Bonding & Rapport Building
What is Rapport?
Rapport is to be in connection with someone.
Connection is critical in sales because people buy emotionally, and they justify their decisions intellectually.
How to Build Rapport in Sales?
Many people think rapport building is about finding commonalities with others (e.g. we’re both dog owners). This is a common mistake that usually leads to the salesperson sharing too much about themselves, overtalking, and drawing the spotlight away from the prospect. Keep the spotlight on your prospect.
Rapport is almost instantaneous when you speak the prospect’s language and enter the prospect’s world. People feel most comfortable with themselves. This is why mirroring is so important in sales. Mirror your prospect.
In face-to-face communication, the words we speak often express the smallest amount of the message. Tonality and body language are much more important.
Tonality: The tonality of our speech includes rate, pitch, and volume. People feel comfortable with other people who sound like themselves.
Nonverbal Communication: Match your prospect’s body language so that the prospect feels comfortable with you as a reflection of them.
Verbal: Listen for your prospect’s favourite words and phrases, and then “play them back” for them.
Avoid Rapport Breakers
Making people feel Not-OK about themselves is the fastest way to end a relationship. It’s a rapport breaker.
To avoid breaking rapport, don’t flex your intellectual muscle, don’t act superior, and don’t use buzzwords. These all make your prospect feel Not-OK. And when someone makes us feel Not-OK, we will fight for OK-ness by getting rid of the person who is making us feel Not-OK. People don’t want to connect with people who make them feel Not-OK.
Tips:
Use dummy up phrases like “I don’t understand”, or “Can you help me with that?”, or “What do you mean exactly?”
Even if you have every answer at your fingertips, look like you don’t
Never use buzzwords
Be assertive, not aggressive
Allow your prospects to “know it all” and get their OK-ness needs met. Avoid playing one-upmanship.
Additional Resources
Articles
Readings
Sandler- Chapter #9: “Good Morning, Sir, Is That Your Sailfish?”