Rapport Building

Rapport Building

Rapport building is an art.  If you are having trouble building rapport it’s probably because you are asking the wrong questions

Rapport is personal. Many salespeople make the mistake of trying to build rapport around non personal things like the news, the economy, or the weather.  The difference between these subjects and rapport is that rapport is about the commonality you have with the person.  In short, it’s personal.  Easy examples of this would be children, went to the same college, or share a hobby.

Where do I start if I don’t know them? The easiest place to start is in their office.  Take a look around and see what they have hung up or put out on their desk.  Do they have a trophy, an award, or pictures of their family?  An easy question to ask is “how old are you kids?  Pictures are usually a few years old and it starts a nice conversation.

Rapport Building. An aspect of report building that is often overlooked is that rapport is the prospect qualifying you as a provider of service.  Relationship selling is very difficult if you don’t build the relationship.  Winning on price alone is not selling nor will it last.  There is no secret to rapport building other than to ask.  Once you find a link the relationship deepens and trust begins for mutual understanding.

Now what?

You need to transition from rapport to business conversation.  Start with a career question – length of tenure, biggest accomplishment, how they got there etc.   Then mention something about your career.  At this point its time to get to the point, “The reason I asked for this meeting was to find out…”  You will notice it does not say, “I’d like to tell you about…” it’s a subtle change but an important one.



What rapport is.

• Rapport is delicate, and must be professionally understood before you can be personally engaging.
• Rapport is exchanging information of personal value.
• Rapport is gaining insight into the person and their personality.
• Rapport is gaining an understanding of the other person.
• Rapport is the ability to begin the engagement process.
• Rapport is a learning time about them, not a bragging time about you.
• Rapport is asking – then creating dialog around the answer.
• Rapport is permission to smile, even laugh, without doing so at someone's expense.
• Rapport is your opportunity to establish yourself as someone they would like to get to know better, and maybe even do business with.