Rapport building

Building and managing relationships is key to business success and there are additional soft skills that a person can accrue to enhance their relationship building skills further.

Your contacts, employees, suppliers and anyone else who you are in contact with all have unique characteristics, qualities and behaviours that once recognised by you, can be utilised to cement and strengthen 'bonds' further. By paying attention to a persons methods and ways of communicating - what they are saying and how they are saying it - provides 'knowledge' to you in terms of their personal communication 'style' and how they prefer to be communicated to.

Observing these 'patterns' allows you the opportunity to operate on their wavelength. Rapport building is a skill and it happens naturally. You will have been in situations where you are with a friend, acquaintance or colleague and for whatever reason you have that feeling of 'connection' with them. You get them and they get you and your deisred outcome is achieved. You were 'talking the same language', maybe 'matching and mirroring' eachothers physiology, gestures, voice tone - maybe without realising it! On the other hand you may also have been with people where all you wanted to do was end the conversation and move on, for whatever reason. No connection, no commonality, no shared objectives. What would have happened in this circumstance if you were to have matched and mirrored their style?

Most people have heard of mirroring and matching. It can be effective and the advice here is to go out and experiment with it. Watch out for the subtle movements, gestures that a person makes when you communicate with them and match their patterns.

See what results you get, what level of connection you feel and if you achieve your outcome.

Play time.