Build Rapport at First Contact

The ability to build rapport quickly makes it easier to close business. The sooner you get in rapport with the prospect, the sooner you can move the sale forward. Here's a way to enhance rapport within 30 seconds of meeting a prospect, even if it's only on the telephone. In fact, this method, called "reflectioning", works even better on the telephone than face-to-face.

First some background. One of the most important books about sales ever written are Robert Cialdini's Influence: the Psychology of Persuasion and Influence: Science and Practice. In these books, Cialdini presents empirical research showing how sales pros influence customers to buy, even when the sales reps are not aware that they're doing it. Cialdini presents six "principles of influence" that determine the speed at which a sale takes place -- or takes place at all. One of these six principles is "likeability" -- it's easier to sell if the customer likes you.

That's not a startlingly original observation because basically every sales pro figures it out on day one. What's interesting about Cialdini's research is that he codified what influences a customer to "like" a sales pro. Turns out that the key element of likability is similarity. The research indicates that, despite conventional wisdom that "opposites attract," people tend to naturally like people who are similar to themselves and share similar interests.

In my previous two posts, I pointed out that the first step towards building rapport is therefore to enter a sales situation with a sense of curiosity about the prospect as a person. That attitude automatically gives you something in common with the prospect -- an interest in the prospect -- and therefore starts the relationship out in a state of rapport.

Your opening remark or question can also help to build rapport, a subject that I covered in the post HOW TO BUILD INSTANT RAPPORT. However, there is an extremely powerful rapport-building technique that you can use immediately after your initial remark which can accelerate the rapport-building process. If you practice it correctly, the prospect will "feel at ease" with you and, at a gut level, think of you as a kindred spirit.

This technique, called "reflectioning" consists of (very) slightly modifying and modulating your voice, and (if the meeting is face-to-face) your facial expressions and gestures, to (very) approximately match those of the prospect. At first glance, this sounds similar to the well-word technique called "mirroring" where you imitate the prospect's body language and speech patterns. However, the big problem with mirroring (as usually taught) is that the activity frequently backfires, making prospects feel as they're being mocked. If that happens, rapport is DOA, never to be revived.

Reflectioning is more subtle and, unlike mirroring, accounts for the enormous (but always unspoken) impact of sexuality on the sales process. Yup, even B2B sales have a sexual component, so stay tuned, because tomorrow's post is going to be a real eye opener.