Relationship Selling: Building Rapport with Your Buyer

Every good sales or marketing professional knows that their job is more than just sealing a deal-it involves real people.? Building a trusting relationship with your potential customer can make the difference between a “yes” or a “no”.

A successful business working relationship roots from a good rapport with a customer. Customers that have good rapport with their company or service providers feel at ease when facing and resolving issues. They feel that they can speak honestly and openly with you, and deem your advice with respect. Being able to create a trusting relationship between you and your brand and your customers ensures that issues are dealt with quickly and efficiently without the need for aggravation or escalation.

Working business relationship makes it work

While product details and pricing are the prime focus of doing business, a business that fails to connect with its customers is missing out on long-term revenue and good brand reputation. Relationship selling is all about human interaction, where the salesperson generally focuses on trust and interaction with the buyer instead of focusing on the products and services.

Without a working business relationship, buyers may feel just like statistics-mere figures with not much value. Sales and marketing teams tend to forget the importance of customer value as they focus more on sales, but what they don’t realize is that an established rapport is the key to more closed deals, retained current customers, and a solid foundation of trust and confidence that help generate a steady flow of new referrals.

When does rapport occur?

Rapport isn’t just directed towards building a relationship. More than just a foundation of success, it’s an opportunity to influence, teach, and learn. Other people find it easier to accept your insights, share information, and engage in more opportunities because you show that you’re reliable and trustworthy.

?For some, rapport happens instantly and naturally. While for others, it takes time to grow and needs to be built. No matter how it occurs, rapport is something worth investing with. According to The Nature or Rapport and Its Nonverbal Correlates, you have a rapport with someone when you share the following characteristics:

• Mutual Attentiveness- it’s when you’re both focused on and interested in what the other person says or does.
• Positivity - you are both happy, friendly, and show concern for each other.
• Coordination - your energy levels, body language, and tone match with one another.

Rapport building in Sales and Marketing

To try to look more “professional”, most marketers nowadays try to keep a straight face and hide their personality. The marketing style has somewhat turned less “human”- generic, boring, and monotonous. Heavy usage of formal words and phrases and lack of emotion most often cause customers to lose interest. Customers look for something they can connect and communicate with naturally. This is why marketers need to create and invest in good rapport.

Rapport building, in sales and marketing, means taking time to get to know your prospects so you can directly connect to their needs, goals, and pain points. By listening intently, communicating well, and showing concern, you’ll be able to gain your customer’s trust, respect, and eventually, loyalty.??

So, what happens if you lack rapport? Customers who don’t feel a connection with you and your brand will replace you with one that’s friendlier, more reliable, and empathetic.

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The Trust Equation

Rapport is just like trust. Both can be built simultaneously, but rapport is more centered on creating a connection or bond, while trust leans more on reliability, consistency, and keeping your word. While both seem to have varying focus, trust and rapport co-exist. Both aspects balance out one another.

One thing about trust is that it can make or break your deal. Although becoming a true and trusted salesperson or marketer doesn’t come with an exact recipe, you probably notice that customers give their trust and confidence to those who demonstrate reliability, respect, honesty, relevance, and conversationalism.

When trying to establish a relationship with a prospect, it’s sometimes hard to figure out how to convert them into actual buyers. The trust equation shows what elements are needed to build rapport and convert potential customers into buyers.

According to Trusted Advisor, the Trust Equation encompasses the most common meanings of trust that you deal with in daily business transactions. The said equation states that trustworthiness is equal to the sum of credibility, reliability and intimacy divided by a person’s self-orientation.?

The formula for The Trust Equation is:

Now, let’s dig deeper into each variable:

1. Credibility - refers to the words we speak. “I trust what she says about B2B Marketing; she is very knowledgeable in that industry.”
2. Reliability - has to do with our actions.? “If he says he will deliver the product on Thursday, I trust him because he’s a responsible person.”
3. Intimacy -? refers to the feeling of safety or security when entrusting something to someone. “I'm confident that I can trust her with that information; she’s never violated my discretion before.”
4. Self-Orientation - refers to the person’s focus. “I? don’t trust him on this transaction-I think he is just focused on what might benefit him, so he’s not paying attention.”

The Trust Equation is based on some characteristics like dependability, consistency, transparency, and confidentiality. Each factor is related to someone’s relationship with another, their manner of approach, and the extent of trust they can give another person. In the sales and marketing industry, it’s crucial for the creation of rapport.

Before considering new products or services, our customers are more likely to seek advice and guidanace not just from subject matter experts but from resources they trust. In times of a crisis situation, customers prefer to trust the judgment of marketers and salespersons they have confidence in.

Benefits of Building Rapport with Clients

Successful businesses attribute their success to good rapport which allows them to offer more insightful products and maintain their customers’ trust by continuously investing in the customers-marketer relationship.

