When a sales professional goes and meets a prospect, the first thing he should try and achieve is to build rapport. Building rapport is all about matching, mirroring or pacing. Rapport can be defined as a sense of mutual understanding, respect and friendliness. Building rapport is about building a level of mutual comfort for further conversation and proceedings. Pacing is a technique unconsciously used by people in order to get positive attention from others. People will like you if you act like them- it is an effective way to build rapport. People look forward for common experience and common denominator. The concept of language pacing shows that people are more receptive, if we speak their language, listen to the words of the customer and reciprocate accordingly. Have a smile, create a good attitude and make eye contact to build rapport. Be friendly and flexible and remain caring.

Trust

People will buy from you only if they trust you. In fact, people buy you, before they buy from you. So, your task now is to build trust from the foundation of rapport. But how do you develop trust? The way to trust from rapport is via the bridge of belief. The more your customer develops positive belief system about you, he will trust you. But then, how to make the customer believe you? In fact, at the outset the customer believes what you say and tries to find out, whether you walk the talk. A sale is not about telling to the customers, but it is all about caring for the customers, trying to understand their problems and listening to them. Better your empathetic listening skills and beef up their positive believe and trust. In your conversation, introduce yourself properly and answer to all queries posed by the customer, give him time to talk and reply with an attitude of compassion. Give proper feedback to the customers and also let the customers know that you have understood their feelings and your feelings on the issue is also the same. Showing testimonials of clients and photographs of events, teams and services also enables building trust. The more the customer gets clarity about you, the more he will trust you. Now, if you have built trust, then 40% of your selling is over. People buy trust first and products later.