Rapport, use this for effective networking.

Pooja is a Human Resource professional with a well-known MNC, she is the part of Talent Acquisition team and interacts a lot with prospective employees of her organization. Interestingly her communication and interaction are very much limited to the candidates and her own colleagues. Recently she got an invite from a very established HR event organizer to attend a conference meant for TA Professionals where more than 100 TA professionals across the industry and all part of the country. She was very happy to receive the invite and decided to join the conference where loads of ideas and best practices across the industry was supposed to be shared by various TA professionals. The day came and she headed for the venue and once she reached their and completed the registration formalities she was almost blank because she was not known to anyone, no friends were there to welcome her and cheer her up. She thought what to do now? I don't know anybody here. "Let's grab a cup of coffee and take my seat". She settled down and started looking at people who were exchanging their cards and chatting with the smile on their face.

It was very challenging for her to start the conversation with unknown faces because there was a fear of rejection in her mind, but suddenly Amrita who was her co-participant on the same table knocked her with a pleasant smile and asked about her, details about her organization and other pieces of information and Ice starts melting. Now she becomes comfortable with Amrita and she took Pooja took her other friends, they started exchanging their business cards and the conversation started. Actually, Amrita helped Pooja in Rapport Building with other people present inside the conference room.

Many of us have the similar issue like Pooja, we often feel how to approach someone, how to ask any question to the Keynote Speakers of any event, how to speak to a celebrity who is present during any program as chief guest etc. These are the common situation and are not limited to the external business environment but the internal business environment as well. If you are lacking Rapport Building skill that means you are missing the basic bridge required for an effective relationship with your peers, juniors as well as seniors, lack of rapport building may have a long-term impact on your capability of delivery of effective result in your profession.

But what is Rapport Exactly?

• Rapport is a process of building a relationship of mutual trust, harmony, and understanding.
• Rapport is the ability to be on the same wavelength as the customer and to connect mentally and emotionally.
• Rapport is the building block for effective communication.
• We establish and build rapport by reading and matching the cues that we receive from our customers’ facial expressions, gestures and body language.
• Rapport is the key to influence.

In general most of us see the different characters, demographic, geographic and other details while observing people in masses or individually, this is said that those who see the similarity in others make quick rapport. Hence one should look for the similarities like all from a single department or organization or people from same fraternity etc. despite they have different physical, economical or any other appearance. In other words, I suggest to make quick rapport, look for the similarities in others than the differences!

Following Tips might help people in making quick rapport with others:

• Body language tips for quick rapportKeep a smiling face – smiling faces attract others quickly provided your smile should be genuine – plastic emotions never attract anyone permanently.
• Your gestures and postures should not repel people – a few postures and gestures tend to send ripples of negative vibes – please be careful without your conscience you may be in such postures & gestures.

Utter kind and sweet words !

Your words are your weapon, mind while using them. For rapport building some of these magical words(there is a long list which you may explore, following list is symbolic only) and people will be your fan:

• Good Morning
• How nice of you
• Thank you very much
• Very kind of you
• I appreciate

Mind your vocal dynamics !

Think why you like the voice of Amitabh Bachchan, Shahrukh Khan or any other leader or celebrity? Of course, because of their vocal dynamics, keep the following points in mind for the effective use of your vocal dynamics and you are will be the winner:

• Pitch of your voice
• The pace of your conversation
• Modulation
• Sound level – a few words should be uttered huskily…
• A few words should be uttered aloud

Showing reactions on face.

Showing reaction on our face is very important in rapport building – many people either keep their faces emotion bleached or show irrelevant emotions to lose the rapport.

Keep changing your reactions.

For example:

When the communicator talks something serious – move forward a little, tilt your head, fix your eyes on him/her and node your head – the communicator should know you are listening with rapt attention.If you keep the above small points in mind while next time going to interact with your client, boss, co-worker or co-participants in any conference, conclave or event, you will find that how effective communicator you are and how you are going to make Rapport with people.

In today's fast rapid changing environment everything for everyone goes well upon their ability to build rapport with each other.

Luckily, I've had a very good working rapport will all my co-stars. Nobody has complained about me. No one's ever said they don't want to work with me. "Sonakshi Sinha"