What is Rapport?
The report in the sale process is understood as the creation of a harmonious relationship and trust with the customer, so they are more open to share information and to accept suggestions from the seller.
Surely there will be realized to meet someone for the first time, on the street, in stations or anywhere else, and after half an hour you know a lot about his life or maybe yourself the secrets confided to you that you have not revealed even to your closest friends .
What happened? Simple, you have established a rapport.
Establish a rapport with another person, it generates a feeling of acceptance and trust which is fundamental in the sale. At this point, I think this extraordinary ability to establish rapport is innate in some subject and for others there is nothing to do, well, not so! Each of us can learn to create a rapport with the customer or with the people they know.
First, it is important that there is a desire to understand and want to help the customer; sometimes you just need this small opening of the seller to the customer to begin negotiations in a positive way.
The ways to establish a relationship are many; here we focus on the most popular. The techniques that lists can be used together or separately, at it’s best to focus and use one technique, then with practice you will be able to integrate the techniques and get much better results.
Here’s how to create and establish a rapport:
- Trace non-verbal
- Trace para-
- Trace Minutes
Trace non-verbal
The technique of tracing non-verbal is based on the monitoring of movements and body language of the customer.
This type of rapport is assumed that communication between people never happens on one level and that the way our body communicates is very important, then two bodies moving in harmony, even if unwittingly create a relationship of trust and understanding.
Several studies have shown that, during a presentation, 55% of the effect on the public comes through body language (gestures, posture and eye movements), 38% is due to the tone of voice used, and only 7% came from the content of the presentation. Thanks to this study is to understand the possible role of gestures during a presentation or a negotiation.
But how do you create a rapport with the tracing of non-verbal score?
The non-verbal pacing can be understood as a kind of dance without music, where you should follow the first dance and gestures of the customer and then later you must ride in the ballet.
To do this you must reflect gestures, posture, expressions, body and even your breath.
Obviously this should be done with extreme care, respect and common sense, since you must not notice what is happening. Needless to say, tics, or other oddities should never be reflected.
Having traced the client should start to lead the dance, so start with a few gestures other than those made by the customer (such as touching the chin or arm), and check if the client is following you in a natural way in what you do . If the customer does not follow you then started to trace it and then started again from time to time to guide the process until you have success and he will follow unconsciously.
Once the client is following in the dance, accepting your guide, you’ll know you have created a rapport, continue the negotiations taking care to check every so often that the customer continues to follow and be in “contact” with you, since the process is dynamic, so you may have said or done something that broke the “dance”. You must test and maintain rapport throughout the sales process.
One of the best ways to understand how this mechanism is to observe people, how they behave when they communicate flirt or talk. In bars, restaurants, parks or at parties, observed the gestures and the “dance” of the people. You will understand how people behave, their gestures and movements, you will notice the difference between those who interact in harmony and dialogue in conflict.
To develop this technique, a lot of practice and especially the intent of wanting to understand and helps the customer.
Trace para
The voice is another important factor in communication, the same words spoken with different tones can be perceived by the other party in different ways.
First we must pay attention to the characteristics of the voice, there are many factors that make a difference, and here we mention the two most important: the tone of voice and speed of speech.
Surely you know someone with a voice that, no matter what he says, bothers you, then easily understand the importance of tone. Imagine a person with a shrill voice that presents the news, would be a failure! Now, imagine someone with a voice, quiet, soothing, inspiring trust and reliability. With whom would you stop for a chat?
Now think about the differences between these two items and choose what you like to have as a model.
Regarding the speed of speech, however, there are people who talk so fast that it is hard to understand them and others who speak so slowly that we’re bored. Of course these are extremes, but serve to emphasize the importance of the speed with which we speak and the effect it has on the listener.
Well, once we have given our customers the way he talks, we will put in place a procedure identical to the body tracing, we will change the way we express ourselves up to suit the customer, then slowly edit and test if it is behind us. The main points of this copying process are the tone and speed. Obviously avoid trace foreign accents or speech tics that could jeopardize any possibility of establishing a rapport.
Remember it is not necessary to become a copycat; you only need to follow in the way of talking about the customer, then resumes its rhythm and occurs if the client is behind us.
Trace Minutes
The tracing of the expressions deserve a whole “treaty” on the subject, but here we want to simplify things without losing sight of the ultimate goal which is to establish a relationship of harmony and trust between you and the customer.
In this technique are the words used, the content and meaning of the sentence to be modeled.
With the tracing report we report the customer a sentence equal to or very similar to that which has made by adding personal opinions
Here’s an example of this technique:
Customer: I want something nice and comfortable
Seller: The monster something nice and comfortable that will suit your needs
The important thing is to use the same words of the customer with the order in which they were delivered and then merge them or add your own idea.
This technique is very effective and greatly reduces the time needed to create a rapport.
Again, this technique should avoid the ‘parrot effect, “So, we will create interesting phrases intelligently.
In tracing the expression is very important to keep in mind the words used by our party that are directly related to his senses.
This procedure (as well as other previously mentioned) is based on the principles of NLP (neurolinguistic programming) that each person uses a particular channel (visual, auditory or kinesthetic) to express themselves, and of course to incorporate the information from the outside.
Consequently, a person who communicates mostly using a visual channel, it will use verbs and words associated with that channel, and is expressed using words like: look, see, think, etc.. To get in tune with that person, during the conversation, we will use its own channel “view” by using words associated with it that way. We prefer not to go into details of this argument because we would go to lengthen and complicate our “simple” being sold, but we encourage curious to know more about who we think very interesting.
Here are some of the terms used by subjects in their expressions, according to the predominant channel of communication.
The subject Visual use terms such as:
Looks spectacular, beautiful, beautiful, I see, clear view of perspective, light, reflection, scene, fantastic, etc.. Etc…
The subject Auditory use terms such as:
Listening, loud, harmony, feel, noise, rhythm, emphasis, tone, deaf, dissonant, and so on.
Kinesthetic the subject use terms like:
I think, perceive, understand, recognize, remember, explain, calculate, and decide, and so on.
At this point, we just identify the subject, analyzing the terms used during the conversation and relate to him using the same terms that refer to the same direction. The results are surprising.
In conclusion, I reiterate and emphasize a few key issues to establish a rapport during a sales negotiation:
- You must be motivated by a sincere desire to understand and help the client
- You must be prepared and conscientious throughout the negotiation
- It is necessary to trace the customer as little as possible and then take him in the choices
The report therefore is not merely a phase of the sale, but it is a mechanism that begins when they get attention from customers and ends only when the sale is completed.