Building Rapport – The Life of a Salesman

“The man who makes an appearance in the business world, the man who creates a personal interest, is the man who gets ahead. Be liked and you will never want.”
- Willy Loman in Death of a Salesman.

Sure, not everything worked out for Willy the way he might have wanted it to. He needed a lot more than being well-liked in order to succeed. Many sellers, however, should take a page from Willy’s book. Being liked won’t win you sales, but it sure does help.

One of the most important aspects to creating personal interest and being liked is successfully building rapport with your prospect.

When you build rapport, keep in mind you want to make a sincere connection. All too often chit-chat before a sales call seems contrived…because it is. Assuming you want to build solid and real relationships with people, consider the following:

Be genuine. Before the first day of school, first jobs, camp, and any family get-together, Dad always said, “Just be yourself and everything will be fine.” This lesson applies to generating rapport with prospects and customers. Be genuine. Be yourself. Don’t try to be anything you are not, create a new persona, or adopt a sales-like tone. Relax, smile, and go in with a positive attitude . Good things will follow. As Oscar Wilde said, “Be yourself; everyone else is already taken.”

Be warm and friendly. Chilly people get chilly reactions from other people. Approach rapport building with the intent to be warm and friendly. Smile, give a firm handshake, make eye contact, and engage.

Show interest. No surprise to anyone, people are self-focused. This is quite helpful to those of us in selling because we need to learn about our prospects before we can provide the best solutions. People want to feel like they have an opening to share what they’re thinking, including their desires, fears, and problems. The more genuinely interested you appear the more relaxed and willing to share they’re likely to be.

Don’t seem too needy. Most of us know someone who wanted to be liked, so he “tried hard,” but it didn’t work. In trying to be liked, he appeared needy and conspicuous. You cannot force rapport. Show interest, but don’t act subservient, overly friendly, or too pushy or you will only turn the other person off. Don’t come on like gangbusters.

Give genuine compliments. Sycophants get nowhere, but genuine compliments are endearing. If you like the office, someone’s web site, or are impressed with their book, say so. If your prospect had a recent accomplishment, relay your authentic congratulations. They’ll appreciate it.

Calibrate the rapport to “just right.” New salespeople are often overly sensitive to the time of a potential buyer. They often think, “I have an hour for this meeting and she’s a CEO of a mid-size company. I need to use the whole time to get my points across. No time for chitchat.” So he dives right in with no ice breaking conversation and it doesn’t go well. Others can spend too much time chatting, and the prospect might get antsy to get down to business. Do your best to read the other person and find the right amount of rapport-focused conversation.

Read the culture. Always be yourself but, at the same time, you can adjust your approach to the other person and company. Don’t change who you are to fit the culture, but be aware of how the culture works and how it best responds. For example, if they’re a suit and tie joint, showing up with your Grateful Dead ’95 tour tie-dyed shirt won’t fly so well. (Unless you’re meeting with me, then I’d be impressed.) And if there’s a jeans and sneakers place with a “Never Lose Your Whimsy!’ sign on the wall…you get the idea.

If you’re curious to know where to start with rapport building, the following questions will help. They’re pretty basic and straightforward, but rapport building is an area that doesn’t need over complication.

Questions that Build Rapport

• How was your weekend? Anything interesting?
• It was good to hear the short version of your background at the meeting, but since we’re out for lunch, I’d love to get the long version. What’s your story?
• I have to say, I really like your (insert something about them…their lobby, the artwork on their walls, how friendly their staff is, or anything else you actually liked, then ask an open-ended question about that particular thing).
• Are you from this area? Oh, interesting. I know people in…do you know (this person)? Oh, I’ve never been there, but I heard it’s got…the most amazing restaurants…the most amazing scenery…the most amazing fly fishing.
• Welcome to the town. Have you been to Scottsdale before? Where are you staying? What’s that like? A lot different from Vancouver, wouldn’t you say?

Perhaps Willy needed a few more tools in his toolkit to succeed in sales, but he was well-liked, and it’s still a great place to start.