The ability to create rapport with others helps to ensure success in almost every situation. Effective rapport building allows for more effective communication that is a crucial ingredient in all business interactions including but not limited to selling, negotiations and interviews.

Rapport usually happens at a level that we are unaware of so people will say that they had a gut instinct or a feeling to describe having a good or bad rapport with another person. Statements such as ” I had a good feeling about her” or ” There was something just not right about him” will be used to describe communications such as interviews or sales meetings.

We tend to identify and communicate better with other people who share our beliefs, have the same outlooks, share common experiences and goals, In short, we like people who are like ourselves. People who have rapport tend to act like each other in a number of ways so rapport therefore involves matching.

The following easy to use matching techniques will help create an instant rapport so that you can communicate better and achieve more in the business environment.

Posture and Gestures.

If you observe people locked in conversation, you will see that their bodies tend to mirror each other including their gestures. For example two people may both lean forward when sitting with hands open on the table or both may cross their legs and lean back in their chairs.

Now that you are aware of this you can consciously make adjustments during business meetings to your own posture and gestures to help stimulate better rapport with the other person . You can start to match the overall way the other person sits or stands including making the same sorts of gestures with your hands or crossing your legs to mirror the person as you see them.

Voice

When a salesperson makes a call to a customer, he or she cannot see the other person so mirroring the posture and movements is impossible. It is still possible to use matching however as another important part of any communication involves the pitch and tone of your voice. According to some research, this may even have more impact than the actual words been used.

Things to look out for include:

Volume: Do they speak quietly or loudly?

Tempo: How fast or slowly do they speak?

Pitch: Is it high or low?

Tone: What emotions do they convey?

Language: Listen to the types of words been used, do they have characteristic sayings?

When you try out these techniques for the first time, you may feel a bit silly so start by only making very small adjustments until you feel comfortable. With some practice, matching will start to become almost second nature and you will instantly be able to create better rapport and enhance communications skills during any type of business encounter.

Btb Sales Training

Posted by Niall

Tags: build rapport, building rapport, presentation skills, sales meeting, sales meetings

This entry was posted on Tuesday, May 13th, 2008 at 10:35 am and is filed under Communication, General Selling Skills, Interviews Techniques, Rapport, Top Tips Series, training. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.