Acknowledging the importance of effective communication is the first step to real success. The art of building rapport with any person will help you with that and you can master it with certain strategies and techniques.
You’re surrounded by people who may share the same values, principles, goals, and desires. Yet, you may fail to connect with these people due to different reasons.
Well, building rapport and developing meaningful relationships is both an art and a skill. You keep doing it and you learn from it. However, you can also put some extra work and learn a thing or two.
What Is Rapport?
In simple terms, rapport is the development of a stronger connection between two people. It has to be two, otherwise, the rapport would be internal and that’s not what we’re discussing today.
You feel that you’ve developed a rapport with a person when:
- Both of you have positive thoughts and feelings about each other, and both of you don’t mind displaying them.
- There’s a respect and attentiveness when you speak or do things together. Both of you care to honor the relationship in the best possible means.
- There’s a degree of coordination that allows you both to feel that you “sync” and that you both believe that you think, feel, and act in a very similar way. When there’s a similarity, there is rapport.
Rapport can be built instantly or in time. You can simply “fall in love at first sight”, or you can “learn to live” with different people. If you’re aware of the rapport you create with each person, in time, you’ll understand the concept entirely and you will use it in your favor.
In this life, building rapport is necessary in order to develop meaningful, long-lasting relationships. You also need it to develop favorable circumstances concerning your professional life. If you want to succeed as quickly as possible, you must nurture the power of relationships.
Building rapport also allows you to influence, teach, educate, listen, and learn in an enhanced degree. It allows you to build trust and to inflict confidence. Building rapport is one of the essential skills that you can develop and nurture through life, so you’d better start considering it as a real, important thing.
6 Techniques for Building Rapport That Will Help You Connect with Anyone
Let’s take a look at some of the techniques and mindsets you can leverage to generate and consolidate meaningful rapport with different people and for different purposes.
1. Produce a Strong First Impact
First impressions count. Do you know why they count? Simply because human beings are used to judge. Even the “wisest” tend to judge every now and then, so when you talk to someone new, be very aware that you are going to be judged.
You can’t change the way people think – at least not during the first contact. Therefore, you should always be prepared to meet new persons, new opportunities, and new experiences that come due to random chance.
Be well dressed, always clean, and display good vibes. Don’t be or look sad, angry, or disappointed or you’re only going to send bad vibes and let the other person know that “something’s wrong”.
2. Don’t Forget about the Basics
Here are some of the communication basics you should never neglect in the process of building rapport:
- Pay attention and actually listen to what the other person says. Don’t let your thoughts interrupt the incoming information.
- Eye contact – try to balance it.
- Shake your head every now and then to indirectly show that you agree.
- Do allow silence breaks throughout the discussions.
- Be concise and clear.
- Be transparent.
- Maintain a good posture.
- Relax.
- Smile.
These are just some of the important aspects that will enhance the communication. You can add your own “twists” and “ways”. Test and see what suits you best because as you well know, you are different from the rest. So is your communication and abilities to build great rapport!
3. Identify Similarities and Seek Common Ground
Obviously, you can establish rapport by seeking common ground. Find similarities between you and the peer and get involved in what you’re both passionate or interested in.
For example, you may both like football. That’s spectacular because now you’ll be able to share the past experiences that you’ve had concerning football. You’ll display your thoughts, emotions, and actions.
Where does this lead? Well, in time, you’ll feel like you “know each other” for a very good while now, and that you no longer have to establish barriers between you and the person.
4. Be Extremely Genuine
Honesty is key. The moment you become dishonest you become immoral and you will not be worthy of any meaningful friendships.
Backstabbing, lying, stealing, cheating, or any other behavior of yours (that affects other people’s lives) will lead to negative consequences (whether you see it or not).
5. Pay Attention to Body Language
Energy and language are two things, body language is another. All these elements are very critical if you want to communicate perfectly, so you’ll have to pay attention to a multitude of aspects.
Obviously, you shouldn’t focus on body language more than you focus on what you say. First, you should improve your verbal communication and only then move to the non-verbal one.
When you can identify certain patterns, you’ll be able to tell whether someone’s lying, telling the truth, or avoiding something. Basically, you’ll be able to detect and identify other people’s thoughts and feelings.
6. Be Empathetic
Put yourself in other people’s shoes and try to see how their world looks like. Each of us perceives life differently, so every time people say or do something, they do it because they see that action as being the best possible action to take.
That’s exactly why you shouldn’t take things personally, no matter what other people think or say about you. That’s simply their own opinion and you should never be misguided by such things.
When you’re empathetic, you are also compassionate. People love that, and they will feel so good knowing that somebody cares about their world. Most of us have a strong urge to be understood – leverage that!
Takeaways
Building rapport is not complicated at all. We’re intellectual and spiritual beings. The connection is all we have it’s just that very few of us see it like that. You mustn’t put a lot of effort into developing connections just because you want to prove that you can “build rapport with anyone”.
Instead, use this knowledge to develop a better social circle and to overstep your limits. Use it to gather and leverage human resources and to make everyone happy in the process. Use it to succeed in whatever it is that you want to achieve!
