Getting to Rapport Quicker: Overview, Tips & Pitfalls

May 3, 2019 | Written by Sara Dickinson

What’s the magic we’re looking for in new business relationships? It’s often rapport – your relationship with and understanding of the positions someone else holds, combined with an ability to effectively communicate between one another. Importantly, its defined by the person you are working with. This article will cover what good rapport looks like, how to achieve it, and tips for getting to it quickly.

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Understanding Rapport

If you like you want to be building rapport faster, you’re not alone. Rapport is essential in all relationships, but most importantly client relationships and work relationships. Without rapport, it’s harder to get to true insight and real trust with another person. There is a higher chance for miscommunication or not truly understanding the question behind the question when rapport isn’t there.

To have the most meaningful relationships, it’s critical to build rapport as quickly as possible. Building rapport is often difficult because of a few barriers. Newness can be a challenge in any relationship because trust has not yet been established. Cultivating a rapport with someone takes time, but there are strategies to get to that point quickly.

Source: https://eveash.com/wp-content/uploads/rapport_builds_relationships.png

Tips for Building Rapport Quickly

• Be Curious
  Most people love to talk. When you let them, they exit your conversation with a positive feeling, which helps build your connection. The easiest way to show your new acquaintance you're interested in them is by listening and making an effort to find out more. ‘When you lead with curiosity and ask thoughtful questions that allow them to share and open up, you build a connection, and that leads to trust. As you ask questions, you'll likely find places where you have commonalities, and that is a quick rapport builder.’
• Be Candid
  You'll likely have a hard time building rapport if someone suspects you're holding back or being dishonest with them. A little honesty goes a long way. Sharing where you are not strong as well as well as your strengths is unexpected, and it builds immediate trust. By being candid, you are able to quickly develop rapport with others, as they know they can trust you'll always have an unfiltered, honest response.
• Finding Common Interests
  Sometimes the best way to forge a bond is to start by identifying the things you already have in common. Engage in conversation with the person, discover their outside interests – sports, hobbies, travel – and find what similar interests you share with the person. Having common interests, even common friends or colleagues, makes the conversation easy and can build that initial connection.
• Invest in Time Together
  While communicating online is convenient for work, it can often take much longer to build rapport. After all, you may spend time texting with friends, but the time you actually spend together is usually when your relationships grow the most. Early client engagements over a meal, drink or other social activity can be invaluable as well as education focused sessions based on topics of interest to small groups.
• Share Value
  Remember, at the end of the day, you're both hoping to get something out of this relationship. So, start off strong by finding a way to give away something that will be useful and meaningful to the other person. Try to really get to know people. Find out what's affecting their business, what they are concerned about on a daily basis. Understand people and what weighs on their mind, and you'll be able to create value for them. Value helps create rapport, and it doesn't have to be something extreme. Just sharing an article or a piece of advice on something highly relevant to them is enough.The reality is that there are not two types of consumers. As always, there’s a continuum, and the best advisors will be adept at continuing to figure out how to get the right model to the right client at the right time. Leading advisors are taking steps to evolve and better serve their clients, leaving the one-size-fits all model behind.

Frequently Asked Questions

• What kind of techniques help build rapport?
  Tony Robbins notes that a critical part of building rapport is mirroring and matching your acquaintance. It has its roots in science that we tend to like people that are like us and look like us. The first place is to start by mirroring. There are many attributes you might mirror, including voice or tone, pace, language and physical posture, gestures, or pacing. You may also mirror eye contact, facial expressions, breathing, proximity and touch. The key is not to be exact, but to mirror a few attributes.
• What does a good rapport look like?
  While different for each of us, here are a few signals you may have achieved it. — Did they spend more time with you than you asked for? You asked for 30 minutes and they willingly stayed engaged for 45 minutes? — Did they share authentically allowing you to learn more about them? — Did they look to bring others in, perhaps a spouse, or family member or other financial provider because they wanted them to be part of the discussion? — Did they proactively ask about next steps or did they follow-up on their own?

Top Resources

Here are a handful of resources on building rapport.

− Techniques for Building Rapport

− How to Build Rapport

Disclaimer

As with all important financial topics or decisions, be sure to consult with a financial advisor beforehand. The content seen here is for educational purposes only and is not meant to serve as any sort of advice or endorsement.

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Sara Dickinson is a market development consultant for MY Life Finances.