“The farmer, it appears, must not be approached too abruptly. If you are to get his money you must break the news to him gently. You should first talk about horses, soil, and market conditions. This conversation will show that you are interested in things close to him and likewise give you a chance to study his temperament and to learn his likes and dislikes, and discover his weaknesses.”
- Clarence Darrow in The American Mercury in 1925 writing about the topic of “Salesmanship”

The concept of building rapport is not new. You can find book after book written from the 1920's onward that will teach you ‘techniques' for rapport building. For example, you might be told to look around the room and talk about what you see. “Ah, I see you have a big fish on your wall. Are you a fishing enthusiast? I go trout fishing all the time in Wyoming. Let's talk about trout.” Unfortunately, this is the type of contrived chit chat that many people today equate with the concept of rapport building.

Rapport building is not the planned buttering up of the buyer before the sales person moves in for the kill. The mindset behind this approach to rapport building is underhanded. I say very emphatically, “Don't do it.”

Yet the fundamental underlying need for a buyer to connect with a service provider—or even more to generally like him or her—exists and must be attended to. At least, it must if you want to generate new clients and retain your existing ones.

In our soon to be published research report How Clients Buy: The Benchmark Study of Purchasing Behavior for Professional Services, 26% of purchasers of professional services reported that they have, at one time or another, had no personal chemistry with their service provider. In and of itself this might not seem like a significant problem (although, who wants to feel they have cultivated no personal connection with 26 out of 100 potential clients).

More important, we also learned that 85% of these buyers would be either somewhat or much more likely to consider purchasing the services of the provider if some kind of personal chemistry was established. So clearly, we all would rather work with someone to whom we feel a personal connection.

Decisions, Decisions…

One company where I previously worked was going public. The process of selecting an accounting firm to help take us public included engaging discussions with all five of what were, at the time, the Big Five accounting firms. When we ultimately selected one of them, I asked our Chief Financial Officer—the primary decision maker—why we chose one firm over the others.

We proceeded to his office where he showed me the detailed grid of the decision criteria and why this firm met them the best. We talked about it for a few minutes and then he closed the door and said, “Do you want to hear the real reason I picked them?”

“Sure,” I said.

Then he told me, “I liked them better.”

He went on to tell me that three out of the five firms had the experience and capability to do a competent job of taking us public. He could argue, even, that one of the firms we did not select had a couple of advantages over the selected firm. Still, the advantages were not mission critical selection criteria, so they did not make it onto the decision criteria grid.

All things being equal, he picked the provider he liked the best, and he is not the only buyer who does this.

Building Real Rapport

Many professional service providers are natural “people people” and connect with most everyone they meet. Many of us, however, feel uncomfortable making initial connections with potential clients, especially when we are meeting them for the first time.

When you look to build rapport—real rapport that helps you make a connection with your prospect or client—keep in mind the following advice:

• Be genuine: Before the first day of school, first job, camp, and any family get together dad would always say, “just be yourself and everything will be fine.” Same goes for generating rapport with clients and prospects. Do not try to be anything you are not; do not create a new persona; and do not adopt a sales-like tone. Just be yourself and relax. Good things will follow.

• Don't be in a rush…but don't dally: New would-be rainmakers are very sensitive to the time of a potential buyer. They often think, “I have one hour for this meeting and this is a CEO of a mid-sized company. I need to use the whole time to get my points across.”

If you jump right in with the “OK, let's get down to business” meeting kickoff before you give everyone a chance to take a breath and say hello, it often creates a tense atmosphere. You have to gauge when to start talking business at the right time. Start too early and a chilly abruptness fills the air. Take too much time chatting and the buyer wonders, “are we ever going to get going here?” Time the conversation right and you will be well on your way.

• Dress and act professionally: One would think that professional service providers do a good job dressing and acting professionally. Yet in How Clients Buy: The Benchmark Study of Purchasing Behavior for Professional Services just shy of 20% of purchasers of professional services reported that potential service providers, during the business development process, did not act professionally.

Do not disqualify yourself by using inappropriate language, wearing khakis when you are headed to a suit-and-tie company, or otherwise crossing the line of professionalism.

• Balance advocacy and inquiry: One of the best ways to establish a true connection with buyers is to balance asking questions (inquiry) with talking or giving advice (advocacy). Talk too much and the prospect will tune out. Ask too many questions and they will feel like they are in an interrogation room. The rapport building sweet spot is a balance between the two.

• Actively listen: The single most prevalent problem that buyers reported encountering with service providers is that service providers do not listen. If your prospects perceive you are not listening to them, building real rapport will be virtually impossible.

While the heading for this section is “actively listen” it could just as easily say, “actually listen.” Many service providers are too caught up in what they are saying or too focused on what they are going to say next. As a result, they are not only not actively listening, they are not actually listening. Tune in to what your prospect is saying and tune out everything else, including your email, your pager, and your phone.

Willy Loman said in Death of a Salesman, “The man who makes an appearance in the business world, the man who creates a personal interest, is the man who gets ahead. Be liked and you will never want." Sure, not everything worked out for Willy the way he might have wanted, but he also needed a lot more than being well liked in order to succeed.

Many professional service providers, however, could use a page from Willy's book. Being liked will not win you the clients on its own, but it sure does help.