Cool Tools to Develop Rapport

by Geoffrey Ronning

Your ability to create relationships with trust is a significant factor in your professional success. Without trust, no one will make a purchase, respect your expertise, carry out your instructions or refer business to you. With trust you will break down barriers and create a relationship of compatibility, creating an mutually beneficial relationship that will allow you to be privy to others needs, motivations and desires.

Trust can never be created with insincerity. You must have a desire to help others, to allow others to attain their goals, then utilizing the following techniques you can create trust rapidly and automatically.

The following techniques are something each of us do automatically do when were are with people we are comfortable with. When you begin to learn the techniques and utilize them you will find your communication enhanced and you will find you can begin to create trust rapidly, even with complete strangers. Here are three proven techniques to create trust in all business environments.

1. Mirroring

Mirroring is a technique that creates a subconscious familiarity between parties and rapidly create a feeling of affinity. You may be surprised by how powerful this strategy is.

The key component is your ability to physically mirror the physical activities of the other party simultaneously, like a mirror. This technique must be used subtly and with respect. As your engaged in conversation with another, begin to take on some of their characteristics. If they lean forward, you lean forward, if they sit upright you sit upright. By mirroring with honorable intentions you create a positive feeling of trust and familiarity. You need not mirror every move someone makes or it becomes imitation. Mirror just enough characteristics to make them feel positive and comfortable with you. Characteristics you can mirror include: body stance, hand movement, facial expressions, eye movements, movement of feet, hands, fingers, weight shifts and breathing rate.

2. Matching

Matching is similar to mirroring in that you take on physical attributes of the individual your conversing with. However instead of mirroring their characteristics simultaneously, you allow a time lapse. For instance, if during our conversation you make a hand gesture when emphasizing a point, I would make a similar hand gesture later in the conversation when emphasizing a point. This would create an emotional response of acceptance and trust. Characteristics you can match are limited only by the characteristics of the other party, their body motions, hand gestures and head movement are all good matching possibilities.

3. Cross - Matching

Cross-matching is the ability to gain trust with someone by matching their behavior with a corresponding behavior of your own related to the other party but not specifically related to their exact behavior. For instance, you may note someone¹s breathing rate and tap your finger to the rate of their breath. Or you may note their foot motion and move your hand at the same rate of their foot tap. To break trust and end conversations quickly, use Mismatching.

Sometimes we are involved in conversations we need to end. Conversations that seem to go on and on with no value. In these cases it is advantageous to use Mismatching to end conversations quickly. To mismatch someone it is important to note their behaviors and then provide opposing behaviors. For instance you may abruptly change your posture, your rate of breathing, your voice level, or any behavior that runs counter to theirs.

Next time you find yourself on a long plane flight with someone that goes on and on, try this technique, you will find it very valuable. If your uncertain of the value of these techniques test them. Choose multiple people and utilize these techniques to create trust, and then eliminate trust, notice how quickly your quality of communication changes. Soon you will find yourself able to create trust quickly and automatically and the quality of your relationships will increase, personally and professionally. Your professional relationship skills will always dictate your sales. Without the ability to create trusting professional relationships between yourself and your clients your product and technical knowledge will be useless. Apply these techniques and increase your effectiveness at building trusting relationships and you will undoubtedly increase your sales.

Geoffrey Ronning is a speaker and consultant who teaches clients how to efficiently create professional relationships and improve employee relations.

This knowledge creates less hostile work environments with higher output
and teaches organizations how to quickly and easily acquire trust and
rapport to develop long term customers.

You can reach Geoffrey at: (623) 476-2437 or online via the contact page.