Good morning from Snowy Ohio,
I hope you are all enjoying this season of the year and all that goes along with the spirit of the holidays. I love this time of the year for spending time with family and friends and the giving spirit.
This fits well with this week's blog which is the second step in selling "Rapport" When trying to gain influence with prospects or customers we all need the rapport with them. It is knowing your customer. As discussed last week I spend time online looking up the prospects and learning about them from the business stand point, but when it comes to their personal side that is usually done when you meet them in person.
When I am talking with them I am looking around the room for pictures, trophies, interests outside of their daily grind. When I took a Dale Carnegie course, one of the ideas is to be generally interested in people and learning about them. That way you were focused on knowing them. The principal that they used was the "House" Picture a house as you walk up with a mailbox out front that has the names of the people and as you walked through the gate you looked through the front door to see the family, dogs, cats, etc. Then you looked up and saw up on a chimney a plane which represented their hobbies. As you were introduced to come into the house you saw more and more about the person.
For Rapport to be worth anything a solid value needs to be placed on the customer, prospect, partner, etc. You really want to know someone that you are working to partner with. It's just like when you are dating someone. As you start a relationship with them you continually learn about them as you want to develop the relationship.
Too often people just want to be superficial so that they can talk about their product which can be anything from lawnmowers to electrical architecture of an automobile. The problem is that you need rapport to be able to come back and build your influence. The same applies as I stated in relationships with your future spouse. If you jump right into how great you are and your product it makes people feel like you don't really care about them and then shut off their attention and count the seconds until you leave. Trust me I have been there and done this when I started.
To win at life it is vital to really put value on the others. if you don't you'll be that person standing on a soap box talking while no one is around. I also was that guy when I got into sales. It's probably why the first year in sales I sold nothing. Absolutely nothing. I was just blessed that the owner decided to value me and pour into me with training and working with him to learn. Even though I don't see him that often I still check in every once in a while, to see how he is doing. Something about that value that was placed on me that I am grateful for.
A great book on rapport building is Dale Carnegie's "How to Win Friends and Influence People"
Looking forward to next week about asking the right questions to uncover needs.
If you'd like to carry on the conversation feel free to contact me at info@kevinsidebottom.com
Have a great weekend.
Sincerely,
Kevin Sidebottom
Sales and Leadership Enterprises.