By Donna
Cicotte
 |
| Client Centre in Rapport |
Building rapport is an art form.
It's the science of connecting with another person and quickly putting them at
ease. Some folks seem to have been born with this talent, but anyone can do it
with a little know-how and some practice.
Yesterday was my first post on
building rapport. In it, I talked about the importance of reading body
language, and how to use mirroring as one of your rapport-building skills. If
you missed that post, I'd start reading there and then come back here.
Today, let's talk about words and
the role they play in building rapport!
Your Words Speak Volumes
Paying attention to the words people
use when they speak can provide you with some great clues about how they relate
to the world.
Generally speaking (no pun
intended!) you'll find that people fall into three categories in terms of what
their choice of words tell you about how they process information: Visual,
Auditory, and Kinesthetic.
See What I Mean?
How do you know if you're speaking
with a visual person? Visual people say things like "I see," or
"It looks to me like... " They tend to speak more rapidly than the
average person, and (as it happens) they tend to breathe more rapidly, too.
Visual people are frequently gifted
with the ability to describe scenes or scenarios with ease. You'll notice the
visual speaker describing things as pictures, because that's how they process
information and how they store their memories.
If you find that you're speaking
with a visual person, start building rapport by "painting a picture"
for them and using your words to paint the person into the scene.
Are You Hearing Me On This?
Some people form memories and
perceptions based on sounds, voices and conversations. They tend to pepper
their speech with "It sounds like," and "I hear you," and
they mean that literally. These folks fall into the "auditory"
category.
Auditory people have a great respect
and appreciation for the spoken word. They are usually great
conversationalists, articulate and precise in their choice of language, and
you'll find that jokes, stories and detailed descriptions will go a long way
with them.
With their love of language, it
follows that auditory people are great listeners. It makes them easy to talk to
you, but remember: They value your listening to them, too.
I Feel You
People who process information with
their other senses, especially their feelings, fall into the
"kinesthetic" category. They tend to be more emotional than visual or
auditory types, and you'll find that they sometimes have a difficult time
putting their feelings into words. When they do speak, they tend to be
soft-spoken and by and large, will speak slowly and breathe deeply.
Kinesthetic people care less about
facts than they do about feelings. They will frequently follow their intuition
and listen to their own "gut reaction."
If you want to get them talking, try
asking them "How do you feel about that?" Or, "What's your gut
reaction?"
It's generally not a good idea to do
a "data dump" on a kinesthetic person; you run the risk of creating
"overload." Instead, share your feelings with them and give them the
opportunity to share theirs.
By combining body language and mirroring with an understanding
of speaking styles, you'll find that you'll be building rapport with greater
ease and creating new relationships with folks that you might not have
connected with previously.
If you'd like to learn more, there's
a whole genre of work published on the science of building rapport,
known as NLP or Neuro-Linguistic
Programming.
