I hope you are well. I am pleased to present the second part of Building Rapport. If you have missed my previous blog on 'Building Rapport-1', I advise you to read.

As you would probably agree that it is essential to gain or establish a strong rapport for strong and long lasting relationships.Everyone does Rapport either consciously or unconsciously. In dictionary, rapport is described as relation, connection, especially harmonious or sympathetic relation. It's the ability to make others to feel understand them. In my point of view, rapport is minimizing the differences and emphasizing on similarities between you and whoever you are communicating with. It doesn't mean that you can create rapport with the people you like or people like you. It's all about matching the likeness. A simple example of rapport we see in our daily life is watching likeminded friends or people or even a couple. Watch their body posture and tone of voice. They both/all act or speak in more or less exactly the same way. The more they match their body posture and voice, the greater the rapport. We can say it's like a Dance. The same/mirror body posture, the same body movement, the same breathing rate etc.

I would like to share few tips to improve your non-verbal communication.

• Keep yourself in check by making sure that your body language, words and tone all match. Be alert and notice yourself and your every movement.
• Make eye contact with everyone. Don't stare or glare, but look equally at everyone - and don't forget to blink! It's been said that there are only three degrees of difference between equality (looking squarely at someone), egotism (looking down your nose at someone), and insecurity (looking up at someone with a bowed head). Try this yourself in the mirror to see how clearly even the subtlest difference comes across!
• Capture the atmosphere and spirit of the conversation, and match the other person's posture. Stand, walk, or sit like them. Pay attention to how they move or remain still. Then, gradually adapt your positions so that they match or mirror theirs.
• Match their tone of voice. Vocal tone is comprised of pitch (high or low), speed (fast or slow), and volume (loud or soft). If those around you are speaking in quieter or fairly louder tones, do the same.
• Be genuinely excited and enthused. People are more easily influenced when they sense that you are enthusiastic, knowledgeable and interested in what you are sharing. So smile and always look confident.
• Adjust your positive body language to reposition your attitude until your mood improves.
• Know the person/audience you want to influence and dress accordingly. If you know they are a suit crowd, wear a suit. If they're a jeans and t-shirt crowd, choose something closer to that style. You'll be surprised how quickly trust is built when you appear to be one of them.
• Match the handshake of every person you meet.
• Gesture and motion as others do or don't. If they fold their arms and lean back, you do it too.
• Send thank-you cards to everyone you meet, everyone who takes the time to talk to you about themselves or their business and everyone who helps you with something. Make sure these cards are handwritten on good stationary, usually the simpler the better.I've found that, for every six of these notes I send out, I get two inquiries about my business and one new customer. Why does it work? Rapport. When you give something to someone, they respond in kind.

Remember that it takes less then one minute to make an impression with a decision maker. Make the right impression and you will develop trust and get the result. Develop the wrong impression and you will lose the business to someone else.

I hope you would probably like to use wonderful tips i have shared with you to establish strong rapport.

If you wish to have training/workshop on NLP skills, please contact me on mayurbardolia@gmail.com or on my mobile-97370 46050.

Remember-If a thing is humanly possible, consider it within your reach.

To your success,

Mayur Bardolia

NLP Practitioner/Hypnotherapist/Success coach