The 7-Second Rule: The Street Science of Commonality
The art of building trust in 7 seconds or less.
The industry changed, but my interaction with humans didn't. Whether I’m on a Washington, DC area front porch in 1989 or a Kansas City open house in 2026, the goal is identical: Don’t look like a threat.
Here is a demonstration of creating commonality and trust in a matter of seconds.
The Rockville High Pretext: How I learned to create commonality.
A Skip Trace Demonstration
With my black Escort sitting in front, I walked up the driveway listening to the required lawnmower hum of suburbia on a spring Saturday morning. I knocked on the door and stepped back and down the two stairs and off to the side. There I stood facing the door, smiling.
I looked normal enough. Twenty-three, about the same age as the person I was looking for. And I was wearing an Orioles hat because I heard he had played on his high school baseball team. Outfielder.
The door opened, cautiously, by a woman in her 50s who reminded me of June Cleaver. I asked if her son was home. When she raised her eyebrow, I could see she had also raised her guard. She decided to gather more information before disclosing anything. After all, she had no idea who I was or why I had come unannounced.
“He’s not home. How can I help you?”
Cautious. Curious.
“I’m a Rockville High classmate. Chris. No one has been able to locate him for a while. We are putting together an impromptu reunion and I said ‘I know where he used to live, I’ll stop by and see if his parents are still there.”
While saying that, I turned ¼ to my right, like I’m about to leave. Signaled I’m not coming after her.
A small smile emerged from the woman. “Oh, that’s wonderful. Truthfully, he doesn’t live here anymore, and we don’t talk nearly enough. But if I get you his phone number, will that help?” Her guard is now not only down, but she also left the door partially open as she disappeared inside.
“Absolutely.” I said as I smiled back. I stayed right where I was, enjoying the smell of the cherry blossoms.
She returned and came down the two stairs to me.
Handing me a piece of paper with a number scribbled on it she said, “When you talk to him, tell him to call me.” The voice was almost sad, her eyes avoiding mine. But there was also hope. She wanted to believe I would help her reconnect with her son.
“I will.” I promised. And I did.
I’d deal with the ethical question of lying years later. Pretext we called it.
Pretext is a fictitious reason to have a conversation. A pretext can be as innocuous as walking down the wrong hall to bump into that person you are longing to see or as guise to learn information that will help to locate a person of interest.
Commonality Changes How You Are Seen
Did you spot the commonality built in an instant? Did you catch the signals of “I’m not a threat?”
In the 1990s, I wasn’t thinking about all these fancy terms of today. That was knowledge still to be learned. I was just beating the defenses. I learned what worked through trial and error. In the beginning, the rush of wind from a slamming door was more common than getting a phone number scribbled on a piece of paper. I still carry those scars from the skip tracings I conducted.
Skip tracing is the name private investigators use to say that they are searching for someone that doesn’t want to be found. There are more people avoiding others than you think. For whatever reasons: divorce, dodging old acquaintances, dodging bill collectors or other responsibilities. Heck, maybe they just want to disappear.
Skip tracing was my thing. The office often asked me to locate people that had reasons not to be located. That and finding where people had hid their money, or rather who they had hid it with, was my specialty.
There was no internet, no GPS tracking, no cell phones. Just the White Pages, a pocket full of quarters and a place to start.
I learned the skill to be who I needed to be to ascertain information. If the person I was interviewing needed me to have a soft personality, I could relax my body language and soften my voice.
If a moment required me to be louder and tougher, I could change modes. Even throw in a swear word or two.
Knocking on doors and talking to hundreds of people telling little white lies as I stood on their front porches, I learned the street science version of behavioral psychology. A fellow investigator described me as a bit of a Behavioral Detective.
In about 7 seconds or less I had to make an impression on the person I was looking to serve or interview or watch. I had to be in the “Not a threat” category.
I had to read them before they read me.
Creating Commonality In Seconds
Every single day you see people use the same techniques of seeking commonality to drop threat levels. When you walk through the front door of an open house for sale in your neighborhood and the real estate agent standing there smiles, steps back a half pace and asks, “You from Arizona?” referencing the Arizona shirt you are wearing. She may, or may not, really care; she is just breaking the ice.
The loud frat boys know this skill, consciously or not. The more shadowy of our society, confidence men (and women), practice this skill like it makes them money.
“No. We just visited the Grand Canyon last year.” says the open house visitor.
“Me, too,” smiles the real estate agent.
What is really being said between the two is, “Welcome to my tribe.” Ground is broken. The threat level is lowered. After a three-minute conversation about the North Rim the would-be buyers are now comfortable with this real estate agent.
Their real estate agent.
The Information Gathered
The phone number I garnered from June Cleaver was important to my role as skip tracer for the client that had hired our firm. I wasn’t there to worry about the right or wrong of what I was doing. Never crossed my mind. Nor was I concerned about a larger schism this may cause in the relationship of a mother and son, already strained.
I would deal with that fall out years later as I sat on those worn eastern steps of the Lincoln Memorial.
You can see how this plays out in that story of the Kansas Kid. See if you can see where commonality was built. Start to be a Behavioral Detective on your own.
How would you have handled the ethics of what the job of skip tracer entailed? Debate it in The Detective’s Lounge.
A Chris Writes, LLC Publication
Not legal advice / not professional guidance / do not imitate tactics
Fictionalized/composite/altered details + no identification intended
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