Let’s take a look on the benefits of building good rapport with your customers:

1. Stand out from the Competition - some companies focus on keeping up with the latest trends, but more practical and smarter ones make good use of the rapport they establish with their customers to work smarter. Businesses that value transparency, lasting customer relationships, and authenticity attract loyal customers.
2. More Repeat Purchase = More Sales - Numbers have spoken: 89% of customers are willing to make a repeat purchase after a favorable customer service experience. When you’ve invested in your relationship, customers will frequently ask for your assistance, recommendations, and new offerings.
3. Good Brand Reputation - A study by 2020 Walker reveals that great customer experience will beat product price and quality. Satisfied and happy customers are more likely to provide positive feedback and recommend you to others. A good brand reputation wins new customers over through referrals.?

How to Build Rapport with a Customer

Now that you have understood the importance and benefits of rapport building, let’s talk about some of the practices you should apply to guarantee good rapport with your customers:

• Ask the Right Questions - questions, especially open-ended ones, generator responses from most people. Asking the right questions can help build rapport easier and faster.? An effective rapport-building question must meet the following criteria:
• Unique - ask questions that catch your customers off-guard. Unexpected questions generate honest answers.
• Personalized -? Highly specific questions make great conversation starters. Questions like “How do you like to spend Christmas?” are fun and easy to answer. Plus, it shows that you’re interested in your customers’ answers.
• Appropriate - stay away from questions that are too personal, offensive, or out-of-bounds. They put your customers in an awkward situation.

Asking informed questions like ” I see you worked at X Company! What did you like best about your career there?” shows the customer that you’re interested in him and that you’re dedicated to offer tailor-made products or services to best suit their preferences.

Identify common ground and Create Shared Experiences

Use small talk to find something you and your customer both share. Open-ended questions that lead to discovery of personal information, even just random ones like sharing the same hobbies or enjoying the same sport, can help you grow closer to your customer. Most people like to talk about themselves so showing genuine interest will more likely encourage them to open up and loosen up a bit.

Rapport strives through human interaction, and one great way to create rapport is through creating new shared experiences. This can go from simply attending the same workshop together or as complex as working together on a new project. Another way of establishing a relationship with a person is through working together.

Listen empathetically

One key skill that’s very useful in the workplace is understanding people’s emotions. It helps us resolve conflicts and improve our relationships with our customers. Empathy Is the ability to recognize and understand other people’s emotions and perspectives.

Listening empathetically means immersing yourself in another person’s perspective to understand the situation in their viewpoint. As mentioned earlier, most people enjoy talking about their needs and wants as well as their likes and dislikes. To establish rapport, you need to really hear and understand what they’re trying to say so you can respond appropriately.

Mirror and Match Behavior

Matching behaviors make it appear that people are on the same level and share feelings of trust and empathy, that’s why we see people who are engaged in a good conversation subtly mirroring each other’s body language.?

The Mirror and Match technique proves that we preferably interact with people whom we perceive similar to ourselves. Very successful communicators often? mimic others’ mannerisms, temperament, use the same language, and the tone of others’ voice. These methods, when employed, result in stronger levels of trust and client rapport.

First impressions Count: Check Your Appearance

From the way you dress up, to the way you carry yourself and wear the smile on your face-it’s crucial when building rapport with new people. First impressions count, so be careful not to overdress or underdress for the first meeting. Double check on your profile pictures too-it takes less than seven seconds for people to judge your profile photo.

The truth is, the human brain is hardwired to make decisions fast based on appearance. Body language, including appearance, makes up 55% of the way we are perceived and the effectiveness of our communication.

In the business world, it's essential to wear appropriate clothes if you want to earn people's confidence, present a professional image and establish a good rapport. Negative first impressions can obstruct productive communication and the process of developing relationships. People quickly form judgments about other people based on their initial impressions. These presumptions frequently involve an individual's occupation, educational background, degree of reliability, and social and economic standing.

Consider customer input

Every marketer/salesperson’s goal is to please the customer, satisfy their needs,and keep them loyal to the brand. To be sure that your efforts are directed to your desired results, you should listen to your customers’ feedback.

Customer feedback is the info provided by clients whether they are satisfied with a product or service or not. Listening on and acting upon customer feedback makes the customer feel happy, valued, and involved in your brand’s growth and success. BY giving importance to their insights, you are creating opportunities to not just improve customer satisfaction but also fuel customer loyalty.

Discover how to increase client retention with proven strategies.

The Takeaway

All in all, rapport is considered as the bottomline of building relationships. Professionals in all fields, including businesses, sellers, influencers, who cultivated good rapport with their clients more likely succeed in their respective industries.??

Excellent customer-marketer relationships can be founded and maintained by the techniques and tips cited in this article. The secret behind every successful business is excellent rapport. Truly enough, the main goal of every marketer/salesperson is to seal a deal, but what makes transactions more meaningful are the real human connections that guide the buyer in his journey.

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