HOW TO BUILD RAPPORT BETTER
3 Tips To Build Rapport With Clients
Most salespeople's products or services can help customers a lot. They sell it using different strategies that highlight the benefit of the offer, but it's problematic if the customer trusts you because you have yet to build rapport in the first place.
Without rapport, customers will not feel comfortable or at ease around you. This means that no matter your offer's value, they will still not trust that you can fulfill it. Understanding how to develop rapport will help you be most successful in sales.
Today, we will discuss how you can apply rapport to your business.
What is rapport?
Rapport is a friendly and cooperative relationship in which the people interacting strive to understand each other's opinions, thoughts, and feelings and communicate well.
It is a process of responsiveness—it does not necessarily mean that you like each other, but that you are like each other.
Rapport is when you connect with a person deeply, listen to their ideas, and communicate your thoughts to them in a way they hear.
How do you know if you're building rapport?
You know you have reached this rapport when you can feel it. You'll notice the body language, expressions, or demeanor of the person you're talking to.
Please pay attention to their physiology. How do they sit? Is their body moving into yours or away from yours? When you identify the clues in their demeanor, you can connect with them in several ways.
In building rapport, you can also listen to their words, tonality, inflection, and pitch, communicating with the other person's "language."
Why do you need to build rapport?
When you have a strong rapport with one another, it allows for them to be at ease. When someone feels comfortable with you, they will more likely trust you. In this rapport, you can convince them to take action that will best benefit them.
Two people or a group can experience rapport. Waiters and waitresses often glide across the restaurant floor during a dinner rush and move their bodies in unison.
Those servers barely look at each other and never collide because they have extreme rapport as they move.
Three ways to build rapport
There are several ways to gain rapport rapidly. They include Mirror, Matching, and Cross-Over Mirror and Matching, which all involve syncing someone's movements to gain rapport with them and more.
1. Mirror
Imagine you are looking in a mirror. If another person raises their left fist, you will lift your right hand as though you or she were reflecting each other's image.
Imagine you are a salesperson trying to sell office furniture to a prospective client named Alex. As you engage in conversation, you notice that Alex speaks at a moderate pace, uses many hand gestures, and frequently emphasizes critical points.
To mirror Alex's communication style and build rapport, you might also speak moderately, incorporate hand gestures, and use language that aligns with Alex's emphasis on details.
2. Matching
It is when you follow another's movements as if looking into a mirror. If they raise their left hand, you raise your left hand. From each other's perspective, you will be raising opposite arms.
Imagine you're selling a software solution to a client named Sarah. During your conversation, you notice that Sarah speaks calmly and composedly, using formal language.
To match her communication style and strengthen the rapport, you can match Sarah's calm and composed communication style, using formal language to create a sense of harmony.
3. Cross Over Mirror and Matching
It is when you match another person's body language with a different type of action, such as tapping your pen onto a table in time to their rhythm of speech.
Let's say you are selling a product to a potential client named Chris. You've observed that Chris has a calm and composed demeanor. He often uses technical language while also displaying enthusiasm when discussing innovative features.
Here's how you can employ Cross Over Mirror and Matching:
Mirroring: You can mirror Chris's enthusiasm by expressing excitement and matching Chris's technical language.
Matching: You can match Chris's calm demeanor, adapting the communication style to create a connection.
What things do you mirror and match to develop rapport?
Breathing pattern
Posture
Gestures
Language
Voice tone
Breathing is the most significant element of physiology for Match and Mirror because it is unconscious in the other person and easy for you to notice. Follow the breathing pattern displayed in the shoulders, chest, and stomach.
What are other techniques to develop rapport quickly?
CIf you are sitting, you can use your body language by leaning toward the person you are talking to with your hands free and arms and legs uncrossed. When you are open, the person you speak with will feel more comfortable.
Maintain eye contact with the other person for a little more than half of the time. Be careful not to lock eyes too long because that may make them uncomfortable.
Nod and encourage gestures and sounds when talking with the other person.
Smile! (I shamelessly mention this for my benefit as sometimes I forget to let my face know how thrilled I am.)
Use the other person's name. When you use their name, it will be viewed as polite and reinforce their name in your mind. The most important word to any person is our name.
Ask open-ended questions. These questions avoid putting the other person on the spot to give a definite opinion.
Avoid controversial subjects of discussion. Stick to the weather rather than risk falling out over politics.
Use feedback to review, display, and interpret what you believe they have said to the other person. Feedback allows any mistakes to be corrected promptly.
Speak about something that refers back to what the other person has said. Find links between shared experiences.
Show understanding. Display that you can understand how the other person feels and perceive things from their point of view.
When you develop rapport with another person, you have a much better opportunity to guide them.
If you are an agent who enjoys holding open houses and a seller who you work for says to you, "Holding open houses never works." you could reply to the Generalization presented to you with skepticism, "Never? Is that true? Is that 100% true?" to challenge the seller's thinking.
