It's Not All About "Me": The Top Ten Techniques for Building Quick Rapport with Anyone

Putting it all together: Let’s go through the ten techniques to refresh our memories. This is also a good page to mark so that you can refer to it quickly before any encounter to sharpen your focus. 1. Establishing artificial time constraints: Allow the person being targeted to feel that there is an end in sight. 2. Accommodating nonverbals: Ensure

Technique 9: Gift Giving (Reciprocal Altruism) Most people would feel badly if they received a gift and forgot to say or send a thank you note to the giver. When someone does you a favor you most likely want to reciprocate with gratitude. Great rapport builders and conversationalists use this desire proactively during every conversation. This techn

One helpful technique I use is to try to envision myself as a mirror to the person with whom I’m speaking. What’s the cadence of her speech? How loudly does she talk? What’s her body language? By adjusting your behavior to mirror the person you are talking to, she’ll automatically feel more comfortable.

Imagine yourself in your counterpart’s situation. The beauty of empathy is that it doesn’t demand that you agree with the other person’s ideas (you may well find them crazy). But by acknowledging the other person’s situation, you immediately convey that you are listening. And once they know that you are listening, they may tell you something that y

Mirroring, also called isopraxism, is essentially imitation. It’s another neurobehavior humans (and other animals) display in which we copy each other to comfort each other. It can be done with speech patterns, body language, vocabulary, tempo, and tone of voice. It’s generally an unconscious behavior—we are rarely aware of it when it’s happening—b