Rapport Building in Sales
Estimated reading time: 4 minutes
In sales, people don’t buy from companies. They buy from people they trust. That trust starts with rapport.
What is Rapport?
Rapport is to be in connection with someone. It’s when that person thinks, “This person gets me.”
That connection is the foundation of every successful sales relationship. It’s how we access people’s emotional state. This is critical because people buy emotionally, and they justify their decisions intellectually.
For more on connecting emotionally, read: Emotional Selling: Thinking vs Feeling States.
The Trust Deficit
When you build genuine rapport, you’re not just making conversation. You’re establishing the connection that builds trust. Simply put, we don’t trust people who don’t get us.
Without rapport, there’s no connection and no trust resulting in the prospect staying guarded. They focus on features, prices, and comparisons.
With rapport, we establish trust which allows the prospects to drop their analytical guard and share the real challenges they’re experiencing and the things that truly matter to them.
We start in a trust deficit as sellers. It’s critical to remember this. When interacting with a salesperson, people expect to be pressured, persuaded, and pushed to make buying decisions. Previous negative experiences may also lead them to believe you’ll prioritize your commission over their needs.
This is why rapport isn’t optional. Without it, you’ll never overcome this deficit.
How to Build Rapport in Sales
Many people think rapport building is about finding commonalities with others (e.g. we’re both dog owners). This is a common mistake that usually leads to the salesperson sharing too much about themselves, overtalking, and drawing the spotlight away from the prospect.
Keep the spotlight on your prospect.
Effective rapport building happens when you meet your prospects where they are. People gravitate toward others who are like them. This is why mirroring works so well in sales.
Your words are only a small part of mirroring. What you say actually matters less than how you say it and your body language.
Tonality: Match their rate, pitch, and volume. People feel comfortable with others who sound like them.
Body Language: Mirror their posture and gestures so they see a reflection of themselves in you.
Language: Listen for their favorite words and phrases, then use those same terms when you speak.
Top Rapport Breakers to Avoid
- Making it about you. When you talk more about your company, your product, or yourself more than their challenges, you’ve lost them.
- Using industry jargon. Too many buzzwords and technical terms can alienate your prospect if they’re unfamiliar with them. It signals that you don’t get them or where they’re at.
- Showing off your expertise. Nobody wants to feel stupid. When you lead with how much you know instead of learning about their situation, prospects shut down.
- Moving too fast. Rapport can’t be rushed. If you jump straight into your pitch without establishing connection first, you’ll hit resistance.
The common thread for all of these is that they can make prospects feel judged or inadequate. When people feel diminished, they protect themselves by disengaging. They stop sharing, start objecting, and look for reasons to end the conversation.
Practical Rapport Building Tips
- Acknowledge their challenges without trying to solve them immediately. Sometimes saying “That sounds frustrating” is more powerful than jumping straight into solution mode.
- Be genuinely curious, not strategically interested. People can sense when your questions are just techniques versus when you actually care about understanding them.
- Ask clarifying questions like “Help me understand…” or “Can you tell me more about that?” These show genuine curiosity about their world.
- Give them the spotlight. Even when you think you know the answer, invite them to share their perspective first. You may be surprised that your assumptions were incorrect. Also, people love talking about what they know.
- Remember the details. Reference something they mentioned earlier in the conversation or from a previous meeting. It shows you’re genuinely engaged, not just going through the motions.
