What is building rapport?
We are building rapport with new and familiar faces every single day. According to the Merriam-Webster Dictionary, rapport is defined as a friendly, harmonious relationship. Rapport is having a mutual understanding or agreement with someone making the communication easier between you and that person. Everybody builds rapport with someone every single day, unless you live under a rock. With the evolution of technology, people can even build rapport with people across the world at the palm of their hands. Using messaging and social media to build rapport has formed into this sort of digital communication that everybody uses nowadays.
There are 6 things you should be considerate about when building rapport and they are…
- Appearance
- Question hard, listen harder
- Provide Value
- Seek Agreement
- Show empathy
- Mirror and match
Appearance
Your first impression is one of the most important factors when building rapport. Just put yourself in the other persons shoes. You wouldn’t want to be talking or meeting up with someone who looks like they just got out of bed after a long night at the bars. Looking presentable and fresh shows the client that you are prepared, trustworthy, and respectful. This will make the call go much smoother as they will appreciate talking to someone who is prepared, rather than not. This goes for people who do their meetings on Zoom, WebEx, or any other communication software. Your client still has a full view of what you look like and how you are dressed. So show up looking like a boss.
According to Forbes, you have 7 seconds to make a first impression. Obviously, not every situation is going to be like this. The point is, you want to be walking into a room or meeting like a badass. Make sure you are not staying up all night partying before an important morning. That is one way to go down a rabbit hole of bad habits. You don’t want to do that. Furthermore, look like you take care of yourself in order to look like a credible salesperson. In all, just look as good as you possibly can in every situation. That is my best advice.
Cold Call Situation
Obviously, if you are cold-calling someone your appearance does not matter much at all. However, one thing that I have found helpful during a cold call is to stand up when you are talking with your client. According to Gavin Ingham, standing up while calling a client allows us to open our lungs and get oxygen. Therefore, allowing us to be more relaxed and confident when we speak. Try this out and let me know if it helps y’all.
Question Hard, Listen Harder
Great sales people ask questions. Good questions too. Questions that will get your client talking. On rule I live by is the 80/20 rule. In this situation, sales is all about the 80/20 rule: 80% of the conversation should be the client talking and the other 20% of the conversation should be your time to talk, ask questions, and present. This is something I have been trying to implement into my work and my life in general.
That 20% of you talking should be filled with lots of open-ended questions. In fact, open-ended questions get the client talking and revealing information to you that will allow you to provide them a solution. A lot of people love to write down their questions before the call, so they can get the most information they can out of their client. I think this is a good strategy, however, I would say to try and stay away from just staring at your questions. Furthermore, this can cause sales people to get tripped up during the sales call. A good alternative is just go with the flow of the conversation. Once you have found the problem they are experiencing, just keep digging and asking questions related to their specific problem. This will allow you to get all the information you need to present a solution for that problem and close the deal.
The 80% of your client talking is the time for you to actively listen. Active listening is a huge aspect of sales because if you can’t do it then how are you going to be able to help your client? Active listening is especially important when you are asking questions. You NEED to digest and comprehend what they say to you. This aspect of sales never gets enough emphasis. Being able to understand the clients problems will show the clients that you actually care and will save you time in the sales call. Start actively listening to everyone you meet, it will be good practice in the long-run.
Provide Value
Once the client has told you their problem and you have actively listened to them, it is time to overload them with value. You need to provide them with a solution(s) to their current problem they are having. If the client doesn’t have any problems, then you have not done enough digging. Provide them with the best value you possibly can in order to give you a better chance of closing. Simply being humble, caring, and having high energy will put them into a better mood and have them cooperating with you even easier. SHOW them exactly how your product/service can help resolve their current problem in their company or life. Bring proof with you and show them real data. This will make you more credible than others trying to sell to them.
Seek Agreement
You need to seek agreement with your client during your call with them. By this I mean you have to show them everything you can do for them. In addition, you want to find similarities with them in order to build rapport and have them trust you. A sales call should not be two bulls butting heads together. In fact, sales calls should be a free flowing conversation where you and your client should come to an agreement.
Show Empathy
This subtitle speaks for itself. Just SHOW EMPATHY. It is that easy. No matter how angry, annoying, or even nice the client is, always show empathy for them. By being kind, caring, and helpful to the client it shows them how much they can trust you, which is a very good thing. Building this trust early on in the sales call is important. You want to get them trusting you as soon as you possibly can. Show empathy to everyone in your life and trust me you will see the results of more people trusting you.
Mirror and Match
This is a strategy that a lot of sales people use to build rapport. The mirror and match strategy is essentially whenever you mirror and match what your client is doing. If the client is speaking loud and fast, you need to be speaking loud and fast. Furthermore, if the client is speaking with a soft tone, you need to speak with a soft tone. Mirroring and matching your client helps you build trust with them because it shows them you are on the same page. Whatever you can do to build trust with your clients and people in your life, do it. Building trust is a game changer and this strategy is an amazing for it.
These are some strategies that I have learned and implemented into my work. All of these strategies should be used in the sales call at some point. If you can’t get your client to have any trust in you, please keep focusing on these strategies as they will help you build rapport. I would love to learn more strategies if one of you guys have any, please get in contact with me and send it my way! I hope you enjoyed this read and I hope you took something away from this. Let me know if these strategies help you in anyway shape or form!
GODSPEED,
NL