Bonding & Rapport = Perfect Chemistry (I Promise)

“I’m Not Okay (I Promise)” was a song played frequently, and at top volume, in our house for a couple of years whilst my only child was going through the inevitable emo phase.

I grew to rather like it. The song. Not the emo phase. That came with the ubiquitous Olympic-level moping (the kind that only young teenagers and Marvin the Paranoid Android can really get away with).

"I'm Not Okay" is a message that is easy to hear (in fact, hard to avoid) when My Chemical Romance are blasting it out with amps turned up to 11 … but it’s a little harder to hear (or see or feel) when staff or sales prospects give you the same message.

Which is why you should be vigilant – do your best to spot it and take counter measures.

The concept of ‘okay-ness’ comes from Eric Berne, father of Transactional Analysis. He suggested that we are all born in a state of ‘okay-ness’ and that most people want to feel ‘okay’.

This is important to recognise in both sales and management situations because when someone feels ‘not-okay’ it can undermine your rapport with them.

On some level, we intuitively know that an easy way to feel ‘okay’ is to find someone else that is slightly less ‘okay’ than we are.

That’s why ‘schadenfreude’ is a thing.

It’s also why soap operas are so enduringly popular – it doesn’t matter how crappy life gets, five nights a week on prime-time TV we can tune in and watch people whose lives are so unremittingly awful that our own drab existences seem positively marvellous by comparison.

As salespeople and as managers we must let other people (prospects, employees etc) preserve their dignity and feel ‘okay’.

A little story to illustrate how to get it spectacularly, dreadfully wrong:

This story took place in a time before my hair went completely grey, suits still had big shoulders, and the hottest TV show was an alien-of-the-week drama serial featuring David Duchovny and Gillian Anderson.

In other words, I was young and na?ve, and this experience is something I now look back on as a learning experience (aka - a cock up).

Here’s the story -

I was in a sales role at the time, selling advertising for a local newspaper in the valleys of South Wales. My boss and I had a meeting with a prospect who worked for one of the County Borough Councils.

When I got to his office, the prospect turned out to be a young man not much older than me. He was stressed-out. He also had a bad case of body odour and a truly awful attempt at a 'New Kids on the Block' haircut (he was more Dorky Dork than Marky Mark, unfortunately for him).

Even his big-shouldered suit was too large for him, which felt like a visual metaphor for his whole situation – he came across as a little guy in a big job that made him feel inadequate and small.

Unlike his suit, which he would never have grown into in a million years, I trust that he eventually grew into his job (and either got rid of the haircut or went mercifully bald).

But, on that day, he was the very definition of ‘not-okay’.

The meeting was progressing, and my boss and I were doing what we had been trained to do (which was a horrible process – the kind of pushy approach that gives the profession of sales its negative connotations). The prospect was locked into the usual buyer-seller dance with us.

It was clear that he was having a bad day (or a bad life) and we had just made it worse.

He had been uncomfortable before we even walked in and had been further discomfited by having two pushy sales guys in his office.

In order to make himself feel like he was at an advantage in the conversation, he started to use some phrases that showed his superior intelligence and how ‘in the know’ he was.

The trouble is, I was fresh out of University, came from a family where verbal sparring was the norm, and I was so green you could have mowed me.

I just reacted to him like the smart-arsed twenty-something I was.

Every time he came up with an acronym or a buzz phrase, I cheerfully deciphered it and found a way to quickly rephrase it back to him, showing off to him that I had not only understood it, but that -in the war of the smart-alecs in the room- I was going to win.

I remember distinctly the point at which we lost the sale.

He said something like, “Well, of course, we’ll be doing that in RCT in the next twelve months”.

Quick as a flash I went back to him with, “And what are the key drivers for doing it in Rhondda Cynon Taff over the next year?”.

I watched the light dim in his eyes as the sale died in front of me; killed by my smug self-satisfied juvenile ego.

My need to show off and be ‘right’ killed his attempt to make himself feel 'okay'. Both his dignity and the sale died in one fell swoop. My fault entirely.

Some lessons learned …

There are things that you do or say that can make other people feel ‘not okay’:

• Buzzwords;
• Jargon;
• TLAs (that’s Three Letter Acronyms to you and me!)
• Industry phrases;
• Talking down to them;
• Rushing them or pressurising them;
• Being intrusive;
• Being arrogant or cocky; or,
• Speaking from your own self-centred point of view.

Remember, selling and management are not the places for getting your emotional needs met – be aware of how the prospect or employee feels from moment to moment.

Look for the signs that they are unhappy:

• Frowning, looking concerned or confused;
• Leaning back, arms folded;
• Fidgeting excessively;
• Looking at watch or phone; or,
• Hesitant answers/ answering in a questioning tone.

If the other person starts to exhibit any signs of being 'not okay', there are ways you can course-correct and get back to okay-ness:

• Respond to the signs by asking questions and use active listening skills (paraphrase or restate) to gently interrogate the things they have said or done that make you think they might not be okay.
• Don’t be afraid to struggle a little … use phrases like “I need your help”, “I take full responsibility”, “I am confused”, “this has taken me by surprise”.
• Take responsibility for being the source of the ‘not okay-ness".
• State how you will correct the problem.

This is useful stuff because there are plenty of times that people around you might feel less than okay. It’s not always your fault, but if you are in sales or management you do need to be the one to get things back on track.

Think how other people feel when they first meet you. They may be not okay because they’re afraid that you might waste their time, or that you may try to ‘pressure sell’ them … to lure them into a ‘sales trap’ like the ones those evil sales ninjas lay for unwary people. Or they might simply not know what to expect, so be a little anxious.

Even when you have built a relationship they may still occasionally be ‘not okay’ during the sales process. For example, they may feel uncomfortable admitting their problems to you, they may feel concerned that they cannot afford your services and they may not want to admit it, or they remain afraid that you’re going to pressure them into buying something.

If you want to know more about how you can use effective communication techniques to improve your management, sales, or life skills then DM me and we can have a chat.