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Rapport is Common GroundA couple of years’ ago I lived on a typical family estate with 3 and 4 bedroom homes, each with three children, two dogs and one barbeque. Every November I received a box of poppies from the Royal British Legion and I would knock on doors to see how many poppies I could sell. Each year I raised a consistent £35 or so. People weren’t reticent about buying poppies after all it’s an amazing cause. The problem was that many people had already bought their poppy or had signed up to a standing order or always bought one from a favourite seller. So I had to be happy with my £35. But one year I decided a different tactic and thought about building a rapport with my customers. At the time my son Lewis, was aged 5 and actually rather cute. He’s now turned into a teenager so is now rather frightening. I decided to take him with me so decked him out with the posters of rank, a box of poppies around his waist and a cute bobble hat. And what happened next was amazing. The first door I knocked on, the man of the house came to the door, looked at me and quickly realized that I was selling poppies, then he glanced at Lewis and I could read the man’s mind. “Ah”, he thought, “this man is selling poppies…I already have my poppy…how can I turn him down. But hold on…he has a son about the age of my son…he’s a dad like me…we have something in common…I like this man…he’s just like me…where’s my wallet?” That night I made £78.50. Same road, same houses, same people. But I doubled my takings. The simple fact was that I was showing my customers that I was the same as them; I was building a common ground. You see people like to deal with people who are the same as them and have done so for thousands of years. It may not be fair but it’s true. People like to deal with people who are the same as them. The first thing they teach you in sales training school is to find something in common with your customer and talk about this. In fact Dale Carnegie made this famous in his book “How to Make Friends and Influence People” which was one of the first non fiction books (outside of college) I ever read. Something else you can easily do is to become more like your customer and the way they are. Pick up on one or two aspects of them and match these. This will build a strong initial rapport. When face to face with customers, we can pick up on their body language, seating position, gestures, eye contact, energy levels, conversation…and copy one or two of these. Don’t make it too obvious maybe have a time lapse of a few seconds. Possibly sit like they are sitting and copy the amount of eye contact they give you and slow down or speed up to match their energy levels. When not face to face, when on the telephone, you can pick up on aspects of their voice such as speed, volume, tone, rhythm. Try to follow a couple of aspects of their voice such as their pace and maybe their tone. You’ll be amazed as to the effect it’ll have. Your customer will feel you are a little like them and will warm to you more. With a rapport built, you can then concentrate on selling. Paul is an international sales speaker, sales trainer, author and coach based in the UK.
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He specialises in rapport selling and rapport
coaching and can ignite his audiences large or small.