that the person is unaware of what you are doing. There are two ways to do this. One is to wait a few seconds before you mirror them. This will eliminate a lot of rapid gestures that you would not want to mirror. The other is to wait until you speak before mirroring them. It is a very natural thing for people to change body position when they begin to speak.

When most people first learn about mirroring, they feel uncomfortable about doing it because they think people will notice what they are doing. Unless you are blatant about it, people will not notice. They will feel drawn to you and not know why. If someone does comment on it, admit it and tell them that you are doing it so they will feel more comfortable in the group. Then keep doing it. In the years I have been mirroring people, no one has ever said anything about it.

Another reason people feel uncomfortable about it is because they feel sneaky and manipulative. I view mirroring as a way of showing the utmost respect for the person by going out of my way to communicate at his or her level-very much like I would learn a few phrases in a foreign language if I were traveling to another country.

There are also other ways to mirror people. You can match facial expressions, breathing, voice tone or tempo, or their choice of words. Dr. Albert Mehrabian of UCLA's psychology department determined that 55% of meaning is conveyed nonverbally with body language; 38% is conveyed from how we speak, i.e., tone, volume, inflection, speed, etc.; only 7% of meaning is conveyed by the words. The best way to start is to match body posture and as that becomes an unconscious behavior for you, begin to add the other ways of matching, one at a time, and find out which ones work best for you.

The principle of similarity, again

The reason why matching and mirroring work so well is because of the principle of similarity. When you match or mirror a person, he perceives that you are like him and will start to like you. The process is unconscious and is one of the most powerful ways of creating and maintaining rapport.

"What" versus "why" questions

Another NLP technique is to ask "what" questions rather than "why" questions. The reason for this is that when you ask "why" questions people feel defensive and have a tendency to "dexify" (defend, explain, justify) what they said. "What" questions get the focus onto the product rather than the person. For example, ask, "What was it about Brand X that was better than Brand Y?" rather than, "Why did you pick Brand X over Brand Y?" Or, "What makes you say that?" rather than, "Why?" Phrasing questions in this manner is particularly useful when probing with a follow up question.

Sometimes when the moderator asks a question the participant gets stuck and says "I don't know." Since most of the questions in a focus group are asked to elicit an opinion, people almost always have an answer which is more useful than "I don't know." Sometimes they have a hard time expressing it.

One way of assisting a participant to access a more useful answer is to say, "I understand that you don't know, but if you did know, what, in your opinion, do you think it would be?" This question may look pretty silly as you read it, but in many cases this will remove the mental block that people have towards answering a question. What does this phrase accomplish? First of all, we are agreeing with them that they don't know. This maintains rapport. Next we pose a question which allows them to access the part of the mind that thinks it "knows" and permit it to give a response which does not have any right/wrong association with it, i.e., an opinion.

Many times clients want to know what feature or pricing schedule will cause people to buy their product. Many moderators will ask a direct question such as, "What would make you purchase this product"? Sometimes people get stuck or they may give answers that don't give much information. When this happens, try asking, "I want you to imagine that it is two weeks from now and you have already purchased Brand X, what was it that caused you to buy Brand X"? When the question is phrased in this way, the participants are usually much freer with their opinions. Most people find it easier to recall information from an imagined past rather than having to imagine information from a real, but uncertain, future.

Concluding the focus group

At the conclusion of the session, you have all the information you need and all you have to do is dismiss the group. Do you still need to maintain rapport? Absolutely! And the reason is not so much for the group's benefit as it is for your benefit. When you conclude a focus group discussion, thank the group for their input and let them know how helpful they have been.

One of the things I like to do after the group has been dismissed is to personally thank those participants who made a real contribution to the discussion. I do this because it causes me to appreciate what these people have done to make the discussion successful. Also maintaining rapport with the group will keep you sharp for the next group if you have back-to-back sessions.

Summary

I have discussed a few powerful techniques during this article that I have found to be extremely useful. I hope they will be as useful for you. Upon first learning of these techniques, most people are fascinated. Some are skeptical. The only way to see if they will work for you is to try them.

Some people are turned off by the techniques because they perceive them as manipulative rather than influential. The techniques can most certainly be used to manipulate. Or they can be used to influence. My belief is that the difference between being manipulative and being influential is a difference of attitude. We cannot not have an effect on people. Everything we do somehow affects others. I perceive manipulation as affecting others in a self-serving manner without consideration for them. I perceive influencing as affecting others while making a conscious decision to create situations where everybody benefits.

My attitude as a moderator is to create an environment where it is safe for the participants to share their perceptions, opinions and feelings and have them feel that their input is valued. When I do that, everybody wins because the participants, my client and I all get what we want from the focus group.

©Copyright 1991 Quirk's Marketing Research Review