Relationships and building rapport make the world go round. A great experience or a good laugh is always nicer when shared with others. If we think about all the social media applications, people do exactly that – they share moments with their community. Sharing creates bonds between people, whether because they experienced the same or feel empathy for each other.
We talked about outperforming social selling and sales intelligence tools in previous articles, but all those tools flourish fundamentally better if you create a rapport with your prospect or potential customer. Rapport is defined as a close and mutual relationship in which people understand each other’s feelings or ideas. To reap success, you have to show your customer who you are and why you care about their problems. Today, you will learn how to step out of anonymity of the world wide web and create meaningful rapports with your audience.
Who are you?
Firstly, having an updated profile and social media page is vital to establishing a good rapport. Out of date websites fail to create trust or reliability, especially in comparison with the vast number prospects seen online. Keeping your web content fresh and staying active on your website is essential or it might turn out that people have a hard time trusting you. In an environment as big and anonymous as the internet, people are more suspicious than in the real world. On the internet, anyone can easily be whoever they want to be. Therefore, not updated or half-finished profiles can come across like untrustworthy. By default, it is harder to convince prospects to trust you without telling them who you are.
Be a person
People like people, the key for a good rapport is to create a personable and relatable image for your company and representatives. How can you do that?
Develop a marketing and content strategy that uses emotions to attract customers. Your brand needs to be humanized. It is known that being friendly, open-minded, and collaborative ultimately drives higher sales. The keyword here is empathy. Posts and comments should paint a picture of the core values and attitudes the company stands for. Open up to your prospects and let them be part of your journey by sharing your company’s culture and insights of employees. Try to leverage success stories and trustworthy recommendations from current or previous customers. But bear in mind that a rapport takes time to be built and it can’t be forced. Forcing relationships comes across as pushy and could cause people to back off.
Truly care
In our article about using actionable insights, we spoke about the importance of understanding the prospect. The best product is not convincing if not tailored to the customer. No one buys products they don’t need or want. But genuinely caring about customer’s problems goes even beyond knowing what they wish. Pay attention to what they say and how they explain the issue. For example, take note of their comments and understand their pain points.. Listen twice as much as you speak, because only if you truly make an effort to know them, you can provide them with additional value. Furthermore, every issue should be taken seriously and not tackled with a one-size-fits-all-strategy. Prospects deem it vital to have a supportive relationship with the vendors even after the purchase. A vendor, who truly cares, doesn’t stop caring after the purchase but continues to cultivate that relationship.
Conclusion
In short, be authentic, up-to-date, and genuinely care for your prospects. Step out of the anonymity of the internet and show how you are to create mutual rapport online. Following these techniques carefully helps you to be ahead of the competition. Just bear in mind establishing a solid rapport is a long-run strategy and takes some time to flourish. However, once it exists, it is very efficient in driving sales. A rapport is like a friendship – it is hard to build but easy to destroy.
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