Rapport: Demonstrating Understanding

Building rapport is building an atmosphere of trust in which you can effectively communicate. People should feel comfortable around you: they should sense that you are someone with whom they can do business. This requires that you conduct yourself in a manner that will help them maintain this frame of mind.

The manner in which you choose to speak—respectfully, graciously, authoritatively, inquisitively, softly, loudly, quickly, slowly, deliberately, formally, informally, etc.—will go a long way toward creating the desired atmosphere.

The trick, of course, is to choose the most effective demeanor/tone in each context.

How you dress will speak volumes to those around you. Question: Do you know what your attire is communicating?

Your demeanor tells people how you regard them and yourself. Are you confident without being brash? Gracious yet not ingratiating? Does your audience see/feel/hear respect? This is huge for any communication strategy. If I don’t sense that you respect me as a person, if I believe that you are seeking to play God with my conscience, if I think that your kindness is a ploy rather than a genuine care for my best, it doesn’t matter what you say, I am not going to listen.

Do you have a command of your subject manner? Are you able to demonstrate a high degree of competency? Do you know the strengths and potential weaknesses of your arguments? Are you sufficiently aware of your competitor’s positions, products and plans for the future?

Your goal here is Demonstrating Understanding of your audience. After all, if they don’t get that you understand their needs, desires, values, beliefs, fears and such, whatever it is you have to say will be inconsequential.

Something else that helps you to demonstrate understanding is the questions you ask. What is it that they are specifically looking for when considering your product? What experiences are they seeking through the use of your product or the adoption of your ideas? For example, if they are buying your product because it provides security and you seek to sell them on the idea that your product shimmers with luxury, you probably will not make the sale. It doesn’t matter to them how luxurious your product is: this is not what they are looking for, and to seek to sell them luxury tells them you do not understand them.

When you seek to persuade a politician to change his or her stand on a particular position, do you know exactly what it is they believe their position is getting for them, as well as for their constituents? Once you ascertain this information, you can often easily and effectively show them how your position could attain the same things … only better, or for less money, or more justly for all concerned.

Of course, if you want, you can simply challenge their stand without understanding it, argue with them in a way that polarizes the situation, and then walk away without moving them even an inch toward your outcome. But, hey, you were right and they were wrong and you really showed them, didn’t you?

There is still another way of demonstrating understanding that goes a long way towards helping people feel comfortable around you … but I will get to that in the next post.

Copyright, Monte E Wilson, 2009