Striking rapport with prospective customer is key to closing a deal

Have you ever met a complete stranger and you immediately hit it off? The conversation flowed effortlessly and so too the silence.

Most probably you have and no, assuming it as the opposite sex, it wasn’t love at first sight — you had just experienced raw, pure, undiluted rapport.

The dictionary defines rapport as a close and harmonious relationship in which the people or groups concerned understand one another’s feelings or ideas and communicate well.

The word originates from the French, meaning “the relationship”. Rapport therefore is important to building relationships and it is an indispensable ingredient in successful selling.

Admittedly, life is such that such delightful, magical encounters do not happen often enough to be firmly depended upon. In fact, they happen rarely. For this reason, the salesperson must cultivate rapport with a prospect in the early stages of their encounter.

Will the rapport created be perfect? A few times, yes, but most times it’ll be just enough to break the ice and allow the droplets of conversation to start trickling.

And the latter is precisely what the progressive salesperson aims for, from telesales to corporate selling and any manner of selling.

The old school of thought tells us to engage in idle banter as the opening gambit to a conversation. For instance, talk something about the prospect’s dress or office. “You look very smart in that suit” or, while pointing on the framed picture on the desk or wall, “those are beautiful kids you have there” or if on phone, “you sound like you have a cold, madam, sorry”, and on and on.

The underlying message in this old school of thought was to get the prospect to like the salesperson. And it made sense — after all, unless they do not have a choice, people will buy from people they like.

That piece of advice about how to build rapport was doled out decades ago. It is relevant today? Oh yes; prospects still have to like the person they are dealing with if they are to buy from them.

However, times have changed from decades ago. People are less warm, prospects are more knowledgeable, and the rat race is moving at maddening speed.

The new school of thought therefore, has it that the place for idle banter is being steadily suffocated. With this in mind, striking rapport must be done more creatively but still focus on the prospect.

The suit and the kids are therefore something to point out not dwell upon; talk, more relevant to the client’s needs and how the salesperson service or product can be of assistance will more likely create rapport today than would dwelling on the new coat of paint and how bold the colours are.

This school of thought avers that once the client’s needs are addressed (that is, once business is out of the way) talk of the weather can then fall in place en route to the lift if the prospect is walking you there.

But wait! Before blindly shunning the old and embracing the new, study your own sales experiences. Whereas generally the world has moved forward, specifically there are still prospects who will feel offended that you did not notice the change in their title and wanted to know what it means to their professional progress; there are those even decades ago would have been curt to niceties.

Either way, the salesperson must adapt to the situation at hand and still develop rapport without losing sight of the purpose of his visit.

When rapport is established there is an air of honesty, a feeling of peace, safety and freedom with each other. Movement along the sales cycle is smoother.

The writer is lead facilitator at Lend Me Your Ears-, a sales and speaker training firm
[email protected]